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Celtic_Frost
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Joined: 15 Aug 2018
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re: Celtic's Christmas Chapter 2

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Celtic’s Christmas
Chapter 2: Through the Fires of Hell
Location:
Shriners Children’s Hospital, Boston Massachusetts
Time: 11:37 PM December 24th 2018

Doctor Amanda Schaffer paced back and forth slowly in her office. Her hair was mussed from running her hands through it in frustration and she finally gave up and sat in her office chair letting out along sigh. Picking up the folder on her desk, she opened it and reviewed the notes on her patient again. After a few moments she slammed the papers down on her desk and pounded the desk with a closed fist.

“Damn it all!” Came the cry of frustration and self-revulsion. There was a quiet knock at the door and a bald headed man with a neatly trimmed beard poked his head in.

“Amanda, are you all right? I heard you yell” Said the man.

“It’s all right Bob; I’m just an….pi….” Doctor Schafer sat back down at her desk and put her head in her hands. “I don’t know what I am but what I do know is I’m no doctor right now. Just a complete and utter failure”

Robert “Bob” Johnson was the resident hospital Chaplin. At seventy two, he had seen his share of human frailties, himself a doctor in the Gulf war and later the resident clergyman for the Shriners Hospital in Los Angeles California before taking the position of head Chaplin in Boston. He and Amanda had worked “off the books” together for a number of years and had even partnered together launching several children’s care improvement plans to improve the lives of all the permanent child residents.

Robert stepped inside, closed the door and after gathering up the papers strewn across the office floor, he set them down on the desk, then seated himself in a conference chair facing the desk. He folded his hands in his lap and looked at her.

“Would you like to talk about it?” He inquired

“On the books or off?” Came the reply

Robert managed a smile. “On the books or off?” was a private phrase the two of them used whenever they were at work but hinted it may be better to, as the military term goes, “take off the rank” and just talk as normal friends. While Robert was a member of the clergy and protected by the sacrament, he was also duty bound to report anything in which he believed a person may self-harm themselves or be in serious mental distress. Working with a majority of the resident doctors in the burn unit, he became well known on a first name basis with several crisis centers personal in the performance of his official duties. He was well respected and liked in his professional community, but he also knew when a situation called for a more personal touch. To see his longtime friend suffering like she was, he knew the personal touch was better. For her, and for him.

Amanda opened the file and pushed it across to Robert. He picked up the file and read it while Amanda began talking.

“Leo Williams. Age seven. Both parents deceased; both were professionals in their chosen fields. One sister, Shelly, aged fourteen. Ran away from home at age twelve after finding her mother having….”Amanda paused for a moment then continued “marital relations with someone she was not legally married to. Come to find out it was a member of the remnants of Whitey Bulger’s Winter Hill gang. He bumped off the father to continue seeing the mother, then got bumped off himself after killing the mother when she wanted to end the relationship. Shelly snuck home to see Leo and found him standing over the body. Tried to kill her too but she was able to get to the police. Ended up getting killed in a police shoot out on interstate 495”

Robert nodded in silence and looked down a moment before closing the folder. He looked across at his friend and quietly asked “What do you think something like that does to a child?”

Amanda shook her head. “I do not know, but just after that her foster parents began reporting problems”

“What kind of problems?” Robert Inquired.

“Far more than the usual young teen rebelliousness. Several fights at school, including one where she broke a girl’s jaw and knocked out 4 of her teeth. Several incidents of stealing, larceny, vandalism. You name it….” Amanda trailed off and for a moment both sat in silence. “It was like she was so angry at the world. She stole her foster parent’s car to run away with Leo and made it all the way to the I-95 New Haven junction before she was stopped but in the process she rammed a state police cruiser while trying to get away, flipped the car and the gas tank exploded. Luckily some members of the Justice Girls were on hand to help pull them out but her brother was caught in the explosion and is now in room 214 and has been there for the past two years”

“When one feels they have nothing left to lose that is when they can be the most dangerous” Robert stated.

Amanda huffed in annoyance “I KNOW that Robert but this is a fourteen year old girl we are talking about whose only living relative, only connection to anything remotely resembling a normal life is lying in my burn ICU and may not live until tomorrow because his body is rejecting the skin grafts.”

Robert looked at the folder then back at Amanda, the realization hitting him.

“You mean to say……”

“That’s right. If Shelly Williams’ brother dies, especially on Christmas, that may be just what send her over the edge and turns her into only God knows what”

Robert looked down at the now closed folder in his hands. He slowly placed it back on the desk and looked at his hands quietly and for a long time all that was heard was the soft ticking of the desk clock at the hour slowly approached midnight. Finally the silence was broken.

“Heaven help us…….”

Location: 33,000 feet in the Troposphere over Virginia
Time: 11:05 PM December 24th 2018

“This is so fun!” Squealed a voice in delight from within a quickly moving lightning storm. The voice seemed to come from nowhere as there was no physical body that could be currently assigned to it within the churning, billowing clouds that composed the storm.

“I am glad that you are enjoying the ride”

“Is this how you always travel?”

“For the most part, yes”

“This is so cool, it’s like I can see in every direction at once”

“In this form I can and because you are part of my form currently, so can you”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course Shelly. What is it?”

“Has a plane ever tried to fly through you?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because it looks like a bunch of jets are going to do that right now if we don’t move”

Even though she was in the form of a storm front, Celtic saw two squadron of F-18 heading straight for them. She permitted a brief smile to herself. This was going to be fun, but it was going to be much more fun with an audience in attendance. She really shouldn’t, but it WAS Christmas after all. What was wrong with a little showing off? The correct answer? Nothing at all if the situation called for it.

“I assure you they will move”

“How can you be so sure?”

Even though she was not in her own body, Shelly felt the electric energy around her begin to build. “Looking” from one side to the other she saw lightning discharges flair and flash first dozens, then hundreds, and then thousands of times per second. They jumped from cloud to cloud, displaying a dance that lit up the entire section of the earth below they were currently passing over, making it as bright as the noon day sun. The thunder grew louder and louder and then reaching a crescendo of rumbles, exploded in a deafening clap that caused the trees miles below then to shake back and forth, car alarms to blare and even a few windows to shake.

Instantly the two squadrons went into a dive and leveled out a few thousand feet below them. Shelly felt the electric energy slowly calm and they continues on their way to Boston with her host speaking only one line.

“Mine is bigger than theirs”

Shelly’s squeals of laughter lasted until they crossed over Long island sound fifteen minutes later.

Location: Shriner’s Hospital, Boston Massachusetts
Time: 11:40 PM December 24th 2018

An alarm blared throughout the Burn unit and the PA system began blaring. Amanda Shaffer leaped from her chair and raced into the hallway. Grabbing an orderly she barked a question at him.

“What is going on?”

“Code blue in 214” came the reply as she orderly shook himself free and dashed down the hallway. Amanda raced after him

Location: In the skies over New London Connecticut
Time: 11:41 PM December 24th, 2018

The storm front came to a sudden stop and churned in place. Shelly knew something was wrong.

“Celtic, what is wrong?”

“Something has happened”

“What? What has happened?” Shelly cried with concern

Silence.

“Celtic?” Shelly cried again

“I am sorry Shelly, I need a moment.”

Two more minutes passed. Shelly was scared. She knew something was wrong. The storm front was condensing; its form becoming more compact and Shelly could feel the electric energy begin to build again. However this time, she was not giggling. This time she was afraid. The last time she was this afraid is she she saw the man over her mother's lifeless body. Something had happened to Leo. She knew it.

“A code blue has been called in your brother’s room”

“What is that?”

“Hospital code for Cardiac Arrest”

“Oh my God! We have to get there, Now!” Shelly cried in fear. She had to see Leo on Christmas, she had promised him. She promised him! She then noticed he energy build up was surging near dangerous levels. The storm front had shrunk considerably but the discharges continued to increase.

“I know. Hang on; we’re taking the fast way”

“Wait. I thought the other way was the fast way”.

“No. That was the fun way. When someone is in danger, I take the fast way. Like this.”

Shelly felt a sudden surge of forward movement and heard a loud crack of thunder and felt herself moving forward at incredible speed. The ground passed below her faster than she could see and as they lanced through clouds, the heat of the lightning bolt caused the clouds to instantly vaporize. In the blink of an eye they passed over Warwick Rhode Island. Another blink and Dedham Massachusetts flashed beneath them. It would now only be a matter of seconds.

“Shelly, I need you to get ready. This may be a bit…..rough for you”

“Wait rough? What the hell do you…..” Shelly began but never got to finish her question as they materialized on the sidewalk of Blossom Street. With a squeal, Shelly slipped on the ice, fell on her rump and, propelled by momentum, slid along the side walk coming to a stop in a snowbank flat on her back with her legs dangling in the air. She glared up at the woman who landed gracefully and was looking down at her with no emotion on her face but Shelly knew she was enjoying this.

“You planned that landing didn’t you?”

“Maybe”

“You have a weird sense of humor” Shelly said as she got up and threw a snowball at the woman who ducked it and with a wave of her hand materialized a large quantity of snow to appear above her head and land on top of her head with an audible “Splooot”

“HEY! That’s not fair!” She yelled, stomping her foot on the ground and brushing the snow off of herself.

“Yes it is”

Is NOT”

“Is too”

Celtic helped her to her feet and quickly guided her across the street towards the main entrance of the hospital.

“We must hurry. There is not much time”

Shelly said nothing but held Celtic’s hand. Tightly. And she did not let it go.

End of Chapter 2

Coming soon: Chapter 3 A Test of Faith
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