Ethan Eternal

Chapter 5

“The Heart of Darkness”

            Danny smiled as he glided on the air. The swing sang its metallic lullaby… embracing him in arms of wind. He smiled as he watched the tree tops sway in the March breeze. This was his favorite place… and he came here every chance he could. This park was his place of solitude… even if he was not alone.

            From across the weathered playground, Amanda watched her son through eyes veiled between the pages of a Dean Koontz novel. This was her favorite place too… even if for different reasons. Kevin worked long hours lately and the park made it easier to occupy her thoughts with something besides his absence. She grinned as she watched her son climbing higher into the air and then turned her focus back to reading about an odd man named Thomas.

             Mother and son came here often. It was a place of serenity and security for them… a place they counted on to recoup from the struggles of daily life. They had no way of knowing that it would be this place that would lead them into the arms of a monster.

            Ethan sat alone and watched the child. He had never seen the boy before. He had never looked. Though surely their paths had crossed here many times, he was not a man at all interested in the affairs of children and certainly had no inclination towards any perverse intentions toward them… but today he saw Danny… saw him clearly… and watched him with a fierce eye.

            He remembered a time… a time long ago… when he too played upon these grounds. Once, he had been a child and this park had been his sanctuary too. So many years ago… so long… so different… and yet still the same. He had such fond memories of this place.

            He had played here as a child. As a teenager, he has lost his virginity to a lovely blond girl under the canopy of a nearby tree. As a young man, he had come here for solitude. Later, he would use this place to murder men that owed him money… men that he found distasteful… or just men. He would experiment here. He would find his true calling among these quiet trees. What better place to kill himself?

            Ethan was 59 years old today. His birthday started well enough. The servants at his mansion threw him the usual empty party. They smiled phony smiles and sang a phony song. He was fine with that. That was what he paid them for. After the party, he went to an appointment with his doctor. Dr. Klein seemed dismayed on the phone the day before. Still, Ethan was not overly concerned.

            Dr. Klein told Ethan that his heart was being slowly strangled by a malignant and uncontrollable growth. The cancer had been mistaken for bronchitis for about a month. It was a mistake that Dr. Klein paid for with his life. After blowing his doctor’s brains across his own office, Ethan felt like being alone and so he had come here. Only after sitting down on this old wooden bench had he decided that this would be the perfect setting to end the advance of the thing growing inside him.

            His phone rang. Ethan shrugged and decided to answer it.

            “Mr. Dorian?” a familiar voice boomed through the line.

            “What is it George?” he replied with a careless rasp.

            “I found Dr. Klein.” George said with a curious tenor.

            “Good for you.” Ethan answered and started to slap his phone shut.

            George continued, “Ethan… I… saw the chart.”

            Ethan had no answer. He held the phone in still silence.

            “I read the prognosis. How the hell could you get cancer?”

            “I don’t know George.” Ethan answered quickly.

            There was a pause that lasted several seconds and when George spoke again he seemed to be intrigued.

            “Where are you?”

            Ethan smiled. “I’m at that little park in midtown. You remember the one? The place we iced the Bellani brothers.”

            “Ah…” George answered. “How could I forget?”

            “I think I’m gonna kill myself now George. You’ve been a friend to me. I want you to know that I appreciate that.”

            Ethan’s dry tone seemed to stun the large man but after a second, George replied firmly.

            “Ethan… I need you to calm down. I need you to listen to me.”

            Ethan ended the call.

            He turned the ringer off and set his cel phone on the top of the wooden table in front of him. His chest was burning again. He could feel the cancer swimming inside like a captive serpent struggling for a freedom coming too soon. Ethan shut his eyes and waited for the pain to pass. In the darkness he found behind his eyelids, Mr. Ethan Dorian found a peace he had never known. He thought for an instant that he could see something bleeding through the shadowy murk… something silver… or white stretched across his vision… but it was gone in an instant… replaced by a sentiment he had not faced in many… many years… fear.

            He opened his eyes to the world and to his realized fear. Something had changed that he could not place… something was somehow different now than it was a moment ago. What could it be? He puzzled to recognize the difference when it suddenly found him. The swing was silent. The boy stood beside him… just a few feet away.

            Their eyes met and Ethan gasped. The blue he found within the child’s stare was so perfect that it was hardly believable. It was a hue that he could never remember seeing before… as though only now had he discovered blue at all.

            “Are you ok mister?” Danny asked with sincere concern.

            Ethan had no answer… and yet he spoke.

            “No… no I’m not.”

            “Are you sad?” Danny asked curiously.

            “I’m going to die.”

            The boy seemed confused by this.

            “Why?” he asked with the voice of an angel.

            He thought about that for a moment.

            “Because… because my heart is bad.”

            “Your heart?” Danny whispered.

            The boy’s mother slowly stepped up beside him and smiled politely to the stranger. She took her son by the shoulder and spoke in Ethan’s direction.

            “I’m sorry. I hope he wasn’t bothering you. We’ve told him a thousand times not to…well… I’m sorry about that.”

            She began pulling Danny with her as she turned to walk away. Ethan admired this woman. She seemed to be a good mother… caring… attentive…

            “Oh he was no bother. In fact, I should apologize for bothering him. I suppose playgrounds are for children after all.”

            She didn’t seem to know how to reply to this and so she just nodded and led Danny away. Ethan watched them go in silence until their Chevy Blazer faded down a winding gravel road. He was thankful for such a soothing moment on the last day of his life. He was glad that it would end so pleasantly.

            Dorian pulled his silver berretta from the inner pocket of his long black coat. He thumbed the safety off and stared at it for a moment. Taking a deep breath, the condemned man took a firm grip on his weapon and aimed it directly at his right temple. He was preparing to finally pull the damn trigger and get this whole thing over with when he glanced down to his phone.

            On the digital display a note read, “17 New Messages”.

            He rolled his eyes, blew out a frustrated breath and slapped the gun down on the table. He was not about to leave this world with that giant oaf calling his phone every 15 seconds. What a sight that would be for the coroner. Sure, he was going to die today but that didn’t mean he had to make it any more enjoyable than necessary for the police department. He was going to put an end to this nonsense and then get on with eternity.

            “George! I… am… committing… suicide! Leave… me… the… fuck… alone!”
            The large man did not hesitate at this outburst.

            “Carrollton… 1972…”

            The oddity of these words struck Ethan as both mystifying and infuriating.

            “What? What the hell are you…”

            George continued, “You remember Carrollton? We drove all night… picked up a couple of hitchhikers. You told me that was the first time you ever cut a man’s head off… and you sure as hell did… clean off. You remember what that looked like? Smelled like?”

            He had Dorian’s attention.

            “I… remember…”

            George pressed on, “You remember that trip we took to Venezuela the summer of ’84? All those pretty girls… remember how they tasted? Remember how they screamed?”

            Ethan could feel his blood warming. The memories he shared with this man stirred a dormant place within his dying heart… and he found himself reliving the horror they had unleashed upon this world… savoring these moments of carnal malevolence.

            George persisted.

            “Remember our trip to Somalia? Remember what it felt like to bathe in their blood?”

            Machine guns hummed their familiar hymns; machetes drummed a thumping beat and the screams of a dying village echoed through the cold catacombs of Ethan’s memory. He could still taste the African dust between his teeth… still smell the putrid remnants of flesh stripped bones. He smiled.

            “What exactly is your point George?” he muttered callously.

            George waited a moment and then replied in the same calm tone, “Simple… You aren’t dead yet.”

            This conversation continued on for some time before George had convinced his employer that there may still be days worth living. It would be that thought that would lead Dorian towards an obsessive fascination with the boy he had met at this park… and it would also be that thought that would spark an interest in this wealthy madman that he would never have otherwise considered. These would lead him to a place far from his Texas home… far from flat lands and warm skies… These would lead him to a meeting that offered promises beyond his own belief… in a place… called…

Montana.

(To be continued)