Immortal Part 3

“Not now.  Come on,” he hissed.

            Emryl’s pace was relentless. I had to jog to keep up with him. When I stopped to complain, he grunted unhappily. I thought he would concede and we would continue at our normal gait but instead he stomped back to where I had dug in my heels, grabbed my wrist and stated dragging me along after him it. I stumbled a couple of times but Emryl steadied me and told me to hurry up.

            “What’s going on?” I screeched.

            He didn’t answer at first, just continued to drag me along after him our speed continued to grow faster and faster. Before I knew it, we were running.  I didn’t know what we were running from and I found myself tempted to turn around and see what was chasing us but I resisted the urge. I always hate that in scary movies. When a bad guy is chasing you… never look back. That seemingly small detail is inevitably when you mess up. That’s when the good guy always trips on something, or runs into something, or stumbles on his shadow. It’s why I can’t watch scary movies. The people are always so dumb and far from being frightened, I just get really, really pissed. I kind of understand now WHY the protagonist always looks back. The urge to see what is coming is almost a compulsion. You want to know. It’s like a primitive instinct that is inbred into the human psyche. It surprised me how much effort it took for me NOT to look back and see what we were running from but I made the split second decision to trust Emryl.

            I didn’t know where he was taking us but I ran next to him, my mind on fire.

            “In here!” I heard him shout. He veered to his left. I was milliseconds behind him. I almost tripped again because he still had a hold of my wrist. His change of direction so suddenly threw off the rhythm I had just started to develop and I let out a surprised yelp. But Emryl caught me again. Once again he pointed and said pointedly, “Come on, Syd. In here!”

            Before I knew it, we were charging up a set of stone steps. I barely had time to register where we were before we had reached the top. Emryl threw open the large wooden door and he pulled me forcibly into the foyer of a Catholic Church. He closed the door behind him with his foot and then he collapsed onto the floor, breathless.

            There were many, many things I wanted to say to Emryl Pemstein at that moment but when I finally caught my breath all I managed to say was, “Really? A Church?”

            “It’s all I could think of!” Emryl panted.

            “Well it’s stupid!” I snarled.

            By this time, Emryl had rolled on to his back and he was breathing deeply staring at the ceiling.

            “What is going on, Emryl?” I demanded angrily.

            He shook his head but I hadn’t missed the fact that his cheeks turned a shade redder than they had been just a minute ago, “Maybe…. Maybe I just got spooked.”

            “Spooked!” I screamed, forgetting for a moment that we were in a church. Suddenly I heard footsteps and a couple seconds later there was a priest standing over us. He had on the typical black robe with the white collar. He was an old man, with thinning gray hair and sparkling dark eyes.

            “Can I help you?” he asked, raising his eyebrow when he saw both of us laying flat on our backs on the floor of his church.

            “Only if you can help the helplessly hopeless!” I exclaimed with annoyance. I quickly stood up and embarrassedly shook my head at Emryl, “We’re really sorry for disturbing you. We’ll go…”

            “Syd!” Emryl cried and a second later he was standing next me. “Do… do you think we could stay and pray for a little while?”

            “Of course,” the priest replied with a bow of his head. “Our doors are always open.”

            “Thank you,” Emryl said softly. “Come on, Syd. Let’s go pray.”

            “I don’t want to…”

            Emryl laughed nervously and smiled a huge phony smile at the priest. “Syd, let’s go pray,” he repeated and he took hold of my elbow and led me towards the chapel.

            I felt the need to elbow him in the stomach, but I figured that what was really coming was an explanation. Emryl wasn’t any more religious than I was. Our families went to services on special days like Christmas and Easter but most of the time church is not something we regularly attended. I think if you hold God in your heart and try to be a decent person then its good enough.

            Emryl let me slide into the bench first and he watched as I knelt down before he joined me. We both folded our arms and for a few minutes we just stared at the rows of glowing candles that surrounded the statue of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

            “What’s going on?” I whispered.

            “I think I’m in trouble,” Emryl answered.

            “What did you do?” I replied and just for show, I crossed myself. All kinds of things started running through my mind. Could Emryl be a drug addict? Maybe he was a gambler. Maybe he owed some people money and there were thugs after him. Maybe he owed somebody all kinds of money and they were going to break his knee caps. More likely though, I thought dismally, he had opened his big mouth and offended some gangster kid and he was going to get us both killed because he couldn’t control the things that sometimes came out of his mouth. Emryl was a racist, bigoted jerk if ever there was one.

            From the corner of my eye, I saw Emryl cross himself. And at first he didn’t answer. I wasn’t really praying, but Emryl was. His eyes were closed and I could see his mouth moving as he muttered quietly under his breath. I couldn’t hear what he was saying and somehow it felt wrong to keep interrupting while he was praying so I waited impatiently rolling my eyes and sighing loudly so that he could hear me.

            Finally Emryl crossed himself again and then looked at me very seriously. “I didn’t do anything, really.”

            “Then why do you think you’re in trouble?”

            “Well…” he looked away from me and I could tell whatever it was he was struggling with he was extremely embarrassed about it. “It’s hard to explain.”

            “Try,” I said unimpressively.

            “We’ve known each other a really long time,” Emryl whispered softly, “But you don’t know me at all.”

            I didn’t know what to say to that. I didn’t think the statement was accurate but as I tried to think of things about Emryl, it occurred to me that I really didn’t know him that well. I didn’t know his favorite color or his favorite food and I only half listened to what he told me when he told me about his dull, routine filled life so I couldn’t even recall what his favorite television show or movie was even though I was pretty sure he had told me those facts. “Well you don’t know me either,” I said angrily.