No One Left to Tell (13 page)

A terrifying blast jarred him from a dead sleep, echoing over and over. The deafening crack of wood shook the walls, threatening to collapse the room around him. Disoriented, he covered his face, unsure where he was until a loud rumble overloaded his senses. The menacing sound escalated, careening straight for him.

Like a haunting deja vu, he'd been forced to witness the chronicle being played out.

"Chicago Police," a man shouted. "Come out with your hands up!"

Sitting bolt upright in bed, he clutched the layers of blankets to his chest. His eyes searched the darkness, finding nothing to give him comfort.

"What's happening?" he wanted to shriek, but words wouldn't come. He opened his mouth to cry out. Nothing. His heart cleaved to the effort, strangling his will to make any sound at all.

At the base of his bedroom door, eerie lights ebbed and flowed, amidst the screams and the ear-splitting eruption of macabre fireworks like the Fourth of July. Yet despite the utter chaos outside the room, he stayed rooted where he sat, unable to move. He fought his body, wanting to react to the threat. But he felt bound to a course of action as if he followed a script.

Then the voices came—the beginning of the end. His gut twisted with the sound.

"No, please. We're unarmed!
Stop!"
He'd never heard the man's voice so filled with fear. A loud crash made his heart leap. Something heavy hit the floor.

"Not my little girl!" A woman screamed. "Oh, my God—
no!"
This voice was familiar, too, but his brain resisted the recollection, in complete denial. Another thunderous pop and her wailing ended.

Outside his door, heavy footsteps stumbled toward him.

"Now I lay me down—" The steady mantra spewed from his lips, sounding foreign to his ear.

Like a marionette acting upon the commands of a puppeteer, he repeated lines he'd heard before. He stared into the murky void, not recognizing the voice of a child in prayer. The words resonating in his head should've been comforting. Instead, they triggered a deep-rooted warning—they were coming for him.

In desperation to discover more, he garnered all his strength. Then, as weightless as a feather, much to his surprise, he lifted himself to look down upon a small boy. Although the child was faintly recognizable, his face distorted in terror and challenged his recollection. ". . . pray the Lord . . . keep my soul," the boy muttered.

The words tumbled from the kid's mouth, the meaning distorting in his brain. Over and over the child repeated fragments of the prayer. "Now I pray . . . soul to keep."

A dark motion to his right caught his eye. The kid saw it, too. A shadow eclipsed a glimmer of light—someone was outside the room. To protect the boy, he once again infused himself into the small body without thinking, hoping to give the child a fighting chance to survive. Instead, the boy's horror assaulted him, strangling rational thought with sheer hysteria.

"If I should die—" The words came faster. His throat clenched with fear, cutting off his air. "Please, God!" he pleaded.

The small body rocked back and forth, his voice raspy-tears spilled from his eyes. Still, he couldn't make the child move.

Another explosion ripped a hole through the door, jolting him from his stupor. A low, agonizing moan filled the darkness, sounding like a man who stood near the foot of the bed. It took his panicked brain a moment to realize he was still alone with the child until—

Someone leaned heavily on the door, scratching faintly to get in, rattling the doorknob. The child screamed.

Suddenly, the bedroom door flew open. A tall hulk of a man stood, then staggered toward the boy, the massive silhouette backlit by erratic flashes of light.

"The old man's got a gun," someone yelled from far away. "Where's the kid? We came for the boy. Find him."

Strangers' voices droned in the background, mixing with the shrill sound of a distant police siren. But like the child's, his complete attention had been drawn to the faceless shadow standing before him. A distinct smell swept into the room; a strange, sweet odor dominated his nostrils. The boy gasped, sucking in the metallic tang. Enveloped by the peculiar aroma, he felt his body and mind slow down, as if someone stalled the pace of a movie reel, clacking frame by frame. Shadow man seized the kid's arm in a viselike grip, grappling for him under the blankets. He fought his attacker armed only with the cooperation of the child—blindly flailing thin arms and kicking gangly legs.

"Noooo! Let me go!" he cried, his tone throaty and lethargic, every syllable distinct and drawn out. "Now I lay me down—"

The man spoke. He strained to understand the words. But like the boy, his mind felt numb with urgency. Only a garbled sound trickled through his awareness, drowned out by the prayer.

"Pray my soul to keep—" His body rocked violently, struggling for freedom, his chest on fire. Trapped in the defenseless body, he fought for freedom, if for no other reason than to defend the boy.

Helpless. Locked in frailty, he was paralyzed. He could only watch the tragedy occur over and over again—sinking in the quagmire of slow motion.

"If I should die before I wake—" Dizziness threatened to betray him. Bile rose hot from his belly. Tangled in his blankets, he shut his eyes and shrieked. His voice blended with that of the child, "God, help us.
Please!"

"God help me!" he shouted.
"Please!"

He no longer heard the boy. Only his voice remained. As the nightmare faded, the scene morphed into indistinct shapes.

Drenched in sweat, Christian threw a pillow across the room, knocking over a lamp. The crash only punctuated the terror he'd relived, embellishing the memory of a ten-year-old boy. His lungs burned with the exertion. Amidst dank sheets, he sat trembling in the dark— an adrenaline rush surging through his veins.

God hadn't heard him then, just as he'd turned a deaf ear to the adult Christian had become. "Oh, God," he whispered. "Make it stop." Still, the blind eye of God left his call for help unanswered.

With the pain so fresh, it wasn't much consolation that he lived on the Dunhill Estate now. His mind mercifully fast-forwarded to the present. The small house he'd lived in as a child had been demolished long ago, obliterating the last vestige of the heinous police action. So his memory, hazy at best, was all that remained.

Staring through the gloom, Christian found everything as it should be, except for one overturned light fixture. A single night light burned, a ritual from childhood. It'd been years since he'd been tortured by that nightmare. Having his past churned up had been the catalyst. Christian glanced over his shoulder to the clock on the nightstand. He'd been in bed only a few hours. He knew attempting sleep now would be futile.

In complete exhaustion, he fell back onto a pillow, wiping a hand across his damp brow. His bare skin prickled with the chill of realization. The remnants of the nightmare clutched at him as his lungs fought for air. Unyielding, the hellish images flashed like a strobe light through his mind. Dead eyes of familiar faces stared back, demanding answers that might never come. Their cries for justice penetrated the black body bags, seeking him out even now. He stared blindly at the ceiling. The lingering details of the dream faded despite his best effort to recall them.

Still, one thought remained.
Where's the kid? We came for the boy. Find him.

The words leapt from his memory like a harsh slap in the face. It had been the first time he remembered hearing them—and the recollection stayed. Normally, such details would be wiped from the slate the moment he awakened from the nightmare. What did it mean? It must be significant.
Damn it! Why couldn't he remember?

Christian struggled for every shattered image. Often in the silence, he strained to recall, all the while dreading the journey to relive it. More times than not, his memory was tainted with the terror of his family's final screams—abruptly ending his grisly pilgrimage. He blocked out so much.

Only after extensive therapy and hypnosis did he discover his deepest regret—the time he spent fighting the shadow man.

Ultimately, the man proved to be his savior.