The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [76]
It was the light of a retractable desk lamp, clamped and extended over a desk-like brown wooden table with a duo of two-drawer grey file cabinets beneath. The drawer of one of the file cabinets was pushed out and open. The figure had dropped to the floor and was now rising, pulling up and over his waistline a pair of cut-off faded blue raggedy jeans, and he was facing the opened file drawer and reaching for it at the same time, hurried.
Max’s gaze darted in a dazed surveillance of his surroundings. It was a miserable place, miserable considering his state of mind but miserable in itself, poorly but efficiently kept for any miserable soul choosing to dwell in it, and it gave Max the feeling that this particular wretch remained at heart a homeless person still, only his cardboard box possessed furniture and a certain sadistic bit of ambience.
The figure reached into the file cabinet drawer, seized something and drew it out, paused for a moment with his bony back halfway towards Max, and then he rotated slowly, both hands gripping a threateningly sizeable handgun, centering and then centered, clicked cocked dead straight into Max’s direction.
“I know who you are,” Max found himself saying. It was a spontaneous remark, but with the light of the desk lamp and an awakened sobriety Max truly recognized the figure; aside from its gaunt and misshapen characteristics, the man presented with himself a ghostly mirror image of Andrew Erlandson. But Max knew better, had expected this, had known better for quite some time.
Simon BoLeve lowered the gun. Just a little. Enough to still mortally wound Max should he choose to indulge his intentions. But the words Max uttered brought a quizzical semblance to Simon’s gaze, and he peered upon Max coldly, questioningly.
And then, “Oh do you?” Simon told him. Even more quizzically, “What do you mean? Where do you know me from? I want to know this, you see, because as you can see, you are about to die. Whether you tell me or not. You may be stalling your death by saying this, but these are not a typical man’s last words. You have my interest. Then you die.”
“Simon,” Max had no time to think things carefully, rationally. But he didn’t want to die and his stakes for surviving were at this point far better than the pastor’s. At this point, his knowledge was all he had, his best defense. “Simon BoLeve is who you are. And you are not a human being like me. You have a special purpose, you haven’t lived a life like I or anyone else has. You have a chance to understand yourself more, from what I have seen of you, since you were an infant. Your heritage is of a different kind. I know who you are.”
Even if Max didn’t know completely, it was enough to openly confound Simon, and the gun he held lowered considerably then and the figure that gripped it darted his gaze around the room until it rested upon a pillowed corner to Max’s far left, where a stack of papers lay sorted and stacked and partially scattered upon a spread bed sheet like a spectral picnic of homework across the corner floor.
At that very same minute, something startled the both of them. It was the exit door, a door centered at the far end of the attic room, the door to the outside roof area.
It was opening.
Max began to cough, violently. A liquid flem escaped from his mouth and he placed a hand over his lips, withdrew the hand, and he realized in horror that he was coughing up blood. The arm with which for the most part held his chest together was drenched with it. His clothing was saturated as though he’d been swimming in a pool of his own blood.
The last thing Max