NIGHTMARES

Frank's eyes fly open as fire and chills rake his brain, and through hazy blood-soured vision he sees the murderer in black standing just inches away. But the killer has his back to him now and is holding a gun to... Gerard's head! GERARD?! Holy fuck!

“You are going to die you fucking moron,” the murderer growls, forcing the gun barrel down Gerard's throat until the bleeding singer is gagging on it and tears are streaming from his closed eyes, “Nod if you understand.”
Gerard nods, retching and trembling and the gunman looms over him to savor the kill, ignoring Frank completely. Forcing himself to sit up, Frank bites his tongue against a cry of pain as his slashed and bruised skin splits and bleeds afresh. High on adrenaline and dizzy from bloodloss, he grabs the sticky blade that killed Lorna off the red-soaked floor with trembling fingers and stabs it as hard as he can into the back of the murderer's right thigh. Bellowing with pain, the killer yanks his gun free of Gerard's bleeding lips and turns violently, knocking Gerard out and aiming the weapon at Frank's heart just as the basement door slams open with a BANG!
“Police! Freeze!”
Two weapons open fire and more death stains the L.A night.

***
Thunder and echoes...
Ringing...
Choked gasps, gut-wrenching screams...
Raised voices boom over radio static...
Running footsteps...
Sobs and retching, gagging...
Vomit splatters...
And now the sirens...

And now the sirens.

Gerard opens his eyes as consciousness returns to him and all he sees is an ocean of red that stops his heart cold - he’s been shot in the head! OH GOD! Are his eyes bloody ruins in his shattered skull? Is he’s blind and dying? Why doesn't it hurt? Shock?Is he bleeding out?! Fucking DEAD?!

A faint female voice shouts over a man’s gruff response and a muted babble of chatter buzzes like locusts around the bleeding red void of his vision:
“Officer down, officer down!”
“Oh my god is he dead? Are they dead? Somebody do something! Help them for God's sake!”
“Miss, please...”
“Someone get her out of here!”
“This is Unit Five, we have multiple casualties on scene. Require immediate back up. Repeat…”
“Frank! Gee!”
“I SAID GET HER OUT OF HERE!”
“Perpetrator’s dead.”
“This one too...”
More voices.
And movement.
And crying...

A sudden rush of body heat so close that Gerard feels it on his wet skin and the numbing cocoon of shock around his brain drops away. The frantic voices all around him are amplified to deafening levels and a wave of agony rips through his skull, spilling out of his mouth in a storm of blood and screaming.
“Woah, shhhh, calm down,” a deep male voice hushes, “It’s okay, man.”
Choking badly on the blood in his mouth, Gerard has no choice but to stop howling but he’s trembling with pain and still blind. Nearby someone else is sobbing their guts out and where is Frank? Where's Frank?!
“My name is Greg, I'm a paramedic,” the deep voice adds quickly, “I’m gonna help you breathe better now. Just need to put something in your mouth, okay? Try to relax…”
Plastic clacks against his teeth and there's a low sucking sound. Then the blood is gone and he can breathe and sob and speak again.
“Alright,” Greg's voice murmurs, “Can you tell me your name?”
Coughing and whimpering, Gerard croaks his own name, feeling like he's sinking through the floor into darkness.
“Okay Gerard, and can you tell me where it hurts?”
“My head hurts s-so much... and my chest. There was a gun! Am I dying?”
“You're not dying on my watch, son.”
“I can’t see! W-Why can't I see?”
“You’ve got a lot of blood in your eyes from a wound on your head but don’t worry. Your friend Stacey got the officers here just in time.”
A warm gloved hand touches Gerard’s clammy forehead and gently pulls his eyes open wider one at a time as a bright light shines through the red mist.
“No sign of any real damage here. I’ll just rinse your eyes out…”

A blurred watery version of the basement washes into view and Gerard blinks hard, squinting up at a middle-aged bald man in a paramedics uniform kneeling over him on the dirty floor. The floor soaked in blood.
He opens his mouth to ask about Frank but he’s having trouble breathing and his chest hurts so much he can't get the words out. Greg runs his hands gently over his ribs and belly and asks him again what hurts, then puts an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose and injects him with something for the pain.
Gradually, Gerard’s vision clears a little and the agony in his head fades as the drugs kick in. Instead of sinking, he feels like he's floating above the filthy floor and the basement is suddenly crammed with strange people: police officers and medics, a guy with a too-bright camera flashing away at him and even a firefighter. Looking groggily around at all the activity, Gerard finally notices the three bloodied corpses lying scattered around the dim room and a mix of horror, morphine and dread makes him burst into tears. The blond girl Frank knew is one of the dead and the second body is wearing a cop uniform and has a bullet-hole in his forehead...

The third corpse is dressed in blood-stained biker leathers.

“Frankie…Where’s Frank?!” Gerard sobs when he can catch his breath.
“The kid with all the tattoos?” Greg asks, smiling sadly, “He’s right over there and my colleague Cheryl is taking good care of him. We'll have you both in the hospital soon.”
“I need to see him,” Gerard insists, pushing past the weird floating sensation of the morphine and Greg’s restraining hands to sit up and look around for his younger friend.

Frank is sitting up against an old refrigerator a few feet away with a silver medical blanket draped around his shoulders and his legs stretched out in front of him. He's drenched in blood, most of it his own, and crying so hard he's hardly making any noise at all, just shuddering and heaving breathless gasps and child-like hiccups, snot-drenched tears that almost split his frail body in half. A middle-aged paramedic with red hair is trying to cut away the blood-soaked denim of his jeans to get a better look at his injuries but Frank is struggling against her and trying to shove her away. His teary eyes are lost in whatever pains and visions are trampling through his head tonight and he can't seem to hear her soothing words at all.

“Frankie,” Gerard whimpers, his throat burning at the sight of his friend in so much pain.
“Hey wait,” Greg says in a warning tone as Gerard makes a move to stand, “You’re in no shape to be walking around.”
“Then help me” Gerard begs, pulling the oxygen mask off his face, “Please just let me get to him.”
Sighing in disapproval, Greg nods and helps Gerard to his feet, guiding him over the slippery concrete until he can sit down against the old basement fridge beside Frank. The other medic, Cheryl, has planted her gloved hands on Frank’s legs, trying to hold him still while she examines the stab wounds in his thighs but he keeps squirming and fighting her off. “Can you calm your friend down a little?” she asks Gerard in anxious desperation, “I’m reluctant to sedate him while he’s concussed but he’s going to make himself worse if he won't let me treat his injuries.”
Blinking back tears, Gerard nods and looks around for Stacey like a lost child looks for its mother but she's nowhere to be seen. They must have made her wait outside.

Swallowing a hot lump in his throat, the singer gingerly tries to slide his arm around Frank’s narrow shoulders but at the moment of contact Frank jerks violently away, eliciting a sigh from Cheryl as she drops her scissors.
“Shhhh Frankie, it’s alright,” Gerard says quickly, “You’re safe now, it’s okay…”
But it’s not okay and they all know it. Things will never be okay or normal again and My Chemical Romance seems like a joke now compared to the tragedy of this abnormal life.

Dropping his shaking hands into his lap, Frank shivers weakly and looks at Gerard with swollen eyes; still crying so hard he can barely breathe. His skin is sweaty and deathly pale under a hundred crusty wet smears of blood and terror and exhaustion are covering him like a cloak.
“Frankie, please, I’m not going to hurt you,” Gerard whispers, trying to keep his voice steady as he lays a hesitant hand on his friend's wounded arm. Frank flinches at the touch but his sobs are calmer now and behind the curtain of his damp blood-soaked hair his woozy eyes are barely open.
“No one’s going to hurt you now,” Gerard murmurs, very aware of the paramedics crowding around them with needles and bandages at the ready, “Trust me, it’s alright...it’s okay. No one can hurt you now... no one can hurt you now…”
Murmuring this small comfort over and over, the singer keeps his eyes locked tightly on Frank’s, pleading with him to come back from whatever hell he’s fallen into, until Frank finally nods, his skinny chest shuddering with smothered sobs, and collapses into his friend’s warm arms. “H-He killed her Gee! Killed her right in front of m-me!”
“I know,” Gerard whispers, stroking Frank's damp hair and cuddling him close while Cheryl bandages his bleeding legs, “I know and I’m so sorry Frankie. I'm sorry I didn’t help you before. I’m so sorry I didn’t listen!”
Frank nods shakily, his tears soaking Gerard’s collar, and then he suddenly feels heavier as the last light leaves his eyes and he passes out.

At once the paramedics pounce, pulling Frank’s limp body onto a waiting gurney and strapping him down. “Okay, people,” Greg orders his team, “Let’s move!”
Cheryl helps Gerard to his feet as a police detective walks over to escort them out of the building. “Thanks,” she whispers, “You really helped your friend.”
Gerard nods blankly but he can't agree with what she's saying. He doesn’t think he helped Frank at all tonight and if his friend's troubled mind carries on the way it is, soon there won't be anyone who can.

***

Left alone in the dark on the grimy street outside Lorna’s house, Stacey had panicked and called the emergency services just moments after Gerard broke into the house, allowing her fear and common sense to overrule his instructions about waiting a few minutes before phoning the cops. The fact that she didn’t wait saved his life.

Two police cars were dispatched to the scene with their sirens off and after hearing Stacey’s frantic testimony about screams for help in the basement, the LAPD broke in to find a murdered girl and two other victims still breathing, one with a gun in his face and the tall man holding the weapon whirled to face the cops as they burst in and brutally opened fire, killing one sergeant with a head-shot before the others gunned him down. The revolver fell from his lifeless hand as his body hit the floor and clattered to the crimson ground in front of Lorna's empty eyes.

As the echo of gunshots hollered through the night silence reigned in the basement for a moment, broken only by gasps of horror from the two surviving cops and a scream from outside. Then walkie-talkies whined and burbled as ambulances and more police came to back up their colleagues and one of the officers who’d killed the biker puked all over the basement steps. Paramedics rushed in and Stacey - who had screamed in terror when she first heard the gunfire - followed them to the murder scene and began to cry in hysterical panic when she saw Frank and Gerard lying there covered in blood. “Are they dead?! Help them for god's sake!” Eventually one of the female sergeants took her arm and pulled her outside as Greg and Cheryl entered the basement morgue with their medkits in hand.

“Perpetrator’s dead,” Cheryl quickly reported, checking with gloved fingers for the biker’s non-existent pulse while Greg sadly surveyed the dead cop. “This one too,” she added, sighing wearily over the body of the young blond girl before moving on. With her heart pounding nervously at the sight and stench of so much death, she tried to breathe through her mouth as she made her way over to the young tattooed guy curled up on the gory floor a few feet away, keeping one eye on the angry jittery cops who were invading the scene with tapes and cameras to document the dead.

Setting down her kit, Cheryl swallowed hard and faked a reassuring smile for the traumatized kid in front of her. He was so young, maybe early twenties, and her heart broke for him and his poor dead girlfriend over there. No one should have to die like that, no matter what they did wrong in their life. Unpacking first-aid equipment and bandages, she let her eyes and training tell her most of what she needed to know. The kid's dazed eyes and the blood in his hair indicated a head-wound and possible concussion and his white lips and pale sweaty face told her he'd already lost a lot of blood and was going into shock. He was still strong enough to scramble and cower away from her though when she raised her hands towards him in a calming gesture and the soothing words she always recited to trauma victims soon died on her lips. The damage to his body was obvious: he'd been beaten black and blue and his arms were a mess of torn skin and knife wounds brimming with half-clotted blood. His jeans were also soaked through with red but to find the source of the bleeding she'd have to cut away the soiled denim fabric and he wouldn't let her get close enough to do that. The poor thing had obviously been through the ringer tonight and he was still blinded by grief or trauma and deaf to her comforting voice.

Gritting her teeth, the medic tried to take her patient's arm but he burst into tears and twisted out of her grip, slipping and skidding in his own blood as he scrambled away from her, fighting for breath and whimpering with pain. Frowning worriedly, Cheryl added possible broken ribs to her mental list of his injuries and when he finally succumbed to obvious exhaustion and passed out in the arms of the other survivor of this bloodbath, it made her job so much easier. Unfortunately, this was one tiny convenience in a night from hell.

Notes

(I re-wrote this stupid chapter four times and i'm still not happy with it and it's probably full of typos
but I haven't updated in so long and I didn't want to leave you lovely people hanging anymore.
What happens next I leave partly up to you. Comment whatever you like (within reason lol) and I will work it into the story.
I love you all for sticking with me. xxx)