Endgame
       Chapter 15
 

Lying in her bed, in her lighthouse, Danny found no solace in his sleep.

"Wait a minute, Danny. I need to at least leave Rick a note, a letter."

"We need to go, Michelle. You can call him on my cell phone while we ride to the airport, all right--leave him a message."

"Yeah, right, Danny. And say what? 'Hey Rick. It's Michelle. Uhm, the man you think's gonna get me killed is taking me out of the country. I don't know where, and I don't know for how long.' On voice mail, Danny? Come on."

"Do you trust me, Michelle?"

"Of course I do Danny. Just please let me leave Rick a decent explanation. It's the least I can do."

Knowing she was right, he smiled as he stroked her face to remove a stray curl,

"Ok, but hurry up. I don't want to miss our flight."

"What? First, no Beamer and now no private jet?" She flashed him a knowing smile over her shoulder as she walked back towards the house, and he smirked back.

"Nice," was all the retaliation he could muster. Michelle's smile had a muting effect on him. He watched her go in the house.

He would die for her.

"Did you tell her," asks Ray.

"I told her I was wrong. It'll have to do for now. I'll explain everything to her once we are out of here."

"What are you expecting from all of this, Danny? ... you're going to be hunted from both sides."

"What the-

And as he had every night since she left him, Danny rode the wave of the explosion that took her. Once more he had to look out of the rented Corolla’s shattered rear windshield to scream,

"Oh, God,"

as he saw the inferno consuming all. And in the seamless transition exclusive of dreams, he was suddenly...

Crouching to avoid the flames that rolled from the floor to the disintegrating door frames and walls... ready to call out Michelle's name; but his voice faltered briefly as he took in the ceiling above him. He was caught deep underneath an ocean of fire, with its under-belly surface of distorting, rolling, hypnotic waves. The smoke filled his lungs as water. He was drowning, melting, burning.

But unlike all of his previous dreams of this fire, tonight, he found her.

They were on opposite ends of a hall, a burning corridor.

"Danny, help me. Don’t leave me here. Please don’t leave me."

Michelle was not shrieking these words. It seemed as if she could barely get them out between her coughs, but he could hear her anyway, as if she were whispering the words right into his ear. Danny felt the fire sinking into him, and yet Michelle seemed unaffected. The flames were all around her, framing her, yet she did not burn.

"Come get me, Danny. I’m trapped."

"MICHELLE," he screamed.

Danny started towards her but she was gone.

"I’m over here."

She was now above him, on a burning, disintegrating stairwell, the lighthouse spiral stairwell. And too calmly, too factual she said to him,

"I’m dying, Danny... I’m dying."

"MICHELLE! Hold on. I’m comi-

Unlike the other’s, tonight’s dream would not end with the wooden beam falling across his back. Relentlessly, this dream pursued.

The pain, he did not notice as he watched his love coughing, dying, falling to the floor. He craned his neck, pinned by the burning beam, to see Michelle’s eyes still large and luminous in the flames, her hand stretched to meet his as she whispered,

"Hurry Danny, I’m dying. Hurry... please."

Holding Michelle’s dead weight in his arms, Dante stared down, amazed at her, amazed at his own fright. She felt too insignificant, too like hollow bones. Her lips were purple with her face showing tinges of a similar shade. He had thought she was merely cold from wearing the drenched dress for so long. Placing his ear to her chest, Dante paused his own breathing to listen. His eyes slightly widened at the sound returning. It was not her heartbeat or lack thereof, it was the noise of her fluid-filled lungs struggling to find air. From his time in Russia, Dante knew this sound too well. Denial and panic were quickly eroding his reserve.

No, no, no. It is not possible she could have hidden it from me.

But then Dante realized she had not. Even in the rain on top of that lighthouse, it had remained very warm, and yet Dante remembered her constant shivering; inside the small closet as they looked down on his son, walking to his car, in the car, and just moments ago.

Damn it. I thought it was fear or exhaustion.

Grasping her tiny wrist with his thumb and forefinger, Dante held his breath until he felt it, so weak, too weak.

"Michelle," Dante said as he shook her slightly.

Nothing.

"Michelle? Michelle, open your eyes," he demanded, shaking her with more force, angry.

"I do not have time for this."

What he did not have time for, what he did not have strength for was this fight with guilt he thought long buried with the lives he had taken.

"If you had just not gone to the beach that day. Damn it, Mick, satan-spawn indeed.."

Dante lifted her in his arms and quickly carried her out of the bathroom to the guest bedroom. After carefully placing her onto the bed, he noticed the only movements she made on her own were from the chills that possessed her. Dante ran into his bedroom, jerked the down comforter from the bed, and returned to wrap it tightly to Michelle.

"MICHELLE," was the scream that took him away from her.

It was the scream that echoed off of the lighthouse walls as Danny discovered unyielding floor beneath him. Shaking and dripping sweat, he untangled himself from the sheets and weakly crawled back onto the bed. Minutes passed but he could not stop the thundering of his own heartbeat from flooding his ears, could not smooth his jagged breath, could not soothe the thrashing of his heart from encroaching into his throat. The dream would not let go of him. He could still hear her calling him, still see her fragile face, eyes glittering in the flames. He could still see her dying.

Stop it. Push it back. Go back to sleep. It’ll be out of your head by morning.

He knew better.

Turning over to reclaim the pillow to his head, Danny froze as a moan ripped through the silence. His previously racing heart was brought to a momentary stop. So forlorn, another one came.

"I’m dying..."

Oh God, don’t do this to me, please, his mind begged.

He stretched out his left hand, searching for the lamp switch but then remembered the lamp was gone, shattered across the floor. So he brought in the extended arm to underneath his chest, rolled onto his back, and waited. The lighthouse beacon revolved, propelling dimly shifting shadows of gothic proportions throughout the space. This light with which to see, Danny did not want. He shut his eyes.

There it was again, closer. Twice.

He brought both hands to cup his nose, mouth, and chin and breathed deeply. His body heaved as he realized the source of the haunting. It’s a strange place to be when you find relief in your own little insanity. Danny knew his mind’s play of tricks had imposed his dream onto the moan of,

"A fog horn," he whispered as a sigh. And to force his deceiving mind into acceptance, he made himself repeat, "It’s a stupid fog horn."

Unwilling to chance his eyes coming upon what he so feared to see, he shut them, turned over, and prayed,

Just sleep, God. Please. Take this dream away and let me sleep.

God heard.

Reaching into his coat pocket, Dante withdrew his cell phone to dial a number he had hoped not to need.

"Hello?"

"Raz?"

"Yes, Dante, what is it? It is past midnight."

"Would I contact you unless-

"’Who is it,’ is what I should be asking, no?"

"I need you to bring IV’s, oxygen, strong, massive-dose antibiotics-

"Well you seem to know the diagnosis already. What will I be dealing with at such a horrific hour?"

"Pneumonia, advanced. She’s unconscious. Her lungs are failing."

A silence followed. Dante could almost see the consternation dug into his friend’s face.

"That kind of pneumonia does not happen overnight, Dante. Did you learn so little from me?""

"All the more reason for you to get here before I have to attempt CPR," Dante hissed impatiently and pressed "End" before a reply could be given.

If Michelle was to be saved to this earth, he had just summoned her earthly savior.