(Page 1 of 2) Family Portrait: Prelude by Chris McCartneySUMMARY: This story is for Veronica and anyone else that liked THE DETECTIVE, its made me decide to start putting THIS story up for consumption. Rate and comment as always. P.S. Things are meant to clear up as it goes on so wait up for the next chapter.The streets of this particular part of the city reeked to high heavens and under any other circumstances Amy would have never entered these streets. The eyes that watched as she passed were drunk at first but as she pressed on, her stomach clutched tightly against the pain, the eyes changed slowly. They became drugged, eyes that spoke of dark days in the gutters waiting for the next tense fix, then they stopped and for a few metres the eyes were gone.
Amy blinked hard, her body ripping itself apart from the feel of it. Then she opened her eyes again, and with a loud pain-filled gasp dragging in the dire air, Amy saw something that made her cringe. The eyes watching her now looked more malevolent than those that had gone before, but these eyes seemed to look knowingly. They knew her somehow. No, not her; they knew he dilemma, they knew what she was going through. But how could they? Amy could feel her body go cold as the eyes peered deep into her, threatening to piece entrance into her soul. Dragging lead feet she looked up at the night-world that continued before her on the docks.
The red neon caught her attention and she pressed on harder than before.
Through vision that wasn't yet spinning, but wasn't far off it, Amy saw dark figures who held her gaze as they parted gently to allow her to pass. She felt hands tenderly urge her on and after a lifetime the lights came up above her and her gaze met that of a doorman.
‘I need...' Amy spluttered for a moment; a vibration that sent her reeling back. The doorman reached out and caught her limp form. Pulling her close to his warm body, he lifted her eyelids and peered into her eyes. He wiped the sweat from her brow and pulled a tuft of auburn hair from her face.
‘Who?' The word was the boom of a drum in her mind and it called out to some unknown part of her.
The strange pull gave Amy the strength to answer. ‘Ca...Cale,' she said.
The doorman's eyes flashed with recognition and with one large arm he held their bodies together. With the other he reached out and pushed the black double doors aside like they were made of paper. Two more doors loomed and were subsequently breezed away by the strength of the suited doorman.
Amy's form hugged the large man as her mind swam. The huge space that they moved through flashed with many different coloured lights, music blared into the crowds of dancing figures, music that boomed with technological noise and gasped with whispered lyrics.
Amy's breath took three decades to enter her body and two to exit it. Her clammy warmth and sticky hands took her attention. Whatever was happening to her, she couldn't tell. She had never known anything remotely like it. Then something else changed. It was as if in a moments notice, particular members of the crowd went from being indiscriminate figures in a river of bodies, to people who stood out like hammers among nails.
Her dragging feet suddenly tackled the single leg of a stool. It collapsed and Amy's lower back felt the pressure of the bar's counter.
‘Call Emma.' The doorman said to someone Amy could not see.
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