The Vanishing Gary Brown (booksvooks TXT) 📖

tumbling back down the stairs. He pushed up, up, until he reached the landing. Exhausted, he sat for a moment, gathering his courage with his thoughts, then struggled to his feet and crept around the corner.

At the far end of the long, narrow corridor lamplight slithered beneath the door to his room, striking and recoiling from the wisps of air which taunted the flame within. Virgil knew he was alone, but he did not feel alone. In his delirious state, the building had come alive. A wall of imaginary eyes, no doubt possessed in some demonic way by the spirit of Fallon himself, watched him from the end of the hallway. It would have been within Fallon’s power to accomplish such a feat, he thought. Any man evil enough to commit murder, or be party to it, would surely have made a deal with the devil that would empower him with such abilities. Another wave of pain rushed through his body. Virgil could feel his ability to focus slipping away. The hallway ahead transformed. The wall of eyes had now disappeared, but the stable floor had morphed into a swirling, molten ooze. It pooled at his feet and flowed under the door. He knew what he was seeing was not real, could not be real, nothing more than a horrific manifestation of his imagination. Yet there it was. He pressed his back against the wall and fought to maintain both balance and sensory control. The foul stench of bile rose in the back of his throat and he tasted its noxious fermentation on his breath. He was sweating profusely now. Perspiration streamed down his face, stung his eyes. I’m losing control, Virgil thought. Got to keep it together… for Sky… for Blessing. He closed his eyes, wiped the sweat from his face, and drew slow, deep rhythmic breaths. When at last he opened his eyes, the corridor had resumed its familiar construct. The dim light at the foot of his door ebbed and flowed with the familiarity of dancing lamplight. The constant pain emanating from his leg had caused a fevered rush and sent his imagination into overdrive.

The room ahead lay still. Perhaps Fallon had heard him coming as he climbed the stairs, having opened the door just wide enough glimpse of him breaking the sightline of the landing, and ordered Blessing and Sky to remain silent or die. Or perhaps they were already dead, and Fallon was now waiting for him.

Finish the family.

Bury the truth.

Virgil assessed his options. He would have to surprise Fallon, catch him off guard, do the unexpected.

He pushed off from the wall, ran towards the door, gathered speed with each agonizing, erratic, lop-sided shuffle-step and smashed his way into the room. Fueled by adrenaline, driven by instinct, he let out a war cry of pain and fury as he broke through the wooden door.

Virgil’s assault on the room ended as abruptly as it had begun. He tripped and fell. Fighting the writhing pain, he clambered to his feet and strived to regain his bearings as quickly as possible. Fear pumped his heart like a bellows. Through heaving gasps, he surveyed the dimly lit room as he steadied himself against the bedpost.

No Blessing.

No Sky.

No Fallon.

He had not preceded him to his room. The danger to his family had been a figment of his imagination. Or had it? He needed to find them, to know they were safe.

He raised his pant leg, examined the gash below his knee. The compress had done its job. The wound had clotted. He stood beside the bed and tested his leg under his full weight. He could move with greater freedom than before. He walked stiffly across the room to the bureau where Sky kept a safety kit of Band-Aids, gauze and first aid supplies. He opened the top drawer and removed a white metal box, placed it atop the bureau, unlocked the clasps, flipped back the lid, and rummaged through the container. He removed a wide sleeve of medical gauze, several fat sterile cotton balls, a roll of cloth adhesive tape, a brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and a thin tube of Polysporin. He stripped off his clothes, deposited them in a wet pile at his feet, placed his foot on the edge of the bureau and examined the wound carefully. It would require stitches, but not right now. At this moment, he needed to clean and dress the wound as best he could and get back to Communion Hall as quickly as possible.

Virgil doused the cotton balls in the peroxide, held his breath, then pressed the clammy mass into the wound. Pain jumped from his leg to his brain as though completing an electrical circuit, ricocheting from nerve ending to synapse like lightening through a storm. He fumbled with the tube of greasy ointment, squeezed a generous amount of the clear gel into the crevice of the wound, and placed a sterile pad over the gash. He wrapped the wound with fresh gauze and taped it in place. Slowly, the pain subsided. He changed quickly, put away the medical kit, and discarded the damp, bloody, dirt-stained clothes into the hamper.

Saved from total collapse by the tenacity of a single bottom hinge, the broken door hung precariously in its frame. With little effort, Virgil pulled it free and stood it against the wall. An explanation for the damage would be necessary. But at this moment, a broken door was the least of his worries.

44

DESCENDING THE STAIRS required less effort. Virgil’s leg still burned with the intensity of white-hot embers, but the combination of hydrogen peroxide and Polysporin had considerably dulled the pain and permitted him to move at a much faster pace than he had expected.

The dilapidated, broken asphalt road offered few level footholds. Virgil winced every time he mis-stepped and pulled on the wound. He traveled close to the buildings, stayed in the safety of their shadows.

Voices in the distance. Laughter. The clatter of pots and pans.

Communion Hall.

Virgil