Free Saving Nathaniel by Jillian Brookes-Ward Page B

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    'Please, leave me alone…' he whimpered.
    Locked into the embrace of the chair, with Joanna in front of him, he couldn't move if he wanted to, even if fear hadn't paralysed him
    'Let me touch you, Nathaniel,' she said, and put her cold, mottled hand to his cheek.
    He flinched and croaked, his voice almost lost to his terror. 'No!'
    She ran her bony fingers down his cheek and over his lips, her torn nails sharp against his skin. 'I want to kiss you, Nathaniel. I miss your kiss.'
    He squeezed his eyes closed again and turned his face away from the approach of her blue tinged lips. She pressed an icy, dead kiss on him and he reeled from her foetid breath.
    'Go away…for God's sake…go away,' he sobbed, tears stinging his eyes.
    She put her mouth to his ear and whispered, 'I have something for you, Nathaniel. Look at what I've got for you.' She stood up and put her hand inside a tear in her shroud. Slowly and carefully, she withdrew it, and he could see delicately held between the fingers and thumb of her right hand, a perfectly formed miniature foot. The foot was attached to the body of a tiny baby; an immature foetus, slick with clotting blood, bluish-grey in colour and completely lifeless, the umbilical cord still attached. A small trickle of dark blood leaked from the cut end.
    'This is your son, Nathaniel. Isn't he beautiful?'
    He felt dizzy. The apparition began to swim before him and he thought he might faint. He prayed he would. He wanted oblivion to envelop him so he wouldn't have to see any more.
    The spectre put the dead baby to her breast and held it there as if trying to feed it. Its head flopped and its face turned towards him. Its mouth stood slightly open, but its eyes were fused shut.
    Nat began to shake uncontrollably. Try as he might, he could not close his eyes against the vision.
    'Go away, you're not real!' he babbled in a paroxysm of panic. He could now feel his heart hammering in his chest, hard enough to convince him he was on the brink of a coronary. He pressed the heels of his hands hard against his eyeballs, 'You're not real, you're not!'
    Yet the vision endured, a look of heartrending sadness on her face as she cuddled the baby's corpse. 'We died, Nathaniel. Where were you when we died?' The woman's eyes filled with tears which overflowed down her cheeks. 'We needed you, Nathaniel. We were dying, and you weren't there. Where were you?'
    'I can't take any more...please…go away.'
    The woman put a hand to her head. 'It hurts, Nathaniel. My head hurts so much. Something inside…something's wrong…it's bursting…tearing…'
    He watched mesmerised as her tears began to colour. They changed as they took on the hue of blood. They became blood. Long red streaks coursed down her cheeks and dripped from her chin, soaking into her dirty, once-white shroud. A trickle leaked from each nostril and ran down into her mouth staining her teeth and lips. Droplets oozed from her ears and hung from the lobes like bright rubies.
    'Look what happened, Nathaniel. Look what you did.'
    His eyes were frozen on her. 'It wasn't me…I didn't do it.'
    'You wanted this baby,' she said, holding up the infant's body by its ankle. Its oversized head swung limply on its skinny neck.
    'You wanted it …I did it for you...and look what it did to me! You killed us!'
    'No!'
    'This is your fault, Nathaniel. We're dead…and it's your fault!' Specks of bloody foam formed at the corners of her mouth and spat out as she spoke.
    It was too much for Nat and his wits left him. 'I'm sorry, Joanna…please…I'm sorry…I'm sorry,' he gibbered.
    'It's too late for being sorry, Nathaniel…it's far... too ...late.'
    'It's not my fault…I didn't know…it's not my fault, it's not.' He clamped his hands over his face to block out the images and thought he could hear someone, somewhere, sobbing. He did not realise it was himself.
    'Nat?'
    'It's not my fault, it's not...'
    'Nat? Open your eyes. Look at me.' He didn't want to open them; he