The Shadow

         When people thank God, what or whom are they thanking?  Is it the green grass and leaves on the tree? the water that makes up much of the earth and our human beings?  Is it simply the air we take for granted but breathe in every couple of seconds to sustain life?

         

                When people pray to God, what or whom are they praying?  If your prayers are answered, then one would be in more of the position to truly believe in this deity than not, but if your prayers go unanswered, what then?

         

                “I didn’t want it to end this way!”  I told the police. 

    Over the next twenty-four hours my life would change incomprehensibly and take with it every thing I ever loved or cared about in this world. 

         

The door to my bedroom creaked open, on the other side stood an ominous shadow much too tall to be Lily.  I wanted to scream but no words would come out.  My body paralyzed in fear, the heat of adrenaline coursing through my blood.  My mind hadn’t come to terms with what it saw standing in the door way.  I had had those dreams before, when waking and dreaming intertwine upon one another and images creep to the surface from deep with in my psyche. 



This time was different, though I could hear Leah’s light hypnotic breathing beside me and just make out the bars that formed the enclosure of her crib my wife stering beside me.  My heart was pounding trying to make sense of what my mind could not. The dark brown duvet that covered my lower legs seemed to weigh a ton, pinning my legs beneath its weight rendering me helpless for what came next. 



The shadow streamed across the room and wore the scent of cheap cigarettes and booze.  My fatherly instincts finally kicked in and I reached for the phone beside the bed.  My hands were clammy and wet, the plastic of the receiver felt like a cold stone beneath my hand. 



The shadow, now a figure, closing the gap between me and the door, an arm swung high and came down with the claw of a hammer striking the hand that held the receiver. 



The other senses, hearing, vision, taste, and smell played sensory overload to catch up with my loss of touch. 



The loudest crunching noise emanated from first my hand then my face.  Blood filled my eyes and an awful tinny taste oozed down the back of my throat.  The smell was the worst though, cigarette smoke and burbon mixed with death permeated up my nose.  If words were what I was praying for then my prayers went unanswered, my jaw broken into a million little pieces. 



For all the pain I was about to feel my thoughts never wavered from those of my two daughters, “Please God let them be and take me instead.”                         

         

The shadowy figure left as quick as it had come. Warm tears welled in my eyes mixing with blood streaming down my face.



Thats when I heard the last thing I would remember, a scream from my ten year old daughter Lily, “Daddy, please help me!” 



The sounds of Lily’s voice reverberated against the walls of my skull like a recording on repeat, until I passed into unconciousness.                                           

         

I came to with a paramedic bagging me, the swishing of the mask bringing life back to my oxygen starved lungs.  I passed back out. I came to in the ambulance a bright light hovering over me and sounds of sirens in the far off distance. I passed back out.  I came to being wheeled into the emergency room the paramedic giving my stats to the doctor on duty. 



“This guy’s coded twice in the ambulance on the way over, his

B.P. is really low. He’s lost a lot of blooo-,” He’s voice trailed off as I passed back out.                       

         

When I was out I didn’t see any long tunnel with a bright light at the end, or hear angels calling to me, or for that matter telling me to go back.  All I saw was black, all I felt was nothing, all I heard was my little girl calling to me, “Daddy, daddy!” 



When I came to I pulled at the wires connecting me to the machines the nurses were using to monitor me.  I ripped out the I.V. that fed my body and flung the oxygen mask to the side.  I ran into the hall of the ward screaming and collapsed in front of the nurses station.  My head was pounding and the walls spun around me like a carousel.  It took two big orderlies and a nurse with a syringe to get me back into bed. 



Over the next few hours I slept, fitfully, dreamily of the ordeal that took place.  When I woke up I wanted what happened all to be part of a very long, very bad dream. 



However my hopes were dashed when I saw two guys in suits sitting with their feet up by my bed.  One had greying black hair and an oddly shapen nose.  The other was bald and his belly fell over the buckle of his belt. A shinig gold star clipped to their belts Ideantified them as cops.

         

This defiantly wasn’t my house.  My bedroom had transformed before my eyes into a hospital room.  My wife and daughters had transformed into two men in suits that sat with their feet up by my bed.

         

“Hey there Edward, how you feeling?  Pour him some water Tom.” One of the men said to me and the other man I guessed to be Tom.

         

“My name is Detective David Jones, this is Detective Tom Harold.  We have some hard questions for you Edward.  The more you can remember, the better.” Detective Jones asked.                                                                                                                     

It took me a while to answer the waiting detectives.  I felt that if I didn’t tell them what had happened then this whole mess wouldn’t really exist.



Every shred of my being didn’t want to hear what the detectives had to tell me and every ounce of me wanted to tell them it wasn’t so.  I closed my eyes and put the pillow over my face trying to suffocate my self to death, yelling at the top of my lungs but it didn’t work.  The two detectives were still there when I took the pillow from my now red face.