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29

I was finally scared awake by the imprint of his dead face in my sleeping thoughts. I guess I hadn’t gotten over the vision of Officer Daniel’s pale, lifeless shell. Maybe I never would.

I came to. And even before I opened my eyes, I knew that I had slept far past what I had anticipated, obliterating all my plans. Obviously, my body had won in the quest to obtain what it desperately needed. But even so, I ached and my mind was a ravenous blur.

I squinted my eyes open to the bright daylight all around me. I heard children playing off somewhere in the field and could only pray that someone hadn’t stumbled onto a new shiny treasure. But I couldn’t waste any time worrying about that now.

I slowly rose to my feet, unintentionally letting the gun fall to the deck with a loud thud. I reached for my head with my right hand, and for the table to acquire some balance with my left. Totally drained of all energy, I had to force myself to pick it up. As I turned and bent over, something caught my eye, only registering just before I had the chance to stop myself in motion.

I stood back up when curiousness took precedence over the fallen chunk of precision steel. I focused on the door wall in front of me, and to the four inches of shiny, serrated blade, half buried into the wooden frame.

Astonished, I moved closer to find what looked like something scribbled in blood on the glass next to it. Not only did it resemble blood, but I could smell its humanly internal scent. With further investigation, I found parts of the handle and blade to be coagulated with blood as well. It was my knife all right, but just what in God’s name had happened? It was my knife… but who’s blood?

I pulled my shirt up and over my head, wrapping it around the handle and working the blade free. Just as I finally pulled it out, the phone rang.

From outside, I could faintly hear my wife’s voice, but I was too intrigued by the obscure display boldly painted over the glass on my door wall to manage anything else. It was a jagged circle, with what looked to be a stick figure of a man drawn inside. Also, within the circle were three strange symbols positioned around the figure’s head.

“That can’t be good,” I muttered, dropping the cotton encased knife to the deck and then sliding open the door to go inside. I looked at the clock on the kitchen wall and found it to be half past seven. Next, I walked over to the answering machine and pushed a button.

“Josh honey, I’ve been trying to get ahold of you. I hope everything’s okay there. Things have gotten a little crazy–-okay, a lot crazy here since we last spoke. Something’s going on with your daughter that I couldn’t even begin to explain over the phone. You need to call me back as soon as you get this message! We’re going to an institute this morning where they can do some tests on her. She’s–-” and then her voice began to strain a little as she fought back anxious tears. “Please call me back. I love you.”

If I hadn’t known what she was talking about, maybe I would have been more worried than I was. But, whether it was the fact that I already had some insight to what Alley was going through, or the fact that I was just too beat down and exhausted to worry about it at the moment, or possibly a combination of the two, I was absolutely unscathed by Corey’s message. I’m sure that wasn’t the reaction she most likely would have expected from me.

But did she really know me right now? Could she possibly have any clue at all what I had gone though the past few days? I felt my brain was overloaded and my body was failing me. I wanted to do nothing more than lay down on my soft bed and sleep, at least for now, while it was safe–-and light.

But I knew I would have to call my work and try to come up with a sound reason for missing the last few days–-and without so much as a call. I knew this should be important, and yet, as I dropped onto the couch and reminisced over bits and pieces of what I had gone through thus far, I slipped into an outburst of nervous giggles at just how trivial my job seemed; how unimportant it truly was within the scheme of things now.

I told them I was in the midst of something personal and so horrifically detrimental to my family that I had needed time just to come to terms with what had happened, let alone try to explain to anyone outside of my immediate family. I explained that within a short time from now, maybe we would all be fortunate enough to see it pass, and that I would need a leave of absence to see this through.

As I have stated before, I didn’t like to lie. With most sincere regards, I was granted my temporary leave of absence directly from my boss, under the condition that I keep him posted as to when, and if I would return.

With that weight off of my shoulders, I headed for my bed. I would call Corey, and talk to both of my children as well… but not now. On the way, I stuffed three slices of bread into my mouth, and washed it all down with a drink of milk directly from the gallon jug. I couldn’t remember when I had eaten last, as I felt the coolness of the drink slither its way down.

My eyes burned, and I almost cried at the thought of the crisp and cool sheets that awaited me. I would now take a leave of absence from everything. And everything would have to wait. I only hoped, as I plopped onto the bed, that everything, or even something, wouldn’t follow me into my slumber.

I didn’t necessarily need sweet dreams, but prayed for abstinence of any bad ones… I knew that that alone, would be a miracle.

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