Midnight on Prospect Street

By EJKatz

The moon was high in the night sky, which was a rare occurrence in Cascade skies at this time of year. Normally, the depressing grey covering mixed with rain to hide the heavens with a dismal coat for most of the winter. Instead, the rain had stopped and winds from the west, off the water, had removed most of the thick overcast clouds and left only the bright full moon and the millions of tiny pinpricks of light behind.

The lights from the city tended to over shadow the stars but for the man, who lay now beneath the bedroom skylight, they seemed as clear as ever. His eyes filtered out the city lights and left only the brilliance of the stars. He imagined that he could trace the faint edging of the Milky Way and even the outlines of the craters on the moon. After all he was a Sentinel, a man with all five genetically heightened senses.

He sighed deeply and hooked his hands together behind his head. So far sleep had eluded him, his senses were focused tightly on the room under his own. The faint rumble of snores could be heard; the slow, steady rhythm of a beating heart anchored him, but did not help him sleep. His mind was too occupied with the events of the day for sleep to come that easily.

He and his partner had just finished wrapping up a terrible and difficult case, involving child pornography. An ugly subject under any circumstances, but then his partner was more sensitive to things than most cops he knew and Blair had taken this one very much to heart. Each and every step had been excruciatingly hard on the younger man, from the discovery of the first body to the locating of the warehouse where filming took place. Jim Ellison had watched the horrors fill and darken the soul behind the luminescent eyes of Blair Sandburg. Over the past few weeks, he had watched as the light in those eyes, the light that had graced his own life, had begun to slowly fade and Jim feared that this case would be the one to finally and irreversibly destroy his Guide.

One of the things Jim loved most about his best friend was that unshakeable trust in the general goodness of mankind. Even with all he had faced during the years he had worked with the detective he had never lost that. The younger man was always ready to give the benefit of the doubt and to give a second chance to those sincerely seeking it.

It was hard for the cynical cop to find goodness in the world that had shown him so much evil. His own life had been filled with pain and heartaches that he thought had forever tarnished his abilities to care for anyone or anything. He'd been married for about a year and he had tried hard to make his marriage work but even that had been tainted by the things that had gone on in his life before Carolyn had even arrived on the scene.

It wasn't until this wanna-be hippie had pushed his way into the Sentinel's life that he'd found the desire to try to open up again. All of his unpleasant memories had been replaced by joy, laughter and love. In fact, Blair Sandburg had all but removed the term 'unpleasant' from Jim Ellison's vocabulary. Even the toughest cases had become less draining to his own troubled soul. Going home at night, he could let go of the horrors his job brought to him and he could relax again, find pleasure in other things so that no longer would the ugliness get in the way of everything else. He had Blair to thank for that.

Blair for his part seemed to enjoy the police work, even having grown up with a woman whose distrust and dislike of police should have made the younger man run for cover. Although he wasn't officially a cop, he tackled all their cases with the same enthusiasm and tenaciousness that he showed in the rest of his life. His sharp intelligence was seen in the new angles he could come up with during a case, as was the knowledge he exhibited on many a tireless subject and the way he dealt with the people he met on each new case. Jim had found that Blair's quick mind was a challenge to live up to at the best of times but it was a delight to see what the grad student would come up with next.

For this particular case however, he had held up well, at least until they would return each night to their own home. Inside the privacy of his room, he would break apart a little more each day. At first it had been nothing more than anger expressed by throwing a few books off his bed and onto the floor a little harder than necessary. It continued, however to get worse.

Jim would wake in the early hours to hear the soft sounds of stifled sobbing, like his roommate was pressing his face into the pillow to muffle the signs of his distress. He controlled his anger and fears well during the day, but each night the violence had been worse and worse until last night when Blair had taken his frustration, anger and hurt out on himself. He had punched the wall beside his bed. Fortunately he had not broken anything but rather merely splitting the skin over his knuckles, but he had terrified his roommate to the point where Jim was no longer able to sleep deeply

Ellison wanted so desperately to take the pain away from Blair. He wanted him to stay away from the case but Blair wouldn’t hear of it. He insisted on spending every free hour with Jim, knowing that the brutality of the case was affecting his Sentinel’s senses and emotional balance. Jim was grateful for the observer’s presence but he hated that he needed him so badly.

Since last night he had been forced to keep his senses firmly tuned into his Guide, praying that there would be no nightmares, that he would sleep deeply and most importantly, that he would recover the lost fragments of his soul. The things that made Sandburg ‘Sandburg’ were just not there. The contagious grin, the infectious laugh, even the corny sense of humour were all sorely missed and had been for weeks now since this whole affair began.

A muffled groan caught Jim's attention, pulling him back from the deep recess of dreaded memories. The sound came again and Jim rose swiftly, making his way silently down the loft stairs. He pushed open the French doors and stopped for a moment to observe. Blair lay on his belly, face pressed partly into the pillow beneath his head. His hands were trapped under his body and the blankets were twisted tightly around his lower torso and legs. In effect he couldn’t move and now, the panic was rising as nightmares took hold of his mind.

On feet as silent as his spirit guide’s, Jim reached the bed and sat on the edge. He worked quickly to unwrap the tangled coverlets without waking his partner. The anthropologist seemed to sense he was there because he calmed almost immediately. When he had managed to roll Blair onto his back, again without waking him, Jim rose and left the small room. He brought back a moist cloth, which he used to gently wipe away the faint sheen of perspiration that had accumulated on Blair’s neck and chest. The young man continued to sleep on.

After a few minutes, when Jim was finally convinced that Blair would not wake, he returned to his own bed where finally sleep overtook him.

~*~*~*~

Blair stood in the middle of the darkened building, the silence of it seemed to echo around him. There was just enough light for him to realize that he really didn’t want to be there.

"Jim?" He called out in a hoarse whisper. "Hey, man, are you there?"

The silence was staggering in its intensity and it brought with it a sense of fear that was overwhelming in itself. His eyes moved rapidly back and forth across every shadow, every hiding place but still he saw nothing, heard nothing and even felt nothing.

"Come on, man. This isn’t funny. Jim?" His voice sounded hysterical in his own ears. He cringed at the sound but moved forward, towards where he could now see a faint light that grew brighter with each step he took. His breathing became ragged, coming in harsh, sharp bursts. He couldn’t draw in enough air and he realized he was on the verge of hyperventilating. He tried to force himself to calm down but his body wouldn’t respond.

The light was closer now and brighter. Shapes moved into his line of vision but nothing was clear enough to identify. He heard voices but not words and the sound came to him as if underwater, garbled and unintelligible. He tried to stop the forward motion but his feet had a mind of their own and he took another step, into the light. Everything suddenly became crystal clear.

He saw before him two boys, no older than ten, lying naked on a bed, covered in garish red velvet . Their bodies were twisted in mocking poses of sensuality, arms and legs askew, as if reaching for each other. An assortment of ‘toys’ rested in strategic places around them, waiting; grotesque devices for torture rather than pleasure.

Cold, unseen hands were on his back, pushing Blair forward until he was looming over the boys. He saw their drug glazed pleas for him to stop whatever was going to happen. He saw the terror in their eyes which matched the growing panic he felt.

Desperation filled him as he struggled against whatever unseen power held him in place. He wanted to stop this, needed to, but he couldn’t move now. His whole body trembled with that need, shaking uncontrollably but still, his muscles refused to obey his commands and he was trapped there, forced to watch the actions before him. He wanted to look away but he couldn’t close his eyes, couldn’t turn his head. His breathing grew more shallow and more rapid. Drawing breath actually hurt as the panic attack took full force.

The scenes flashed before him now, flickering as the lights around him flickered. Like a flash from a camera. Strobe lighting. Flash, new scene. Three on the bed. The two boys now with a man. A man with no features at all. His hands moving over the motionless boys.

FLASH.

A knife, resting against pale skin, tender skin.

Red.

Blood.

Oh God, NO! Please!

FLASH.

A shift in position and those horrible devices no longer in sight. Whimpers of pain. Crying. The man’s hands moving. Hips moving.

Red.

More Blood.

"No. Don’t, please." Blair whispered. The words would not come out any louder. He couldn’t watch this and yet he couldn’t stop it either.

The man ignored him completely. The knife flashed again.

"Oh, God, no. Please, don’t do it." Louder this time but still the man ignored him. Instead he moved the blade of the knife across the young throat.

More blood. Lots of blood.

His heart was beating too fast. His breathing was too much and too fast, yet not enough.

Pain.

Agony.

Blair couldn’t pull in any air, he was choking. Something was going to give and he knew it was going to be himself. He couldn’t take it any more.

"Noooooooo!" The word was ripped from his throat with the last of his breath and he collapsed, unconscious, to the floor.

~*~*~*~

Jim woke with a strangled scream. The deep sleep he had been in was gone, a strange sense of dread took its place. Not sure what exactly had woken him, only knowing instinctively that something was terribly wrong. He extended his hearing. There was no sound coming from the room downstairs. Nothing, no heartbeat, no breathing. Nothing!

In a blind panic, spurred on by fear for Blair, he threw off the comforter and raced down the steps, throwing the glass doors open. The sight that lay before he was not something he would ever wish to view again.

Jim fell to his knees on the floor beside the bed. Blair lay on his back, his eyes closed tightly against pain, his entire body was rigid and his lips hung open slightly but not a whisper of breath passed them. Jim felt his own breath catch in his throat.

"Oh, God. He’s not breathing. Come on, Chief. Don’t do this to me. Breathe, Damn it!" He pulled Blair’s head back and gave two quick breaths into the open mouth. Turning his, head to watch the still chest, Jim pressed his fingers against the cooling skin on Blair’s neck. There was no pulse.

Alarm filled him as he realized he had no idea how long Blair had been like this. He gave two more puffs of live giving air before grabbing the phone.

"Come on, Chief, please." Punching in the emergency number he began CPR. "Answer the damn phone."

Two breaths. Pause. Five rapid compressions.

"911… please state the nature of the emergency." The calmness of the operator was not appreciated.

"This is Detective Ellison.. I’ve got an man down at 852 Prospect Street Unit #307. Send ambulance and back up. NOW!" He threw the phone away to continue with helping his partner.

Fear coursed through him with each set of breath/compressions. Still nothing. "Blair, please. I can’t lose you. Not again. Please."

The first precious heartbeat was so soft it barely registered with the Sentinel. Relief flooded him as a second, then a third and a fourth. The beating continued and Jim sobbed in a great breath.

"Thank you, God." There was still no breathing, the still lungs filled as Jim repeatedly breathed into his friend’s mouth but the organs remained unresponsive and didn’t take over for him.

He was still breathing life into Blair when the paramedics arrived along with Simon Banks who had received a call from dispatch.

Jim felt strong hands grip his shoulders as Simon tried to pull him away from the still body of the police observer. The firm hold remained even when he tried to move towards his friend.

"Give them room, Jim. Let them do their job." The soft comforting voice told Jim, reaching through the last vestiges of control. He felt tears threaten as he watched the two EMT’s pumping air into Blair’s lungs.

It took a few tension-filled minutes but finally the paramedics announced the presence of breathing. They fitted a mask over the young man’s head and began to prepare him for transport to the local hospital. They rushed down the stairs and into the ambulance, all the while monitoring Blair to make sure he was still breathing.

Jim was grateful Simon hadn’t asked what happened, not yet. He couldn’t answer right now, not until he knew Blair would be alright. He wasn’t even sure himself what had happened. He didn’t know why Blair had suddenly stopped breathing or why his heart had just stopped. He knew there would be time for that later, when Blair was safely out of danger.

Right now Jim felt a strong need for Simon to just be there for him until they had some news about Sandburg. Then he would answer any of his questions, once he got the answers himself. Jim knew it must be obvious that shock was settling in at what had nearly occurred. He could feel it himself. A slow, seeping cold, that ate slowly at his insides. His face must be as white as a sheet and his own breathing was laboured, as if he had just run a marathon.

~*~*~*~

Part 2

Home