Jerry was thrown in the middle of a bus station, where hundreds of people formed long lines. A little rain came down with a gelid wind, cooling off the warmth Jennifer's hugs had left in him. The smell of the tires on the asphalt and the black smoke of the mufflers completed the drastic change of environment.
A timid sun halo trough the grey clouds hinted it to be no later than nine in the morning, confirmed by a large clock next to a sign above Jerry's head, wishing a Happy Thanksgiving to everybody; whilst another indicated he was in Providence, Rhode Island, and a bus was leaving to Washington D.C., stopping in Newark, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.
He couldn't stop thinking about his parents and what an amazing surprise it would be to return home, cured, on turkey day, would have been.
The air conditioning system of the condo connected the living room directly to his room, and from Jerry's position, it was possible to listen most of what people said in there.
"Find peace in your hearts, because Jerry will spend the rest of his life in that tube. Maybe, it's time you wished for him a shorter life than you'd originally hoped," one afternoon, Jerry eavesdropped Dr. Sarandon, putting it bluntly to his parents.
"You were wrong about him before he was born, when you wanted us to abort him; and I am sure Jerry will prove you wrong once again," his father cut the physician off.
"It's just my medical opinion, nothing personal," he responded, without changing his diagnosis. "But this endless burden is deteriorating the health of you both."
"A burden? You can't speak this way about our son. We are a family, not a medical record."
"He is never going to get any better," Sarandon left no room for further discussion.
"I know I should've trusted my instinct with this guy," Jerry's dad turned to his wife. "Doctor! It would be better for everyone if you left."
"As I said, it's my professional opinion, and I stand by it. Rachel, you know you can call me at any time," the doctor saw himself out.
"He is trying to do his job," Jerry's mom said.
"Not at the expenses of our son. I don't want to see this guy around Jerry anymore, and neither around you."
"I am afraid you don't have much saying on this. It's up to me to decide which doctor to see."
"We let him almost ruin this family, once. I am not going to let it happen one more time. Rachel! If you see him, you'll disappoint me."
Reminiscing Sarandon's voice evoked the blurry images from Door Number 1.
A sharp blade cut the throat, then found its way around the neck and sliced evenly the bleeding meat, all the way to the neck-bone.
But, in the middle of a random bus station in Rhode Island, the immediate problem was to find the money to purchase the ticket, and for a person wearing a pajama of an NFL team, apparently long gone and zero cash in his pocket was not going to be an easy task.
He looked around, in search of a valid solution, when a man approached him. Not very tall, mid-twenties, with dark hair. He wore a heavy ski-jacket opened on the front, revealing underneath a T-shirt of Italian director Dario Argento's film Inferno, and a pair of contractor pants, with pockets all over. He carried a big backpack, also with many pockets and, hanging from his belt, he showed off a midsize Swiss pocketknife.
"Hola! Go Oilers," the man raised two thumbs up. "I was en Texas long time ago," he spoke with a strong Spanish accent. "Are jou from there?"
"No. I've never even been to that part of the country," Jerry gave a disinterested answer, but he couldn't take his eyes off the color shaded skull logo of the motion picture on the guy's T-shirt, remarkably similar to one of the looks the Dwarf had shown in his previous appearance.
YOU ARE READING
27 Doors
Mystery / Thriller27 Doors begins in Baltimore, 1978, with twenty-two-year-old Jerry sleeping inside an iron-lung that keeps him alive, and where he has been living most of his life. The sleep is brutally interrupted by an evil dwarf, and a mysterious energy breaks t...
