Brutally biting cold chewed painfully into Doug Riddick’s bones as he sat in the icy darkness of the narrow alley. A sudden shudder jostled his spine, making him huddle tighter around himself and puff out a nearly solid veil of breath. He thought of the Jack London story about a luckless man who froze to death in an Alaskan wasteland after helplessly watching the fire he had started with his last match be snuffed out by a patch of snow loosed from an overhanging branch. His fate decided, the man simply made himself comfortable in the snow, grew warm and lazy-feeling, then drifted off to eternity. Which was precisely what Doug wanted to do.
He pressed his chin deeper into the nook of his folded arms and stared again across the street to the tidy three-story townhouse where Sarah Turnberry once lived.
Sarah, the girl he loved with every ounce of his being. Sarah, the girl who agreed to marry him by smiling Heaven’s brightest smile and gleefully leaping into his arms. Sarah, the girl he had physically and mentally mutilated beyond human repair in a blizzard of exploding glass and flying metal a month ago when he lost control of his car while playfully grabbing her knee. Sarah, the girl he had killed an hour ago to release her from a termless suffering she was incapable of understanding.
"Sarah," he whispered. At the sound of her name his heart died in his chest. He prayed that the rest of him would soon follow.
***
Before the accident, all Doug knew of Limboland was that it was a dingy, defiled sector covering some five square blocks of the city’s south side that had been abandoned by decent people and given over to junkies, drunks, thieves, pimps and other villainous outcasts who were shunned elsewhere. It was a region of gutted buildings, tumbledown crack houses, sleazy bars, and vermin-infested flophouses - a perverse playground where wicked fantasies could be played out any hour of any day.
Limboland also confined scores of hopeless souls who had been driven by utter despair or fathomless guilt to entomb themselves within its wretched dungeons. And now one of them, Doug had been drawn to this huge open grave oozing depravity. To him, it was a fitting place.
Pure chance introduced him to Tony Pedura his first day in Limboland. Tony simply walked up to him as he sat brooding in a rubble-filled corner of a vacant lot.
"You’re new here, huh?" Tony had said. "Welcome aboard, pal." Doug ignored him, and Tony promptly extended a grimy hand containing a crumpled package of peanut butter crackers. "Here, take some." Doug’s response was a hard, hostile stare. He turned away, but Tony sat down on a slab of ruptured concrete and continued talking.
"My name’s Tony Pedura, and if you’re going to call this place home, there’s a few things you should know…" He concluded five minutes later. "So…this is our territory, and the law figures we’re as good as in jail as long as we keep inside the borders. I mean, who the hell we gonna mug in this hellhole? Each other? But you’ll be wise to stay within the boundaries. The cops are thick as fleas on the fringes, and once you’re known here, they’ll beat you brainless and leave you to rot in the street if they catch you outside. That’s the best advice I can give you, even though you didn’t ask for it."
By the time Tony had finished, Doug’s resentment had cooled considerably. He nodded and offered his hand. "Thanks. My name’s Doug Riddick."
That night the two shared the warmth of a small fire and a large bottle of cheap wine while Tony told Doug what had driven him to Limboland. He laughed as he told his story - a cold, brittle, lifeless laugh laced with self-contempt; the laugh of a man who intended to spend eternity torturing himself.
Like Doug, Tony Pedura had come to Limboland by choice. Until late autumn two years ago, he had been a driver for a local moving company that serviced clients within the tri-state area. The work was steady and he received a nice pay raise each year. He, his wife, and four kids were comfortably settled in a modest home on the city’s east side.
"I kept telling her I’d fix it tomorrow…or after my next haul," Tony had said, his eyes pinched with incalculable torment. "She told me a hundred times that the wiring in that damned furnace was faulty…that something was going to happen. Hell! I knew the wiring was bad. I could see that myself. But I always told her I’d take care of it later, see?"
Tony’s voice had dragged to a stop there. His throat thickened, roadblocking the words. He had to take a long pull from the bottle before he could force them out. "The…last thing I said to her before I left for work that day was…’Shut up, you nagging bitch! I said I’ll fix the damned thing when I get around to it!’
"That’s verbatim, Doug, a word-for-word quote. Can you believe I’d say something like that to her? Can you?"
Doug had no answer. And Tony wasn’t expecting one.
"That was November…just a few days before Thanksgiving and colder than hell. The furnace exploded…went up like a torch. They didn’t have a chance…I killed all of them. And now I’m here. And if I could find a worse place than this on earth and still be alive, that’s where I’d be because I don’t even deserve to die."
Tony cried then. He curled into a ball with his hands wrapped around his gut and cried in a long, God-abandoned wail.
It was the same hell-created sound Doug constantly heard screaming within himself.
***
In the time they spent together, Tony taught Doug the necessary survival tactics for the street: the areas of Limboland to keep to and to keep away from; who to trust and who not to among their crowd of peers; where to go when a brutally cold night could kill you. Tony conducted him through the dreary missions where nothing more than a lost, hopeless stare and the stench of the rags you wore entitled you to a bowl of watery soup and a stale slice of bread. And he pointed out others, the ones sponsored by the holy rollers that required some act of contrition and a Praise the Lord before you could put a spoon to your mouth or flop down on a lice-infested mattress stinking of urine.
"You’ll learn soon enough what you have to do," Tony had told him then. "How bone-dead cold you get…how hungry…will teach you damn quick. Before long, you’ll be doing things you wouldn’t have dreamed of doing a few months ago."
…Doing things you wouldn’t have dreamed of doing a few months ago. Tony’s words stuck like darts in Doug’s mind. They quickly took root and flowered into a decision. He would do what a few months ago was unimaginable. He would kill Sarah. He would end her suffering.
He pictured her as he had last seen her in the hospital, maimed to monstrosity and motionless except for the involuntary rise and fall of her chest as she breathed…her heart still pumping blood through familiar channels, but now indifferent and emptied of the warm feelings she so willingly shared…her brain still sending life-sustaining messages to her respiratory system, but nothing else. No memories to laugh or cry over; no fresh ideas to develop or discard as she pleased; no sensation or emotion - not even the one that might have made her hate him for what he had done to her. "There’s always hope," the doctors had said with their mouths. But their eyes said something entirely different. Something that silently declared an irrevocable finality. Those voiceless verdicts that sentenced Sarah, their utter and unequivocal conviction, also sentenced him. Like Tony Pedura, he realized that the magnitude of his crime demanded a self-imposed punishment, a termless imprisonment in a dark soulless pit of degradation and debasement where his terrible guilt would constantly feed upon itself. He needed a living Hell.
Limboland.
But now he could free Sarah. And maybe himself.
***
By canvassing the hospital for a few nights, Doug learned that the same janitor opened the same door on the backside of the building between 11:45 and midnight. Invariably, the man propped the door open with a wedge of wood then dragged two huge plastic barrels of trash to the dumpster in the alley.
At 11:40 Doug stood pressed against the cold bricks of the hospital’s back wing, on the side the door would swing to when the janitor made his nightly trash run. The air was made of ice; a bitter wind scurried angrily about, numbing Doug to the bone. His teeth clattered clumsily against each other; his breath squeezed in and out of his mouth in a series of short rapid hisses. By dusk the temperature had plummeted to zero degrees. It had fallen further since.
At ten of twelve the door creaked open and the janitor scooted out, dragging the trash barrels behind him. The man was intent on his business and Doug had no trouble slipping unnoticed from the shadows and into the dingy basement. Inside, he looked quickly around, then, squeezing at the switchblade wrapped in a frozen fist pushed deep in his jacket, he hurried toward a dimly lit corridor. He had already resolved that once he reached Sarah’s floor, nothing on earth would prevent him from getting to her room and plunging the knife into her heart.
What happened thereafter was of no importance.
The service elevator was conveniently open and empty, and he rode it to the fifth floor. Sarah’s floor. His heart quickened when the door slid open upon the corridor. He clutched at the knife in his pocket, his finger poised on the button that would release the blade. The significance of that impulsive act suddenly slammed home and he wondered if he would actually kill someone to get to Sarah.
He prayed that no one stood waiting to challenge him.
The corridor was empty, which slowed his heart and loosened his grip on the knife. He quickly scanned the hall then forced himself to walk as casually as he could toward the intersection of corridors at the center of the floor and the last obstacle - the nurses’ station. Once there, he could make it to Sarah’s room, running if he had to, before an alarm could be sounded.
A door to his left carried the number 512, which meant that the route to 502, Sarah’s room, lay straight across the crossing corridors. He shortened his stride to deaden the sound of his shoes striking the floor then went to his toes as he approached the nurses’ station. There, her back to him, a slender, dark-haired woman in a blue sweater worked diligently at a file cabinet. Directly ahead, on the wall facing him at the confluence of hallways, a metal wall plaque read 500-509. He eased toward it like a man walking on eggs. The slender nurse, humming a merry tune, remained absorbed with her filing.
Sarah’s room was dark save for a soft bubble of light shed by the small lamp over her bed. And Sarah was there, which chased away a possibility he’d failed to consider until he saw her: that she had been moved to another ward or shipped out to some grimy institution where human vegetables were sent to rot.
Sarah. Lying still upon the bed, the blanket and sheet neatly turned down over her chest. Her arms straight and at rest upon the blanket, hands curled slightly inward. A swathe of bandages covered her face. Only her mouth and her left eye were uncovered, and they were closed.
On his knees at her side, he groped for her hand and raised it to his cheek, then to his lips. Her hand was warm and smooth, and loosed a flood of pleasant memories to swirl through him. But she didn’t respond to his touch, and the rage inside him began again to build.
He struggled to his feet, leaned over the bed, and gently kissed her. Her lips were warm; her breath washed over his cheek like a sweet, munificent balm. When he closed his eyes he pictured her as she had been. And for a moment he smelled the sunshine in her hair and the light floral scent of the perfume she always wore. For a moment she was Sarah again. Smiling. Laughing. Bubbling. Alive with joyful, unbounded exuberance. For a moment.
When he opened his eyes the rage returned.
He drew the switchblade from his pocket, clicked it open, and raised it above her chest. As it passed his eyes he realized he wouldn’t be able to make it descend. The steel of the blade was too cold and indifferent. Too unworthy of her. He returned the knife to his pocket then gently lifted her head to remove the pillow beneath. A final kiss flooded his eyes with tears and narrowed his throat, choking off what he wanted to say to her. All he could do was think the words: I love you, Sarah… Forgive me. He placed the pillow over her face as softly as he could.
She never moved. She simply stopped breathing.
***
It had begun to snow. Doug pulled his knees to his chest and watched the broad white flakes tumble slowly down through the cone of light created by the street lamp in front of Sarah’s house. The cold didn’t seem so painful anymore. The raw burning on his face and hands had disappeared. They now only tingled with a calming numbness that warmed him with a sleepy sense of peacefulness. His eyes began to blink close and he made no effort to stop them.
"Almost, Sarah," he whispered. "It’s almost over."
***
Tony Pedura was worried. He hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Doug tonight. This wasn’t the first time he had disappeared for a spell - he still needed time to himself. But Tony felt a gnawing fear that Doug might not return this time. It was nearly 1:00 a.m. and lethally cold. He’d never survive this night on his own.
Tony decided to look for him.
All Tony knew of Doug’s despair was that it was even more frightful than his own. In his years on the street he had never known anyone as deeply and decidedly committed to desolation as Doug was. Tony long ago realized that telling his own terrible story - telling it to anyone, even himself - kept him sane enough to justly suffer the weight of his punishment. But Doug was different. He had never breathed a word about the horror that had driven him so far beyond salvation. Yet Tony had seen its terrible power churning and thrashing in the hollow wasteland of Doug’s eyes, and he now believed beyond doubt that Doug really did want to die.
While searching the streets, Tony found himself wondering just who it was he was trying to rescue. A nagging sense of reproach had been pecking at his conscience like a hungry crow. It finally forced him to admit that Doug’s utter wretchedness had provided a sliver of hope for himself. He had sensed the chance, still wary and frightened, hiding in the dredges of his mind. But it was growing slowly and steadily: one day he just might be able to rejoin the world of the living. A hope, he knew, that could become manifest only through Doug Riddick. Only through an explicit understanding of his limitless suffering.
Tony quickened his pace through the deserted streets of Limboland.
A few days earlier he had furtively followed Doug well beyond Limboland, to a brownstone on Bellfort Avenue, and had watched him stare solemnly at the building. He surmised that the occupant of the house was the key to Doug’s despair, but he had yet to find the courage to ask Doug. He would tonight, if Doug was there.
Tony turned the corner from Forman Street onto Bellfort and stopped dead in his tracks. A girl was standing in the snow-filled cone of the street lamp, gesturing with a slow, beckoning motion toward an alley on the opposite side of the street. It seemed odd as hell to Tony that a young woman would be waving toward an alley at 1:30 a.m. on the coldest night of the year. But it wasn’t that astonishing fact that sent a frigid shiver racing along his spine. He swore - as he would until the day he died - that the girl was nearly transparent; that he could see right through her.
***
"Doug."
His name swept over him like a warm gentle surf.
"Doug. It’s me. I’ve come for you."
The sweet familiar voice tugged wistfully at him, opening his eyes and pulling them toward the sound.
"Sarah?" His entire being spoke her name, yet his mind didn’t believe what his eyes told him. Was it really Sarah? Or was it a ghost sent by Hell to remind him that his debt was not yet paid?
Then she waved at a wisp of blond hair that had fallen to her forehead. Just as Sarah always did - a casual, reflexive sweep of her hand intended to merely remind the unruly curl that she knew it was out of place. Then she twitched her nose, which pursed her lips, and he knew for certain. It was Sarah.
Sarah, smiling softly as though she knew he was there. Sarah…the Sarah before the accident. Unmarked, unscarred, her face smooth and pink and beautiful. Her arms opening for him.
He struggled to his feet, left the alley and crossed the street. Embracing her filled him with a pure, soothing peace that instantly chased the devouring cold. The numbness, too, melted away. So did the raging agony inside him.
"Sarah… It is you!"
"Of course it’s me, silly. Were you expecting someone else? Perhaps a new girl you found?"
"No…no… It’s just that before…earlier…I…"
Her hand, soft as the falling snow, sealed his lips. "I know," she whispered from a world that made all others pointless. "And now I am free. Don’t you see? And I’m here to free you. I love you, Doug. You didn’t think I’d leave without you, did you?"
He smiled at that.
"There’s forever ahead of us, Doug. Always and forever. Want to come with me?"
He smiled at that, too, and let himself sink into the sparkling warmth of her eyes. He nodded.
A smile, a long kiss, then she eased from his arms. Hand in hand, they walked into the night.
***
Tony found his senses. Eyes bulging outward, he began a mad sprint toward the street lamp. "Doug!… Wait!" he screamed.
What he saw next caused him to skid to a stop. Off balance, his arms raking the air, he toppled to his back and slid toward the gutter of the snow-filled street. His heart pounded furiously as he watched the shimmering form of the girl turn toward him, smile briefly, then disappear. Pouf - like a candle extinguished by a sudden breeze.
Doug looked back to where Tony Pedura lay sprawled in the street, and Tony froze under the look of pure, radiant joy bathing Doug’s face.
Doug raised his hand. He waved. He smiled. Then he too disappeared.
***
Tony Pedura was clean-shaven; his hair was neatly trimmed. He wore a dark blue suit borrowed from his brother, who had nearly choked on a gasp when Tony appeared at his front door a day earlier. He held five small bunches of flowers against his chest. The money to purchase them had been borrowed from his brother, too. A loan, Tom, he had insisted over his brother’s protest that repayment wasn’t necessary. But Tony had always believed that reparation was necessary for everything. He just hadn’t believed that it was possible for everything.
Now he did. And for that he thanked Doug Riddick.
Everything of earthly reason kept insisting that what he had witnessed that night on Bellfort Avenue could not possibly have happened. But in the roots of his soul Tony knew that it had. He didn’t know how long he had sat on the curb along Bellfort Avenue. Nor did he know how many times the sight of Doug and that lovely translucent girl disappearing into the night had played, rewound, and replayed through his mind. What he did know was that an acceptable explanation of the unexplainable had gradually secured a hold somewhere safe within him. And that explanation was quite simple: There is no explanation. So, either believe or disbelieve.
Tony believed that something powerful and compassionate had granted Doug and his beautiful lady freedom from the misery Doug had caused. The look of pure radiant joy on their faces as they evanesced among the twirling snowflakes beneath the street lamp provided verification for that belief.
And in that moment when he knew he believed, Tony also came to believe that perhaps he too could be freed. Perhaps…just perhaps…he could be granted asylum from his despair. Not because he had earned it, but because he was now willing to ask for a chance at redemption.
Just a chance. That’s all he wanted.
It was mid-morning and fiercely cold, but the sky was clear and a bright sun promised a chance for warmth as the day progressed. For the first time, Tony Pedura stood before the graves of his wife and children. One by one, he knelt before each grave to place the flowers he had brought and to silently ask forgiveness. He then prayed to God for a chance to be with his family again one day.
Just a chance.
Bio:J.E. Deegan taught English in public and private schools for seventeen years. He has also worked as a journalist and communications specialist. In addition to numerous short stories, he has completed a horror novel and two screenplays.
E-mail: jim_deegan@salcoproducts.com
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