Ethan Eternal

Chapter 2

“Two Empty Caskets”

            Kevin Hill stood drenched in the icy morning rain as the cold soaked into every part of him. He would not accept company today… not even the meager offering of an umbrella’s protection. He could not. In fact, he could not even stand in the presence of God this day… or hear his Holy words read by a man used to larger congregations. Kevin could not even be at his own wife’s funeral.

            Her family was all here… even the distant cousins she had only spoken of during late night pillow talk… giggling like a school girl over old stories of mischief done in younger days. The gathered mourners stood like solemn soldiers against a grey sky. He covered his eyes and wept for her. He wept for the loss of his great love… his only true love… and for all that might have been.

            Her name was Amanda… Amanda Rene Hill… and she was all he had ever known of beauty. He loved her from the moment they met almost 10 years ago. They were married before the month was out. Perfection is like that. When a man and woman fit so neatly together that any time apart seems painful… well… waiting was just pointless.

            Settling his sobs, Kevin looked on once more from his hiding place. It would almost seem that the groundskeepers of cemeteries like these orchestrate their landscapes just to accommodate men in his position. The two massive marble columns provide shelter from the eyes if not from the storm.

            The preacher ends his epitaph and closes the book before him. Her family begins the slow march past the hollow tomb of their fallen sister. They know the casket is empty… that her body had been too utterly destroyed for embalming… but this is a ceremony… and ceremony needs only a symbol of something real. Kevin is grateful that so many came… and wonders how many he had seen just a month ago… when he had stood before another casket… a smaller coffin… one that was also empty.

            How much pain can a man endure? How heavy a weight can a heart hold before it bursts? If the worst of our imagined fears were to become real this very moment, who could say how one might cope… or what he might become? Even now, Kevin ponders this… for he can not yet believe that his world is gone forever. He knows that it is so… but belief requires more than just an open mind… it needs an open heart… and he would not dare allow anything too deep into that lair.

            Danny…

            Even the name is more than thought can stand. Kevin pushes his son away from the surface. It is not yet time to grieve completely. It may never be.

            He leaves the stone pillars and steps toward a dark blue Chrysler parked near a narrow paved road. Leaving his feelings behind, Kevin opens the driver’s side door and enters his car. As he turns the key and starts the ignition, he shuts his eyes for a moment. The faces of his wife and son appear. He will need them for the tasks ahead. He prays silently that God grant him sight of his lost family whenever they are needed. A heavy sigh escapes his lungs and then he is ready to begin.

            Kevin opens his eyes and shifts the car into “drive” but he hesitates to press the gas. A woman stands before his car… 7 feet directly in front of him. In one hand she holds a lowered umbrella. Her wavy blond hair is a soaked mess of tangled strands. Her face is pale and horrified. The rain can not hide her tears… her paralyzing grief… or the gun in her other hand… aimed at Kevin’s eyes.

            They stare at one another in silence… companions in the place of misery… delaying whatever is still to come… for they each know the potential facing them. He opens the car door and joins her in the rain. They stare again. Her face is lost… puzzled by a riddle with no answer… and yet begging to know…

            “Why?” she forces from her lips with a whisper’s volume.

            “Why?” again.

            A tear leaves Kevin’s eye as he meets her stare… never once glancing to the gun.

            “Debra…” he mutters with a sob.

            Beneath the thin facade of her face, Debra’s feelings swirl. The tempest is clear to see. She struggles to reason something worth speaking but thumbs the hammer back on her pistol instead. Kevin never sees it.

            “Kevin… What… What the hell did you do to them?”

            He has no answer for her. What answer could there be? How would any man explain the ultimate failure of a father and a husband? What could he say that would mean anything? There are no words. He said nothing.

            Kevin’s silence seemed to draw anger from his wife’s only sister. Her weapon shook for a moment and then her grip tightened with her teeth. Through a clinched jaw, she asked the only question her mind could manage.

            “Why??!!”

            If time were allowed to proceed from this moment without the interference of any other circumstances, Kevin would surely have died within another breath… but God… or fate… or whatever force that binds the universe together… whether capable of planning and reason or not… truly has an ego… for it will never allow anyone to call it… predictable.

            In the moments following the explosion, both Kevin and Debra would recall hearing a strange noise not unlike the unwinding of a metallic spring. The oddity of it might have been comical even had it not been immediately followed by the complete annihilation of the blue Chrysler.

            The storm could not offer any thunder to compete with the resounding detonation of the bomb hidden under the hood of Kevin’s car. The blast knocked both Debra and he into the air and back down onto muddy pavement. Pieces… big and small… of indiscernible debris pelted them as the fire extinguished itself amidst the growing downpour. Kevin raised his head and found Debra facing him. Something in her eyes told him to speak now… or forever hold his peace… and so he did.

            “We have to get out of here!”

            He lifted himself and then her up. He took her up by her wrist. The umbrella was lost somewhere in the turmoil. Still clutching the gun with her other hand, she aimed it directly at Kevin’s chest.

            “Now!” he shouted with fury.

            She glanced at the smoldering wreckage and then back at Kevin. Her eyes cooled as something registered inside her mind.

            “Okay.”

            George watched the man and woman run across the cemetery grounds… slipping and sliding as they fled. He has been watching them for some time. Through the high powered scope of his rifle, he saw them speaking with no volume. They were arguing about something. Interesting.

            The large man lowered the rifle and leaned the weapon against the open window. He took a long sip of hot tea from a thermos and leaned back in his portable chair. An icy breeze screamed through the stone arches of the bell tower but did not overpower the sound of George’s cel phone.

            “Yes Ethan?”

            A boy spoke through the tiny speaker.

            “Is he dead?”

            George smiled… fighting back a chuckle.

            “No. Someone interfered. The sister-in-law.”

            For a few seconds, the phone remains silent until at last the boy replies.

            “Follow them. You know what to do.”

            “Of course”, George mutters and flips the phone off.

            He watches Kevin and Debra as they rush toward a single car in an empty lot. Sirens begin to squeal from some unseen approach. He sips the tea again and savors one last moment before descending the limestone stairwell. He smiles to himself again. Perhaps this rainy day might prove fun after all.

(To Be Continued)