Face your Demons Chapter 9

A/N- Please don't think of the nurse as an OC, but rather the nun taking a different role catered to Sewell. The town has manipulated her to serve another purpose.

Dumbfounded, George stared at the crude, bloody rendering. What the fuck is this shit? He wondered cryptically. Angry, frustrated, and still soaked to the bone, the pale man slammed his fist into the wall, his leather gloves the only protection against cuts. The wall began to crumble away like stale bread, and the man took the pipe and pummeled the deteriorating cement. Sweat, blood and water dripped from his brow while he exerted the last of his strength into the destruction. After creating a hole large enough to pass through he stuck the pipe into his belt loop, and crawled into the wall, revealing a long tunnel that led to a bright light. Slowly, carefully, he pushed himself forward, his aching shoulders scraping chipped concrete as he went, leaving haunting dark stains in his wake. His breathing had become heavy and strained, and his vision tunneled. Sewell felt like ice after having been submerged in water, and pushed to his limits.

Suddenly, the tunnel ended and he was flung to a cold, tile floor, stains of red left their mark beneath him. Steadying his breathing, he struggled to sit up and take in the Surroundings. The ill fated corrections officer had stumbled into a morgue. A solitary white light bulb hung from the ceiling, swaying slightly. Underneath, caught in the harsh beam of light were two autopsy tables covered in a stained, dirty sheet. Sewell wiped his face and ran his hand through his mussed hair, chips of concrete fell to his shoulders like dandruff. His mind registered the sounds of footsteps approaching, looking up he watched a nurse approach him, dressed from a different time, in an old nurse dress, with a black cardigan over it. Her hair was red, and fell to her shoulders in soft waves.

"Have you come to claim the bodies?" she asked softly, holding out her hand to help the man up. He ignored her offer and stood up on his own, face laden with confusion.

"What? No. I just came through the hole in the wall from I don't know where. What is going on here? What kind of game is this?" he hissed, pulling out the near empty pack of cigarettes and lighter. The nurse returned the look of confusion, with wide green eyes.

"I'm not playing any games, George. Grief can manifest in so many ways. I understand that this must be very difficult, to lose your wife and father," she retorted as she walked to one of the tables. "All you have to do is claim the bodies so arrangements can be made." Sewell paced the room, left speechless and confused. He didn't understand what was going on...both of them had died a long time ago.

"No, there's a mistake, my father died almost thirty-five years ago, and Eve, almost six. I've been through all of this, you have the wrong man, sugar," he reasoned, drawing off the cigarette, and puffing smoke around him. The enigmatic nurse looked at him with a soft smile.

"No mistake," she stated as she pulled the first sheet to the floor. George was right, it wasn't his father. It was Frank. He chuckled taking a long deep drag off cancer in his hand.

"That is not my father, that is Frank Coleridge," he corrected with another drag. The nurse walked around to the side of the table, towards George.

"But you are the reason he's here, correct?" she asked in a strangely calm, eerie voice. George looked around the dilapidated, filthy morgue and shook his head.

"No." But George wouldn't be able to lie anymore, the truth had him in a vice. His hands shook as he tried to smoke. His head pounded, his eyes ached, and the truth chewed at his nerve endings. "Yes! I did it, I fucking killed him when Murphy wouldn't. I killed him for my own selfish reasons, I'm a monster, I know that I've always known that. I know my wrongs, let me go!" he yelled as he paced around the broken tile, his head spinning.

"That's not how this works. For those that have the symbol, the passage is easy," she uttered as she turned to approach the other sheet. George walked up to the bloody, mangled corpse of his superior. Gently, he crossed the dead man's hands across his chest.

"I'm sorry, Frank," he whispered softly before he turned to the waiting woman. He walked over to the other table and waited for her to pull the sheet back. Sewell knew it would be another mistake, someone else he had horribly wronged and not his wife, but when he saw the form under the sheet his knees buckled and George lost his wind.

"This...This can't be! I buried her years ago!" he stuttered. His hands clung to the edge of the table, his knuckles turned white.

"But it is George! This is what you have created. How can you explain this!" the nurse shrieked loudly. George pulled himself up and gazed at the lifeless body of his wife. He cradled her cheek in his leather bound hand.

"I failed," he whispered, before he leaned down and kissed her forehead. The nurse stood silently, observing the strange scene. "I failed, as a husband, as a partner, as a friend...I failed everything because I was selfish." a tear fell to the corpses cheek and she faded away into dust, leaving behind a lone paper, dirty and stained with age and ash. Looking over his shoulder he saw a key laying on the table where frank had lain. His eyes held back tears as he picked up the paper. He knew what it was, he had seen it before; it was his her death certificate. Sewell refused to let emotions take over, he refused to cry as he looked over the paper. He wrinkled his forehead as he noticed something he had missed before. It was the B.A.C., the level was more than the legal limit. Fragments of the puzzle assembled in his mind before he finally uttered a realization that pounded him in the face like an oncoming train.

"She...she was drunk," he whispered, but the nurse was no longer there. The room was empty and he was alone. Turning around he grabbed the key from the other empty table and held it in his gloved hands. The fog in his mind cleared, and the man knew what he had to do to finish it, to redeem himself.

Laden with injuries he limped his way to the docks where Freedom sat next to Angela's Fire. The water below was murky, stagnant and emanated a harsh chill. Carefully, he stepped onto the boat, he lifted the panel and climbed down into the ships small engine room. It was tiny and cramped, with no light. Flicking his flashlight on, Sewell pulled the now illuminated first aid kit from the wall in front of him. A fire extinguisher, pistol, and life jackets filled the rest of the small wall. To his left sat the engines and the mechanical insides of the boat. With barely enough room to remove his shirt Sewell maneuvered to bandage his wounds, blood seeped through old bandages staining his uniform.

After he had cared for his wounds he leaned up against the wall and heaved a heavy sigh. This was it. It was the eye of the storm, the brevity of calm between two hells. Pulling the pistol from the wall George loaded it and holstered the sleek handgun. He was battered and bruised, but he knew he would be able to face his final demons.

Ok, here's chapter 9 right away. Next chapter will be the last, Sewell will encounter Murphy before he comes face to face with the Raven God, and for every review I receive I will add 100 words to the chapter. Since I don't expect more than a few reviews, adding more details should be fairly enjoyable. Also, this story has now become my longest fanfic ever with almost 9,000 words, which is a milestone, since I will break 10,000 with the final chapter. I hope to have it out with the next week or so, but I'm also working on my 5th novel, so it might be maybe a month before I finish. If you came here from tumblr, and made it this far, I love you. Hope that's not too weird, I mean, I'm not IN love with you. :P

I really need some feedback here, please?