THE FATHER (First two Chapters unedited)

Below are the first two chapters of The Father. The Father is the first novel in a trilogy I have been working on. Please Like, Share, and Comment.  Obviously this has not been edited so you'll have to excuse any minor errors. Thanks for taking the time to read my work. I'll post more chapters soon.

Enjoy!

I

Hospital Escuela

Tegucigalpa, Honduras

There was blood everywhere.

Dr. Henry Le Blanc leaned over the body of his 6 year old patient. His hand shook like a leaf in the wind passing the oscillating saw to the nurse. He had begun cutting into the boys chest when the unmaintained saw stopped working. He would have to open the boys chest the old fashion way, with brut force.

Henry feared cutting into such a small body with what was basically a hack saw. Nevertheless, he motioned toward the saw. Then the nurse, Maria, passed it to him.

Maria was a beautiful woman with the presence of a goddess. Her long black hair was shinny like a fine silk yet as thick as the mane of a show horse. It fell down past her soft olive colored flesh that not a pore show itself on. Her eyes were copper and deep as the ocean and could make or destroy a man with a single glance. Her legs stretched out for miles. Henry enjoyed rubbing his lips up them to the curves in her thighs.

Nothing compared to her smile that transmitted so much joy to anyone who was fortunate enough to be honored by it. Henry danced in the warmth of her happiness on more than a few occasions over the last month. He had found her button and when the need came he pushed it. She would laugh and sunshine would fill the void that he always felt in his chest. Then the hairs on his arms would stand up and salute her radiance. Never had such a smile been seen by a man before.

Maria barely spoke English and Henry spoke even less Spanish. They learned to communicate by looks and gestures over his first month working as a Doctor for The Daughter of Mercy's medical mercenary trip to Honduras. Even when they slept together they did not speak much. She knew what he wanted and was eager to oblige the handsome young American.

Marie passed him the hack saw with a slight smirk on her face. Henry let his hand overextend the reach of the saw to steal but a touch of her. She looked into his eyes and smiled. She knew that American doctors aren't accustomed to such primitive methods and what he needed. She was happy to fortify his courage with a simple smile. He would thank her later that night when they were alone in his bed.

Henry was certain that he was the best doctor ever to grace the walls of this dilapidated hospital. He was better than the chipped lead paint that peeled from the ceilings above. He was better than indigenous patients that filled the hallways on beds because the hospital was always overcrowded. They should be proud to have him. In his short career he had saved many lives with emergency heart surgery. He once brought a priest back after he had been clinically dead for more than 3 minutes. He was God inside the operating room and he had been in this situation before. The only difference is he had never operated on a child. At 28 years old, he understood that the age of the patient should not change anything but it does. There was more at stake here. God could not fail this boy.

Henry's wife, Dawn, did not want him to go on this trip. Their 6 year old son had been having emotional issues and she felt that a man's place is at home with his family. Henry knew better. A man's place is out in the world making a name for himself, besides Dawn was a great mother and capable of two months alone with Luke. She'd be fine.

He met Dawn in his first year of residence. She was tall and blonde, with legs that he imagined wrapped around him from the first moment that he saw her walking down the hall of the hospital. He went home and wrote her name down next to his on a napkin. He was a fly who could not resist the sweet nectar of the paper. He was stuck.

She spent most of her time in the Hospital chapel. Henry later found out that she was the daughter of a terminal patient with days to live. Dawn was the most innocent beauty he had ever seen; A perfect blend of elegance and sadness. He had to have her.

He had many women before but never before did he want more from any of them than a quick fuck. He fed his ego by acting like they never existed after having his way with them. The lucky ones, as he thought, got to have a second round but never more than two. He was careful to never let a feeling take root.

Dawn was different. He could not put his finger on it but from the moment he first saw her he knew that she was the one for him to spend his life with. He imagined her barefoot and pregnant in a little house with a white picket fence. He had to devise a plan.

At first he was reluctant to approach her like a shy boy staring at his first crush from across the school yard. Being that she was still in high school did not help; People look down on that sort of thing. He spent weeks learning everything he could find out about her without being too obvious. He finally began hanging around the chapel pretending to pray even though he had lost his faith years ago. He pretended to be a good Catholic, rosary in hand.

After 3 weeks her father died and Henry began talking to her. Within days he had her at his apartment feeling her up. So young and tight. He was turned on by her innocence. He was turned on by her sadness and making her feel better. The thought of corrupting her made his mouth water, but the joke feel on him. He would get worked up and then nothing. Day after day, week after week she denied his sexual advances. They would get naked and lie in bed holding each other. When he tried to do more than kiss and touch she would stop him.

"I can't", she would say as he tried to penetrate her.

"Just a little please, let me just feel you" Henry would reply.

"I can't"

Over and over again he found himself taking cold showers after her visits.

The first time that she saw his temper was after one of these episodes. They had been kissing and like always Henry tried for the first prize only to fall short. He threw a glass of wine across the room shattering it against the wall. He stared at the crimson fluid flowing down the wall, as Dawn cried and ran out the door.

He backed off of the relationship but maintained a friendship until she graduated from high school a few months later. At her graduation party, he stunned her family by getting on his knee in front of her family and friends and asking her to marry him.

She said yes.

The child had been rushed into the emergency room in the arms of an elderly indigenous woman. He was shoeless and his feet dirty and cracked. His brown skin was now purple. His head slumped over her shoulder as if he was already gone. 

The woman cried out “Ayudame, Ayudame”

Apparently the boy had collapsed in the street while trying to sell bags of green mango slices with salt to passing cars. When the woman was asked did she know the boys name she didn't, nor had she seen the boy before that day. She figured he is one of the thousands of children living on the streets of the Honduran capital.

Dr. Le Blanc was just arriving to the hospital from a filling lunch of Yucca con Chicharones. The Honduran Doctors had just told the elderly lady that there is nothing that they can do for the boy. Henry overheard the conversation and interrupted. He looked over the chart and rushed into the examining room.

“ I can save him” he scream at the Honduran Doctor.

“No there is no way.”

Henry grabbed the Honduran by his neck, “ Get the fuck out”, then screamed to the nurses to get the kid to OR#4, “YA”

The boys name was Michael or at least that was the name of the previous owner of his Mister Mouse T-shirt. It was carefully written right under the collar with a black sharpie. Most street kids get there clothes from bultos, which are used clothes from the States that have been rejected for resale and are given away to the poor. Henry knew this and so did everyone else at the hospital but with a nameless child unconscious lying before them it felt comforting knowing that he had a name; Michael.

Henry flanked the gurney as they race down the crowded hallway towards the operating room. His hand was placed on the boys cold chest and He could not help but think of his son, Luke, who he had left back at home in the States. He looked down at the little brown boy.

“Michael, This is Dr. Le Blanc. You are going to be ok.” He declared. “ Va estar Ok” he repeated in his attempt at Spanish.

Michael did not move as Henry tried to figure out if he were a blue shade of brown or a brown shade of blue. He caught his thoughts drifting to the unimportant and snapped back into focus. He was going to save this child today and show all of these Honduran doctors who was the best. Henry knew that he was the best surgeon he has ever met, even better than his abusive alcoholic father that he barely got to know growing up despite living in the same house. His father couldn't save Michael, well maybe he could but these Honduran doctors couldn't. He was God in the operating room he thought, right before he realized that Michael was a blue shade of brown.

Small Town, Louisiana, USA

Resurrection of our Lord. Catholic Church

The classroom was the last one down a long hallway with 5 doors on either side. At one time the Church had an elementary school attached to it but it closed after the scandal. The building was still in great condition just a little much for only hosting catechism classes on Saturdays and Sundays before mass. Most of the classes where empty with plastic covering the desks. The walls in the hall and Dawn's classroom had been painted blue the year before by a group of volunteers. They thought that the blue had a welcoming calming effect on the children. Dawn didn't see any difference in her students from the previous color, but she was grateful for the effort and made sure that it was known.

She, with a group of ladies from the Church, decorated the walls.

Dawn enjoyed working with the ladies but grew tired of the constant question about her husband. The ladies had not seen him at church in a while. Was he sick? Was he a heathen? Did he leave her? “Oh my what kind of man leaves his wife and child.” Dawn learned to ignore their inquisitions and go about her work. She felt that they can think and believe what they want and gossip amongst them selves. Who was she to judge. As she did with everything else she gave it to God to do with as he pleased. Yes as HE pleased, every good Catholic knows that god is a man.

Dawn has three classes every Saturday for 35 minutes a class with each presenting their own challenges. The first classes, the teens, is at 8:25 sharp. She made the teens the first class of the day after what happened last years where she caught a group of the boys and Dana Hayden in one of the empty classrooms doing the ungodly. At 8:25 am this couldn't happen it was way to early in the morning. Her second class of the day was the younger kids. They were simple and kind but they liked to ask a lot of questions. Nothing that faith can't solve. The final volunteer catechism class of her Saturdays was a group of 5 kids and one adult with Down's syndrome. It was her favorite class of the day because she believed, as many Catholics do, Down's kids were truly special,that they possessed pure spirits and were here on Earth to teach lessons to sinners such as herself.

The Parents and caretakers of the 6 special students were expected back in 15 minutes.

Luke was sitting on the floor playing with his latest toy of fascination that he would be bored with in a matter of weeks.

The class had gone by just as it usually did. The only excitement came from when Noel Smith, a sweet 17 years old who always wore the same black polyester pants and white short sleeve button up, pissed his pants causing an uproar of laughing and pointing. Dawn calmed the class and then explain what Jesus himself would have done in that situation. Luke wondered how would she know what Jesus would have done but then gave it no more thought.

Dawn was looking at her watch when she notices Luke. He had stood up and walked to the window and was staring out at something. She tried to see what it could be that had attracted his attention from his favorite toy but she did not see anything.

Noel Smith began to tremble first, Dawn thought he was still embarrassed about the accident he had earlier. Then Sarah, the fat girl of the class who wore glasses so thick that some would call them bullet proof, began shaking her hands in front of her face uncontrollably. The rest of the class began screaming and laughing. Dawn tried to calm them but it was as if she had not been there at all. No one paid her any attention.

The chaos grew louder and bibles began to be tossed around the room. Luke stood still fixated on the outside. Dawn, on the verge of crying, began picking bibles off the floor. The youngest of the class, Stevie Brown, had crawled under her his desk. While picking up a bible, Dawn noticed he was in fetal position sucking on his thumb. She approached him to assure him that everything was ok. When she touched him, she felt a warm wetness drenched his clothes. “Piss” she hissed. Immediately she asked God to forgive herself for her anger and God took it away just as he always did.

Getting Stevie off of the floor, Dawn noticed that he had not only pissed himself but he had sweat streaming out of his pours. She forgave herself for feeling disgusted then put him into a chair where he continued to tremble.

The others where running about and screaming “NO”, over and over again.

Noel was at the front of the class when he made his run.

With the speed of olympic sprinter, he darted across the class jumping over three desk on his way to the window. Dawn saw that he was going straight for Luke. She pushed chairs out of her way violently trying to get in between Noel and her precious son. The adrenaline of a frantic mother kicked in, but her speed was lacking.

Noel tackled Luke to the floor and began pounding on him with his balled up fist.

“No” Noel screamed as each blow landed on Luke's tiny frame.

“Get off of him” Dawn blurted in a voice she had not heard since her childhood.

She pushed Noel to the floor where he stayed. He seemed to realized what he had just done. Wet and afraid he began crying out, “ I'm sorry” over and over again.

Dawn knelt down over Luke lying on the floor staring at the ceiling as he had not just been attacked.

Dawn asked, “ Are you ok baby?”

Luke did not respond his eyes remained steady ahead with out blinking not once.

Dawn, “ Sweetheart what is?” She began to shake him by his shoulders. “What is it?, tell me!'

The classroom had gone silent and the student where back in their desk with their bibles as if nothing had happened.

“What is baby, you can tell mommy.”

Only his eyes moved. Luke stared into the eyes of his mother.

“Michael” was all he could say.

Hospital Escuela

Henry sawed in the chest of the boy. He then slowly spread apart the cut halves of the tiny sternum with a retractor. Michael's entire chest was open and his heart looked out at Dr, Leblanc. After a quick examination, Henry could not find anything wrong. The boys heart was stellar, as Henry's father used to say. Henry was in disbelief, something had to be wrong with the boys heart. He decided to examine further yet he found nothing.

The heart monitor began to to beat normal perplexing Henry even more. He wondered had he just sawed open a boy for fainting. How could he have done this.

Henry looked over at the nurse that he had fucked the night before and tightened his lips together while taking a deep breath. She closed her eyes. She knew what he was feeling and he knew that she felt sorry for him. He knew that she looked up to him but maybe now she wouldn't anymore. His ego hit the floor shattering into tiny little pieces as all he could hear was the beep, beep, beep of the heart monitor.

At least the kid was alive Henry justified. He knew he was too quick to play God but he would keep that to himself, as far as he was gong to be concerned he followed proper procedure.

Beep, beep, beep.

Henry called for sternum wires and his nurse friend went to get them. They had been in such hast to open the boy up no one had time to prepare to close him.

As she turned to reach in the cabinet the heart monitor began to beep faster, and faster. Henry, surprised, took a second to react.

He turned back to his patient as the beeps kept getting faster. He could see the heart racing like a carburetor on an old 1970's hot rod.

“What the fuck” , Henry looked over his shoulder hoping no one heard his outburst.

When he leaned back into Michael, he saw his heart inflate then deflate like a bicycle inner tube then he noticed a rupture in his Aortic isthmus, near where the left subclavian artery branches off from the aorta. “ How in the hell did I miss this?” He thought to himself. He was certain that he could fix it and regain his credibility as God again.

Henry called out to his nurse friend as he was reaching into Michaels chest to get a better idea. She did not answer, so he turn to look for her.

She was with her back turned digging into a disorganized drawer. She threw sterile packages onto the the black and white checkered floor. Her hands shook. She could not find what it was that she was looking for. Henry thought that must be the story of her life. He knew that things should be well organized, then brushed off the thought like lint on a winter coat. He was still in the third world and he found it a bit amusing the way things ran here.

Laughing he called out to Maria. She did not respond and Henry was getting annoyed. Fucking deaf bitch.

The hairs on his arm stood up. Goose bumps ran down his arm as if thousands of needles suddenly needed to escape his body. Then the chill hit his spine. The touch was cold on his left wrist. A small hand with little blue or was it brown fingers scratched at his forearm. He resisted the urge to look, he knew no one else was in the room. There wasn't any chance that Michael could be conscious. The hand gripped his wrist and pulled him in towards the gurney. Henry turned and looked.

Michael with his blue lips and bloodshot eyes was awake.

“Holy Shit” Henry exclaimed as Michael's head rose up looking dead into Henry's eyes.

“ la casa, El la quiere, no regreses la casa” Michael whispered.

The blood from Michael's hand left a trail down Henry's arm as the little hand fell off the gurney. The heart monitor flatlined. Michael's heart stopped. Maria, who had been lost in the world of the cabinets and drawers, turned around. Henry, fighting to not piss himself, was trembling as they stared at each other.

II

El Patio de los Pobre, as the locals called it, was an outdoor establishment on the busy Boulevard Morazan in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. It was bustling as usual on a Saturday night. A local musician who fancied himself Elvis Presley did his best to mumble the english words of Heart Break Hotel while thrusting his hips about in a manner that the King himself would envy. No one really noticed that he did not speak english nor did they care. They were too busy drowning themselves with Port Royals, Salva Vidas and rum. The beer and rum always came with a complementary order of pupusas or taquitos. It was the perfect place for a group of American Doctors to unwind with their Honduran colleagues after a hard day at Hospital Escuela.

As usual, Henry was there with two other American doctors, Steve and Dave, one Honduran doctor, Carlos , along with Maria and a few other staffers from the hospital. Carlos had become a good friend of Henry's over the last month. It was a natural connection. They both liked to drink and chase women.

Henry did not seem like his normal self since they arrived. He normally was loud and carefree. Known to get up and help the aspiring Elvis with his lyrics from time to time, this Saturday he wasn't getting up, he wasn't singing, not even on the inside. He slouched down in his plastic chair, gripping onto the neck of his beer as if someone wanted to take it. He had not even had a bite of the pupusas he had come to love, nor had he touched Maria under the table. He wasn't ok.

The waitress, dressed in a traditional long red skirt,white blouse covered by a black vest and a red bandana covering her naturally black hair, had just put a fresh round of Salva Vidas on the table. Henry enjoyed the beers of Honduras but Salva Vida had become his favorite and El Patio (de los Pobres) had become his favorite after work watering hole. He was still on his first round while the others were starting their second. That was odd. Henry usually would be a beer or two ahead of the competition.

Henry felt the tension coming from Dave. He knew Dave was an opinionated son of a bitch that was bound to say something that they both would regret. Dave wanted to speak. Henry had just spent the better part of an hour explaining what had happened earlier that day in the operating room. By their facial expressions and body language, he could tell that they all were sympathetic, but they did not believe a word of what he said. Dave seemed the most uneasy with Henry's story, and Henry was regretting ever bringing it up. He held tightly onto his beer. If this fuck says something stupid, I'm gonna smash his head with this fucking Salva Vida, and he'll need someone to save his life.

He laughed to himself. Proud of his clever word play from Spanish to English, he concluded his Spanish was coming along after all.

Henry took a deep breath through his nose as he felt Dave leaning forward in his chair. The grip tightened around the neck of his “Life Saver”. He closed his eyes as he exhaled, and that was when Dave took his chance.

“Could it have been a nerve reaction?” Dave asked.

“No, he looked me in the eye as if he knew me”.

Dave looked to Steve for validation with a condescending smirk.

Henry pushed Maria's hand away as she tried to squeeze his leg in support under the table.

Steve, “ But Maria did not see this, correct?”

“No,” said Maria, trying for Henry's leg again.

Again he pushed her away.

“ She did not see anything, her back was turned. I went through all of this before.”

“Sometimes, when we have been working long hours without sleep, our mind plays tricks on us.”

Lifting the longneck Henry spoke through his teeth, “ What the fuck, am I a child? It happened.”

Henry realized he was too close to following through with smashing Dave's face in with the Salva Vida. He took a deep breath through his mouth.

“I am sorry. I should not have spoke to you that way, It's been a long day and I'm exhausted. I should go.”

Dave, “ No problem. Just get some rest.”

Henry stood up and dug deep into his pockets. He still had not gotten used to the Lempira. To him its was like play money with no real value. He pulled out a crumpled up one- hundred and threw it on the table. He was certain this would cover his beer.

Outside he walked to the busy boulevard. As usual, there was an indigenous woman at the street with a homemade mahogany table set up. On the table she had a spread of various assortments of gum, chocolates, candies, matches and single cigarettes. Henry approached the table thinking, what a waste of some very nice wood.

He had not poisoned his lungs voluntarily since his first month of medical school. Calculating his pack year history, he determined he had smoked roughly 10 cigarettes a day for about 5 years from his senior year in high school. According to this calculation he had a 3 pack year smoking history. Although he had preferred it to be zero, he felt that his risk factor was still relatively low, especially if he would quit.

He quit cold turkey that day and never thought about a cigarette again. Until now.

He fumbled through the gums and found the ones that he liked. Digging deeper he found a wad of crisp red 1 lempira bills from his pocket. He paid the lady 3 for the gum when he decided that maybe he wanted some chocolate. The urge for chocolates grew. He was a middle aged woman on a chocolate binge, so he felt. He knew it was lie.

The hunger grew. The open packs of Belmonts and Royals were out before him like a fine smorgasbord. He grabbed a single Belmont and a match as the little indian lady looked on. He lit it, inhaling in the smoke as if it was the fresh air of a tropical beach morning. He felt invigorated breathing in the familiar poisons. Something felt right about it.

Henry felt a touch on his shoulder. He knew it was too heavy to be the lady looking for the 2 lempiras that he now owed her. Don't let it be a armed robber. Tegucigalpa was a dangerous place and Henry knew that an American standing out alone on the Boulevard was not well advised. I'll give them what they want but I'm not giving them this Belmont. He waited too long for that puff to just give it way. The hand tapped him again and he was sure he wasn't being robbed.

He turned around exhaling smoke into the face of Carlos.

“Sorry.” Henry wasn't but he said it anyway.

“ It's ok”, Carlos spoke English with a British accent. He was high born Honduran and at 5 his family moved to London for his father's business. He attended the London Boy's Academy and the manners he learned there never left. He lived in London until his father was murdered on a business trip to Colombia. Carlos was 10 when his father died and his family soon returned to Honduras to live in poverty until his mother married a decrepit man 30 years her senior.

“I must talk to you about the kid.”

“I don't think that I want to talk about that anymore, no one believed me.”

“I do, well I think I do.”

“What do you mean?”

“He said that you should leave the house. Correct?”

“Yes. He told me to stay away from the house."

“There is something about that house that you must know.”

“Yeah.” Henry was curious.

Carlos checked his shoulders. No one was listening. His voice lowered as he spoke.

“ People talk about things that have happened there. I'm not one to believe in this sort of thing but I'll tell you. No one has lived there in over 50 years, I was actually surprised when you rented it. A guy that lived in the house murdered his wife and children 50 years ago. His wife was pregnant. The people say that it is the site where the Spanish had the first Catholic mass in the Americas. Some people believe that the reason they had the mass here in Honduras was that one of the Spaniards impregnated the daughter of a Mayan priest, who later died during the pregnancy. The Mayans blamed him and it was thought that a spell or something was put on the Spaniard. He began to show signs of what was thought to be demonic possession. The priest that traveled with the Spanish fleet attempted to preform an exorcism. The man died during the exorcism attempt and they buried him. The next day they had the first mass ever in the Americas at the site of his grave in an attempt to bless the land. That's where your house is. Now since that time it's been said that many people have been killed there, the last being 50 years ago.”

“What a story, you had me going for a minute.”

“No I am serious, there is a book about it. I read it in college. I may still have it at my mothers house. And you know what else?”

“What's that?” Henry needed to know.

“The Spaniards name.”

Carlos shook his head. How could he have not made this connection before.

“What,” Henry asked.

“Don Miguel,  Michael”

“Well that's interesting folklore that you just told me but the fact is there is no such thing as demonic possession.”

With that Henry had had enough of his cigarette. He inhaled his last drag of tranquility and blew the smoke over his right shoulder.

He hailed a taxi and jumped in leaving Carlos standing with the little indian

The taxi was a beat up white Toyota Corolla. The backseat was a waterbed riding every bump and turn of the Honduran Capital.

“ A donde,” the driver yelled from his perch.

Henry spit out the direction to his rented house then laid back to enjoy the ride.

He had fallen asleep in the 10 minute drive and was awoken by the driver touching his pocket. Henry jumped up scaring the man.

“Cien”

Henry paid the driver 100 lempiras even though he knew that he had come close to being robbed. It did not make sense to accuse a taxista and anyway he just wanted to get to bed. Stepping out onto the dirt road that led to his house, Henry noticed for the first time that there were no street lights leading up to the property.

It was a good 100 paces to the front gate from where the taxi had stopped. The house was surrounded by a 10 foot wall made of huge stones carefully stacked on one another and being held together by mortar. It stretched the length of a football field in both directions.

How old is this wall?

He could not help but think about the murderous husband sweating in the hot Honduran sun. Carefully he would have placed the stones one by one, building a fort to protect his family from the dangers of the outside world. He imagined the man's pregnant wife, young and beautiful with long thick black hair, greeting her knight in shining sweat with a glass of fresh mango juice made from hand-picked fruits from their own trees in that very yard. God this mango juice is bitter, I think I'll slit her throat.

Henry's path was lit by the yellow moon yet he could not see more than 10 feet in front of his face. The fog was settling in as it did a few times a week. Sometimes it would be so thick that he could not see his hand in front of his face, but never before did he feel this uneasy in the darkness.

The property was at least 5 acres with every type of fruit tree that Henry could have imagined. There was a very old mango tree that must have been 75 feet high that put out so many mangos that thousands of ripe mangos fell to the ground and rotted. What have you seen in your days my friend? What have you seen? His father once told him that no one picked fruit from a poisonous tree and the seeds of the rotted mangos would sprout new mango trees so that there was always 50 or so baby mango trees surrounding their father all competing for root space, for life.

There was also guava, avocado, mangostine (the fruit of the gods), ciuelas and more.

Then there was a strange looking tree. Henry had no idea what that tree was. The fruits looked like bell peppers of various colors that were deformed by some plant fungus. It's branches were crooked as spinal meningitis. Its leaves were broad as a lily. One day, Maria had made him some special juice from the fruits. He dared not drink it. Witch Juice.

Then she took the top part of the fruit that connected to the branches and wrapped it in news paper and lit it on fire. When the fire went out she dug a shell out of the ashes. Opening the shell she presented it to Henry. A fucking cashew. Maria had taught him something.

There is a first for everything.

Henry continued advancing cautiously towards where he knew the gate to be. The dirt road slithered beneath his feet as if he were not walking at all but gliding. The clouds raced across the moon that had silhouetted the the giant mango tree. Henry thought that he had seen the outline of a man hanging from one of the middle branches. As he advanced, it proved to be nothing but the angle from which he was viewing a hanging branch that had broken in a heavy rain some time before he arrived in Honduras.

At 20 paces from the gate he heard three or four of what he thought were footsteps coming from the other side of the wall. He stopped and listened. Nothing. Henry took a step forward then stopped again. Nothing.

His pulse sped. The razors on the back of his neck stood up at attention. His breathing became deeper, deliberate. A solitary beed of sweat ran down his chest and into his navel, He could hear everything which was nothing at all. There was someone else there. Their stillness and silence burned a hole in Henry's chest.

Then another blow to the ground beyond the wall just a little behind where he stood. He turned and saw a family of possums eating mangos in the tree and dispatching them half eaten to hardened soil below.

Get ahold of yourself Henry. You are a man.

The keys came from his pocket as he approached the gate. He put the key into the dead bolt and turned.

Someone touched his hip.

There was a small brown boy standing there. He was a handsome fellow. His eyes shined brightly and his cheeks were full and round. His hair was fairly longer than a Honduran boy's and unkept. He looked as if he had been rolling around in the dirt road for the entire 5 years of his life without ever having a proper bath. The feet of an old lady, dry and with craters surrounded by white crust that Betty Crocker would envy, rooted his small frame to the earth from which he came.

Henry took in his visitor with a sigh of relief. He had nearly soiled himself. He knew that Carlos' story was just that, a story. He convinced himself that his fear from the thought of a native, with a knife, about to pounce on him and leave him bloody on the dirt road for his wallet. It's just a story, Demons don't exist, Demon's don't exist.

Relieved, He felt a familiarity with this boy. The darkness and fog did not allow a clear view of the child's face, but the overwhelming feeling that they had met before rained on Henry. He had been to many villages and surrounding neighborhoods and treated many children. Perhaps this was a former patient that had tracked him down. Where are the parents.

The boy stood motionless, his eyes fixed on Henry's. His head was that of an owl; When Henry moved to the right, it rotated to the left while the body from the shoulders down remained rigid. When Henry moved back to the left, the boys head followed.

“Can, I help you?”

There was no answer, only the amplified silence echoed into the fog. Henry looked up to the tree. The possums had stopped their midnight feast and their red eyes stared at the boy. Perhaps they had seen him before as well. The wind danced amongst the leaves and mangos yet made no sound.

Every muscle in Henry's body tighten up, as tight as he had ever felt. He turned back to the boy who was now only a few feet away. Upon gazing into the eyes of innocence, Henry's body relaxed. Limber and loose he felt a calm that he had only felt once before in his life, when he held his newborn son for the first time.

“Este casa se asusta.” The child whispered.

Henry had heard this voice before.

“What, This house?”

“You shouldn't be here.” The boy spoke in English.

Henry had heard enough and swung the gate open violently and stepped toward the house. The boy grabbed Henry's arm but his grip was weak and was easily broken. He did not turn as he darted towards the front door.

The door was 10 yards from the gate Henry just wanted to make it inside and forget this day. Halfway there, Henry tripped. His weight hit the ceramic tile of the walkway like a bag of water. A sharp pain shot from his knee to his heel. This little bastard tripped me.

“You little son of a...” Henry belted towards the street but there was no one there.

He rose to his feet and entered the house.