Blink {Featured}

Chapter Twenty

JOHN FINNIE (34y) JANUARY 2022, 08.06

The world was fuzzy and blurry. John blinked his eyes a few times, real eyes. For some reason he could feel the tickling sensation of his eyelashes touching his cheeks when they fluttered. My God, she'd done it. He was alive. The thought seemed out of place. A tear streamed down his cheek and he tried to think why but came up with nothing.

The last thing he recalled was... was... darkness clouded over his memories. He remembered the vision, yes. The black and white cops searching for someone, the girl getting into that car and speeding away, the old lady who'd choked him and spewed that crazy drabble... and a haunting voice saying, 'Tigeeerrrrrrrrr'. Goosebumps raised the hairs on his arms.

A premonition of evil shuddered through his body. Little Charlie was in danger. How or why was hard to recall. Who had told him that? Who had said, 'Tigerrrrrr' with such a bone chilling voice? The blurs he saw came into focus slow, and he spotted machinery, shiny things and tubes all around him. These things were strange and alien, like he'd landed in another world where technology was much more advanced than on earth.

The contents of his stomach roiled and grumbled in him. What the hell was going on? Terror-stricken, he tried to sit up, to kick off the sheets draped over him, but only his finger twitched. Machines started beeping loudly and flashing red and green lights. Again he mustered all the strength he could and only his smallest finger moved. The machines went wild with bleeping and flashing.

Someone burst through the door, but John could only see the top of it opening--a strange door he'd never seen before.

'John?' Mam's voice was choked with emotion, and sounded more wearied than he remembered it, but there was no doubt. It was her.

'John! John!' she shouted and her face came into view, tear streaked and more wrinkled than what he recalled. And then it was as if a stone plopped in the depths of his stomach--heavy, rough, nauseating. Something bad had happened. Why did Mam look so much older?

'My boy,' she wept, clutching at the sheets covering him and pressing her face into his chest. Her sobs mixed with muffled laughter. He wanted to tell her it was okay, everything was fine, but his lips did not obey his commands. All he could do was blink and watch her back jerking and heaving, and twitch his fingers. It was darn frustrating. Somewhere inside there was that feeling of dé ja vu, as if this had happened before.

More tears streamed down his face and his heart ached, broken over something, but for the life of him he couldn't say what.

'Remember me,' a voice whispered in his head, a sweet angelic voice, and it called forth fresh tears. Shit, he was forgetting something very important, someone very important, and Mam was so worked up over something. John twitched his fingers, and a corner of his mouth moved.

Ha! Progress. Whatever was going on, he'd beat it.

'My boy,' Mam said, sitting up and looking at his face. With her hand she stroked his cheek, smiling like she'd won the lotto. So maybe things weren't all that bad. She looked happy. Mam kissed his eyes and cheeks. It broke something in him. Tears poured like rivers from his eyes and a numb sensation flooded over him.

'You're back,' she whispered with her face a centimetre from his. For a minute she looked into his eyes, wiped the tears from his cheeks, and he saw that she had been struggling for long, suffering, waiting, aching over something. He wanted to hold her, and at the same time it scared him. Mam had always been a tough cookie. What could have happened to break her this way?

Abruptly Mam stood, clutched his hand, and turned to yell out the door. 'Dan! Dan, come quick! Get Samantha! Hurry!'

Mam's hand squeezed his too tight, and then he heard footsteps thudding up steps, carpeted steps by the sound of it. Two people burst through the doors. Why was Samantha there? Last he remembered, Samantha didn't even know he existed. When she came into view, the numbness in John was replaced by an all too familiar tingling response. God, she was hot. Hotter than ever. Her boobs had grown, her face matured. There were laugh lines crow-footing the corners of her eyes, and frown lines.