69 INCHES OF STEEL (6 page)

Authors: Rebecca Steinbeck

CHAPTER TEN

J
onathon pulled up at the front gate of the cemetery. It was still early and the gate was still locked. He looked up out of the windscreen at the charcoal grey clouds that were spitting bullets of rain at the earth below. Lightning bolts flashed through them and thunder roared like a mighty lion and the roar of the lion shook the sky and woke the angels from their sleep. The rain was falling heavier now than it was at his mother’s house and it was much more difficult to see now as it was then but it was time and he knew it. The feeling was in his gut and the feeling one got in their gut was usually right. In fact, it was always right. We just don’t always admit it.

He climbed out of the BMW and went to the gate. A rat scurried across the top of it looking for somewhere dry and it startled him. He caught his breath, jumped the gate like he did the night before, and went to his father’s grave. With drops of rain beating against him like balls of steel, he stood before it and looked at the photo of his dad. It was how he wanted to remember him. Young, good-looking, and minus the scars that were proof his face had indeed been cut to ribbons by a shattered piece of glass. Nothing lasts forever though, especially youth and good looks. And memories of things that were once good and proper. Rain smashed against the photo and the man in it continued to smile. Jonathon watched the smiling man as the wind howled in his ears like a wolf in heat, one that was hoping to find a mate that would satisfy its urge for sex then join it in a bloody kill. The balls of steel continued to smack against him hard and fast. The more that hit him, the more they felt like they had been fired at him by God. He began to wonder if it wasn’t God’s way of punishing him for not believing in Him. How ironic, Jonathon thought, that the Catholic Church’s version of God, the one he had come to doubt and despise with such passion, was proving Himself to Jonathon to be everything he was led by the Catholic Church to believe He was, a vengeful Being that would scare people into believing in Him but one that had actually made Jonathon turn away.

Jonathon looked around the cemetery. He was ready to see his father in all his bloody glory and he wanted him to show himself so they could have it out once and for all and Jonathon could get over the past and on with his life. A bolt of lightning zapped a tree in the far corner of the cemetery and a branch snapped and broke away. Jonathon didn’t flinch, even as the branch crashed to the ground and a gut-wrenching THUD echoed around the cemetery. More bolts of lightning came and more thunder roared, and with each bolt of lightning that stung the cemetery like an electronically charged whip being snapped toward it by the hand of God, it suffered more damage, more hurt, and more pain. Jonathon would not bow though, and he stood his ground against the mighty hand of God whose fury at Jonathon’s disregard for Him would bring the cemetery, and all those buried in it, to its knees. The writer of best-selling horror stories had found himself smack bang in the middle of one written by God who was proving Himself to be a great writer of horror too, one that Jonathon was beginning to think might even be his literary equal, if there was one. As the lightning bolts cracked and the thunder roared and the trees caught fire and the headstones crumbled, Jonathon stood his ground. After all, he was the star of the show. And after all, as his mother had always said, stars never die.

A thunderous roar shook the cemetery all over again and this time the ground beneath Jonathon’s feet began to shake. He looked around for the man he had come to see in the hope he would save and protect him from the evil that was coming for him because that’s what fathers are for and the evil that Jonathon had written about and was now coming to life had to be destroyed and that’s what
else
fathers were for.
Be a man
, Jonathon thought.
Help your son
. The ground shook more now and it felt like fire against Jonathon’s feet. He wanted to run but now was not the time for running. It was time to grow, to go from being a boy to being a man, and real men don’t run. They stand their ground even if that ground was on fire. He looked around the cemetery for his father and saw him standing to his right with two other men in front of a crypt. The men wore black robes and were holding wooden stakes from which flames leapt high into the darkness that surrounded them. One of the men drew a sword from within the folds of his robe and raised it in the air. His father looked back at Jonathon with sadness in his eyes. Tears of blood welled in them then rolled down his cheeks which were scarred from the crash that killed him. The man holding the sword swung it through the air and through his father’s neck, cutting off his head which fell to the ground. Jonathon screamed but no one heard him. After all, the dead don’t hear. His father’s body swayed a bit before it crashed to the ground in a bloody heap. The two men bowed their heads and a dark cloud rose from the depths of Hell, licking its putrid fingers over his father’s headless body and all over the robed men too. It swirled around them all like a small tornado and then it disappeared into the crypt. The two robed men were gone and so was his father.

Jonathon started for the crypt when what sounded like a runaway train approached him from behind. CHUGGA-CHUGGA-CHUGGA. A lightning bolt flashed past him at great speed and it stabbed the demon that was approaching Jonathon from behind in the heart. It let out a horrific roar and it thrashed about, reaching for the lightning bolt, trying desperately to pull it from its heart before it was too late but it
was
too late. The lightning bolt cooked its black heart to a cinder and the demon cried a gut-wrenching cry that woke the dead from their beds of dirt before it turned to dust and was taken away by the powerful wind. The angel turned and threw another bolt of lightning and it stabbed another demon that was approaching Jonathon, this one in the neck and it began to bleed black blood. The demon let out a sickening roar as the souls of a thousand good men were freed from the depths of Hell and made their ways to Heaven. It vanished into a cloud of putrid black smoke and the angel took flight, disappearing into the Heavens that continued to pelt balls of steel at the cemetery below. Jonathon shed tears that stung his skin as they rolled down his cheeks. He looked around the cemetery, hoping for an answer to the question of what in God’s name had just happened.

The Heavens opened again and a ray of light shone down on the cemetery. Jonathon looked up and watched as an angel of extraordinary beauty descended and it came to rest in front of him. He looked into its eyes and could scarcely believe what he was seeing.
The angel who was once the girl he loved and who he hoped to marry one day and who died in the other car when his father drifted onto the wrong side of the road smiled. “We have to endure the pain and hurt that comes hand in hand with the privilege of being on Planet Earth for our dreams to come true, Jonathon. And now that
your
dream has come true, it’s time to forgive your father and move on. God speed my friend, and may good fortune be your guide.” With that the angel took flight and disappeared into the sky which was grey with wet and stormy clouds again, but to Jonathon it was as much the light of the girl who was rewarded with a place in Heaven for enduring the pain and hurt that comes hand in hand with the privilege of being on Planet Earth. Yes his dream had come true, but at what price to those around him?

“Jonathon?”

It was Serena. She had seen everything and heard it too. She had dropped the book called THE BOOK OF DARK DREAMS and written by Jonathon’s father next to the cemetery gate, unable to share it with him because she loved him and because his father was gone now anyway so it didn’t matter. She ran to him and they embraced each other. She held him close and looked over his shoulder at all the headstones that marked the graves of dead men, women, and children, many of whom had gone to Heaven, some of whom were sure to have burnt in Hell. All of a sudden there was a great whooshing sound and a mighty, blood-thirsty roar. Serena screamed and Jonathon turned around. He saw a demon so putrid and dark it made him sick to his stomach and it approached him at a great speed with its jaws open wide and its razor-sharp teeth ready to bite into his flesh and tear his body to pieces. Here was a great writer who had spent much of his time writing stories of horror in the hope it might help him get over the
real
horror, that his father had killed the girl he loved, and now, a decade later, he found himself facing it all over again. And now, in his heart, he knew this was the moment he had been waiting for all his life and it was a moment that would decide his fate forever. It was time to be a man. It was time to face his father.

Jonathon let go of Serena and stepped toward the demon which was spitting flames of fire now and whose razor-sharp teeth bore the bloody flesh of the men, women, and children it had feasted upon. “I’m not afraid of you, Dad,” he said to the demon that came to a screeching halt in front of him and it roared and writhed in pain before vanishing in a cloud of putrid smoke and into the nether regions of Hell. Sweat dripped from Jonathon’s brow and adrenalin poured through his veins. He looked out of the corners of each eye for any sign of it but the cemetery was quiet now apart from the rain and he found none. When he was sure the demon was gone, he took in a deep breath of fresh air then let it out and with it came ten years of pain and hurt and anger that had welled inside him and he burst into tears as the load was lifted off his shoulders once and for all. He fell to his knees and cupped his face in his hands. Tears streamed down his face and he sobbed uncontrollably. For many years he had been free financially to do whatever he wanted and to go wherever he felt the want to go. It wasn’t until now that his soul was just as free as the man whose body it inhabited. All of a sudden he thought about Serena. He wiped away the tears and looked back at her. She was shivering as the cold air licked her wet skin and cowering from the bullets of rain that were still being pelted from the clouds above. He knew in that one moment he was in love with her and might also probably love her, but deep down he wondered if he could truly love anyone because the man he looked up to and the one who had taken his girlfriend with him one fateful night a decade ago loved no one but himself. The tears came back again as everything about what had just happened became crystal clear to him and the only dream he ever really had and one that had been lost over the last ten years between the dollars and cars and holidays to exotic places, not to mention the horror of losing a loved one let alone losing her in such a violent way, was the dream come true the angel had spoken of, the one in which he would love again, truly and from the heart. But it was more than that even. He knew this was his chance to be more than just a writer of horror. It was his chance to write a love story. One that would touch the hearts of those who read it and one that would be inspired by his own life as much as everything else he had written. He thought of his mother and father and the love they shared, the happiness and laughter too. He thought of his grandparents who in spite of everything they were told was right and wrong by an ignorant and at times arrogant institution still found it in their hearts to smile at each other and in their smiles they each saw the love the other had for them.

Serena watched him watch her. She wanted him and she knew she loved him because of how bad she felt for him, knowing what he had been through but feeling better knowing how strong he had become, so strong that he could stand up to the darkness his father idolized and move on from it. And after everything
she
had been through, after her
own
fight with the darkness that was so easily embraced by so many, it amazed her that her heart could be so full of love for a man she had only just met. But in all reality it wasn’t so amazing after all because she had known him for many years through the words he wrote on a page, words that said as much about him as they did about the characters he wrote them for. Perhaps what
really
amazed her was that he seemed to feel the same way about her as she did about him. At least she hoped he did.

He climbed to his feet and walked toward her in the pouring rain. With each step forward another brick was torn down and with every brick that was torn down there was a growing realization that his heart had found a home. He came to Serena and they threw their arms around each other and pressed their lips together. Their hearts beat as one again and they would for all time, proving once and for all that underneath the layers of life and all the lessons we had to learn from it, there was an energy that is in all of us and it
is
us and it is an energy that is only one thing. It is only love.