Frozen Embers by D. S. Novis (room on the broom read aloud txt) 📖

“There were two teenagers at the site, one male, Gabriel Hawks, around sixteen years old and one female, Molly Caparelli, around thirteen. The police told us that witnesses saw the two fall from a helicopter that had just taken off from the roof of the bank. They fell near twenty stories and landed on a car. The girl has severe injuries and will have to be rushed into surgery. Her injuries including a broken arm, three broken ribs and a fractured wrists-” The woman’s report was cut short.

“Wait, she’s alive? She fell from that height and survived?” The radio voice sounded astonished.

“I know it’s a miracle! The only logical answer that could explain this is how they were found. The boy was wrapped around the girl and so took most of the blow. But here’s the amazing bit, the boy has barely any injuries on him. From his scrapes and cuts I’d of guessed he’d fallen off of his bike, at worst. The first policemen on the scene reported that ‘the boy looked like every bone in his body had been shattered’... ” Neither the woman nor the radio voice talked for a long moment. “Something very strange has happened today.”

Gabriel wondered why on earth he was in an ambulance. Then, like a slide show in his brain, his memories flew back into his brain.

“Molly!” said Gabriel in a strained voice as he shot upright and opened his eyes.

The female paramedic let out a startled yelp. Gabriel began trying to remove the tubes that were sticking into his arms.

“Calm down!” The woman said sharply

“Where’s my sister?” Gabriel yelled in a hoarse voice.

“She’s on the way to St. John’s hospital right now. That’s where we’re going now. Please, you have to calm down.”

Gabriel slowly stopped thrashing around and lay back on the stretcher panting.

The ambulance drove for another couple of minutes and then stopped. Gabriel jumped to his feet and smashed through the doors of the ambulance before the medic could stop him. He spun round in all directions. They were in the car park just outside the hospital. He couldn’t see Molly anywhere. He was seconds away from going into the hospital when an ambulance came streaking into the car park and came to a sharp halt near Gabriel. Doctors and nurses came whizzing out of the hospital and pulled a small stretcher from the ambulance. Laying on it was the limp body of his little sister. Gabriel’s heart plummeted. The world seemed to be crumbling from underneath him. Molly’s clothes were covered in dark red blood. Tubes stuck out all over her body. A mask delivering oxygen covered the majority of her tiny face. Gabriel felt useless. All he could do was stand there and watch these strangers carry Molly into the hospital.  He stood there for what felt like hours. It was only when he felt the snow on the floor seeping through his socks that he became aware for the first time of two things. Firstly, he’d somehow lost both of his shoes and secondly he was alive. He had taken the full impact of a gargantuan fall and was fine. What was happening to him?

Gabriel barely noticed a hand gently touch his shoulder.

“Come on sweetheart,” said a woman’s voice in his ear. “Let’s get you inside.”

Gabriel was guided by the woman into the hospital and put in a chair in the middle of a hallway outside where Molly’s surgery was taking place. The woman rapped Gabriel in a blanket and left him there to wait. Each second seemed like an hour, each hour like a week. But there he waited. He heard somewhere once that time eases all pain. Sitting there he realised what a load of crap that was. With every tick his dread intensified. With every tock his heart pumped painfully harder.

He felt something bulging in his pocket and reached into it. He pulled out the book that Molly had given him for his birthday. It was wet and had spots of blood on it. Gabriel sat looking through each page for several hours. 

All of a sudden he heard movement and the door in front of Gabriel opened. A doctor stepped out. His face was infuriatingly indifferent and his eyes weren’t giving away anything.

“Hello Gabriel.” The doctor said with a deep and calm voice.

Gabriel didn’t ask how he knew his name. He didn’t say anything. He probably couldn’t have spoken even if he’d tried. In the silence Gabriel felt like his thoughts were being used as a rope in a tug of war. One side wanted to be frozen in this moment and never hear what the doctor was going to say and the other wanted to scream ‘Tell me!’ at the top of his lungs. He couldn’t look the doctor in the eye. So he settled for a starring match with the doctor’s spotless shoes.

“She’s going to be okay Gabriel.” said the doctor with a smile.

The breathe Gabriel had been holding for god knows how long escaped from his mouth in the form of a staggered whimper. A tear trickled down his cheek and dangled off of his chin and then fell to the floor.

"Thank you." Gabriel whispered. He could sense that the doctor hadn't finished yet.

"Your X-rays are back." The doctor paused, seemingly unable to string his next sentence together. "Can you tell me about your last few weeks please Gabriel?"

"What about my last few weeks?" asked Gabriel, confused.

"Can you tell me about any other trauma you've been through, this month, maybe last?" The doctor asked.

Gabriel thought for a long time before answering. "The last time I was hurt, before this, was about six months ago in a fight at school. Why?"

"How many of your bones were broken in this fight?" The doctor sounded like he was choosing each word carefully.

"None." Gabriel answered, puzzled. "I've never broken a bone before."

The doctor stood there for what seemed like minutes to Gabriel. He had a look that reminded Gabriel of Ms Clark. Ms Clark would always know when Gabriel was lying about something. She'd stare at him with interrogation eyes until eventually he would crack under the pressure and admit to the lie. The doctor stared at Gabriel with the same interrogation eyes. Gabriel wasn't lying though. He had never broken a bone in his body. Why would he lie about that?

Eventually the doctor spoke. His words turned Gabriel ice cold.

"Gabriel, as I can see from these X-rays, there's not a bone in your body that you haven't broken."

"What do you mean?" Gabriel choked out, stunned. He began to look over his body as though he'd see a shard of arm bone sticking out.

The doctor showed him the X-rays and acknowledged specifically what he called hard callus; extra thick regions on the bones.

"These thicker portions of bone are the site of breakages." the doctor explained.

"So I did break some bones in the fall." Gabriel concluded.

"What you need to understand Gabriel is that these regions are the evidence of repaired bone breaks. There's no way that you could have gotten these today because it takes a considerable amount of time for these to form."

"How long?" Gabriel asked.

"Months." the doctor replied bluntly.

Again the doctor gave him the interrogation eyes.

Gabriel was speechless. He ran over this new sequence of events in his head. So he hadn't been hurt at all in falling from twenty stories from a bank. Instead he'd broken every bone in his body months previous in a way that he had absolutely no recollection of. His brain hurt.

"I'm going to leave you for a while. If there's anything at all you want to tell me just ask one of the nurses and I'll shoot right over." The doctor left the room then. 

Molly was moved from the operation theatre to a large ward filled with old people sleeping. Someone got Gabriel some clothes to wear. He sat in a chair by Molly’s side all day and slept in the chair when his eye lids got too heavy to hold up.

When he woke it took him a while before he realised that Molly and him weren’t alone. There was a man standing over Molly. Gabriel instinctively jumped to his feet. The man was short and round with a thick black moustache. He wore a suit with a thick leather jacket.

“Get away from her!” Gabriel shouted.

The man didn’t move. He was starring above Molly, at the old wooden cross that hung over Molly’s bed.

“Who are you?” Gabriel demanded.

“Strange.” The man said through his moustache.

Unless the man’s name was actually Mr. Strange, which was highly unlikely, he must not have heard Gabriel.

“What’s strange?” Gabriel asked. The man didn’t hear him again so he repeated it, stressing every syllable. “What is strange?”

“Strange how this is the only bed with a cross hanging over it.” The man finally said.

Gabriel didn’t know what he’d expected the man to say but it wasn’t that. He looked around the ward and sure enough Molly’s was the only one who had a cross hanging over her bed.

“Just an observation.” the man said. “Anyway, Mr. Hawks, I’ve got some questions to ask you.”

“Questions to ask me?” Gabriel repeated. “I’ve got a couple of questions myself actually. Like who are you?”

The man turned his eyes on Gabriel’s for the first time. “My name, Mr. Hawks, is Sergeant Robert Brody.” 

Gabriel took a step backwards. A police officer. He hadn’t expected that either.

“I need to ask you some questions about yesterday.” Sergeant Brody said. Gabriel hadn’t taken one second to think about what he’d tell everyone. His mind raced off ahead. He couldn’t tell the police what had happened to them. He’d be carried away to some sort of mental institute and strapped into a straight jacket. Even if his words were proven true the government wouldn’t just let him carry on his life as usual. They’d dissect him apart like a car for spare parts. Molly would call that a catch thirty three, no wait, catch twenty two. Yeah, that was it. A lose-lose situation. He’d have to lie and lie well. But how could he explain anything about yesterday that didn’t involve the supernatural? He looked up into the Sergeant’s dark eyes.

“What do you need to know?” Gabriel asked with a shaky voice.

“I’d like to hear your side of what happened yesterday morning.” He gave a crooked smile. “In as much detail as you can remember.”

Gabriel opened his mouth but no words presented themselves to the forefront of his brain. Then he realised something that sent a chill down his spine. The bank was top security. So, therefore, must have cameras all over the place. In the lobby, on the stairs and almost certainly on the roof.

Sergeant Brody must know everything that had happened. He was trying to get Gabriel to make a confession. There were probably people with strait jackets waiting just outside the room, waiting to pounce. Gabriel began weighing up his options.

“Can’t the CCTV tell you that?” asked Gabriel as he backed slowly towards the window. They were on the sixth floor. He’d survived higher.

Sergeant Brody gave Gabriel a look that seemed as though he was searching for a sign of concealed truths.

“Ah yes the CCTV.” The Sergeant said quietly. “Strange.”

He knows. He must do. Why is he torturing me? Gabriel thought desperately.

“What’s strange?” asked Gabriel in the most off hand voice he could muster, the window directly behind him now. He’d have to go on the run. Somehow he’d get the message to Molly that he was okay.

“Every day this year the CCTV cameras were fully operational, each recording showing the bank in all its splendour.” The Sergeant said, as though to himself. “Yet yesterday there was nothing but static. Strange. So I need to know everything that happened.” He starred at Gabriel with a kind of hunger in his eyes like he was longing to hear something. Gabriel just stood there frozen with his mouth open.

“Why?... How? What about footprints or other evidence, like blood for