The Hunted

1. Rain, Rain, Go Away, Come Again Another Day

I was running down the streets of Belleville, New Jersey. My apartment building that I had with my close friend Ray Toro was about three miles away, and I had missed the bus, so I was hoping I could find a taxi or something, but I was screwed. We had shitty fall weather which involved the pouring of rain which was falling down on me right now. I was fucking terrified of storms. There was this time when I was younger, still living with my mom and dad before they split up. They would always get into arguments, Dad’s voice would boom like a storm and ever since then, thunder freaked me out.

I think there was a logical thing about running through thunderstorms, that you’d get shocked by lightning, I didn’t care, I just wanted to get home. There was this other issue, about me being the in the dark. There’d be things I saw, things I heard. People said I was schizophrenic, hell doctors even told me so. They put me on medications that’d stop the ‘delusions’ but they never went away. I ran across a street, I could hear neighbourly, or stray dogs barking and howling at the rain. Cars whizzed by, obviously this wasn’t a storm that would be a good one. This was a bad storm.

The wind, damn, that wind was powerful, it almost threw me backward. For being only 5’5” that’s some powerful wind. I heard of wind knocking midgets down, but I wasn’t a midget. I turned down a road and continued running straight forward. I was pretty sure that my phone would be wrecked since my jeans had long been soaked through. I yelped when I ran into something big and hard. I put my hand against it and pushed myself back, it was a statue, and it was a statue of a gothic architecture gargoyle-lion-thing. For a second I thought it was real, but then I noticed there was no glint in its carved out eyes.

I looked forward through the thick rain and saw big wooden doors of a church. I looked around a bit and ran up there. Maybe my all heavenly friend Ray would be here. Ray had been trying to convince me that he was my guardian angel for the longest time, but I never believed him. Sometimes I thought maybe he was just a delusion too. I pushed open the heavy wood doors with that weird churchy design of wrought iron mixed in and entered a church.

The inside was cold, very cold. I wasn’t expecting a place like this to be cold. I had never been to this church. There was a seating room right through the large doors, and weird light came through the rain covered stained glass windows. There was a mens’ bathroom to the left of the seating area, and a womens’ bathroom to the right, also a coat closet. At the far side of the room there were glass walls that lead to the cathedral, which was empty but still lined with rows and rows of pews.

“H-hey there, Jesus.” I said to a little wooden crucifix up above each doorway. “You mind if I stay here throughout the storm?” I asked humorously. When Jesus didn’t reply, I figured he was cool with this. I walked through the room toward the cathedral. The pews were so shiny and blank, empty. Lightning struck and the stained glass along the walls and the high ceiling lit up in a rainbow of colours. Some way it was beautiful, and other ways it was disturbing. There were candles lit up in the front, underneath the very large crucifix. There was the little place where the priest would hold sermons and speak to the churchgoers. I went fairly far forward and sat near the front row, the candles were burning brightly. Wax had been dripping down them, so they had to have been burning for a long time. I was surprised that the wick hadn’t burned out from the hot wax corrupting the flame. I shivered a little bit and looked around. There were cement pillars along the walls, those little plaques with the little story carved in as pictures explaining what happened to Jesus and when he was resurrected. I wasn’t really religious per say, but I had some beliefs. I leaned back against the backrest of the pew and sighed. I was soaked. I then took off my jacket and my over shirt, that left me in my somewhat drenched beater and my jeans, which I wouldn’t take off my jeans in a fucking church. No way!

I pulled my knees up. Was it sacrilegious to sleep in a church too? I wasn’t so much as homeless, just far from home. I sighed and put my forehead against my knees, closing my eyes for just a second. I could hear something, like an angry rushing of water, or a rockslide. Something loud, coming closer, faster toward me.