Fires Rising Read Online Free PDF Page B

seemed to slow. He felt rejuvenated, stronger perhaps. When he moved his arms he could feel his bicep muscles flexing. Truth be told, the aches and pains from his fall last night were no longer there. It's as if it's…healing me.
    His fingers weaved about the beads, more fervently now. Out of the blue, fond memories of his mother returned to him, she doting upon him when he was a smart young boy, watching over him every second of the day with her strict eye and God-fearing intent to protect her only son from the evils of the world. As a young boy, Jerry Roberts saw no choice but to gratefully accept his mother's vigilant security, and follow God's intended path for him.
    He saw images of his father, and how the man had impinged upon him a harsh and drunken demand to 'ignore his nutjob of a mother', had told him to find some work other than his after-school duties as an altar boy at the Church of Holy Innocents. His father would shout out, time and time again: We need you to help support the family. We earn barely enough money to pay the rent on this hell-forsaken rathole we call home. You've earned straight-A's in school—put some of those smarts to work and help us pay the goddamned bills!
    Jyro realized that his father had been justified in his demands, but was unable to win the losing battle, and in dire frustration had chosen to drink away his sorrows. In the end, his father had surrendered his liver to the Devil, who as his mother once said, was more than willing to take it from him.
    Jerry had been sixteen when his father died. Three days later, as they walked home from the funeral, his mother was killed by a hit and run driver, her body snatched away from him as he held her hand, the rosary in her clutches torn apart, its beads scattered in the street like seeds.
    Soon thereafter, he'd quit school—much to the dismay of his teachers, who were all quite smitten with their attentive honor student—and started attending church every day; it was the only thing that helped erase the haunting image of his mother's body laying bloody and mangled in the street, her eyes fluttering as they took one final glance at him. He'd prayed daily for the strength to carry on unhindered by the perils of mental trauma—a viable consolation for his pain. But with no inheritance to claim—and no living relatives to take care of him—the rent on the 'rathole' came due. Despite his prayers, Jerry Roberts had no money left after feeding his inherited propensity for drink.
    With nothing more than the clothes in his closet, Jerry Roberts soon found himself amongst the wanderers in the streets of New York City.
    He shook the disparaging memories from his head, squeezed the rosary tightly and prayed for them to lead him away from the fourteen years of pain and sickness accrued while living on Manhattan's streets and shelters.
    They will protect me, guide me. I have never lost faith in God. My mother introduced Him to me and I have lived with Him in my heart ever since I was an altar boy. Now, he has called upon me to perform a service, just as He did when I was a young boy, after my mother's death. Yes, I can see it now…the beads. I must heed their appeal.   
    He opened his eyes and met the splay of light from the flashlight, the shadow it created upon the soiled wall that of a praying Virgin Mary, her innocence shattered by water stains mimicking a unbound period. He sucked in a long fouled breath and shut his eyes, wishing for the startling image to vanish. Certain fear riddled his trembling body, and he squeezed the rosary more tightly, the warmth emanating from it both certain, and disconcerting.
    " Find him…"
    The whisper in the room with him was as real as the beads were warm. His hand went to his mouth and his eyes shot open. Had he just heard a voice surface from the looming shadow on the wall? The hair on his arms stood on end, his gaze fixed upon the wavering silhouette, the stains on the wall darkening the area around its