The Florencia Lozano Homepage - Fan Fiction
AFFLICTION
BY TROG |
CHAPTER
23 |
CHAPTER 23
Todd opened his eyes and laid awake in the darkness. A dim night light by the bedside cloaked the room in gloomy light and long, black shadows. Looking over at Tea he smiled at her beauty in repose, at her delicate breathing, her feminine softness, her sensual lethargy. In the past, he had imagined feeling this way, being with someone that made him feel completely loved, someone who desired him and forgave him with a love so tangible and trusting he could feel it clinging to him like a second skin as he laid beside her. Tea mattered in his life...not only making it tolerable and hopeful...but even wonderful.
A low rustling came out of the darkness and Todd sat up anxiously, looking around for the source of this strange sound. There was movement coming from a dark, hidden corner when Todd noticed a tall shadow that rose slowly from the floor like some grotesque and monstrous silhouette. Shivering with fear, Todd clasped the covers with his hands and pulled them toward him and Tea, covering their vulnerable nakedness as the figure slowly approached the bed, cloaked in darkness.
As the tall, hooded presence towered above them at the foot of the bed , Todd noticed a thin, pale hand rising up toward its head pushing the hood back revealing his face. It was Aaron Blackmoor standing there staring coldly and silently at Todd.
His cold, blue eyes moved to Tea, softening a bit, but then they turned back to Todd blazing with rage.
“You can’t have her....she’s mine,” said a deep and mellifluous voice that echoed strangely in the room.
Todd looked at Tea, but she was still sound asleep though the image spoke in a loud, bold voice.
“Tea...baby...wake up,” said Todd, shaking her softly, but still she did not awaken. Todd looked down at her and wondered if she had been drugged.
“You’ll never have her, Toddie boy....she’s mine,” said another voice, a voice that Todd had not heard in many years, a voice that iced the blood in his veins and made him shake with terror...a voice that he thought had died with the man who possessed it.
When Todd looked up he saw Peter Manning standing there instead of Aaron, smiling malignantly.
“What...who....what the hell do you want?” asked Todd as he dragged his hand through his hair with fear and confusion. “You’re dead...this is only a stupid dream ...and Tea is mine. Tea loves me...and you can’t have her. You took everything from me, you bastard...but you can‘t take her...she loves me,” said Todd in a shaky voice.
“Poor, stupid, Todd...you just never learn, do you, boy? That delicious little, Latino whore is mine, Todd. All your women leave you, Toddie...they leave you when they realize what you are....that you’re just like me.”
“NO! I’m nothing like you...and Tea won’t leave me,” shouted Todd.
Peter Manning laughed maniacally as Todd squirmed with the fear of a child, covering his eyes.
“You’re just like me, my boy! Abusing women, trashing your own children...YOU ARE ME!”
“NO!” screamed Todd, closing his eyes and shaking his head wildly. When he opened his eyes again Peter Manning was gone and the room was quiet accept for the figure of Aaron Blackmoor who stood at the bottom of the bed again.
“Tea is mine...and you can’t have her,” he said as he raised his right arm and pointed a shiny pistol in Todd’s direction. A smoky mist rose all around them as Aaron Blackmoor took careful aim.
Terror gripped Todd and he found himself unable to move. He wanted to protect Tea, and himself, but his slumbering limbs seemed unwilling to do the bidding of his mind and he watched helplessly as Aaron slowly moved his aim from Todd to Tea. A loud shot rang out in the darkness, a flash of light ignited from the end of the gun as Todd instinctively leapt in front of Tea’s sleeping body.
Suddenly Aaron Blackmoor disappeared, faded into the dark mists hovering in the room and Todd felt life returning slowly to his body. His mind felt lucid and alert as he turned to Tea, but when he looked down beside him, he saw only a body covered with a white, wrinkled sheet with a red, bloody stain soaking through at the head. Reaching out he grabbed the hem and pulled it back quickly and underneath he saw the corpse of Ben Davidson , cold, stiff and decaying and he shrank away in terror and disgust.
“TEA!” he shouted, looking around...but she was gone.
When Todd turned back to face the corpse he noticed that it seemed to be moving. It was shrinking and the skin was becoming softer and golden as the short, dark hair started to grow out quickly into a long, dark and silky mane, covering the white pillow and Ben’s handsome face softened, melted and slowly morphed into Tea’s beautiful, sleeping visage.
She lay their soft and quiet when suddenly she opened her eyes and looked up at him smiling with radiant life. As she sat up she reached out her hand to touch his face when another shot rang out in the darkened room and Todd noticed a small black hole in Tea’s forehead. Closing her eyes she fell limply into his arms as blood started dribbling from her forehead. Todd cried out as he pressed his fingers into the tiny hole in her forehead trying to keep the blood from spilling out, but the more he compressed the wound, the harder it bled until finally her face was tainted with the red death. The blood moved downward, covering her body like molten lava tinting everything in its path in a wet, crimson hue, as it soaked the sheets she was wrapped in, then the bed they laid in until finally the entire room was like a red, bleeding wound. Todd looked at his hands and they too were soaked with the blood of Ben Davidson and Tea.
“TEA! TEA!,” he screamed, holding her lifeless body in his arms desperately, “don’t leave me...please...don’t leave me..”
Tea shot up in bed, awakened by Todd’s chilling screams in the dim light. Turning a lamp on quickly she noticed that Todd was curled up tightly like a knot at the edge of the bed, wriggling wildly and calling out her name.
“Todd...Todd....querido,” she whispered, touching him softly, being careful not to startle him into sudden wakefulness knowing how dangerous that could be from their past.
Todd’s eyes flew open and he sat up frantically looking around at the clean white walls of the well lighted room. Looking down at his hands he noticed that they were clean, without a trace of the blood that had covered them so hideously only seconds earlier. Finally he turned to Tea with trepidation.
She was sitting up beside him, serene and beautiful. Reaching out his fingers he caressed her perfect forehead and looked into her loving, luminous eyes with relief. Pulling her forcefully into his arms and hiding his face in her neck he gasped her name.
“Tea...don’t leave me...please!”
“Todd...you were just having a nightmare. I’m right here, amor...I’m not going anywhere,” she said, rocking him against her.
“It was just a dream...a stupid dream,” he whispered as he slowly regained control of his consciousness.
“Yes...that’s all it was,” said Tea pulling away from him and caressing his hair gently. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Todd stared at her then looked down at his hands again.
“It was just a dumb dream, Tea...it made no sense. It was about death...about Ben.”
“You’re probably nervous about tomorrow, querido, about the service and the funeral.”
“Yeah....I guess....but...Peter Manning was in too.”
Tea sensed that his extreme reaction to this dream somehow involved his father.
“Perhaps, Todd...you’re anxious about seeing Dr. Woolf. Your appointment is in a few days.”
Todd looked away from her and laid back against the headboard, closing his eyes.
“What if he can’t help me, Tea? You know...I use to think that if I could just tell someone about what Peter Manning did to me...about the disgusting stuff he inflicted on me....that I’d be...cured, you know. But I told you, Tea...and...and he’s still in my nightmare’s. Laughing at me. Taunting me. Trying to destroy me.”
Tea leaned back and laid against him.
“Perhaps...Dr. Woolf can help you to understand your dreams, amor. I don’t think you’re sick...you don’t need to be cured...but, I think you need to confront your father and your past once and for all.”
“How? He’s dead! I’ll never be able to tell that depraved son of a bitch what I think of him...what I’d like to do to him,” said Todd in an angry voice, punching his fist into his palm, turning away from her.
Tea turned to him and gently pulled his face in her direction.
“Querido...don’t turn away from me. I know what he did to you...and it doesn’t change how I feel about you. I love you....I’ll always love you. Peter Manning has no power over my heart....only you do.”
Todd’s eyes misted at her words and her strong and generous heart.
“What if I turn out to be just like him, Tea? Look at all the things I’ve done....look at what I did to my kid? Tea...sometimes I‘m so scared. I’m so scared that I‘ll wind up being like him,” he whispered.
Tea leaned over and put her arms around him.
“Amor...Peter Manning died being the same evil man he’d been his whole life. He never had the strength to be better...but you do. Your strong Todd...and I know you want to be better then he was. That’s the difference. Rising above your past, wearing that scar on your face every day of your life...that takes incredible strength...it’s that part of you that I first fell in love with.”
Todd held her more closely.
“Don’t leave me, Tea....I love you so much.”
Tea stroked his hair playfully.
“Querido...you need to get some sleep.”
“I don’t think I can....I don’t want to have another dream like the last one.”
Tea reached over and turned off the lamp. She laid back and pulled his head down to her breast as she felt his arms circle her waist tightly and felt his body relax against hers.
“I’ll watch over you tonight, mi amor...I’ll protect you. I’ll fight your devils with you. Sleep, my love...sleep.”
to be continued...
2002 Copyright by Trog
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