The Last Night Chapter Four

Chapter 4
Soft Reality
11

   Ariel heaved against Wyatt’s chest, not unlike a drowning victim clawing their way back to the surface, desperate for just one breath of air. That’s when the pain hit. He clenched against her. 
  “Wyatt! What’s wrong?” She flung her arms around him unintentionally dragging her fingertips across his slimy acidic wounds. “Oooh, yuck!”
  “It burns.” Wyatt managed to say through a moan.
  “What baby, what?”
  Her eyes swollen and darting, she slid from under him and raced toward the light switch by the door near the end of their bed.
    “My God! Wyatt?” Her eyes, fixed on the long smoldering streaks, marring his back and shoulders.
  “They, they tried to take you.”
  “The Greys?”
  “You don’t remember,” He seized and moaned, “Call someone. Its burning through my blood.”
    She slung her body to his nightstand, snatched up his cell, held it up to his face hoping his phone would recognize him through his pain knotted features. It lit up just before she tapped 911.
   “Help! My husband is hurt. Burnt I think.” She knelt beside his curled up shaking body, “hurry!”  She sputtered their address then laid the phone down.
  “Ariel! It’s on your fingers.”
  “You mean this snot?”
  “Snot, No! Acid! My back! Wash it off, now!”
 “Yes, yes!” She ran to the bathroom and rushed back moments later with a warm dripping washcloth.
 12
  “Hope this doesn’t make it worse.
  “Don’t care, just get it off!”
 “Okay, okay.” She bent down and lightly touched the wet cloth to the longest angriest wound.  Wyatt collapsed. She was not sure if it was from shock or relief. But she kept dabbing away at the ‘snot’ which apparently affected her not in the least. 
   After several rinse and repeats she finally washed away all the yellowish translucent slime from his back. And with it every bit of tissue damage. Not one speck of ‘evidence’, including the blue mist, remained when the first responders finally arrived, checked his vitals and aroused Wyatt from his ‘peaceful’ slumber.
  “Sir how are you?” A handsome friendly faced EMT asked when Wyatt finally fluttered his eyes open.
  He expelled a sigh the was equal parts relief and exasperation. “I’m, fine.” He said right after he glanced up at Ariel and saw her tightly clenched lips and quick head shake.
   Ariel, who had stepped away from the bed to let them work, eased up to another EMT who was standing in the doorway. “Thank you so much, I’m so embarrassed. Must have been a really bad dream.” 
  “Mam, was there a fire, you said something about a burn.”
She shrugged, I, I just overreacted, like I said, he dreams, nightmares and sometimes he wakes me up with his screams. We both have trouble sleeping and, we’re sorry.”
  “Well, you will be getting a bill. You understand. And maybe splash a little water in your face before you call us again, alright?”
 “Of course, again we are so sorry, really didn’t mean to waste your time.”
   With that they turned and walked away. She followed them downstairs and let them out, thanking them again after another round of apologies. Wyatt met her on the stairway.
   “Not sleeping in there tonight.” He said when she turned and led him downstairs.
   “What are we going to do?”
    He slumped. She reached out to stroke his cheek. He jerked away. 
    “Wyatt? What was that?”
  
13
    “That?”
  “You flinched.”
  “No I didn’t.”
   She reached up again. His body jerked away.
   “Don’t do that!”
  “Do what?”
  “You better be joking. If you are. Knock it off.”
  He raised his right hand toward her. It froze midair. He stared down at his hand, then at her.
   “Go ahead, touch me! Please.”
  He grabbed his right hand. It would not budge a centimeter. She shrank away from him. “This can’t be.” 
   “They wanted you. I thought I stopped them. But…I failed. They won.”
   “Wyatt, I’m still here.”
  “My blood burned. They burned it. They, they burned into me.”
  “They took you. Changed you. But you still saved me.”
  “Did I?”
  “Close your eyes.”
 “What?”
  “Just close them”
   He shrugged, “Alright.” He closed his eyes and lowered his arms.
  She turned away from him, then slowly turned back and laid the back of her right hand across his right cheek. 
  “Okay, you can touch me now.”
 “Wyatt,” She whimpered, “I am touching you.”
  His eyes sprang open and rolled down and watched her hand sink into his face.
  She screamed, jerked her hand away, stumbled back and nearly tumbled down the stairs.
14
    Stunned in silence, she lifted her hand and forced herself to look at it. “No blood.”
   Wyatt crumpled to the steps panting. “No pain. What did I do?”
   “Wyatt, no. What did they do?”
    He leaned back, letting the steps’ thick carpet cradle his back. His eyes swollen with disbelief he stared down at her. “What did we do?” 
   She reached up to him, dropped her arms, her face slack with defeat, “We got to figure this out?”
  Just then the phone rang.