So Long, Not Goodnight

Chapter Thirteen

The once tepid air that was shared between them grew bitter and cold clouding their breaths, so heavy and thick there was a sense of flurries. Although the temperature felt freezing, the candles melted down to puddles and began to run down the wood of the altar. There was a distant chime coming from the clock tower blocks away. They both internally counted them to twelve and then the silence returned. "I can feel her... She's here..." Gerard sat up in a panic and his head rushed pulling all the shadows into a cyclone that spun him around and around as he tried to pull his clothes back on though his fingers felt frozen and stiff, barely able to feel Frank's warmth atop him. 

Frank fell back and also tried to dress and not add to the panic to stress Gerard out more. "What? What do you mean? Who's here?" Frank twisted around looking into each corner of the church not making out any shapes or shadows. 

The name was choking him; Gerard could feel it at the back of his throat but his lips were reluctant to let it pass. Finally he spat it out, "Helena."

Gerard hung onto that last syllable and realized the power her name had over him. A phantom rope crushed his windpipe and he gasped for air, his hands pulling at nothing but air around his neck. His face was pale with fright and turning purple as he slowly was asphyxiating. "Gerard!" Frank screeched and felt up his face and neck, but Gerard kept gasping, his eyelids fluttering and his lips bruising.

Gerard's body crashed to the ground as he tried desperately to gulp for air, hands scratching his throat raw, tearing off his skin trying to free those ghostly hands. Frank ran to the altar in a panic, searching the sea of wax and paper on the pulpit. The rosary was still bleeding and wildly whipping back and forth. Frank reached out and grabbed it in his fist and felt it burn through his skin. "Aghh," Frank gripped it harder and slapped it onto Gerard's throat. 

Steam hissed up from the bleeding flesh as Gerard's airways opened up and a whoosh of air almost burst his lungs. He coughed and sputtered, hacking and hyperventilating. A little bit of color was returning to his face. Frank had trouble deciphering whether his lips were reanimating or smeared with blood. Gerard collapsed back down against the carpeted floor, his chest rising and falling frantically as Frank rose to try to find him some water. "I'll be right back, Gee. Don't move."

Frank kicked open the side door at the end of the row of benches to the right of the chapel and found a small bedroom with a twin bed neatly made and adorned with a bible, minimal furniture, and a small bathroom with a sink, shower, and toilet. There was a dusty ceramic cup next to the faucet that Frank dusted off, rinsed, and refilled from the tap. He quickly retreated back to the altar and stepped down beside Gerard as he noticed there was a cauterization in the shape of the rosary buried in the bloody remains of Gerard's neck and the rosary burned the carpet it sat on so that it was sitting in a pile of ash. Frank got down on his knees and tried to pull Gerard into a sitting position but noticed his body was limp. He willed himself not to panic as he leaned his head down to Gerard's naked chest and felt it's soft rise and fall. He was breathing; he must have just passed out. It wasn't as cold as before, but Frank worried with Gerard's naked torso exposed and his neck wound. 

With all his strength, Frank nestled Gerard's neck into the crook of his left elbow and both of his legs into the other and lifted him from the soiled carpet. He took careful steps to the newly found bedroom and laid Gerard on top of the twin bed, removing the bible and folding the sheets out from under his weight as he repositioned them over him, tucking the stray corners under his shoulders, cocooning him in the thick, red quilt. The dried blood from his throat just camouflaged against the blanket. Through his eyelids, Frank saw the flicker of Gerard's eyes beneath trying to escape and realized he must be dreaming, his head bobbing left then right every so often.