Lights on the Far Horizon Trilogy

by Stone, Sailor

  When they came to the beach outside of her hotel and after a long, but always too short, kiss, Kinsey went quiet and Tanner asked, “So now what? I’ll do anything you want, this night is still young.”

  “I’d like you to come up to my room. I want you to see my painting.” Kinsey said.

  He nodded yes and followed her up the beach toward the hotel.

  This was everything to Kinsey. How Tanner reacted to her painting would either crush her or send her heart soaring. This was her masterpiece, her soul was exposed in this work and she, instinctively, only trusted giving it to one person – the man she was meant to marry – and she prayed Tanner was that man.

  Kinsey was nervous as she opened her hotel door, her hands were moist with perspiration, and let Tanner inside the suite.

  He stepped in behind her into the living room of the hotel suite and she asked if he wanted something from the little refrigerator.

  He said not unless she did and so she said to make himself comfortable and she headed into her room to get her painting.

  She went straight to her painting and picked it up along with an easel to place it on and headed straight back into the living room. Tanner had barely had time to sit and he quickly stood from the couch with a smile on his face that changed to concern when he noticed how serious Kinsey looked as she stepped into the room.

  She kept the painting facing away from Tanner as she set up the easel. Then she looked at Tanner and said, “This is for you. I’ve been working on it for three years. I so hope you like it.” She felt like a school girl waiting to be graded on her last exam before summer vacation.

  She turned the painting around and placed it on the easel. Tanner came to it and went down to one knee as he looked at it. Then he stepped back and took it in for a long moment before stepping up close and looking at it in detail.

  Kinsey waited, not hardly daring to breathe. Then finally Tanner spoke.

  He looked from the picture to Kinsey, “The girl in the silhouette is you. You’ve exposed yourself to the world, to me and to God, but only for a moment; the setting sun is motion, a motion that has drawn you into itself. I would think that you stepped out in front of a camera on a timer, or perhaps you let Jessica take the photo, but no one else, as I doubt you trust anyone else, then you came back into the room rather quickly after the shot was taken. The arch of the doorway is you stepping beyond yourself and inviting me to do the same. God’s creation is beautiful and you want to express yourself in it as well but you want to do it with someone, with me. The skyline of the city is old and beautiful and the steeple is that city reaching for the heavens, for God. It’s also an invitation; I’d say an invitation to get married and live life together as one within a sea of humanity and beauty. You’re an optimist and a dreamer and you have faith that your dreams will come true.”

  Tanner stepped to Kinsey and he brought her from the side of the painting to its front. “Let’s do this together now. If this is your gift to me I want you next to me when I look at it.” He put his arm around her.

  “You’ve got a big pair of balls, Kinsey. This painting so in your face to the world. It looks like you’re inviting the world to see who you are but you’re only inviting me to face the world with you. I like how you look, naked and exposed, trusting me to keep you from harm. I can do that by the way.

  I like the colors, how deep and beyond real they are. I like how you’re shadowed, not complete, waiting for me and the light of God. And then there is the mystery of where it is, it’s something that I don’t want you to tell me. I want to figure it out, for wherever it is, that is a place I want to find through knowing you. One day, long after we are married, I see me finally putting it all together and revisiting the place with you. We can make love on that balcony, as man and wife, and perhaps you can paint it again; this time with me in the picture as well.”

  Kinsey looked up at Tanner as he spoke and when he was finally silent she began to cry. Tanner put his arms around her and brought her in close. Kinsey began to cry harder and Tanner began to kiss her through her tears, and Kinsey learned that she could be crying, and kissing, and somehow so happy, all in one and she felt herself go weak in the knees, then she realized she was being carried, and when her head touched the pillow of her bed and Tanner leaned down over her she realized that she was putting her hand under his shirt and pushing it off without having had the conscious thought to do so, and she knew, deep in the back of her mind, that she should stop this, that they would go too far too fast, but she couldn’t begin to, and then his shirt was off and he was raised up on his knees before her, in the light of the moon pouring in through her window, and she surrendered to him and closed her eyes.

  She felt his hands caressing the skin along her arms, and then her shirt was off, and then her bra. In another moment they were both naked, Kinsey felt like she did in the moment she’d exposed herself on the balcony for her painting, and Kinsey opened her eyes to see the a beautiful body, a beautiful male body, naked in silver light and she could see herself naked as well in the mirror across the room. Was that her reaching out to him with her body, overwhelmed by the moment, and pulling him to her? It was and the she found herself looking into his eyes as he prepared to mount her and Kinsey’s entire body was wanting to pull him into herself and as he came toward her she heard him say. “I smell smoke.”

  What? She did smell smoke and then there was an incredibly loud sound, like a bomb siren in an old war movie and Tanner was jumping up and pulling her up with him. “Get some clothes on quick. That smoke is a fire. This hotel is on fire!” He said as he pulled on his shorts and threw on his shirt.

  Kinsey began to put on her clothes. “What’s that awful sound?” she asked.

  Tanner was looking out the window, “It’s the fire alarm. This floor is on fire. What floor is this, do you know? We have to get out now!”

  “It’s the fourth floor.” She said, “Too high to jump.”

  “Okay, then follow me.” He grabbed Kinsey’s hand and led her quickly through the living room to the hotel room door. He pulled the door back and smoke poured into the room. He shut it quickly and looked at the fire exit chart on the back of the door. “I think the fire is coming from down the hall to the left, the exit stairs are to the right we should be fine.”

  He ran to the bathroom and came out with two towels. He handed Kinsey one and said, “Here, cover your mouth, and I’ll let you lead. You’ll feel my hand on your back as we go. When we get to the stairs you go down them as fast as possible. Don’t look back, I’ll be right behind you.”

  Kinsey nodded and said, “Okay, that smoke is thick. Let’s go.” Tanner pulled open the door and they both stepped into hot, black smoke and turned to their right.

  Kinsey heard screams coming from behind them. “Is that a child?” she asked as she listened to the pitch of the cries.

  She felt Tanner’s handing pushing her along and then she heard him say, “It sounds like two children to me.”

  They made it to the doors to the stairway and met another couple, both older than Kinsey and Tanner, and Tanner pushed them ahead of Kinsey, “Go fast, all of you,” he yelled, and then Kinsey was unable to feel Tanner’s hand on her back as she ran down the stairs.

  She came out of the stair well and into the area by the pool at the ground floor of the hotel. She turned to Tanner but he wasn’t there. She heard the screams of the children and in her heart and bones she intuited that Tanner had turned around behind her and gone back to save them. She felt a fear within her that was black, primordial and horrifying. She’d just met him. He had to come out of that fire. She began to pray for him and then when she heard the children’s cries again she prayed for them as well.

  There was a crowd of people now standing and looking up at the smoke pouring from the hotel and Kinsey heard the sound of sirens announcing the fire trucks and their rapid approach. Within minutes they were pulling up and positioning themselves to fight the fire.

  The fire was
on the fourth floor of the building on the left side as Kinsey and the crowd around the pool looked up to it and it was spreading quickly to the fifth floor with flames beginning to leap out through windows. Black smoke was pouring from many windows and then Kinsey heard more screams, again the high pitched and terrified sound of children.

  She saw a sliding glass door come open from a room with a balcony on the fourth floor. The curtains were pulled back; Kinsey could see flames behind it and then a man came onto the balcony. He was holding one child, a boy of about five, by the hand and carrying a small girl, about three years old in his other arm. They were coughing and covered in black. But Kinsey knew who the man was and her heart was seared in pain. They had no way down and the firemen weren’t near ready with a ladder. The flames were coming through the door behind them and leaping out. The heat must be incredible, Kinsey thought and then she knew that they would die. They were trapped.

  People around her began to scream to the firemen and they saw the children and Tanner and began to work towards getting a ladder to them, but by now the flames were pushing them to the ledge.

  Tanner picked the boy up and stood him on the concrete ledge of the balcony rail and while keeping his hand on the boy so that he wouldn’t fall, he himself, holding the little girl, stood on the ledge next to him.

  There was an explosion of sound, heat and flames behind them and they were hit by the flames. Tanner looked back. He grabbed the boy next to him, and jumped as flames again blew out from the glass door hitting Tanner in the back as they leapt into the night sky.

  Kinsey screamed as she watched them fall, knowing that they would die on impact with the concrete below. As they came to the ground she turned so as to not see.

  There was an eruption of cheering all around her and Kinsey didn’t understand. Were these people so morbid as to cheer children and a man falling to their deaths?

  Then she heard a woman next to her say for someone to dive in and get them and she looked back to where they’d jumped and saw the pool. Tanner had jumped them into the pool.

  They had a chance to be alive and before she realized it she was diving into the pool. She found the little girl at the same time as a fireman jumped in and she picked the little girl up in the water and held her against her chest. The girl’s eyes were open and she seemed to be in shock, and Kinsey began swimming her toward the fireman and the side of the pool. It was too deep for her to touch bottom, in the back of her mind she knew Tanner had aimed for the deep end so as to break their fall, and then she reached the fireman, the ledge, and the many hands waiting to pull the little girl up to safety and help. She let go of the little girl and turned back to the deep end of the pool. She saw the boy being pulled to safety and she swam for the dark shadow that was still on the bottom of the pool. She knew it was Tanner and she dove down to get him. She got to his limp body at the same time as another swimmer, a fireman she realized, and they both pulled him to the surface. He wasn’t breathing and he was unconscious. She helped get him to the side of the pool and let him be picked up and out of the pool.

  She found herself crying hysterically as she stepped up the ladder from the pool. Then as she approached Tanner and the medics that were working on him she heard a loud cough, an explosion of water, and then a huge sucking sound as Tanner came back to life and began breathing again.

  “He’s going to be alright. At least he’s breathing. Let’s check him for broken bones and burns now,” one medic said to another. Tanner and the medics were surrounded by many people and Kinsey was unable to get close, then she was pulled away by a fireman who said she was a hero. She began to scream that Tanner was the hero and when she overheard a medic working on Tanner say that they’d need to medivac him by helicopter to the burn unit she collapsed.

  The last thing she remembered was being put in the back of an ambulance with a medic who was saying, “You’re pouring blood. You must have hit your head getting out from the fire or when you dove in the pool. You’ve also sucked in a fair amount of smoke. You’re going to feel bad for a day or two. Off you go, now.”

  “Where?” she asked, and then the ambulance doors were slammed shut and she was being driven off to the hospital. A place she didn’t want to go.

  8

  Jessica and Dale – Four Years Later

  For Jessica Hart this day was the best that she had ever lived, but in a way, it was also the most bittersweet. She and Dale had set their wedding date nine months earlier and their big day, highlighted by a huge Catholic wedding, was only a week away. Today, she and Dale had just closed on a small carriage house apartment in downtown Charleston. It was the perfect place for them to live and Jess was elated at the thought of finally getting married to Dale and now having a place to call home. What was bitter sweet about it was that her best friend had yet to get married, much less even find a man that she’d consider marrying. Kinsey had lost track of Tanner on the night of the fire in their hotel and had never been able to find him. She was now a different person than the fun, bright, happy girl that Jess had grown up with. It made Jessica sad to think about her friend during these happy days.

  Kinsey would be flying up from Atlanta and landing at the Charleston airport in half an hour and Jess was on her way to pick her up and bring back to her new apartment. She and Kinsey would stay there for the coming week as Dale and she had made a promise to not see each other until their wedding rehearsal. Dale was staying in his apartment in Mount Pleasant with his roommate; he’d move in with her after they came back from their honeymoon in Hawaii. Jess couldn’t wait; the thought of living with and loving on her man made her stomach flutter as she took the exit off the Mark Clark expressway and turned toward the airport.

  Jessica was excited to see her best friend as well. They had not been together since Thanksgiving six months before. At that time Kinsey had told Jess that she’d finally given up in her search for Tanner. She was afraid that he’d left the country for good or that he was dead. It was time to move on she said. Four years of searching for him in sadness was starting to affect her health and her art. Her buyers were getting tired of all the dark, sad paintings that she had been producing and Kinsey needed desperately to move on with her life. Tanner was gone to her she had said to Jessica.

  Jessica had talked often to Kinsey on the phone over the last six months and she liked how excited Kinsey was for her and Dale but Jess knew her friend and she knew that as big as the smile Kinsey was pretending to wear on the other side of their phone conversations, that Kinsey was bursting into tears as soon as they hung up the phone. Jess was sad for her friend.

  In the airport Jess found that Kinsey’s plane was delayed and she had a half hour to kill. It was early evening and Jess stepped into a bar and ordered a beer and an appetizer. She was hungry, she’d not been eating for the last month trying to make sure she’d look good on her wedding day but now Jess felt too thin and when she’d gone the day before for a last refit of her wedding dress the dress had been too loose, hanging almost like a sack, on her thin framed body. The dressmaker told her to gain a couple pounds and Jessica was only too happy to oblige.

  As she waited on her food and drink Jess found her thoughts going back to what happened on that night in South Beach and the days, weeks and years afterward. It had been a hard four years for Kinsey and Jess was glad when she’d heard Kinsey on Thanksgiving say that she was moving on from Tanner. But now, sitting in the airport, Jessica knew that it was only words; that her friend would never move on from Tanner and she was afraid she’d end up growing old, single and alone. Jessica knew why Kinsey couldn’t move on from him and in her heart of hearts, Jess also knew that she agreed with Kinsey; something odd, mysterious and weird had happened to Tanner in those days after the fire and Jessica believed, like Kinsey, that he was still out there, somewhere. Jess could almost feel him close to her and Kinsey, like they were walking through a city and he was but just around the block and if they hurried along with their steps and made it around the corne
r quick enough they would find him walking ahead of them. Earlier in the week, while walking through downtown Charleston she’d even thought that she had seen him stepping into a car, a sleek white Mercedes. Her heart had leaped from her chest at the thought, but then she knew she was only seeing the ghosts of hope and love for her friend.

  Jess thought back to that night of the hotel fire four years earlier. She and Dale had come back to her hotel in a taxi and as they got closer and closer to the hotel it became apparent that something very bad was happening. The taxi driver had to let them out two blocks from the hotel as the street was clogged with traffic and rescue vehicles. They could see the smoke pouring from the hotel and as they got closer Jess knew that the fire was close to their hotel room. She became desperate and began to run. Dale intuited her fears and began to push people out of the way for her. As they came around the corner there was an emergency medical helicopter landing in the back of the hotel and a huge crowd had formed around the pool area of the hotel. She was running by the ambulances when she saw Kinsey being pushed into the back of one of the ambulances and the doors being shut behind her. She ran for the ambulance screaming Kinsey’s name but the driver didn’t hear her and drove off with his sirens sounding out loud in the night and his lights flashing red and bright.

  Jessica became desperate and agitated, running about, trying to find someone who could tell her where her friend was going and if she was alright. She was out of control, frantic even, and no one could make sense of her questions. Thankfully Dale stepped in and got her calmed down. He found out what hospital the ambulance was going to and took Jessica out to the road and hailed a cab. He had her to the hospital in just a few minutes.