Ыоуве Been Warned   ::   Patterson James

And I will keep reliving these horrifying last days, over and over, until the tiny blackbird has transported that mountain, a beakful at a time, one trip every thousand years.

Only that will just be the beginning of eternity.

In you-know-where.

And I’m screaming, screaming, screaming, screaming…



Chapter 111



SO HERE I AM on my way to hell. As I understand it from Delmonico, I’ll keep reliving some version of the nightmare I’ve just experienced for eternity, for life everlasting. Definitely something to look forward to.

I can see around me clearly now, since nobody has bothered to rezip my body bag.

Actually, I’m glad of that. I get one last look around, and everything seems kind of strangely beautiful about the world, actually. The light is gauzy, with streaks of burnt orange and yellow laced through it. The faces of the people watching are actually sad, almost as if they care, and that touches me.

I want to cry, but I can’t really control my body anymore, can I? I wonder how much longer I have – until everything goes black or white or until this horrifying nightmare starts all over again.

And again.

And again.

How much time, Kris?

And how much time did I waste in my life? How many things did I do all wrong? Would I do them differently now?

I think I would. Honestly, and this isn’t a cop-out, I know I would live a different life. I feel so guilty… about my baby… about the affair with Michael… about hurting Dakota and Sean… even about hurting Penley, who was a twit but not an evil person.

I’m sorry. God, am I sorry. I’m so sorry, so pathetic, but I am sorry.

I can still hear the voices in the crowd outside the hotel.

The paramedics roll me between two police cars and toward a waiting EMS truck, the meat wagon. The gurney bumps something, and I realize how absurd it is to be careful when you’re carrying a dead body.

“Can’t somebody help me?” I say, though I know the voice is only in my mind, whatever and wherever that is. But I can’t stop pleading anyway. I won’t give up, won’t quit. Not ever. I won’t go quietly.

“Somebody help me…

“Somebody, please…

“I’m sorry for all my sins, for everything I did.”

Then a black woman leans in close, really close to my face, closer than I would ever get to a dead person. She shines a tiny flashlight into my eyes, and God do I want to blink – I’d do anything in the world to blink.

But I don’t blink.

“Somebody, please help,” I don’t say again.