Chapter-3: Heart and Soul
“Don’t run; don’t run … little boys,” said Luz with a playful smile. He quickly selected another song and let it burn above his head. “Careful now—the shadows bite.”
Este broke into a jiggling side wobble of a sprint heading east. His portly stomach and fat chest bounced in alternating rhythms. Heat and sweat poured over him with each anguished step he placed.
Elotro cried like a two-year-old toddler, waving his hands every which way, dropping his guns, dropping his useless toys.
“No, no, no,” said Elotro, “this … this, can’t be … it’s not real, it’s only a dream, only a bad dream in the desert. This can’t be real—no such thing … there’s no such thing?”
A serene look of surprise blossomed upon the woman’s beaten face. She trembled uncontrollably, laughed, and wiped her mouth and cold nose. Sweet excitement filled her with giddiness. The entire scene eased her exhaustion away like a fountain wish come true. Still, she struggled to push up onto her swollen palms.
“You three demons,” said the woman, “are more than real for me, cabrones. Welcome to the nightmare … taste it and eat it all up. There’s plenty of fresh torment for everyone to have. So, delicious, don’t you think, eh?”
Aquel raised his pistols once more. He still believed that he could kill the real vicious bad thing approaching him.
Luz reached out with a delicate grace, before another round let loose into the frigid night air over Madera. And, with a gentle touch, he calmly tapped away both forearms off Aquel’s body, severing them just above the elbows.
Dark life filled the space in front of Aquel. The spastic jerks of deep red shocked him into a stupor of disbelief. Unarmed, he gawked at his forearms on the ground, and at his hands still gripping both of his very own pistols.
Aquel let loose manic screams—desperate for certainty and reason. His world flickered between light and sleep. And he felt cold with suffocating sickness.
“Wait … wait, wait,” said Luz. His hands glowed bright red. “Not so fast. I don’t want you to bleed out and die so soon.”
Aquel’s head bobbed about in a daze as Luz stepped in to hold the nubs of his bleeding arms. Bright flashes of red light pulsed from Luz’s hands, cauterizing the remaining arms. Bones cracked, and meat and fat sizzled within the scolding hands that held Aquel up. A putrid smell of burnt flesh danced in the air, and all the bleeding stopped. But the truthful screams continued up and down the mountain.
Elotro choked in place within a turbulent myriad of shock and horror. He shook his head in disbelief and lost control of himself. His body defecated and vomited and cried, while the nightmare continued to play out before him.
Lost beyond the present, Elotro hummed an old nursery rhyme from his youth. He tried desperately to hide from where he stood. Tears flowed out of his blood shot eyes as he looked up at the sky. “Go to sleep little boy, go to sleep now,” he repeated to himself, hoping and wishing for a brief moment of escape. “For here comes, El Cucuy, to take you away.”
The crescent moon glowed copper red. The stars did not shine with their usual luster. And the battered woman on the ground laughed and jiggled beneath the killing moon.
Thank you
I appreciate your time in reading this blog post. Next Saturday I will upload the next part of Chapter Three: Heart and Soul, from my novel: Luz Upon The World.
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Total Consciousness 
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