CHAPTER 21 (PART - A)

The night gave way to a horrible nightmare as anger and fear overtook him. He felt like part of him hated the world. An impending doom he felt was awaiting him as his head felt like it had just been hit with a steel beam. He returned back to that horrible night in the forest as he watched his brother run for his life while he was carried away. The nightmare didn’t stop there as he began feeling the pricks of needles, the immobility of a restraining belt to a table, the constant darkness, and faceless abusers doing horrible things to him. The nightmares would end the same way they started leaving him feeling frightened, empty, and alone. Some things he didn’t want to remember.

This night he was eleven years old again back in a nice manor full of antique furniture and old paintings. This young man lived with an old widow who lost her husband in the Great War. Even though he had only been living there a few weeks he felt as if this place was truly home. The old woman who adopted him showed him nothing but love and spoiled him greatly, taking him to shops buying him so many nice clothes and taking him dining at fancy restaurants. The young man had been distrustful of many people since to him it seemed he had this irrational fear or perhaps it wasn’t irrational. Never had anyone gotten so close to him so quickly, he truly believed this woman was his grandmother.

The young boy was dressed in a grey Sunday outfit wearing a pair of dress shoes. An older woman wearing a long lavender dress with a white blouse sat on a red upholstered chair with grey hair put up in a bun. A massive grandfather clock was ticking in the background while the fireplace crackled and illuminated the room.

“Use the poker on the wood” the older woman instructed.

“Yes grandmother” he said giving the fire a small boost adding a small log in.

“Tonight you must take this shoe box which holds very important things to you...and our family” she said handing him the small box. The boy opened it and looked at its contents for a moment and closed it.

“Right now, you are not ready to know the truth, but don’t worry in time you will…” she smiled.
“What is all of this stuff inside this box?” he asked curiously.
“You must keep all of it safe and never let anyone have it” the older woman spoke seriously.
“Yes grandmother!” the young boy nodded taking the small shoe box filled with sentimental items and a strange stone with green engravings holding it tightly. He held the box standing by the fireplace as the old woman sat in her chair. "I won't fail you grandmother!" the boy said with conviction.


The scenery faded away as the boy heard a cat hissing and meowing loudly and a loud crackling outside of his room. “What’s going on? Why is it suddenly so warm?” the young boy thought to himself as the cat was clawing at the door.

He had fallen asleep in his Sunday outfit reading a book on his bed. He quickly slipped his shoes on and opened the door. An intense heat assailed him as the cat ran down the opposite way down the hall.

“Grandmother!” the young boy shouted as he ran towards his grandmother’s bedroom opening the door and a minor back draft came rushing at the young boy. Instinctively he turned around getting his backside burned. The boy screamed in pain running the opposite way when he heard a gunshot below. He quickly ran down the stairs hoping against hope that everything was fine as the fire began to quickly spread.

“Where are the keepsakes!?” a man demanded wearing a mobster style hat. Another man dressed similarly stood over his grandmother who was lying face down on the floor. The young boy’s eye widened in horror, “Grandmother!” he screamed.

“Don’t let…them have it…RUNAWAY!!” his grandmother cried out with her last breath. “NO!!!” he screamed as a beam fell down blocking the stairway bottom.
“Get the boy!” a man shouted as the other man fired gunshots at him. The young boy retreated back upstairs running to his room. Every movement he made felt as if skin was burning and peeling off his back. The rest of the rooms were blocked by burning furniture except his room. He went inside locking the door behind him quickly grabbing the small box in his room opening his window.

The door was being forced open he looked down as it was almost twenty feet below the cat had followed him in and was meowing helplessly at him. He looked down spotting a couple of rose bushes when the door burst open. Quickly he grabbed the cat and jumped out the window falling landing on to one of the bushes. The window shattered above him as he landed. His back felt as if it was on fire and the bush scratched him all up. The pain was so horrible but he knew he had no choice but to run.

More gunshots were fired but the boy wasn’t sure how close or far they were from him and didn’t bother to look back. “You won’t escape you little brat!” a haunting voice said with a malice that made him wonder if the man was even human. He kept running into the fields as the cat jumped out of his arms and ran ahead of him. He blindly followed the cat as it seemed to want him to follow it. The boy’s strength was about to end when they finally came upon an old truck that was running filled with hay. The cat jumped in and using his last reserve of strength he climbed into the hay on the back hiding his self and darkness took him as the truck began to drive off.


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Benton woke up with a searing pain assailing his back at first but as he began waking it mysteriously vanished. He got up grabbing his throbbing head and then instinctively began looking for a bottle of gin, but had found that all of his bottles of gin were gone.

“Lucille!” he shouted still grabbing his throbbing head. He got off the sofa smelling quite badly. Bits and pieces of the nightmare still hung in his mind just as some of the events that had taken place the night before. He was still recovering as he glanced at the clock on the wall as it was almost lunch time.

“Lucille!” he shouted again but got no response. He searched the house without any traces and the bed had not been slept in. Benton did remember slightly stumbling to the bathroom to barf as he had way too much to drink. He remembered getting really upset with Tintin as if he had done something to him really bad, but couldn’t quite remember what exactly. Light hurt his eyes. He looked in the children’s room and everything was in place. He did remember Lucille taking the kids to their grandparents’ house and then slightly remembered he and Lucille had a minor argument from his account.

“Fenton?” He said calmly, but nothing seemed to make sense, he almost expect Fenton to be around but realized he had blacked out and not much remained in his memory other than the recent vivid nightmare which he could not forget. That nightmare replayed many times and it was the same every time.

He walked back into the living room and looked out the window thinking maybe Lucille had taken the car, but it was still there. Quickly he drew the curtains back as his eyes began to hurt. His head was throbbing like a beating drum. He wanted more gin to make it go away, but he drank the last of the orange juice in the icebox and ate an apple unable to focus on anything without his eyes hurting.

Benton figured he went on a drinking binge last night and that was simply it. He saw some papers on the table and a pen but didn’t bother to look. All he cared about was going to his bedroom as soon as he finished eating, draw the drapes closed, turn off any lights, and go back to sleep until he felt better. He walked over to the sink and washed his face to no avail. Benton figured Lucille was probably visiting her folks down the lane. He glanced at the papers thoughtlessly, “Probably a shopping list for me” he thought as he walked back to the bedroom and lied down in the bed and in fifteen minutes he was fast asleep again.

Benton woke up four hours later only this time the shades were pulled back.
“Lucille? Fenton?” he said slowly sitting up. He walked around the room and saw a paper and pen sitting on the dresser. Benton went to the bathroom to get him a quick bath so he could get out of his sweaty clothes. Another thirty minutes later after cleaning up, he finally picked up the paper as he was finishing getting dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a green jumper. It was no shopping list, it was a letter addressed to him in Lucille’s hand writing.

Dear Benton,
I’ve decided to stay at my parents for the next couple of days because last night you went too far. You lost control again and I really want you to think about your drinking problem. You evidently forget what my uncle did for us when we were youngsters as you demonstrated with how you dealt with your brother’s secret; and how you dealt with his companions when they arrived to find him. I’m appalled to be your wife at this moment because of that. You’re not the man I married. I’m just glad the kids weren’t around to see you act so foolishly. I know you are dealing with demons inside but it still doesn’t give you the right to take it out on anyone else, your brother, or me. I want you to take this time to think about how you’re going to make things right with your brother or this could be the end of our marriage. I hope you didn’t decide to skip work today, and if you did I’m going to be extra angry with you. Don’t bother coming over because right now I really don’t want to see you.

If you really care about our marriage and family, you will be ready to make things right with not just me, but also your brother.
Lucille

Benton’s mind began swimming with all kinds of thoughts as his headache was still hanging on him, but this letter didn’t help.

“What did I do?” He thought. He remembered her uncle and his lover and then realized that his brother was the same way. Benton wasn’t as accepting as he had hoped he could be, but this was his brother. He wanted Fenton to be someone who was supposed to be special and not have any flaws according to Benton’s expectations. This wasn’t the brother that Benton had imagined. Benton felt that there was no way he could possibly be like this.

Benton still had mixed feelings about man on man relations, but because of what Lucille’s uncle and lover had done for them, it changed his mind enough to be a bit more accepting even if Lucille’s parents weren’t. Lucille was right about one thing. Benton had a lot of demons and some which he had never shared with her. He cared about their marriage and he felt bad for whatever he did but the mixed feelings would not go away just yet. He did care about their marriage and loved Lucille greatly and the thought of losing her brought him to a sobering state of mind.

He still wasn’t totally clear about what had happened but he figured until he spoke to Lucille and found out the details, he had no idea what to answer for. He knew to bother Lucille right now probably wouldn’t be a good idea. He figured tomorrow after work he would go see Lucille so they could talk about it. Luckily he had the day off planning on his brother being around today. He turned on the television and just decided he was going to be a hermit the rest of the evening not feeling like talking to anyone else for he had no one around he could talk to that he trusted.

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