Conga Line of the Dead

Prologue or The start of Peters beginning

"I'm the only one that sees you,
And I can't do much to please you
And it's not yet time to meet the lord above."
THE WHITE STRIPES

For Tarah: There...see? I did the thing....Happy now?

The huge wooden door before him wouldn't budge but Peter Worthers continued to struggle against it. He noticed that there was an unusually large translucent green looking 'lock' in place; the reason for the door giving him so much trouble, how it had be put there during the excitement was anyone's guess.

He lifted the large sword that had rested by his side into the air and struck its huge broad blade against the lock. The result was a huge spark as if the lock was made of gunpowder, it was more real than he had expected.

The girl beside him backed away from the sparks, pleading with him to keep trying, and that is exactly what he did as another spark resulted; only this time the impact vibrated though the length of steel to his arms and spread through his weak body. This made him pause a second, shaking his head as if to clear the vibrations from it, and clearing the beads of sweat that were rolling down his face.

He hit the lock again, then as if a mad man attempting to escape a dungeon he had been thrown into, he began to lift the heavy sword over his head and bring it down on the lock over and over and over again without breath or pause.

He blinked a moment both to stop the sting of the sweat in his eyes and to make sure he was not dreaming. A glance to the floor showed that the lock was indeed off, nothing but dents in the door where it had been.

With the sword clutched in his right hand and the girl assisting him, they both heaved against the door. It was heavier than he expected and it cracked open as a shaft of brilliant white light came through lighting the destruction behind him.

The light behind the door was plentiful and this excited him as he continued to struggle, thinking he would surly die from pure exhaustion, but soon had pulled the door open enough for him to get through.

Peter took a breath he didn't know he had been holding, tightened his already solid grip on the handle of the sword and with the girls assistance walked into the brilliantness from the dead and clammy feel of the house to the cool of outside.

He blinked a few times, using his free hand to shield his eyes from the artificial flood lights from police cars and fire trucks which shone on him in an attempt to blind him.

His vision seemed to clear as his eyes adjusted and he saw where he was, standing on a stone front entrance way to the old house, the girl beside him looking about as bad as he felt.

Beyond them he noticed a large group of people, some with video cameras and microphones, all stood there looking at them in silence. After what seemed like the longest time of nothing but silence the police and EMS rushed up to them in almost what seemed like slow motion.

Peter looked around at the group, relieved at the apparent end of his ordeal. The long sword he held in his hand, which seemed feather light before, now suddenly seemed to weigh a ton and he let the metal fall from his grip with a loud metallic clank on the stone foundation below.

The girl threw her arms around his neck thanking him for his help over and over again, but he couldn't hear it and with the last bit of his strength, he fell to a heap on the stone floor as everything faded to black around him.

One eye opened, then the other.

Slowly everything came into focus and both eyes opened at the same time. The loud thumping Peter heard wasn't from the room around him but in his own head, his over amplified heartbeat. No wonder it hurt so much.

He was alive, that much he knew, exactly what condition he was in was another question. The all-white room he was in was a clear indication that he was in a hospital room.

As if someone knew that he had woke up at that exact moment the door to the room opened and a burly looking police officer walked in.

In the time it took for him to close the door, Peter could see a media mob outside, and could hear the questions drifting through as they all spoke at once, flash bulbs going off like fireworks.

"How does he feel?" a female voice asked.
"Who this some sort of terrorist attack?" a male this time.
"Where are the others who came with him? The woman and young boy?"
"Can you tell us what happened?"

The officer closed the door as quietly as he could and smiled at Peter as he walked over to him.

"I'm Officer Delorme." He introduced himself calmly, "Nice to see you alive son. Looks like you and your girlfriend took quite a beating."

"Ashley? Is she..." he asked as the though suddenly occurred to him, the raspy gasp of his own voice surprised him and for a moment he wondered if someone else had spoken.

Delorme cut in, "Both her and her son are fine and she is extremely vocal in saying you are to thank for that." He took a few more steps into the room to stop before the end of the bed. "Look, I gotta tell you, she told us quite a story in there, but I want to hear your side. I was hoping you could fill quite a few blanks for me and hopefully tell me a story that actually makes... I don't know....sense."

Peter tried to smile at the officer but it took too much effort so he gave a small nod. On the small table near his bed he noticed a Dixie cup of water sitting next to a pitcher, he took a drink from it and spoke.

"I really don't know what to tell you." Peter answered honestly, "Don't know where to start."

"Why don't you start at the beginning; that's as good a place as any." the officer suggested, taking out a small pad of paper and a pen from his shirt pocket with one hand and with the other produced something that he set on the table beside the water pitcher.

Peter noticed the half burnt form of a Spider-Man Pez dispenser looking back at him which made him smirk, a single tear ran down his cheek.

"You want the beginning?" he painstakingly motioned to a nearby chair at his side, "Have a seat. You're going to need a lot more paper than that because its a long story, a little weird and somewhat heroic if I do say so myself, but it would make one hell of a book...."