Tag: Dying

Dead Friends: Chapter 42

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Brian sat at the window watching the birds. He was always there, in his room, watching birds. It was his life. What else did he have to do? He was trapped and alone not just in this place but in his own mind. He was a prisoner his own body, constantly screaming to be free.

“Scream as I scream, but no one listens to me.” He would have said to the empty room, but to talk would have meant he would have to have typed it out using the one finger tip that he did have enough control over to use. It would have been typed, not spoken, and then the room would have heard the computer generated voice that was now what he thought of as his own.

How much of him was even presented to the world? How did the world see him, just the crippled in the chair or did any of them ever see what he was in side.

What did they matter, he was an outcast inside and out…

A new bird chirped as it landed close to other and the two caught over some unseen worm. The fight drew him out of his thoughts though he knew it would only be temporary. He had woken up again in a foul mood. He couldn’t place why he had been waking up in such temperaments, but felt the blame had something to do with his dreams lately. He couldn’t remember them, but would wake up shivering and sweating.

“And how is my young athlete doing this morning?” A booming, chipper voice called out behind him. Brian didn’t turn around to look. He couldn’t, not without moving his whole chair, but he also didn’t have to, to know that the voice belonged to Jerome. “We ready to get up and take on the day.”

Jerome wasn’t this insensitive to all the patients he cared for. He was a good guy, and his jokes were often tailored to his audience. Brian could take the joke and most days the barbs would be returned in a jousting match of insults and sarcasm, all good natured. However today wasn’t a good day. Instead there was an anger that was building, that dark feeling that was following him out from his dreams. It made him want to snarl and lash out at the world, and for right now, the world was Jerome.

“You shouldn’t say that,” Came the computer generated voice from the speaker attached to his chair. It was followed by a single tear that ran down his cheek.

Jerome had continued into the room as he had talked and had gone to the sheet next to the bed, writing in some information into the log sheet there. At the sound of the voice box, Brian watched through the reflected glass as the man looked up in shock at the boy sitting in the wheelchair. Jeromes mouth had opened in shock, and Brian could see how much pain now spread on his face.

“Bro, I’m sorry. You know I was just kidding.” Jerome set down the clipboard and walked over to Brian, coming around and lowering himself so he could look into the boy’s eyes. “You know I don’t mean stuff like that right. We just always kid. Something getting you this morning.”

Brian could feel like more tears threatening to stream out of him in a flood of emotions he himself didn’t even understand. He could feel them right below the surface, but not the cause of why they were there. They were bottling up, just like the anger he was feeling. All of it, fighting as to which emotion was going to break free, and at the same time he didn’t want to release any of it. Not now, not in front of Jerome when it had been Jerome’s own words that had brought all of this to the surface.

“What is wrong with you lately” the little voice inside him asked as he looked back at Jerome. No he glared at him, the anger taking the forefront of the storm. He refused to even reply as he just stared into those dark ember eyes that looked at him with compassion.

The moment lingered and doubt creased along Jerome’s face until he stood and backed away. Brian could tell the big guy was thinking, which wouldn’t surprise Brian as Jerome was a pretty smart guy. He was normally fun and geeky, full of comic book knowledge and always up on the latest movies coming out. Not only that but he knew about stuff and was a deep thinker. Jerome had once told him that he was minoring in philosophy in college before he decided to dedicate himself full time to helping people, and sure while much of that could have been bullshit, Brian didn’t think so. He believed him, because Jerome was also very earnest.

So as Jerome stood up and looked outside, at the grass that was covered in fall colored leaves, Brian knew he was deep into his thoughts about something.

“When was the last time your sister came by to see you?” Jerome asked, looking back to Brian. Brian wanted to scoff. He tried too, and he even typed in “ha, ha” into his little keyboard, but all that came out was the digital laugh that sounded eerily creepy.

“That’s what I thought. Don’t seem right. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t know her, she’s not my sister, but sure seems selfish how she stays away. Just doesn’t seem right.” Jerome was again looking out the window and his voice had grown distant as he kept his gaze locked on the trees.

Brian looked in that direction and was struck by the shadows. They were dancing. He could first see how the ones that stretched out from the woods into the grass swayed back and forth and gyrated like people in a seductive rhythm. Bodies of darkness were intertwined, wrapping around one another as though moving to their own song. They were beckoning, reaching out to him, he could see it. He could even feel it inside his chest, burning inside his soul. He felt something inside him shift, and though while knowing it was impossible, he could feel his penis growing stiff.

The shadows pulled him in, and he found himself looking at the trees. Was that a man he saw there? It was far enough away he couldn’t be sure. The man was hidden, but somehow Brian knew that if he did see him, he would still not be able to make out any details.

There were other patients, members of the long term care society just like himself. Many of them would be walking along the paths, escorted by one of the many orderlies. They were out there, mulling around like cows out to pasture. Though as they all walked, everyone avoided the shadows. He even watched as Nelson, a zombie of a person so out of touch on med’s that he never responded to anyone, shocked the orderly he suddenly sidestepped out of the path of a dancing shadow that had stretched towards him.

They all were avoiding them and avoiding the woods. What was out there?

Brian adjust his wheelchair so he could see Jerome who was still looking off to the woods.

“Jay.” The digital voice called out for Brian. “J-man, come on.”

Jerome looked at him, the jolly smile Jerome normally had was spread wider into an unnatural tooth filled grin, and there were so many teeth. Brian was sure there were more teeth than what was right and that there might have been another set of teeth buried deeper within. Jerome’s kind eyes were gone, burned away by a purple flame that burned in his eyes.

Brian’s friend was disappearing before him and something else was replacing him. It wasn’t the thing in the woods, as Brian was convinced that he would never see the things features had the shadow man been in there.

Why are you so sure of that? He didn’t know, he just was. This was something else, and it was wrong to this world.

“Hey B-dawg, what’s wrong.” The thing said, its voice stretched and broken, somehow rattling as it spoke. It was like the voice was formed as wind blowing through broken glass, shaking then shards as sound stretched into words.

It sent a shiver through Brian. He knew he should run, and he did want to get away, but he also knew how pointless that would be. Even now as terrified as he was and shook in terror, none of it was visible as his body trapped him. He had nowhere to go. He was more a prisoner in his own body than he was to the room around him. He had been trapped long before this creature appeared.

“You see me…” the thing spoke, but Brian noted the surprise when it struggled with the words. Each syllable was slow and paused. It reminded Brian of how his older speaker system had been, when the system spoke each word as he typed rather than waiting for him to finish what he had typed. It had made for long stretched out sentences all because the machine kept saying a word, pause, then say another word.

“You see him too.” The creature who had once been Jerome looked towards the trees much as Jerome had before this thing took his body. “It thinks it is master just because it found it first and has been here longer.”

The creature looked back to Brian and Brian knew Jerome was lost. The burning eyes were melting away the skin around the sockets and the mouth that had torn wide to accommodate the new set of growing, sharpening teeth was continuing to bleed. Blood was dripping from its gums and now the lower jaw was red as it spat out when the thing spoke. There was no returning from this.

Brian knew he should be scared, and for the skip of a heart beat, he had been. Then he hadn’t died. The thing was there and it wasn’t attacking him. So the fear slipped to the back of his mind, still there, but lulled as he watch the thing talking to him. Maybe it was part of his condition, or it was because he was used to being trapped within himself and that was worse than whatever this thing could do. It could just be that logic had won out and he realized that if he was alive and this thing was still talking to him, then it needed him. Whatever was the case, he found himself not the terrified mouse looking back at the predator, but as the grizzled vet, staring at the end of his life.

It knelt down close and Brian could smell the blood on its breath as it spoke.

“It does not control me. It wants you.” Blood spattering Brian’s face as it spoke. “It wants you to its collection. Some think it be a trickster, but I’ve known it too long. It be a collector. It wants you for its collection.” Brian felt the chill from the thing’s eyes and wished he could turn his face away. He couldn’t. He was locked in and his eyes were fixed on staring into the cold flames.

How could cold burn into him? He wasn’t sure, but he felt it. There was no getting away from what he felt. As much as he wanted to, there was no escape.

“I’m not going to kill you. If I kill you, then you become a part of it’s collection.” It said as it backed away from Brian. Brian tried to take in a quick gasp of air in relief, but found that his body was fighting him. Instead, his breathing was still quick, struggling to keep up with his racing heart. He was more terrified than he realized, but it was all alien to him. His body reacted, but his mind felt detached. Like it could watch this thing as it moved and transformed, while still being able to study it and think rationally. The thing had just told him it was there to kill him. Then why was it there?

“What then? If you are not going to kill me?” Brian asked. He did. It took him a couple seconds to comprehend it, but he had said the words, not the speaker. He had not taken the time to type the message out, but instead had just blurted it out. Something he hadn’t been able to do for over three years, but yet the words had come to him, and they had left his own lips.

He felt the tear as it stung his cheek, and knew there would be a tidal wave behind it. He had spoke. That was a miracle, and one he had given up on long ago. He had moved more than just a few muscles. If he could do that, then what else could he do?

The thing was looking back at him, and that wide, tooth filled smile stretched wider, tearing more skin.

“I want you to get something for me.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. What would you do to have your body back? Would you kill?”

Brian shook his head ‘no,’ before he realized he was doing it. Then his eyes opened wide in disbelief and suddenly he wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t kill to have his body back.

“You would. I can see the doubt. You think you wouldn’t, but you would.”

“No.” Something about hearing his own thoughts come from the thing’s mouth gave Brian a new found resolve. Having his body back would be great, but he realized he would never be able to live with himself if it meant taking another’s life.

The thing just nodded and went back to walking around the room. Brian hadn’t noticed before, but even when it had been close to the window, it still moved to stay away from any direct source of light. It always moved around them, working to stay in the shadows, even if the shadows were faint in the well lit room.

It went to the door and closed it.

“No? Well, we’ll see, but I don’t need you to kill. I just need you to get some things. Things that it can’t get. Things that we want. Things that we need. Things that a few people have…including your sister.”

Dead Friends: Chapter 31

JasonRDavis1 Comment

Lizzie should have known better. She shouldn’t have rushed outside, not even if she heard screaming. The night was cold, fall making its sharp descent into winter temperatures early this year and she hadn’t stopped to fully prepare for it. She wished being more prepared for the chill had been her only mistake. 

Time would tell how costly it had been if it ever got the chance. Now she was trapped out in the dark woods, surrounded by many she had once thought of as friends. They were all dead now, and their piercing eyes were all the yelling she needed to know that the hatred hadn’t subsided in the week following their abolishment to hell and subsequent release. 

Though there was one set of eyes that didn’t share the hate. Roland, who had joined them nearly a week ago, had not spent the time in hell, and still looked at her as though he cared. He was but one, in the many that still did hate, and she knew that as much as he wanted to help her, he would be powerless. Already as the rest of them circled her, Josh was holding Roland back, his head locked in a massive head lock as Josh’s large beefy arms held him secure. Roland struggled to break free, but he could barely match a portion of the larger man’s strength.

If the other’s, her dead friends, could spit on her, she knew that they would. They had tricked her into coming out there. During the day time, it probably wouldn’t have worked. She was surprised it had at night. That had been some dream, and when she had woken already thrashing as the fight from the dream crossed over into her struggle with the blankets in reality, she had already been in fight mode. Her heart had already been racing and she hadn’t been thinking. She only knew that something had been wrong and she was ready to strike back.

The scream had been a catalyst. It had also been bait. How had they known she would fall for it? Lizzie could see on Sarah’s face that she was mocking her for it, the sneer showing the contempt the woman held for her. That long ago friendship they had was lost. 

Sarah had been her best friend. They had been besties since they were both eight and running around their neighborhood, teasing the boy’s that were trying to give them cooties. Now if Lizzie was lying dead on a the ground, and if Sarah was alive, she wouldn’t do anything but spit on her body.

What were they going to do with her? Lizzie had already seen that they could hurt her. They had done that at the coffee shop and she had been terrified of that moment happening again. Since she’d come to the cabin, she had been staying in the confined space, not even leaving to get groceries. She had yet to call in for a delivery though if she survived this, she knew she would have to come morning. She had eaten the last can of soup for supper and was thankful as she didn’t think she could eat another can of chicken and rice soup. There was only so much Campbell’s soup a woman could take.

This was why she was afraid of ordering. If not her, she was afraid her friends would attack the delivery driver and hurt him. She had never seen them attack anyone else and wasn’t sure if they could. She wasn’t about to put someone else in that danger if she didn’t have to. She also knew that she couldn’t take that chance.

“Why?” Lizzie finally broke down and asked as they circled around her.

Sarah chuckled.

“Poor little rich girl.” Sarah said.

“I’m not-“ Lizzie started, but she was stopped by a shove from behind and that grew sick with that sense of wrongness she felt whenever one of them would touch her.

“You’re not? Really? I know how much he left you.”

“You know what he really left me.”

“You don’t know that!” Lizzie was turning with them, keeping her eyes locked on Sarah though she knew that kept Chuck to her back. He had to have been the one to have shoved her as Elisabeth was always just to her right.

“You killed us.” Chuck said, and she barely had time to turn around before she felt the blow and seen the fist he swung. It hit her chin, but didn’t feel so much like a hand that smashed into her, but some kind of unseen force. She couldn’t really explain how it was different, but it still hurt, sending her to fall on her butt.

Lizzie had never been hit by a man before. She’d gotten into a few tussles with other woman, usually for ignorant crap like someone accusing her of stealing they’re boyfriends. It was dumb, and she never understood it. After all, had they really looked at her? She was never going to be the stealing boyfriend kind of girl, not when they could have someone like Sarah. Still, it did happen, and as Lizzie wasn’t one to fight back, had usually always ended up being the one on her backside, fighting off blows.

A man had never hit her. That was abuse. A man to touch her was something that just didn’t happen. That was for women who allowed themselves to be pulled into bad relationships and stayed with the wrong men. Woman like her, the ones who avoided those men, shouldn’t ever be hit by a man. It wasn’t right.

Her face still stung from where she had felt the blow, and her butt was cold from the wet earth beneath her.

“So you can be hurt. I thought you-“ Chuck looked behind Lizzie at Sarah. He was watching her as she walked around Lizzie to him. “said she couldn’t be touched.”

I’m not going to cry. I’m not going to- fuck no I’m not going to cry. I’ve been through too much shit, and have put myself in harms way not sending them back to that hell.

Sarah glared at her as she walked around into view. She had a smirk that Lizzie didn’t recognize. It was like the friend she had grown up with wasn’t there. Who was this woman who strode around her, able to plan and execute a deviousness Lizzie couldn’t fathom?

“It seems things have changed.”

“Sarah, you all don’t have to do this. I’m trying to find a solution.”

“We don’t need you to find a solution.” Sarah said. Lizzie felt that sickening feeling and knew that one of them had grown close behind her. She guess it was Elisabeth who was keeping very quiet. 

“No, we’ve got that figured out,” Chuck said. He nodded to Sarah. “At least your friend did.”

“We don’t need to figure it out because all we have to do is kill you. Isn’t that right?” Sarah said and Lizzie felt as some force slammed into her back between the shoulder blades. 

Lizzie called out in pain as she was pitched forward by the blow. She started gasping and realized that she’d been hit from behind, but whoever hit her hadn’t released her. They must have landed on top of her and that sickening feeling in her stomach had gotten worse, spreading to her chest.

“How.. would… I know.” She panted, struggling for breath.

“When I first came back, I couldn’t even move a coffee mug. Not by myself. You remember that. We tried, just like the friends we had always been, we tried to do things together.”

Lizzie didn’t like the tooth filled smile Sarah was giving her and their was a wildness to her eyes. They were opened wide, and Lizzie was sure her friend had lost her mind. She was moving towards Lizzie, as she struggled to pull herself back. It was hard, but Lizzie could push against the force that was trying to keep her there.

“You’re not getting away from me.” Sarah took another step towards her.

“Lizzie. You have to get inside. Trust me, get back inside.” Roland was struggling to get away from Josh, but Josh was a big man and it was like a grizzly bear taking on a wolf. Wolves can do well in a pack, but by himself, he was over matched. There was nothing he could do for her, she was on her own.

And she wasn’t about to let them hurt her. She had to fight them.

Lizzie laughed. It was hard at first and initially sounded more like a wheeze that barely escaped from her lungs. The force behind her pulled back though, and she could pull in more breath.

“What are you doing?” Sarah asked and Lizzie laughed harder. She looked at her friend, but the question wasn’t posed to her. She had asked the person behind her and Lizzie looked back to see that Elisabeth had been the one on top of her. Elisabeth had stood up and was now looking at both of them, pained.

Was she crying? Lizzie thought she could see the glisten of moisture at the corner of her eyes. Maybe there was still something of her soul left. 

Thank God! Lizzie thought as she turned back to Sarah.

Why was it someone Lizzie had just met was more her ally, had more of her soul, than the person she had grown up with? Sarah had no compassion for her. That fiery intensity had only shifted to Elisabeth for a fraction of a heartbeat and it was now reaffirmed and directed back at Lizzie. She was walking closer, faster now, only a few steps away.

Lizzie didn’t have time to think, she only had time to react. Her gut told her to strike and so she did. She leapt forward into where Sarah was, unsure if Sarah had any mass or not. She pushed forward, keeping low so that if Sarah was solid, Lizzie would tackle her out of the way. With luck, Chuck would be so caught off guard that she could get past him and run back into the house.

When she hit where Sarah had been, it wasn’t that she went through Sarah, but that the shape of here disappeared from where she had been. Lizzie had felt the resistance of something there, but not the solidness of flesh, then there was nothing and she was fighting to keep her balance while running forward.

“No! You bitch!” Sarah was close behind her. Whatever had happened to her, it hadn’t moved her far from Lizzie, and Lizzie knew that she would be running to catch up to her. Lizzie didn’t have to make it far, but she was also not dressed to be out there. Each step she ran was a reminder that she had left the house with no shoes on. 

The cold was bad enough, not enough that she had to worry about frostbite and losing a foot, but it did make the ground hard and every bump in the dirt, sharp. Sarah didn’t have such concerns and she knew it. Dead things didn’t feel pain, and she would be able to catch her. 

Lizzie could feel the biting in her pants and knew that the talisman was in her pocket. She didn’t know how it got there as she had put it away, storing it in the box of books she had found that her uncle had left her. She had never pulled it out, and especially didn’t put in her pocket before coming out there. Still, she felt the sharp jabs from the teeth of the hideous thing and the desire in her chest to put it on and send them all away. All of them, get rid of all of them so she would never have to deal with them again. Then maybe she could live a life in peace out there, even if she couldn’t enjoy normalcy, she would have quiet.

She pushed herself harder to make it to the house. She was only a few feet away now. She just had to be ready to make the turn to go up the sideways stairs and then she could fall into the living room if she had to. 

Lizzie already knew what was going to happen before she felt it. She had to slow down to make that turn to go up the stairs. If she hadn’t been running straight towards the house, she might have been able to get to it at an angle and she would have been okay. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been thinking about that as she had just pushed to get away. Now she did have to slow, and Sarah would be there to catch her. Sarah, the cheerleader who had always been more physically fit that Lizzie who spent much of her extra time in the library. Sarah, who liked to work out with Jessica while Lizzie would be there with them, occasionally commented while she sat off to the side reading a book. Sarah, who was determined to see her in pain and suffering as Lizzie wanted to escape into the confines of the house. I 

Lizzie felt her feet got out from her first. She had been close enough that she was reaching out to shift her balance for the turn to go up the stairs. It was right when she had shifted her weight, and then she was falling. She had that brief moment when she realized it was happening and knew that now matter how she turned it was going to hurt. She had too much momentum against her, she was going to slam into the house.

The pain shot through her. First it was her shoulder as it slammed into the rough wood of the outer wall. Then her back twisted and that sent torrents of pain from all over as them her arm and legs slammed into places she wasn’t even sure of. She felt like a rag doll being tossed around as she hit the wall, then again all before landing hard on the ground. 

She lost consciousness, but only for a brief second or two. It was enough for them to catch her and when she came too, she was feeling the force of their blows all along her body. They were kicking her into the wall, each blow was doubled as she felt it, then the pain as it would slam her into the house. She had somehow managed to get her arms over her face, so even when she had blacked out, some part of her was thinking, but the rest of her was exposed and she felt the blows. 

She fought to pull herself towards the stairs. They hadn’t been far when she slowed and when she outstretched her arm, she felt the tip of them. That was when she was the shoe come crashing down on her face and felt the smashing force. She could feel the blood come from it, spilling down her face, and swore she heard something crack. It had to have been her nose as she felt lightening stabs of pain shooting through her eyes and into her skull.

It didn’t stop her. She knew where the step was, and pushing through, pulled herself towards it. Each blow rocked her towards the ground and the house, but she kept going. Each lifting of her knee was met with a kick from one of them to throw off her balance, but she moved slow, not pulling it to high so if it did fall back down, it wasn’t going to cause more pain. 

She made it up the first step and then the other. She only had two more steps to go and there would be the open front door. At that time and more than any other time in history, she was thankful for being out in the woods and that she had ran out without closing it behind her. All she had to do was reach the platform and she could just fall into it.

“Oh no you don’t bitch,” Sarah snarled behind her, and Lizzie felt a force behind her head, trying to smash her face into next step. It hadn’t stopped Lizzie, and she reached out for the step and pulled herself farther up. She was on the platform now. She had almost made it. “Shit!”

Lizzie didn’t try to run into the house, or anything glorified. She was too tired and in too much pain. She saw the entryway and fell past the threshold. First it was just her upper body, but once that had cleared, she pulled her feet and let them crash against the wall on the inside of the door frame. 

Lizzie saw that Sarah had been trying to reach for her, but that was the problem on not really being able to use their hands against her. They could hit her with come kind of force, but it made it really hard for them to grab at her. 

She was panting, just inside the door, not moving. Sarah stayed outside, watching her. 

“Just die already.”

“No…” Lizzie wheezed out and then rasped into a cough. She thankful no blood came out. She didn’t know what that would mean, but she knew it would be bad if there had been. “Not yet. Brother.”

“Brother. Yeah, well, too bad. He’ll be dead soon, and then what will be your excuse.”

“I’m sorry.” Lizzie was catching some of her breath, now able to say short phrases and her chest no longer felt like it was going to seize up and quit working for her. Maybe she would survive the night. Maybe. There was still a long time before morning.

“You don’t get to be sorry.”

“I am.”

“Yeah, well fuck you. Fuck your whole fucking family. I’ve never liked you. I only tolerated you because your dad. Your mom was a fucking drunken whore who slept with the whole town. Everyone knew it. I felt sorry for you.”

Lizzie felt a new pain in her chest rise up, and a lump formed into her throat. She was having trouble breathing again, and not sure if it was from the beating or the words.

Her legs fell from beside the door, and she twisted her body around. It was hard, each time she moved a muscle they protested in agony, but she was able to turn so she could reach for the door. She grabbed the handle and pulled herself up so she could step to the threshold and look her friend in the eyes.

“Than why get an apartment with me.”

“Fuck you.”

“Why still be friends with me, why come out here with me.”

“I came out here to die. It was my fucking time. That’s all I am or was, someone to die because I was close to you. Fuck You. Fuck you fuck you fuck you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that. I don’t fucking care if your sorry.”

“Sarah-“

“You know why I got the apartment with you? Because I was fucking your boyfriend. I was the one fucking Roland and I loved doing it when you were in class. I would fuck him on your bed, in your bathroom. I would fuck him wherever I knew you enjoyed so that way I could one day tell you how much I enjoyed fucking him and taking him from you.”

“But-“ Lizzie looked past Sarah to where Roland was standing at the bottom of the stairs and knew right then that it was true. She had known he was sleeping with someone, but never would have- No, how could she?

Roland’s eyes were staring at the ground. He refused to look at her. Had he always been screwing her? Had it all been some game to the two of them?

“Roland?” Lizzie’s voice was weak, and she barely recognized it.

“I’m sorry Liz. I never meant to hurt you.”

That pain in her chest twisted like someone had just grabbed her heart and started to squeeze the life right out of her. The tears were welling up inside her and knew they were getting ready to break free. 

She tried to take a step back from the door, but her legs were weak. They wobbled from the strain of the abuse they had just taken and Lizzie found herself falling hard onto her butt. She barely even registered this new pain as she was still processing what Sarah was telling her. Why had Sarah kept this from her and waited for so long to tell her? Why wait until now? There were many times that if she wanted to hurt her like this, could have said something and ended all the lies.

“I fucked you’re dad once. He was a bad lay, but I didn’t do it for the pleasure. He had an old man dick and I had to do all the work. I walked into bedroom while your mom was working the late shift and you had fallen asleep early. I walked in there, in just my bra and panties. He was asleep, and I started sucking his cock. I don’t even think he was fully awake until I was on top of him, riding him until he cum into my nice young pussy.”

Lizzie was backing away from the door. She knew Sarah couldn’t get in, but her words were still hurting her more than any knife or fist ever could. She realized she was stepping back and stoped herself, forcing herself back to the threshold. She grabbed the door as she didn’t trust her legs not to give out on her again. 

“Why?”

“For a long time I did it because your mom fucked my dad. I hated you for that, but you know what? After I did it for awhile, started working on fucking up your life, I found that it was too much fun. I stopped caring about our parents and their fucked up relationships and started to craft new ways to torture you.”

This was too much. There was no way this all could be happening. She wanted to collapse again, just fall to the floor and let the cabin rot around her. She wasn’t against returning to her childish self and covering her ears while screaming “Na Na Na Na Na.”

“I even told your mom about how I fucked your dad.”

Lizzie’s glare shot back to Sarah, no longer avoiding her eyes. She saw the glee in how much she was enjoying this. Right then, Lizzie had never wanted to hurt Sarah or anyone else as much as she did right then, and Lizzie had a way of doing it. She still felt the bite from the talisman teeth digging into her leg. It was like it was taunting her, begging her to use it. If she did, it wouldn’t just be Sarah she would be hurting.

Roland was out there with them. He hadn’t been sent to the place yet and was still on her side. He was trying to help her. He tried to warn her. He has been talking with her whenever they could and was being nice to her. She couldn’t sent him there or else he would come back, no better than the rest of them.

But he didn’t have to come back did he? None of them had to. She could just keep on wearing the twisted looking object and never have to worry about any of them again. Something nagged at her though that told her that wasn’t a good idea. If her uncle hadn’t told her to always wear it, but only when she had left the house for long stretches, there had to be a reason for it. There must be some kind of cost associated with it that she didn’t know about. She had already made enough mistakes by doing things without understanding what was going on.

She still hoped that there would be some answers in her uncle’s diaries. She’d read through the first one, but had stopped, not wanting to read the next one. So far, her uncle didn’t have the talisman yet, and a lot of it talked about him taking long walks with his wife. 

The other dead were upset with him, but all they could do is yell and shout at him. He was learning to accept that, though was having trouble sleeping as some would take turns screaming through the night. He was starting to experiment with watching television, or keeping it on through the night as the distraction made the screams less noticeable. He wasn’t rich yet, but his savings wasn’t hurting too much. He was learning to deal with it, and talked about this man named Bobby with whom he chatted with regularly. She wondered who Bobby really was?

Lizzie looked up from Roland, who tried to hold her gaze with his eyes. Sarah was still standing just beyond the threshold, some of the anger had edged off and that little smirk she had earlier had returned. Her eyes had a joyous sparkle at the corner that Lizzie hadn’t noticed before, and realized that Sarah was enjoying hurting her in this new way.

“Yeah, I told her. It was right before they left for the weekend trip.”

Lizzie felt her grip on the door handle tighten and that pain in her chest gripped twisted even harder. She felt like she had just been kicked in the stomach and she started shaking her head no. She didn’t want to hear this, but already knew what was coming. She saw it in the smile that grew wider, spreading across Sarah’s lips.

“I told her just as she was getting in the car, ready to drive away. I told her just an hour before they both died.”

Lizzie felt the fresh tears streaking down her cheek, but ignored them as she rushed to close the door. It slammed shut, and Lizzie crashed into it, her back hitting as it tried to support her up. She was falling, it was going to happen. Her legs were giving out, and she had no control. She didn’t want to hear anymore, but Sarah wasn’t going to stop. There was still more Sarah could stab her with, now that the dagger was firmly in Lizzies heart. Sarah knew how easy it would be to twist it before pulling out. This was her death blow, and she knew how much all of this was hurting Lizzie. Not only did Sarah not seem to care, she seemed to be relishing it.

“I killed your parents. Don’t you see. What else would have gotten them into such a big fight and not see the oncoming truck. I killed them,” Sarah went quiet, but Lizzie knew it was only for the effect and she was right. The next little bit came out in a harsh whisper that Lizzie knew could only take as a threat. “and I’m going to kill you when the time is right.”

Dead Friends: Chapter 23

JasonRDavis1 Comment

We return and continue on with part 3 of our story. Have you been enjoying it so far? Let me know by leaving comments and feedback. It is always appreciated.

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Are we in… the story is about to begin….

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Part 3

Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking as she tried to wrap them around the coffee cup. She couldn’t control her breathing. Like the rest of the her it was erratic and didn’t want to be controlled. She couldn’t calm down and why the held should she want to? She had just seen her ex-boyfriend with whom she had just had sex with, killed by some shadow creature from another plain of existence.

It reminded her of that movie Roland had once made her watch. It was the one with the guy who cut off his hand and replaced it with a chainsaw. He was looking at himself in the mirror, telling himself that everything was fine when his reflection grabbed him and tells him, “you just chopped up your girlfriend with a chainsaw, does that sound ‘fine’ to you?”

Well she had just saw her friend die. In the last few weeks she had seen most of her friends die, many of them coming back and had been nice to her until she put on the damn necklace. Why had she ever put it on, it didn’t matter. Because as she tried to calm herself she couldn’t help but think of all that stuff and then whispered to herself, closing her eyes to let a single tear fall and say “does that sound fine to you?”

No, it sure as hell didn’t. She wasn’t fine and she knew it, but what was she going to do about it? She had no one to talk to and it seemed like anyone I did talk to ended up dead.

Her phone sat on the counter. Jessica still hadn’t called her back. Lizzie had already left her four voicemails since she’d left the room. She had only made it forty five minutes down the interstate before she was starting to drift off behind the wheel and in that time she had kept trying to get ahold of her friend, fearing that her friend was dead too. That dream had been so vivid. It had to be more than just a dream.

She eased the coffee cup to her lips again, holding it tightly to keep it from shaking. It took an effort, but she sipped at the bitter brew. She wasn’t a plain coffee drinker but hadn’t been able to process the ingredients on the counter to sweeten her drink.

“Figured out what you want or do you still need a few minutes.”

Lizzie jumped in her seat and looked up at the woman standing over her. The woman was smiling at her, her teeth yellow from years of coffee and cigarettes. Her eyes were dark, sunken in from what Lizzie guessed was lack of sleep. Her nose had a ring in it and Lizzie realized she couldn’t guess the woman’s age. She looked old, her skin winkled and ashen, but Lizzie wasn’t sure. This woman looked life hardened, and made her age irrelevant. She was ancient in the ways of life and that was all that mattered.

“I’m sorry, you just startled me.” Lizzie noticed, glancing at her coffee, thankful none of it had spilled. Had she really drank three quarters of a cup already? How had that happened?

“It’s okay.” The waitress said as she brought over a fresh pot of the dark liquid. Steam rose from it as she poured. “Is everything okay?”

Lizzie internally chuckled at the question, not able to get that damn movie out of her head.

“Not really.”

“Do I need to call someone for you? Or are you hiding from someone? I can call the sheriff. Pete’s a decent guy. If your boyfriends doing something he shouldn’t, Pete’ll set him straight.”

“No, but thank you. I just-“ she cut off mid-sentence. What was it, did she need? She wasn’t really sure. She wasn’t sure of a lot of things. None of this, nothing in her life and her the course is of the last three weeks made any sense.

So, if she needed anything it was that. To make it all make sense. She needed to think.

No, she needed to figure out where to go. The cops would be looking for her and the last thing she wasn’t was to explain why she had been with her cheating ex-boyfriend when he had died.

“I guess I just need a piece of paper and a pen if you have one?”

“Sure thing.” The waitress said as she ripped off a piece of paper from her order pad and set it on the counter as well as pen. “Did you want to eat anything?”

Lizzie thought about it. Her stomach was in knots and the coffee was only going to make it worse unless she ate something. She just wasn’t sure what. She needed something to soak up all that acid that was burning her insides.

“I’ll just have a waffle with wheat toast on the side.”

There was a ding from the bell over the door to the diner and the waitress looked up. Lizzie followed her gaze to see two men, both looking tired. One of them smelled of diesel, though she wasn’t sure which one. As it was an all night truck stop, they were probably both truck drivers coming in for some middle of the night nourishment.

“Sure thing.-“

“World’s going to hell in a hand basket. Come on, you hear some of the crazy shit they say been going on out there?” One of the truck dr hers was saying. His voice billowed out from him and it was obvious the man had no concept of an ‘inside voice.’

“I’ll be right with you gentlemen.” The waitress said looking up at them as they sat a couple stools down from her. They nodded, but she had already turned her attention back to Lizzie. “And like I said, need anything else, just let me know.”

The woman held her in her gaze and Lizzie was transfixed by her. She could turn to look away, those eyes, the compassion emanating from this stranger as she briefly let her hand rest on Lizzie’s own, all locked her into this woman’s control.

“Thank you,” Lizzie felt herself say the words but it didn’t feel like it came from just her lips. Some where deep within her she felt a weight lift and for a short time felt it would be okay. Maybe she could think on everything that had happened, and she could make some sense of it.

There was a release and Lizzie found herself blinking her eyes, fighting back the tears that threatened. When she looked up again, the waitress was already talking to the two men, both of whom already had their cups turned over and Alice was pouring them the steaming coffee.

Okay, so she had to figure out what was going on.

She looked at the slip of order sheet the woman had given her and flipped it over to the blank back side. There she scribbled at the top, “What I know.”

So what did she know? Well, her friends were dying and then sometime during the night they came back and haunted her. Well they had. Now with the necklace on, they only attacked her in mirrors and somehow had the strength then to attack her and nearly kill her.

This wasn’t working. She had to focus. She needed to figure out the timeline and keep it in order. If she just started writing down random thoughts she would be all over the place.

Sarah had been killed by a dead man who Lizzie hadn’t know. That was strange as it was the only time the shadow man had used someone not associated with her and had somehow dug up the thing from the nearby graveyard. Had the sheriff said the graveyard was nearby? No, he had said it was on the other side of town. The dead man had to have dug himself up to work his way across the small community to end up there for when they arrived. That seemed farfetched so Lizzie had to wonder was someone working with the shadow man or controlled by him like he controlled the dead man?

Something else about that didn’t add up. Her uncle’s note said she would be safe from the dead in his house, but somehow the dead man was able to get in. Sarah hadn’t been able to get in. There had to be something different about the dead man.

“You know that was horse shit right? Another government cover up.”

“Yeah like you know what happened.”

“Hell yeah I know. I know one of the survivors. He’s a trucker. He said that the dead were attacking people.”

Lizzie’s head spun as she turned to look over at the two men. They were completely focused on each other and their coffees, neither seemed to notice her as she watched them intently.

“That’s bullshit.”

“You know, I’d agree. But I know the guy. He’s not the kind of guy who makes this type of shit up.”

“So what, there were zombies and the government just up and nuked the town? Because the idea of home grown terrorists blowing themselves up is more farfetched.”

“Lizzie vaguely recalled what the men were talking about. Something about terrorists blowing up a small town. She only remembered it from Roland talking about it, talking about them dumb flatlanders blowing themselves and everyone around them. It had only been a blip in her radar as her parents had died and she was till reeling with it. The president could have been killed and she’d barely have known as she had lost herself to her own bubble and nothing else mattered.

Kind of like what she was doing now.

She wanted to break into their conversation and ask about the dead killing people, but didn’t get a chance when Alice was back refilling their cups. They had both stopped and watched her, but she had looked to Lizzie with an inquiring raise of her eyebrow.

“You need something, honey?”

It seemed like all the world was trained on her as everyone was watching her now. The two guys had turned to look, and Alice kept her gaze.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Heyya cutie. What’s got you out so late.” The taller or the two men said to her. He was the one whose friend told him about the dead. The other man shook his head, turning away from them both as he took another drink from his coffee.

“Nothing.” She said as she focused her own cup.

“We weren’t disturbing you were we?”

“It’s okay.”

“Just ignore my friend here. He seems to got zombies on the brain.” The shorter man said, looking around his friend so he could look at her.

“Its….it’s okay. I just hadn’t heard anything about-“

“He’s talking about the town that somehow managed to blow itself up. Hayward, or something like that.”

“Hammond.” The taller man cut in. The waitress seemed to already have grown bored with the conversation and stepped back, probably to place the men’s orders with the cook.

“Hammond, that’s right. You remember that right.”

“Not really. My parents had just died. I don’t think I really-“ her voice trailed off and she saw the sympathy in their eyes.

“Sorry about your loss.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, but I get what your saying. Anyways, Hammond had some kind of home grown terrorist living their, no one ever said who, just that there had been a small cell, and they had built a dirty nuke. The fools had screwed up and blew themselves as well as the whole town right off the map.”

“Which doesn’t make no sense. If had been a dirty bomb, there would still be radiation all around there. There’s not.”

“How would you know. Military’s had the area locked down since it happened.”

“Not farther out. There’d still be traces.”

“So but your friend said their was zombies? Reanimated corpses?” She cut in.

“Yeah, this guy Bruce. He’d been my trainer and we stay in touch. Ran into him a few months back shortly after it happened. He was pretty shaken up about it. Frustrated too as they had him quarantined so long afterwards that he nearly lost his wife.”

“Just why in the hell would he be in quarantine.”

“Because they don’t know what caused the shit. He said their was something to do with spiders but he didn’t understand it all. Just said it have been some freaky shit and didn’t know how he survived. Said if it got out that he was talking about it that he’d be a dead man or locked up for life.”

“Then why’d he tell you?”

“Because he was stressed about it and needed to talk to someone. I was someone.”

“Wreaks like bullshit to me.” The shorter man said and looked over to Lizzie, giving her a knowing wink, though what he thought she knew, she wasn’t sure. She had already drifted from the conversation thinking about that day in the house. Had their been any spiders? She hadn’t recalled seeing any. Each time she’d been there, she hadn’t noticed any bugs. Even outside there had been a lack of mosquitoes, which was odd the more she thought about it. When was the last time she’d ever been in the woods and there had been none of the blood-sucking bastards.

“Order up,” called out the chef from the kitchen and Lizzie turned to see her food in the elongated window that separated the kitchen from the dining area. Alice appeared from wherever she had been hiding to avoid being a part of the conversation and made her way to it.

“It may-as-well-be. I’m just telling you what he told me. Something strange about what happened, though I’ll admit it sounds crazy. But you think about it, there’s some crazy shit in nature.”

“Like what?”

Lizzie was only partially following their conversation, no longer participating as she watched Alice pull her food down from the window, put butter on the waffle and then create a small plate of fixings to go with the food. Once done, Alice was able to magically hold it all as she brought it the short distance to where Lizzie sat.

“You ever hear of zombie ants?”

“Your full of it.”

“No, no. I saw it there on Facebook.”

“It’s on Facebook so it’s gotta be true huh.”

“Hey asshole, there’s good stuff on there. Saw some guy post about some article in one of hem science magazines.”

“Uh huh.”

“Here ya go. You need anything else with these?” Alice, the waitress, asked as she set the plate down with all the condiments. Lizzie was surprised to see the little metal pitcher shaped container with warmed milk and wasn’t sure how she was supposed to use it for the waffles. She didn’t ask, instead only shaking her head to Alice as she tried to pay attention to the two men. It seemed interesting, but she wasn’t sure it had anything to do with her situation.

“It’s how this fungus controls these ants you see, and have them doing what they want them to do. The ants are dead and this fungus controls them.”

“No, thank you.” Lizzie said and Alice nodded, giving the men a frustrated looking before turning back to Lizzie with a wink a nod.

“Think I heard about a movie like that. Something about kids being special zombies.”

“What the hell are you talking about. No, this is about this fungus controlling ants.”

“Enjoy. Hopefully these dingleberries will talk about something a little less disgusting and allow you to eat in peace.” Alice said, walking past them on her way into the back area.

“Sorry about that. Derek, shut the hell up.” The shorter man said, looking at the other one.

“Sure thing. Sorry about that. You go ahead and eat up honey. We’ll talk about something more frustrating.”

“Like how much longer the Bears coach has before he’s run out of the city with his head on a- ur, I mean how much longer until he’s fired.”

Lizzie wasn’t paying them too much attention. She had looked over, and she had acknowledged them, evening nodding as they started down into some new argument. She tried to act interested, but her mind was already whirling to somewhere else. She couldn’t stop herself from thinking about what the man had said.

The old man hadn’t been the first time that dead things had come back. While she didn’t think of them as zombies. That made her think of too many bad horror films and there was no room in her thoughts as she tried to focus on the new reality shaping itself around her for those. She had enough nightmares to worry about.

The old man had dug himself out of his own grave to somehow find its way to her uncles house. Why? How? Something was definitely different there. It was like the shadow creature needed some way of starting… this, whatever this was.

She wrote on the paper.

Dead man

-how did he come back to life

-why did he come back

Friends

How is he killing them?

Why?

What does he get from it? He feads feeds off it somehow.

He’s feeding off of her… She had gotten a sense of that when she had merged with him earlier, but she wasn’t sure how that worked. It was like, somehow with how he tormented her, it fed him. That didn’t make sense though, as he would eventually deplete whatever he got from her and they would be done. Also if he had been feeding off her uncle the. Her uncle would probably not survived as long, or the thing would have starved if her uncle hadn’t been nourishing it.

Damn, why didn’t the thing try to find someone else. What was so special about her family?

She wasn’t sure if she did have any answers to any of it, and sitting in the diner wasn’t going to do anything. She came in there for coffee, was she really going to try and eat too? Her stomach twisted and she knew it’s opinion was she would never eat again.

“It ain’t no skin off my back.”

“Hell, you’d never off anyone the shirt off your back either.”

“Asshole.”

“Well, what do you expect. You only roll through here every couple of weeks. It’d be nice if I got to see my brother more often.”

She looked at her piece of paper to avoid looking at the squabbling brothers. There wasn’t anything new written there but she saw what wasn’t written there and began to realize what she needed to do. She had been right to not call her brother. If she had, it might have gotten him. Everyone she loved was in danger.

She had nowhere else to go. The cabin was it. It was far away from everyone hidden out in the woods. That would keep everyone else from dying, and with all the junk her uncle had, maybe there was some answers. Maybe he had found something that would help her.

It wasn’t like she would be like her uncle. She wouldn’t go there and stay hidden. She was just hiding for a little while as she got everything sorted out.

“Not hungry?” Alice, the waitress said as she seemed to appear out of nowhere.

“Not really.” Lizzie said, quickly flipping over her piece of paper she had been writing on.

“Yeah, well, least your hands aren’t shaking as much. Get some things figured out?”

“Maybe.”

“Sometimes to find answers, we just need a respite along the way.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem.”

Lizzie put the piece of paper in her little purse and pulled out her wallet. She didn’t look at the bill but dropped forty dollars on the counter. She knew it was more than enough to cover it, but money wasn’t her concern anymore. She almost relished the time a few weeks ago when it had been.

Lizzie was almost to the door when Alice called after her.

“Remember these dark times you’re going through, you will find a path to the light. ‘For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.”

Lizzie gave her a weak smile. She had respected the older woman, but never had appreciated when people quoted the Bible her. She had enough of that growing up, and what did that faith ever do for her parents, her brother, or her. The woman had been nice so she nodded a thanks and then turned to look at the two men sitting there.

“Hey you guys, just so you know, I’ve seen it. Sometimes the dead do come back, and if it was enough of them, then I believe they would have nuked a town.”

She left them there looking at each other, jaws dropped. She had to chuckle a little to herself as she walked to the car. If she ever had a mic drop moment, that had been it.

Fear the zombie spiders…

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Dead Friends: Chapter 18

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Hey Girl.” Came the familiar voice Lizzie had hoped to hear. Immediately she released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. That was, until the next part of the message played. “Leave a message.”

Jessica probably had forgotten that her voicemail introduction was old and tacky. Lizzie had forgotten about it. She hadn’t paid it much attention as she usually texted and when she did call, if no one answered she didn’t pay it any attention whatever the greeting was and just left a message.

For that one heartbeat of a second she had actually allowed herself the chance to take a breath and relax. That was shattered as different ways Jessica might have been killed danced in her head. The shadow man was merciless, Lizzie had learned that when Sarah was killed, but since then, he had continued to take those close to her or having anything to do with her.

That explained Josh. It was strange to think he had only awakened her that morning, having arrived in the middle of the night. So much had happened today that it was easy to forget, but now that she concentrated on it, why was Josh there? She had never met him before, but he had been the one who killed Elisabeth and Chuck. They were connected.

“Jessica. Call me. Please.” She could hear the desperation streaming from her own voice.

What if she’d been hit by a car. Sure, the shadow man had already tried that today, but he could have. It was one of the easier ways to kill someone. Though when she thought about it, there were so many other possibilities. She could imagine the elevator in Jessica’s building, the cable snapping or the doors opening allowing for her to step into an empty shaft. Either way would leave her friend to pummel to her death.

Jessica could be just as easily mugged as she walked to her car. Though admittedly Lizzie would have to highly doubt that was possible. After seeing her in action earlier today, Lizzie wasn’t sure how many muggers it would take to put her down. Just one desperate soul out to devour off the weak wasn’t going to do it. Where had that fighter emerged from? She had never seen Jessica do that before. It had been amazing.

Dennis had said something about some kind of training Jess was doing. Maybe Lizzie should look into it? Why though? Lizzie’s problems all seemed to come from the supernatural so how would throwing a punch help?

Though, if there were multiple attackers…

Lizzie knew lingering on the thought wasn’t helping her as she disconnected the call, but she couldn’t help but picturing her friend lying in her own blood as she was dying. Her keys were in her hand, she was right next to her car. Jessica had almost made it before the three had jumped out at her. The first one she had taken down, but the next two both had knives.

It would have been just like Sarah, but this time Lizzie wasn’t there to watch the light slowly fade from her friend’s eyes.

She started reading through the messages on her phone. The oldest ones were from Jess, all of them worried about her. Lizzie knew Jess would have hated her being out with Roland, and Liz didn’t blame her for it. She was just about to get into the newer messages, the ones from the number she didn’t recognize when her phone rang, that same unfamiliar number calling her.

She nearly dropped the phone, and had to fumble with it to click on accepting the call. Her heart felt like it skipped a beat a she shakily raised it to her ear.

“Hello?”

“Hey Liz, everything going okay?” Jessica asked. Lizzie let out a long breath at hearing her friends voice.

“Yeah, hey who’s number is this?”

“Dennis’s work phone. The idiot left his cell at home but had this. Thank god I remembered your number.” There was a joking tone to her voice as she spoke and it tried to set Lizzie’s mind at ease, but there were a lot of messages still. She was having a hard time reconciling that it was just because she was checking up on her friend. Especially since Jess had texted more times today and had spoke to her more than she had in the entire last month of their friendship. Still, for now, Lizzie wondered if it was best to let it go and just talk to her friend. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe her gut was wrong.

“That explains it. So what’s up?”

“Well, you tell me. Is Roland being a bastard?”

“He’s being civil.” Her mind raced to the kiss they had just shared, her memory clinging to his smell, his taste. He tasted of peppermints, like the candy he always kept with him, and the essence of pineapple she knew came from the deodorant that he used.

“He’s not being an ass. He’s still not claiming he never slept with that Natalie is he?”

“It hasn’t come up. Hey, so what’s wrong with your cell?”

“Battery’s dead. Been busy today, forgot to charge it. Then Dennis whisked me away for some camping trip getaway. God only knows where we are right now. He ran in to get some ice for the cooler and I wanted to give you a call. I’ve been worried about you.”

“I’m fine.”

“You didn’t look fine, and what was that with that woman? You went pale just by her talking to you.”

“I was just spooked, but come on, Ms. Bruce Lee.”

“I told you, I’ve been taking self defense classes.”

“Yeah, well that was pretty impressive.”

“He shouldn’t have been pushing her around.” Lizzie noticed the chance in Jess’s voice. A sadness had creeped into her tone and Lizzie wondered if something was hidden there in her past. Sarah, she had grown up with, but Jess was a newer friend. There was still much Lizzie didn’t know about her.

“Okay, I gotta go. He’s taking me up to some cabin his parents have on timeshare or whatever.”

“Thought you said you were going camping.”

“We’re in the woods and there’s no internet. I don’t care if we’re in a cabin or a tent, it’s all camping to me.”

Lizzie barely stifled the giggle as her friend said her goodbyes and the phone disconnected. Jessica was okay. She was alive and Lizzie had been worrying for nothing.

Maybe she was being crazy or had been crazy and was now pulling herself out of it. All of this silliness with some shadowy figure and a dead man who killed her best friend. She didn’t know what the hell happened, she should just admit that to herself.

“Hey miss, you got a light?” Lizzie heard from behind her, and instinctively her neck hair rose. She realized just how alone it was on the street and for the first time wondered how long Roland had been away. He should be back by now, where the hell is he?

She turned to look at the owner of the voice. It had been raspy, near whisper and impossible to know if it had been a man or woman.

When she first looked back, her heart skipped. It was him. He had found her. Hundreds of miles away and here he was. The shadow man was there, his face obscured by darkness.

But the image of the shadow man faded as another man standing tall and just barely able to be seen in the dim light. He wasn’t even close to her and she could smell his breath, the alcohol emanating from him like he was a distillery. His large coat hid his slender frame, but did nothing to conceal his gaunt dirt covered face.

The man was imposing enough, but as he bent over to lower himself to her, the streetlight caught his eyes. Lizzie could just barely see it, but she had already known. She knew that if the sun shone bright, she would see those red rings around his irises. The shadow man was there after all, even if she couldn’t see him.

“Come on, give me a light.” He said as he reached out for her. She had seen him coming, fearing it, and was quick to push herself forward and twisting the spin while rising up from the bench. She moved just in time, his hand only brushing against the back of her sweater leaving traces of dirt from his fingers.

His hands were covered in it and she couldn’t help but remember what the sheriff had said about the old man. A dead man had killed her friend. Was this guy dead too? He wreaked enough to call it in question but she didn’t have time to think about it now as he followed up reaching for her by lunging over the bench.

“What the hell.” She quickly stepped back. He came down hard to the cement and he slammed his fist into the pavement in frustration. She wasn’t waiting for his next move as she dashed around to behind the bench where the man had just been. A cackling escaped from him and he twisted himself up to look at her.

“What’s a matter little girl. Don’t want to wet the noodle?” His face now covered in blood that was running from his nose. He didn’t pay it any attention and continued to howl louder with his laughter as he pulled himself forward.

His legs came down from the bench, limp behind him and she would have expected him to stand up and come at her again. He was aggressive in his attack, continuing to come after her, not allowing her to catch her breath.

Just run away, she screamed internally to herself, but she didn’t. She got away from him so far, she just had to keep out of reach. Then what? Eventually he would catch her.

Jessica wouldn’t run away. She had stood up to it earlier today. She had fought against people, taken down that man. She had really kicked some ass. So come on Lizzie, are you going to run away for the rest of her life. Hell no!

She started to plan her attack. He was going to get up and lung back over the bench and she would grab his arm, pull him off balance and then slam her fist into face knocking him out. That’s right, it seemed simple enough. She just had to do it once he came at her.

Wait, don’t you hurt yourself more if you ball your fist the wrong way? She thought she’d heard that somewhere.

It didn’t matter as she never got the chance to test it. The guy didn’t stand. Instead he quickly crawled under the bench and grabbed her legs. She had just seen that he was under the bench and hadn’t registered the change fast enough. Her mind had still been on formulating the plan of him coming over.

He caught her off guard and by the time it clicked and her mental gears started moving, he was close. She only had time to take a step back but then he had her, grabbing the leg nearest him. She was still trying to pull it away when he lurched forward and wrapped his arms around her, pulling his weight into her leg and throwing her off balance.

She fell back, twisting as she did so to work her way free. It seemed impossible, his grip tight on her. She would have questioned his strength but It didn’t matter. She’d been through this before and she recognized the sensation of having the shadow man nearby. She could almost imagine his sing song of a chant and feel his damp breath. He was there, it was him possessing the man, and once again he had her.

The cement was hard and she crashed into it without any way of catching herself. Her air escaped her lungs even as she fought to keep it. The lungs that betrayed her felt pained and were angry with her as they tried to pull in on themselves. Her whole body hated her. It recognized the pain and knew it was her fault. She had the chance to get away and she hadn’t.

As she fought to pull air into her recovering lungs, she could feels his hands moving up her legs. He would grab higher and higher then pull his body a few inches at a time.

“Tik-a-tat, tik-a-tat, tik-a-tat” in that old raspy voice kept screaming though her mind.

Stars danced around her. She was still having a hard time but she was now able to gasp in short wisps of air. Her vision was getting cloudy and she felt her eyes watering.

His hand left her leg and she felt it come down on her waist, reaching and grabbing the gap between her pants and the flesh hidden beneath. She tried to wiggle away but his grip was firm on her jeans. She shook harder, coughing with the exertion as she was finally pulling in air.

“Come here honey, light my fire.” The voice rasped, coughing spastically as it spoke.

She kicked out with her legs, and reached with her arms trying to pull herself away.

“Help! Get away from me! Someone help me.” She screamed finally finding her voice now that she had air. Her throat burned with the effort.

“No one.” He hissed, “No one to hear you.” She felt him slither over her legs, like a snake as he was working his way up. Her legs were trapped, her efforts to kick him away useless. Instead she fought to twist herself away. Maybe she could somehow push him off of her so she could get up, but it was useless.

“Get off me!” She stopped slamming her fists down and twisted again, reaching down and pushing the man down. He was so much stronger than her, but she fought with everything she had.

Her arms gave out and she tried again to twist in a way to pull herself free. His hands let go and she found herself able to move. She landed on her chest and something crunched against her. It bit into her breast, but she couldn’t stop to think about it. She had to…

His arm reach up and grabbed part of her shirt. His nails were long and dug into her flesh even through the fabric of her sweater.

Why had she thought she could fight him. She should have just run away. He never would have caught her. She wouldn’t be under him now, and none of this would be happening. Why did this always happen to her?

He was going to rape her. As sure as she knew she was going to die tonight, and that it would be by his hands, she knew he was going to violate her first.

And she had no way of stopping him…

Fresh tears rolled down her cheek and she let her arms fall to the side. It was going to happen wether she fought him or not. What did it matter? It was all over.

“What the hell! Get off of her!” She heard he familiar voice but it sounded like it was miles away at the end of a very long tunnel. She couldn’t concentrate on it, barely hearing the words but not grasping the meaning of what was being said.

Around here the world was blurry and she could feel the darkness closing in, surrounding her and pulling her into unconsciousness. She didn’t care. The coolness of the sidewalk beneath her was comforting and so inviting. Maybe they could all just leave her there and let her become a statue.

She felt the weight on top of her rip away and she couldn’t help but release a giggle. Floating man going away, she thought, floating man returning to the shadows light as a feather. Another tear rolled down her cheek. She felt it as it slid down its path.

There was shuffling around her, but it was a world away, why should any of that concern her. She heard more shouting and knew now who was yelling. It was Roland but why was he at the end of the tunnel. He should be here with her. Why had they been so far apart?

Her head hurt as she tried to think of the reason, but nothing came.

“Lizzie! Lizzie, are you okay? Do I need to get an ambulance?” He was getting closer until she finally opened her eyes. She had slipped off, not realizing she had closed them, but now her eyes wide open, she saw him hovering over her.

He looked so concerned. Was that really for her?

“Hey big boy. Where have you been?” She said and the words sounded strange to her. Then she realized slowly what had just happened to her.

The tears flooded out from her as reality crashed into her like a freight train. She could stop it but didn’t feel like she had to. Roland understood and pulled her up and into his chest. She reached out and pulled him closer, clinging to him so he wouldn’t disappear on her again. Never again, he needed to always be with her. She needed him.

“It’s okay. The bad man is gone away. I chased him.” He said to her gently.

But he was wrong and she knew it. The bad man hadn’t gone away, just the vessel it possessed.

Dead Friends: Chapter 5

JasonRDavisLeave a comment

The next time she woke up, her head felt heavy, her mouth felt like it was full of cotton and her wrists, she could feel, had something soft and tight fastened around them. Restraints. She vaguely knew why though as she rolled her head trying to lift it and look around. It was from something early, how much she didn’t know. Her mind, her thinking was muddled as she tried to piece it all together.

Her eyes cleared more and more. The room around her was dark, but not completely. She could vaguely make out shapes. As some of the fog swimming in her head cleared she was able to make out that there was a clock on the fall wall. It was hard to focus on the hands and she wished like hell they had a damned digital clock because really, how often did people read from round clocks with minutes and hours spinning around a little dot. It seemed so archaic to have to think about what the time read. It took her longer than she thought it should, really having to concentrate on the numbers and which hand was on the five and which one was on the three.

3:20

  No, that was wrong. The five was twenty-five not twenty. It was twenty five after three. So it was in the middle of the night. Either that or someone had hidden the sun while she was sleeping. With lingering thoughts of that shadow man in the woods, the idea that the sun was gone sent a shiver down her spine and a bone deep chill no heat could warm. 

She looked to the window and realized she hadn’t really looked at any part of her room before. The memories of her last stint with consciousness were becoming less hazy, but there was something keeping her from remembering. It probably had something to do with the IV drip that was running into her arm and the drugs, but she didn’t think she would fully remember everything from before. It was too much like a dream and dreams only faded over time.

Slowly she scanned the room, judging quickly when she turned too fast. She was obviously in a hospital room, and in a bed that kept her head elevated. She thought they were called gurney’s, but not sure if that was just something out of a tv show, or it they were actually called that. To her left there was a C shaped stand that was positioned on wheels and stretched over the top so that she could eat when served. Currently it was positioned behind the tall metal IV stand. Next to that was some kind of a machine that had scraggly lines and numbers that changed every so often. It was past these machines she could look out the window.

She couldn’t see the ground outside, but she did see the top of a street light. It shown bright in the dark sky, but past it she could just make out the lightly clouded sky and the stars. They shined bright and she took comfort in seeing them because if the stars were out, then it wasn’t a sun hidden day. 

Had she really been afraid of that? To her surprise, she actually had been. Though if the sun was gone, wouldn’t she still be able to see the stars during the day. She’d seen a solar eclipse once, and once the sun was darkened, the stars were able to be seen during the day so it was possible.

She pushed the thought down and took her time to study the cabinet that was in the corner, past the window and next to the little bench that was on the far wall. Why was she so drawn to it. It was a standard wooden cabinet, though taller than anything she had ever seen before. This one was tall enough to stand from the floor to the ceiling and she couldn’t help but wonder how they got it into the room as it looked like it extended into the panel tiles. What was in it, what did they need to hide that was so large?

Above the bench and suspended from he wall was the large tv. She debated about turning it on, not really sure what she would watch at three in the morning, but it would be noise in what was too quite of a room. Since she’d been up, she’d not even heard the signs of breathing from outside the room, or much else for that matter. The only thing she heard was the occasional, rhythmic beep from the machine. The television stayed off as she saw that the remote was on the desk across the room, and she wasn’t sure about standing with the IV still attached to her arm.

Not like you could if you wanted to. You know you’re still restrained. You won’t be going anywhere until the doctor comes back and you can get your hands freed. She thought it to herself, that inner voice speaking to her, and it was right. There was no way she could do anything. 

To the right of the desk was another cabinet. This one wasn’t as high, but it was wider. Past it to her right was a light blue curtain that looked like it ran on a track around her bed. It must be there for her privacy when she needed to change, though she would have preferred just to have a door on her room.

Which was what truly frustrated her about the room, or more adequately described as a large cubby hole put off to the side. She had no door. She had no fourth wall. Where the wall on her right side should be was one long curtain. It ran the length of where the fourth wall should be. It didn’t’ stretch fully to the floor, so under it, she could see the slight glow from the hallway beyond.

Behind the bed to her right was more gadgets hooked up to her. I mean, Christ, with how much crap connected to me, you would think they needed to jumpstart me like a car. I’m not on life support, so what the hell is all this garbage.

Her head was clearing. She hadn’t realized it at first, but it felt like forever since she could start to remember things. They were distorted, and none of them made sense. It was like a dream that wasn’t a dream, or something that was real that should have been a dream. That just about summed up her whole day, but in that sense it was a nightmare, one that wouldn’t go away.

Had there been something about one of her nurses being a snake that was going to poison her? Oh god, she hoped she hadn’t actually hit her doctor, though it did explain the restraints.

She slammed her head back into her pillow trying to hide from the empty room, so embarrassed that she never wanted to see another living soul. She had, hadn’t she? She had hit her doctor and who knows who else. She was pretty sure she had been thrashing around for awhile. Anyone could have been caught with a loose fist.

Someone should have gone ahead and hit me back. I deserved it. But of course, none of them had hit her back, not physically. She wasn’t sure what kind of sedative they had given her, but it had done the job.

They had been asking her questions though, before she had freaked out. She was pretty sure she had mentioned Roland, but what else had she said. Another wave of embarrassment hit her. Had they called him? Great, what would he be thinking? He already thought of her as an emotional flake who found any reason to go nuts. What would he think if the doctor had mentioned something about her episode. Of course he would never come visit her, but the story would be all amongst their friends by the time she got home. It would be years before she would ever live it down.

What if she had told them about her brother? That…Now that would be worse. There would be no way he could get there to visit her, and he would be trapped in Madison worrying about her. She would need to call him and let him know she was okay.

She should call him now, just in case they had called.

But it was three in the morning. Well, now it was getting closer to four. Where had the last twenty minutes gone too? Even if they had called him and he had stayed up late fretting about her, he would be asleep. Worry only lasted for so long before exhaustion took its toll.

Where was her phone?

She looked around the little room and didn’t see it. Maybe it was with her clothes, wherever those were… She wasn’t sure. Maybe that was the purpose to one of the cabinets across the room. Probably…though she wished they would have left her phone out and over there by her so she could use it.

She lied back in the bed.

What was she going to do. She was up now and didn’t feel tired at all. The bed was getting uncomfortable and she wished she could at least lower the back portion and turn on her side. The restraints made any movement impossible. She was going to lie on her back wether she liked it or not.

“Hello.” She said into the dark room. Her voice was timid and cracked. She hadn’t realized just how thirsty she was, her cotton mouth getting the better of her. She had to swallow down saliva a few times, though there was not much to work with before she tried again, this time a little louder into the quiet.

“Hello. Anyone out there?”

She waited. She didn’t hear any kind of a response and she had a sudden, scary thought. What if she was alone? What if no one was out there manning the nurses station? What if she wasn’t even near a nurse’s station? Would she just have to lie there until someone finally checked in on her?

The thought of spending the next few hours lying in the bed, waiting for someone to finally pull back the curtain and slip into her little space was torturous. Could she really last that long; no tv, no internet, no phone that could do both.

She continued to listen. The only sounds she heard was her breathing which grew louder the more anxious she became, and the machine that kept a constant beep next to her.

How did they ever expect anyone to sleep in there with that damn machine beeping at her all night? Yeah, well, people didn’t go to hospitals to sleep, they went there to get better. If she wanted to sleep, she should dig herself a grave. Wasn’t that the old adage. She didn’t think she had it right but her mind was still working through the haze of the meds.

The sedatives.

The drugs. They had drugged her. How could they drug her and knock her out like that?

Wasn’t there supposed to be one of those call buttons at the ready? Something she could use to page for the nurses? There was something on the side of her bed. It was a small box connected by a cord that ran below the bed. It had a few buttons on it, but she couldn’t say for sure what any of them were as the pictures on each button had been worn off by use.

Though she could just start pressing buttons at random, if she could reach it. She tried to grab at it, but the restraint was just tight enough that she couldn’t grasp the dangling box.

“Ugh” The cry escaped her in frustration as she slammed herself back onto the bed. “Hello!”

“Hello!” she called again, this time louder as she grew more confident in her voice. She was still so thirsty, but her throat didn’t feel as restricted before. 

Being awake must be helping, she thought as she lifted her head again, cocking it to hear better. She thought she heard the sound of a chair creaking out in the hallway. Was she by the nursing station? Could they hear her after all? Maybe that last time had been loud enough?

There it was again, another creak. Then the definite sound of someone shift their weight as to stand. There was someone out there and they were getting up.

Lizzie listened intently as she heard the release of the chair, recognizing it as the sound of the chair rising to its unseated state. Then came the soft steps and slight squeak of a person wearing well worn tennis shoes, but the person was walking away from her. The footsteps were getting quieter. They were leaving her, were they going to go tell someone she was awake. Why wouldn’t they just call someone, and then come in to check on her?

“Heeellooo!” She said again, this time exaggerating as she spoke, trying to put as much strength as she could, expelling the air from her lungs in force as it formed the word. She reminded herself of Josh Gad when he sung “Hello” in his opening number for the Book of Mormon. She had never seen the musical, but the soundtrack was in heavy rotation on her phone. The off beat humor of it matched her own twisted jokes and found that it more often than not filtered in to her everyday.

The footsteps were returning. She could hear them getting closer, and then saw as the light under the curtains showed them. They reached the edge, and just as Lizzie was expecting a huge pulling back of curtains reveal, a quant woman slipped in and disappeared as the curtain closed again behind her.

“Hello Lizzie, how are you feeling?” The nurse said as she was illuminated with a faint light. Lizzie could see that she was standing by a light switch on the wall and what must have been a dimmer as she brought up the light gradually. Lizzie recognized the woman as one of the ones from earlier, the one who…had Lizzie really thought this woman had turned into a snake?

“I’m okay.” she said, not really sure if she actually was, but didn’t feel herself hurting too much. Other than a slight headache and the fuzziness around her thoughts, she felt fine. She didn’t even feel the soreness she would have expected for all the falling she had gone through, or any of the scrapes she had gotten running through the woods. 

“That’s good. I’m Elisabeth. I’ll be your nurse tonight. Can I get you anything?”

“Water?”

“Sure. I’ll refill your cup.” She spoke softly and if there was any resentment from before, it didn’t show. The woman moved gently, and was smooth as she glided over to the little table next to the bed. Lizzie hadn’t noticed the water bottle next to her bed, but watched as she grabbed it and took it to the sink across the room. She filled it then turned back towards Lizzie, “I bet you’d like some ice.”

“Just the water is fine.” 

Elisabeth had already started towards the hallway but stopped and turned to the bed. She was quick to bring the water, tilting the cup so Lizzie could drink from the straw.

  Lizzie looked at that approaching straw protruding from the water cup and was filled with a strong sense of dread. A deja vu washed over her and a rasping voice whispered in her ear that it was poison. That was impossible but she couldn’t shake the feeling as it mixed with the hazy memory of this woman with a serphant’s face. She had to close her eyes to push away the memory and allowed herself to drink.

The water may not have been ice cold, but it was still cool, soothing her throat as it made its way to her empty stomach. She could feel as it moved inside her, the touch of it on her insides alighting herself. It seemed to flow through and back up, and she could feel as her head felt lighter, her brain waking up a little more and some of that haziness chipping away. 

“No, no, not too much.” Elisabeth said softly as she pulled the cup back. She eased it away and Lizzie felt the little drips that leaked from the corners of her mouth, running down her chin.

She was alive. Why was it that with everything that had happened, it wasn’t until that drink of water that she truly feel like she had survived it. She was safe now, she was in a hospital and everything was going to be okay. 

“Thank you,” and she was grateful as she didn’t think water could ever taste that good. Well, it hadn’t tasted good, as she had cottonmouth, but water had never been so refreshing as it had been now.

“That’s good. You seem to be feeling better.”

“I guess so.”

“Good. Do you know where you are?”

“No, not really.”

“That makes sense. From your chart, you were unconscious when the EMT’s brought you in and you’ve only been awake a few times.”

“I have? I don’t remember too much and it feels more like it was all a dream.”

“Yeah, the sedatives can do that.”

“So where am I?”

“You’re at Aurora Healthcare in Wautoma, the Christmas tree capital of the world.” 

“Okay, and why am I here?.. and why am I in these handcuff thingies?”

“Um, well, you were brought in earlier today sometime in the afternoon. They were originally going to keep in you the ER, but they brought you up here to intensive care when you weren’t waking up. Hope you have good insurance, eh?” The woman said that last part, with the strong “A” that mixed many northern Wisconsin accents with Canadian. It was interesting with how the accent wasn’t always there when the nurse talked, but then it occasionally slipped in. Most the time, Lizzie would have guessed she was from farther south but still in the Midwest. It was hard to tell, as culture became more centered around televisions, accents seemed to fade.

“No, not really. College student.”

“Oh crap. Yeah, well, at least staying in intensive care won’t be as bad as those student loan payments. And if you don’t like your major, you can always take up boxing.”

“Sure. So I did attack the doctor…and you? I had hoped I’d dreamed that.”

“You swung, but it was a swing and a miss.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Part of the job. So is there something I can get for you? There’s no one else on the ward, so you have it all to yourself, but I still need to keep watch in case an emergency comes in.”

“Can you open the curtain and let the some light in. I don’t want to be in the dark right now.”

“Sure.”

The nurse went to one side and grabbed the edge and worked the curtain back. She was halfway when it looked like the curiosity got the better of her as she turned to ask, “Do you mind me asking, what happened to you?”

“I’m not sure. My best friend and I were at a house, my uncle’s house that I inherited…which I guess makes it my house now.”

“I guess so,” Elisabeth said as she finished pulling back the curtain. 

Lizzie could now see the nurse station across the little hallway, though all she could see of it from her angle was the counter and on that a rack holder with a single file in it. That must be her file with who knew what kind of records. Had they pulled her whole history? Was there information about the broken arm she had at the age of fifteen, or the tonsils she had removed when she was ten? 

Elisabeth walked back over to her and to Lizzie’s surprise, pulled up the reclining chair that had been next to her bed. 

“We went there, and then, there was this strange naked man in the kitchen. He attacked us…well, he attacked Sarah.”

“Wow, did she get away okay?”

“No, I think he killed her. I barely got away. I don’t know how, but I ended up here.”

“Yeah, you need to talk to the cops.”

“I know,” though up until just minutes ago she had forgotten why she needed them. How could she have forgotten Sarah? 

Those dead eyes looking at her, watching her as she ran away to leave her there.

“I can call the sheriff’s office. I’m not sure anyone’s there this time of night, but I’d think someone would be available.”

“Thank you. Do you know if they called my brother?”

“I don’t think so. Do you want me to call him?” 

Lizzie hadn’t realized how much that had been worrying her until the sudden release of tears, glad that they hadn’t. The nurse was quickly to scramble for the Kleenex. 

Lizzie tried to wipe them away herself but was stopped by the wrist restraints. She laughed as she looked at them. It was the tired laugh of the frustrated and it brought more crying. She was laughing and crying and in her head rolled a hurricane of emotions. Her parents were dead, her best friend was dead, her other friends were miles away and busy back in Stevens Point and Madison, leaving the only person who really knew her to be her brother. 

There was no way she could unload all this on him. It would only make him worry about something he could do nothing about or even get to her to comfort her. It wouldn’t even do to talk to him over the phone and hear that robotic voice of his machine talking back to her. Was there anything less helpful than to hear a computer generated voice even if it was her brothers words typed by stylus on his keypad?

Elisabeth dabbed at Lizzie’s cheeks and Lizzie looked into her kind eyes. This woman who barely even knew her seemed to genuinely be concerned for her. How could Lizzie have ever thought of this woman as a snake?

“Thank you.”

“No problem. I take it you don’t want to talk to your brother.”

“It’s not that. I do, its just…its complicated.” Lizzie didn’t know what else to say, and the nurse seemed to understand. She stood there, and they both just looked at each other, one knowing the other wanted to say more, and that when she was ready, the nurse would listen.

Lizzie let out a long sigh, and looked down, catching sight again of the ungodly large clasps around her wrists.

“Do you think you can do something about this?” Lizzie asks, looking up again and catching Elisabeth’s eye.

“You promise you’re not going to slug me again?”

“No, but I’ll dance a jig if you do.”

The nurse didn’t know what to make of it, and Lizzie wasn’t sure what she had meant by that as well. She ended up cocking an unsure eyebrow at the nurse in what had to look like a mix between a puppy dog pleading for forgiveness and a an older sister who was ready to drag you into something naughty that would definitely get you in trouble. The look would have probably been more convincing had Lizzie not had the streaks of fresh tears and the red puffy eyes of the recently crying.

“Yeah, forget I said that,” she said, “but I’ll still appreciate it if you’d take these off me.”

“Just, please, no hitting. I’d have to do more paperwork.”

Elisabeth was quick with the straps and like that, Lizzie was free, her arms lifting into the air happy to be loose.

She stretched, then yawned. The early morning was starting to catch up to her and she was beginning to think she might actually be able to get some rest.

“Here,” the nurse said, brining over the plastic cup and Lizzie was grateful to be able to hold it herself as she brought the straw to her mouth. She took a long drink, felt as the cool water hit her stomach, and then realized something else. She was hungry. Very hungry, which was announced to Elisabeth as well as the roar that erupted from Lizzie could have scared an bear to run for safety.

“You know, the cafeteria is closed, but I might be able to have someone bring you up a jello.”

“Yeah,” Lizzie nodded in relief.

“And then I’ll call the sheriff, okay?”

Lizzie nodded as she lied back on the bed. She was spent. By the time Elisabeth had left the room and pulled the curtain closed behind her, Lizzie was already caught in the first nightmare. The cackling voice surrounding her as maggots swarmed over her. She was twisting and turning in her sleep violently shaking the bed, but there was no waking. Not until the nightmares were ready to let her slip back into reality. It would be awhile, as they enjoyed playing with the new toy, and the maggots grew in size and their mouths exposed long vampire like fangs.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to wake up, but she was trapped and the nightmare had only just had been her last month begun. She just wanted it all to end. End it, end it now she pleaded in her mind.

And the cackling voice ended with the shadow man as it chased her all throughout her dreams.

“Tik-a-tee, tik-a-tet… your death does not come yet…”

She slipped further into the darkness.

Dead Friends: Chapter 4

JasonRDavisLeave a comment

Beep

Beep beep

Beep

Beep beep

tik

tik-a-too

tik

tik-a-tok

Lizzie’s eyes shot open, her breath caught in her chest in mid a scream that never came. She was ready to scream forever into the dark, but something was wrong. She held it in, and it burned her lungs like a fire storming inside her.

There were lights. They weren’t in the room she was in, but it was nearby and illuminated just enough around her that she could see the walls.

Walls in a room that trapped her. They were white, she was trapped back at the house and it was night now. The naked man or the tik-tok man must have dragged her back there and now they were going too…

Was she tied up?

She wasn’t sure. How could she not be sure? She didn’t know but when she tried to move, the room moved more than she did as it tried to spin around her. The world was shaking, was it an earthquake?

There was a loud laugh from somewhere deep in the darkness. It turned into a cackling. The room echoed with it and she could see where pieces of tile started to shatter away and cracks formed running down from the ceiling.

Plaster fell around her and exploded into white powder that lingered in the air. The room was becoming a fog of white as more pieces fell. It was growing thick and she couldn’t breathe. She began to cough, but her throat was raw. It came out as a dry rasp and she had to struggle.

“Calm down. It’s going to be okay.”

She heard a woman’s voice and it was nearby. An angel had come to rescue her. Finally she was saved.

She heard her heart. It was pounding so loudly in her chest that it throbbed through her ears. Still over it she could hear that wonderful voice.

“Just lie back down. Everything’s okay. You’re safe now. You’re safe.” The voice told her and she felt it. The voice reached in to her and relaxed her, pushing her back down on the bed. She had realized how she had arched up her back and had been focused on the ceiling until she melted back onto the bed.

Light flooded the room and she saw where she was. The beeping equipment, the wall mounted tv and the little wooden cabinet on the other side of the room made the hospital room unmistakable. The smell hit her. How had she not noticed that anesthetic odor, mingling with the stench of shit from unchanged bed pans?

Her bed pan… how long had she been out? Had she been in a coma? Her muscles were sore but she didn’t feel like she was weak. She wouldn’t have any energy if she’d been in a coma, right? That’s what she thought but she wasn’t sure.

“Come on girl, just breathe. Deep breaths.”

Lizzie felt something touch her shoulder and she jumped, her scared eyes shooting in the direction of the voice. There was the owner of the voice, and Lizzie looked at her with eyes open wide, another scream at the tip of her tongue.

The large black woman who looked at Lizzie with so much heartwarming compassion and sadness that Lizzie felt like she should be able to trust the woman, but how could she trust anyone? She couldn’t stop her body from reacting and recoiling, kicking herself back trying to get as far away as possible. She felt the bed rocking, and didn’t know if it would tip. She just had to run, to, get away and flee from strangers.

The nurse reached out and grabbed both of her shoulders, keeping her eyes locked on Lizzie. As she did, another woman came into the room and rushed to take Lizzie’s legs and pull them away from her so Lizzie was helpless, falling flat on her back.

No, I am not going to be helpless! Not ever again!

She thrashed around.

“Elizabeth! Its okay. You are okay. You are okay. We need you to relax. Everything is okay.”

The woman’s mouth was moving. Lizzie could hear the words but they just didn’t make sense.  There was a wall inside her and she only heard the cackling. It had stayed in the room after the darkness left and she could hear it in the undercurrent. It reverberated around her. It was a part of her, inside her and it just made…her…want…to…SCREAM!

It finally erupted out from her. The scream echoed through her, billowing out from her, shattering glass around her. She didn’t know where any of it came from but she was now in a rainfall of tiny shards that glistened in the fluorescent light.

A man emerged from behind the curtain. A curtain? She hadn’t noticed that before but one whole wall of her room was just a curtain. Beyond was a lighted hallway she could only catch a glimpse of before the curtain fell back into place.

“What’s going on?” She guessed he was a doctor as he had stepped into her room, is it really your room if it only has three walls, with an air of authority.

“She woke up and immediately went into hysterics.” The woman, a short stout woman wearing flower designed scrubs. She had glasses and silver hair pulled back into a pony tail. She didn’t look old though, and the silver hair was probably died.

“This the woman they found in the woods?”

The silver haired woman nodded.

“Okay, let her go.” The doctor said as he stepped closer to the bed. He held his hands up, showing there was nothing in them. He was moving slow and kept his eyes locked on hers. “You are  going to be okay,” he said soothingly as he approached.

The woman at the end of the bed let Lizzie’s legs go and took a tentative step back. The two of them shared a skeptical glance, neither one trusting the other. Then Lizzie felt the pressure relax on her shoulders and turned as the other woman was straightening.

This one didn’t step back. The nurse stayed there, looking down at her with a deep sadness. Lizzie could see the winkles creasing her face and felt a fond affection for the woman. Something about her was like that of a grandmother. It wasn’t of her own grandma, but there was that quality she always imagined, there in how she looked at her. She pictured Mrs. Brady of that old TV show. The one with all the sisters and brothers. Mrs. Brady hadn’t been a grandmother, but she should have been as she had that kindness. It made Lizzie just want to reach up and give the woman a hug.

“Did we get any identification?” The doctor asked the nurse as he stood next to her, the pair looking down at Lizzie.

“No, there hadn’t been anything when they brought her in and this is the full time she has regained consciousness.”

“Hi, my name is Doctor Everson,” he said as he eased closer to her, bending down. She could see he had something in his hand. It was long and she could see the glint of metal. “Can you tell me what your name is?”

His voice was smooth and hearing it calmed her frayed nerves. He was a doctor. He was a good guy, the white hat from westerns, or her Prince Charming. No, doctors didn’t do the saving, well she guessed they actually did do the saving, but they weren’t the rescuers that pulled you from a burning building.  This man was just going to look her over and make her all okay. She needed to trust him, she knew that.

He still had that metal thing hidden in his hand. What was he hiding from her?

And why were they asking her for her name? The nurse had said her name hadn’t she, when she had first come in.

Lizzie’s head spun and she had to struggle to concentrate as none of this was making sense. She needed to talk, and realized the doctor was waiting for her to answer, hovering over her but not moving any closer. It was like the world was hanging, waiting on her and everyone was watching her.

“Lizzie” she said to break the stillness and it proved harder than she would have thought. Her throat was dry and it came out as a raspy breath. It sent her into a flurry of dry coughing and she would have thought one of them would have come to rub her back or offer her water. Instead they stood their, statues afraid to come any nearer.

“Okay Lizzie, is that a nickname?”

She had to say more, but feared it would send her into another coughing fit. She wished she could write it down, but didn’t see any pens or paper.

“Elizabeth. Elizabeth Rogers.”

“Okay Lizzie, and is there any family I should call?”

“Rolan-“ she didn’t finish as she knew that wasn’t right and it took her a minute before she remembered that she had broken up with Roland. That had been over a month ago. Who could they call? Other than her brother, who did she have now?

She really didn’t want to get Brian upset, and there was nothing he could do for her so why call him? Why should she ever call him. She was pretty good at avoiding him and didn’t want to change that

now. Not for this?

Sarah would have been the one she wanted to call. Her friend until the end, the girl she had grown up with and was like a sister to her. The girl who’s dead glassy eyes kept looking at her every time Lizzie closed her eyes.

She hadn’t realized she had stopped talking just as she had started. The three others in the room were watching her and the doctor was saying something…

“Roland who? Can I get a last name?”

“Never mind him,” she said as she tried to wiggle herself up in the bed. She wanted to sit up but didn’t trust herself yet, the world still threatening to do some more spinning. “Can I get some water?”

“Sure. Nurse?” the doctor looked at the one who was standing at the foot of her bed. The nurse pursed her lips, but she nodded and turned to the first cabinet to the right. She scanned her id card into a panel to the side and it popped open. Lizzie couldn’t see what was inside of it, but she saw the large hospital cup the woman pulled out and then went to a sink to her left that Lizzie hadn’t noticed before.

“Lizzie. Is there anyone we can call tik-a-too?” She heard the doctor say and she quickly turned towards him, her shoulders again tensing.

“Where’s Sarah?”

“Lizzie, I need you to stay calm.” He said in that milk chocolate tone of voice that made her want to melt, but it was too late for melting. She had heard it. He must be one of them.

“Who’s Sarah tik-a-too?” The black nurse said. She had a note pad now and was taking notes.

They were all with him. What were they going to do to her? She thought again about that glint of metal, oh no, they were going to cut her throat. They’re going to kill me!

She tried to see what he had done with it, but he had positioned his hand so it was obscured from her view, hidden behind his body.

“Lizzie, come on Lizzie. I need you to focus and to stay calm. Who can we call. Who should know that you’re here in the hospital?”

I’m not in any hospital. It may look like a hospital, but these people want to cut me open. They’re going to slice me up like they opened up Sarah. They want to know who they can call so I can give them more people to kill.

She shook her head. At first it was a simple back and forth, signaling her refusal, but as she again worked to pull herself back in the bed it grew more furious.

“She’s having a seizure!” someone called out. She wasn’t looking to see who. She clawed at the bed, trying to melt her way into it.

Arms pressed down on her shoulder and someone grabbed her head. She closed her eyes refusing to see the knife coming at her. That had to have been what was in his hand. Though doctor’s didn’t call them knives. They were scalpels and they were even sharper that knives. They were razors that could slice through her flesh with barely any pressure. He was bringing that down on her, she knew it. It was coming for her eyes. It was always about the eyes. They were the windows to her soul, and they wanted to look inside of her.

No, they wanted her soul.

Here it comes.

Light blossomed around her. Everything turned pink as the light was pushing in on her closed eyes. Then her eyes were forced open and she saw the light that pointed straight at her, blinding her as it hovered there.

Then it turned off, and she saw through the circles of light that clouded her vision, the doctor straightening from how he had hovered over her.

“She might have hit her head harder than the EMT’s thought.”

“We don’t know what she’s been through. She had looked pretty beaten up when they brought her in. It looked like she’d been attacked.” The nurse who had gone for the water said. She held the large jug in her hand, presumably with the water and was now standing across from the doctor on the other side of the bed.

“Attacked? Here, in the woods. That’s unlikely.”

“Maybe.”

“Okay, well, get her name to Pinkerton. He’ll want an update, and if she was attacked, he’d need to start investigating, I guess.” This the doctor had said to the black nurse next to him and she took down the notes before nodding to him and heading back out of Lizzie’s room.

This was really getting pretty frustrating. She was right there, and they were talking about her like she wasn’t even there. What was she, some wild animal they needed to tame.

Don’t worry about that right now. She needed to get away from them. They were with him, and while they were talking, she guessed about helping her, they didn’t mean it. As soon as she let her guard down, they were going to strike. So, she couldn’t allow her guard to fall. No matter what, she had to stay alert to what these two were doing.

“Drink this…it’s poison.” She heard the nurse say, though it sounded more like she had hissed out the last part. Lizzie turned to see that the woman’s face had become that of a snake, it’s tongue flicking out as she was holding the large cup out to her. “Drinkssss.”

“Get away from me.” Lizzie said. She reached up and grabbed the cup from the things hand. It wasn’t even a hand, not anymore. It had become a viscous claw, talons extending around the cup and Lizzie could see where they dug into the plastic. Lizzie didn’t stop to think about it or how she got the cup away. She tore off the top and flung its contents. The water hit the serpent nurse in the face and she stumbled back, sputtering from the sudden display.

The nurse took the hint and stayed back, but the hairs on the back of Lizzie’s neck rose. She turned just in time to see that the doctor was moving to hover over her, presumably to push her back down. All he would have to do is get her down flat and then the other one would be back to strap her down.

“No! Get away!”

“Lizzie, calm down.” The doctor was repeating, his smooth voice had now a tinge of sternness. He was getting frustrated. Well, that was too bad, she was not going to make this easy for them. Her friend had died because she had made it too easy. She was done making it easy. If they wanted to hurt her, they were going to have to fight for it.

He reached out to push her down into the bed and she pushed his arms away. She didn’t hold back. As she grabbed to pull his arms away, she dug in her nails and twisted. The nails dug into his flesh.

“Ugh.” the doctor cried out in pain and confusion and stumbled back. “Lizzie, you have to let us help you.”

The room started to shake around her. The cackling was getting stronger and in the back of her mind she heard the dark man chanting. Tik-a-tak, tik-a-too, boo, boo, boo…bounced around her thoughts and grew stronger. It brought tears to her eyes as it pushed its way through anything else and it hurt. Fighting it sent lightening bolts to behind her eyes as she fought.

“Get..sedative…dy” she heard the doctor saying, but it was hard to hear him outside her mind as the voice in her head was getting stronger.

“Li…This wi…ck…you…lit..ile” The doctor said. She only caught pieces of it, but thought again about that metal he had in his hand. She couldn’t see it anymore. He did have something else. It was long. A long tube with a sharp point. A needle. They were going to try and poison her again. They were…

“Okay, its inssss.”

Lizzie spun her head to see that the nurse was standing near an IV drip. She had a needle inserted into a piece of plastic connected to it. She pulled out the needle and looked at her, a smile at the corner of that snake like mouth. The tongue flicked out and in. Then the mouth opened and Lizzie watched as long fangs flicked out as the snake thing prepared to attack.

They truly were going to poison her, but it was going to be snake venom. It would look like a natural death, death by snake.

But why would that matter?

She had no clue, but what did any of it matter anymore? Who cared about any of it?

She did, wait, what was happening to her. This wasn’t right. She was upset, she needed to fight back.

They had done it. They had poisoned her after all. The needle, the IV.

She looked down at her hands. On her left hand she saw now that the IV was running into her. They had slipped it that way. She hadn’t needed to watch for the doctor.

Damn how could I have been so stupid.

She felt herself slipping away. It would be the last time she ever woke up. She knew it. Damn, she was too young for this. She hadn’t traveled enough. She should have traveled more. Gone to England and gotten laid by some hot Englishman, or checked out China and visit the great wall.

She wouldn’t be doing any of that now.

The sedative did its job, and Lizzie faded off to sleep. She barely heard the two talking over her, but caught part of what they were saying.

“…she be okay?”

“…been through a lot, b…be okay.”

The darkness took her and she slipped away.

Book Review: Deadfall Hotel

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Deadfall Hotel by Steve Rasnic Tem

“You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave…”

Richard has lost his wife and in his grief, has accepted a job offer at a very unique hotel. It is one of mysteries and wonder, and where the dead can walk the halls with the living. It is a place where dreams can take shape and pets can mutate into monsters.

This book is an interesting read with some odd directions, and for the most part, I found it highly enjoyable. Now I’ll say that with the caveat that I do not feel like many others will like this book. It has an odd detached tone to it while things are happening and it leaves the reader like you are never fully brought into the secrets of the hotel. I enjoyed that because our main character often never feels like he has fully been brought into the fold.

It also does not have a straight central story line where it leads to a massive climax that gets resolved. Instead, the book introduces us to the main character, we have a few adventures with him and his daughter and then the story is over and we are left saying goodbye. I’m okay with that, however the end isn’t fully explained and we’re left not fully understanding what changed. It is the ending that keeps me from rating this book higher.

I did listen to this as an audiobook and the narrator did a fantastic job. In fact, the next audiobook I am going to listen to, by pure coincidence, is also narrated by him and I am looking forward to it.

Rating 4/5

****

Purchase your copy today. Available in your local book store or on Amazon.
If in Wausau, WI, please make sure to buy your copy from Janke Books Store

Dead Friends: Chapter 1

JasonRDavis1 Comment

“This place is a mess.”

Lizzie looked around the front entry way to the house and agreed with her best friend.  Sarah had never been one to mince words and was known for being extremely blunt.  Which is why when she said this place was a mess, Lizzie had to wonder why she was being so nice.  The place was a dump.

“Yeah, it sure is.”

“And what is that smell?  It smells like.., did your uncle have a cat?”

“I’m not sure.  He might have.”

“It smells like urine.”

“Oh my God, he didn’t piss all over the place did he?  If we find piss stained furniture, I’m gone.”

Lizzie took another step into the room, herself trying not to gag as the smell was overpowering.  Did her uncle have a cat?  The lawyer hadn’t said anything, but there really hadn’t been too many details. It had been a quick meeting. Her Uncle Michael had passed away and as she was his next of kin, inheriting his house and money.

She was surprised the when the lawyer had told her just how much money.  She didn’t know too much about her uncle.  He had stayed away from her family while she had grown up and her dad had only talked about him in passing here and there, but the stories were always tinged with a sadness and she could tell her dad never like to talk about him.  She had no clue where he had made all his money.  It hadn’t been from working as the little she did know was that he hadn’t had a job in over twenty years.  So even without working he had owned a house, a car had hardly been driven in the twenty years he had owned it, and still left her nearly half a million dollars.

Lizzie still couldn’t believe it. As she stepped into what was obviously the living room of the small house, she thought about how she had just gone from about to being evicted because she couldn’t pay her rent two months in a row to now having a house and a small fortune.  It had come to her just as simple as taking that next step into the room.

Though looking at the room around her, it was impossible to imagine that someone with all that money lived there.  The couch and lounge chair both looked like they were as old as the house and there were clear indentations in the fabric of where he liked to sit.  The floor had garbage wrappers and discarded boxes from microwave dinners and pizza boxes.  There was a spot where the tv had once been, but as there had been some kind of explosion, the wall was blackened around the clear rectangle shape, a ghost of what had been there.  She guessed that under the piles of newspapers there would be the coffee table, but she was afraid to touch any of it to find out.

“So how much do you think to have someone come in here and just nuke all this stuff?” Sarah walked up behind her, having checked out the room directly opposite. Sarah was her roommate, though if Lizzie moved into the house now that she owned it, a house, she finally owned a house, the thought still amazed her, she wasn’t sure if Sarah would join her.  It wasn’t like they would still be living in the city and it was a forty minute drive to get back.

It would be rough for her if Sarah didn’t stay.  Sarah was like a sister to her, though she was the blonde to Lizzie’s dark auburn locks.  Sarah was the beautiful one and Lizzie was the normal bookish one or Sarah was the Yin to Lizzie’s Yang. Lizzie didn’t have too many people she could still count on besides her brother, and it was hard, near impossible to talk to him.

What was she going to do if Sarah stayed in Steven’s Point?

“I have no idea.” Lizzie said as Sarah stepped around her over to the table buried in the far corner.  Lizzie hadn’t noticed it at first as there was mounds of books and papers surrounding it that nearly buried it.  How much stuff could her uncle really have, but as she approached the far corner, she could tell these papers were different.  Maybe it had been what had caught Sarah’s attention.

She was right, as she saw Sarah picking up the first of the loose discolored pages and then looked back at her.

“What’s all this stuff?”

“No clue.” She reached down at another stack of pages and touched it.  The paper felt course and brittle.  She was afraid to pick it up, but it was hard to read even though the words were large.  It was all hand written stuff, but as she scanned the different texts she could tell the penmanship of various authors.  Some it looked like would be easier to read as they were written in large block letters, but some were going to be a challenge as it was in small cursive strokes.  It all looked extremely old.

“Was your uncle into satanism?”

Lizzie looked over at the page Sarah had in her hand. There was a large six pointed star with each point touching a surrounding circle and beneath it was drawn a man. The print by the man was very large making sure there was no doubt when it had been written.  The man was meant to be ‘the sacrifice.’

Lizzie saw Sarah visibly shudder as she dropped the page back onto the pile and she shared her friends disgust. The house alone was disgusting, but she couldn’t imagine her uncle being into that stuff as well. Though she hadn’t known him.  Just what else were they going to find in the house?

“Lets hope not. I don’t want to find some hidden room in the basement where did all his blood sacrifices.”

“Yuck! Maybe thats where that awful smell is coming from.”

“Sarah!? Now you got me worried we’re going to find a closet full of dead animals or something.”

“Hey, are you going to keep the house or just get rid of it? You have plenty of money now, why not buy a condo in the city?”

Lizzie thought about that as she stepped around the large lazy boy chair that was center to the room. The room was dark, and in doing so, she hadn’t seen a spot where something had soiled the carpet until she stepped in it. She looked down and saw something dark smearing up around her shoe and she grimaced.  It was so dreary in here, why did she think she was going to keep the house?  Sarah was right, it would be so much easier just to sell the house and then she wouldn’t have to worry about losing her friend.

She made it to the window and pulled the curtains open, hoping that a little light would make the place not so depressing. That was a mistake.  One tug on the curtain and the curtain rod above split in half, both sides collapsing to the floor in a pile of tattered cloth and dust. She coughed as the dust attacked her lungs and she had to step back.

The room stayed dark despite the bright sun outside. The windows she had tried to reach were both painted black and in places there were boards nailed into the sides.

“Why would your uncle do that?”

“Maybe he was a vampire.”

“You think.”

“Haha, I have no idea. My dad had said he was crazy.”

“I am starting to agree with him.”

Lizzie went back to the short hallway in the entryway. She couldn’t take the cramped room anymore and there still much more of the house to explore. With any luck the living room was the worst of it. It had to be right? Since that was the room he had spent the most time in.

After a few deep breaths of clean air, enjoying that they had left the front door open, she went into the other room.  It was what many would use for a dining room, though it had shelves into the walls and fancy plates decorated those shelves, dust covered any designs. The rest of the room showed no trace of it having been used for dining purposes as the table in here was missing all the chairs. More papers littered the room and the table was spilling over with piles of books. Many piles had already given up standing and there contents had sometime in the past collapsed to the floor to now be covered in dust where they fell.

“Hey you, don’t be doing that?” Sarah rushed to join her in the room and they both stood around the room. Sarah was looking at the shelves. “Why did he have those?”

“What?, wait, what did I do?”

“You left me behind. I don’t want to be in here alone.” Sarah leaned down so she could get a closer look at the plates. “I never took your uncle for the sort to have nice stuff like this.”

“He used to be married. Maybe those had been my aunt Cynthia’s?”

“Really?  Like he had been normal once?”

“I guess.” She tried to recall some of the stories her had had told her about him, but there hadn’t been that many.  “Cynthia had passed away before I was born and I know it had been shorty after they had gotten rich and stuff. It wasn’t too long after they bought this house I think. I think he bought this house for her and stuff as it had been close to her family.”

“So like, her family lives around here?”

“No clue.”

“Huh.”

She really did own this house now.  It was so weird to think about.  She had a house, and she had money.  She could pay off her car and her student loans.  She could even buy a new car, not that cheap piece of junk she was driving, but she could get a nice car, something really flashy.  After all, she had all that money, why not spend it.

Of course, the lawyer had advised her that some of it would go to taxes and there was some kind of payment she would have to make for getting the inheritance, but even with all that, she still had more money than she could have made working most her lifetime.

Now she could have some real fun. She could get rid of this house, or just keep it and buy more houses. Maybe thats what she would do, start buying houses and renting them out. She could become a real estate mogul like Donald Trump. No, not like him, she didn’t want to be known for being a douche and eventually she’d probably have to kick people out or stuff.

But she could do stuff. She could really do things, she no longer had to worry about paying her cell phone bill, waiting for it to get turned off before making a payment arrangement to give her that little more time to come up with the money.  She didn’t have to worry about all the bill collectors as they called trying to get the power bill paid or the gas bill.  Her cable wouldn’t keep getting turned off because she didn’t have the money to pay it.  Hell, she could probably buy the cable company and be done with it.

Okay, so she didn’t have quiet that much money, but she had a lot.  What was she going to do with it all?

It was so odd. When her parents had passed away, they hadn’t left her with much.  Her dad had been sick for so long and most their savings had been lost to paying the doctor bills. The house was in foreclosure when they had both died in a car crash, so the bank had taken it. Their life insurance policies had been a bare minimum, left overs from her mom’s work and had been just enough to cover funeral costs.

It was hard thinking about that. They had been gone a couple years now and still each day passed she still thought of them. Wanted to call them, tell her about the good things and bad that happened. She craved to hear the sound of her mother’s voice as she scolded her for not spending so much.  As much as it had hurt when her mother would nag at her, she missed it, knowing that each time her mother had come down on her it was all because she had loved her daughter and was just trying to take care of her the best way she knew how.

Then there was her dad.  He had been such a gentle man, and a good man who had always been there for her.  Even when it would upset her mother, her dad, he always had her back.  If he happened to visit her in the city and see that she was low on food, or the more often nothing but moldy old left overs, he would sneak her a few hundred bucks when her mom wasn’t looking. When her power had been cut off because she couldn’t afford to pay the bill, he had gone behind her back to the power company and paid it.

He had been her keeper, her confidant, her rock she had always looked up too.  Now they were both gone, and she was left with only this damn house and the money. She wouldn’t have to worry about the power bill any more, but what she really wanted was to just have that one more phone call with them.

“Hey, I thought Jessica and Dennis were coming?  What happened, Dennis couldn’t keep his pants on this morning?” Sarah asked on her way out of the room through a swing door on the other side.

“I don’t know, they were supposed to show up to meet us but then Jess called saying they weren’t coming.  I think Dennis’ dad came up.”

“Uh-oh, more lectures from Father Tony about the dangers of pre-marital sex.” Sarah’s voice was muffled as the door swung closed behind her.  Sarah never seemed to understand that Lizzie couldn’t hear her when she walked to other rooms and now Lizzie could hear the muffled sound of Sarah continuing on.  Lizzie didn’t need to hear it to know what she was saying.  Dennis’ father, Father Tony as they liked to call him was a Catholic priest who always lectured them all on their lifestyles.  Thankfully they lived hours away so he didn’t come up to visit their friends too often, but when he did, they were all in for his sermons.

“I never know why he is so hard on them.  Everyone knows they are going to tie the knot.  They’ve been together since before Roland and I broke up.” Lizzie said.  She made sure to talk loud enough for her friend to hear as she was focused in on one of the plates.  It was different than the others.  It had a black tarnish to it and the gold that ran the edge was almost glowing red.  It drew her in and she couldn’t help herself as she neared it and was reaching out to touch it.  The dust didn’t settle on it like the others.  He must have handled this one more often or actually spent time to clean it.  There was an image on the front of a woman dancing and as she watched, she could have sworn that the woman was moving in the light, that she was turning.

A scream came from the other room, breaking her out of her reverie. It seemed strange.  She heard the scream, and knew it was coming from the kitchen. Logically it had to be her best friend, and the scream sounded terrified, so Lizzie had to wonder why she wasn’t running in there. It took her a moment to fully pull herself back into reality, away from the scene in the plate.

Then she found herself running for the kitchen door. It was one of those both ways doors, the hinge swiveling.  She burst through it, and stopped, trying to comprehend what it was she saw.

Dead Friends: Chapter 22

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The first thing Lizzie felt when she woke up was an immense pain in her temple and that sense of being pulled out of some other world. The one she was now in still was rich in haze from the fog of slumber and remnants were still fresh in her thoughts from the one she left behind.

Had it been real? Had any of that just happened? It had been so real. It felt more like memories than dream fragments, but if that was the case why had she been Jessica. She had known her thoughts, her past, things that Jessica had never told her about herself. About her friend. She couldn’t have made all that up, could she? She was unsure, but it unsettled her, because if it was real, then her friend was dead.

The rock formed in her stomach. She had wanted to warn her earlier. She had tried to warn Jessica that something was coming after her. She had known they were next, but maybe it was because of that premonition that she had dreamed about it.

The dream had been so real. Too real. She still felt the bone deep cold inside her, and as she opened her eyes and exhaled a puff of mist formed from her lips. Lips that had just hours before been kissed by Roland. How could she have slept with him  after everything that has happened between the two of them. She could never have been that stupid, but yet she had.

The heart wants what the heart wants.

“But honey, that hadn’t been your heart talking, that had been something else. That was you pussy talking and it was hungry for the ‘D’.” A voice said to her in her head. She recognized it as a voice from long ago, though who it belonged to, she couldn’t recall. It was a voice from out of time floating in from some forgotten past.

As she tried to focus on it, more of the dream faded away yet the cold remained. It was very cold, too cold even. A shiver ran through her and that shouldn’t be right. She shouldn’t be shivering from a dream, should she?

Something tapped into her back and she had to remember that she was still in the hotel room. He was there too, asleep behind her in the bed.

How could she have been so stupid?

She wanted desperately to get out of there. She didn’t know how long she had been asleep, but the little of it she had was enough to clear her mind. God! What had she been thinking?

Didn’t matter. The deed was done and tomorrow he would wake up and remind her of it, maybe even try for a repeat as if everything was forgotten and forgiven. Men.

She wished she had driven herself. Then she could sneak out into the night and disappear, letting the miles between them build until maybe this would become another ungodly nightmare.

First she needed to call Jessica, make sure she was okay. It was the middle of the night, the outside light filtering through the hotels curtains confirmed that suspicion, and she would probably wake her friend.

I just need to make sure she’s okay.

But you know she’s not.

I don’t know that, just the dream had been so real.

The conversation played out in her mind and she continued to lie there in indecision. She should wake up Roland and tell him about it. He would calm her down, tell her she was being silly, but hey, here’s my cell phone if you want to call her. He’d do all those things, as he was a good guy who cared for her. So why did he also have to be such a lying cheating bastard?

Last night she had believed all his bullshit. Why couldn’t she believe him now? Because she had come to her senses, that’s why. What had she been thinking?

She could feel him shift in the bed behind her and let out a soft moan.

He probably sensed that she was awake and was waking up too. He had always been good about waking up with her whenever she couldn’t sleep. He was usually a heavy sleeper, but the moment she had a bad dream, he was up and had her in his arms. When her parents died, he had slept over a lot, and there were many of these nights when she would find herself crying on his chest.

She didn’t want him knowing she was awake. Damn. Maybe if she was still and stayed on her side, he wouldn’t know, but she wanted to call Jess. Damn. What if she fell back to sleep waiting for him to fall back to sleep. Damn, damn, damn.

She pulled the blankets tighter around her. It was so cold in the room. They must had forgotten to turn on the heat when they had come in. Considering how they had been with each other, she wasn’t surprised. They had been generating their own heat.

Now the room was an ice box. She could use the temperature of the room as a refrigerator, their bottled water would be nicely chilled for drinking where it sat on the little table across the room. The temp had must of dropped down much lower than forecasted if the room was this cold. She hadn’t brought enough clothes.

Roland moaned louder. Then he moaned even louder. This wasn’t him waking up.

Then he screamed and she turned over to see that she had gone from dreaming one nightmare to be living in another.

“tik-a-too, tik-a-ted, there’s a dead man in your bed.” The hideous voice cackled. She could see the dark shape that was sitting on Roland. It was hovering over him but watching her and smiling at her. Even in the dimly lit room, and his obscured form, she saw the bright whites of a chilling smile as he laughed at her. He was so close. Too close, she couldn’t do anything, but get away. Immediately she jumped out of the bed and twisted to never take her eyes on him. She didn’t stop backing away until she hit the wall, then she pressed herself against it as hard as she could. She would have melted into it if she could find away.

Run. She should just run away, get herself out of there and make her escape, but it had Roland. It had turned away from her, ignoring her because for now it had what it wanted.

Roland. She looked at him, and she could see that the shadow thing had one of its hands deep into Roland’s chest. It hadn’t broken the skin, it was like the shadow man was only part way into this world and because of that, his hand didn’t have any substance. He was was in Roland’s chest, but it had gone through the skin, not breaking it.

That wasn’t true, as Lizzie watched Roland shake violently, the shadow man laughing as he squeezed inside. The shadow was killing him. It was suffocating him from the inside or squeezing his heart. She didn’t know what, but it didn’t matter. This was how it really enjoyed taking lives.

She wasn’t sure how she knew, but as soon as the thought occurred to her, she was certain she was right. It liked death, and took it in any way that it could. When Sarah had been killed, it had no way of killing her directly. Same way with Josh and Elisabeth, it couldn’t touch them directly. She didn’t know why, and there was much of it that didn’t make sense. There must be some set of rules this shadow had to play by, and killing directly was a no-no. It used surrogates and manipulation to take most the lives, so it was less accustomed to the joy of taking life within its own dark grasp.

So what had changed the rules? Why was it there now, killing Roland? Was it getting stronger? She vaguely recalled something Josh and Sarah had been arguing about. There had been many things, but something Sarah had wanted Lizzie to notice.

There had been the picture. Last night, oh God had it really just been last night that Josh had appeared to them? It had and this had easily become one of the longest days in human history or at least she’d ever had because it seemed like so much shit just kept rolling her way.

But the picture. It fell. The two fighting had been able to move it and the picture fell and then it broke. How had she not noticed that before?

She thought back to the hospital room and how Sarah by herself hadn’t been able to move anything no matter how hard she tried. Oh, and then there was the touching each other. They had both made each other sick trying to do it, but at the coffee shop Sarah had no issues with choking her.

You still don’t know if Sarah was even there. It hadn’t been like before. That could have been just you. You know your losing your mind, right?

She wished she could silence her own thoughts, especially with some of the newer thought voices that kept giving her their opinions.

It had been Sarah and she had been choking her. They were getting stronger. He was getting stronger. She was feeding it somehow.

It was all the people around her that was doing it. They kept dying. It fed off the death. It wanted her friends to die, her loved ones. It was killing them, all of them, and was going to keep doing it until she stopped it.

If she could stop it. Her uncle hadn’t been able to.

Her uncle hadn’t been able too. How did she know he had fought it. Because it all made sense. He had hidden himself back in the woods, away from everyone, cutting himself off from the outside world because anyone he cared about was killed.

She couldn’t think about it right now but it all was rushing at her. This thing had killed her parents. It killed her aunt. It had been after all of them and when her uncle couldn’t handle it anymore, he had killed himself and now it was killing everyone she loved.

Tears rolled down her cheek but she paid them no attention. Instead, she looked around the room for something, anything she could use. She heard Roland’s wheezing breath, and knew she had to be quick.

But why even try. Her uncle had years to fight this thing and it had never done any good. How are you going to stop it?

She didn’t know and the thought voice was becoming increasingly annoying. She wished it would just shut up. Shut up and let her think, dammit!

In the dim light she could see Roland, his face was turning grey, dark lines stretching along his cheeks and bulging from around his eyes. She feared those were his veins. His blood was being replaced by the shadows darkness and now his veins were visible through his skin by their black hue.

She wasn’t sure what possessed her to throw it, but she had unplugged the coffee maker by ripping it from the desk. The cable struck her and she grabbed it, quickly wrapping it around the little gadget and them flung it across the room. She didn’t wait to see the thing react as she grabbed more from the desk. She used the tray the coffee maker had been on, a local phone book, and a folder that must have contained local delivery options or the TV guide directory. It didn’t matter because if she could lift it, she had thrown it. She didn’t stop until she tried to lift the large lamp at the end of the desk only to find that it was mounted to the desk. She was pulling at it, trying to shake it back and forth, wrestling it free when she heard the laugh coming from behind her.

She couldn’t get the lamp free and she had nothing else to throw. Slumping her shoulders she turned to look back to the bed wrestling with another idea, one that was crazy and not like her to even think it. Maybe if she ran at the thing, jumped at it, even wrestled with it, it would release its death grip on Roland.

She stopped when she saw the thing was looking at her. It’s eyes burned red with some internal flame, and they burned into her. His smile was wide, and somehow the light that flickered from his eyes never touched his teeth, as they were white to the point that they seemed to glow and they were sharp, each tooth ending in a narrow point.

“Hello.” It said, speaking to her for the first time without that sing-song cadence. Now it was fixated on her, and she was hypnotized as the unseen lips moved, only noticeable for how they blocked the glow of its teeth when it spoke.

“Get away from him.” She said. She could hear the tears in her voice but was surprised at the anger. Where had that come from? At first she wasn’t sure but as she stood there, clenching and unclenching her fists, remembering what this thing has taken from her, her friends that it has killed. She knew the anger, and she embraced it. She wanted to be done with allowing this creature to come into her life and steal everywhere cared for from her.

“Why should I? What is he to you? A lover? A friend? You care about him that much?” The voice grated on her nerves. It was rough, a gravely voice that echoed in her ears as though many voices tried to speak as one.

Lizzie took at deep breath and let it out through her mouth. Her fists unclenched and she shook out her hands before she clenched them again. She could feel her nails digging in, the uneven edges from how she chewed at them threatening to break her skin.

“He’s nobody to me.” She tried to sound convincing. Yesterday she wasn’t sure if she would even have stopped the shadow thing from taking Roland, though she likes to think that deep down she was a good person. Even a good person wouldn’t let a lying, cheating son-of-a-bitch to die when she could stop it.

Today, she found that she still did care about him. Her feelings were still there and that is why she had hated him so much. Because under all that anger she did love him.

She couldn’t tell this thing that. It had some kind of connection to her. It killed those close to her. So she had to find that anger and hate she had for Roland if she was ever going to save him.

She had to find a way to kill the shadow man.

It had been watching her as she stood there and the longer she didn’t say anything more, a sound grew from him. It wasn’t until it developed into a sound she recognized that she realized it was laughing at her.

“You sleep with him. He fucks you, and you say he is nobody to you.” And as it says that, Roland writhes in agony below it.

“Fuck you.” She says to him, the anger now boiling up inside her. She had noticed something. She had just caught the slight glint of metal on the floor and had taken a moment to realize just what it was. The keys to the car had fallen to the floor, probably having dropped out of Roland’s pockets as she had pulled his pants off of him.

“Those you wish about and those you love

From the wings of an morning dove

All those in which you cherish

Will slowly die in agony and perish

They will be mine these dreary few

And once they are gone I will come for you.”

She hadn’t waited for him to finish. She didn’t want to hear any more of his creepy words. Each once made her skin tingle and her back tense. She tuned him out the best she could as she made her plan. It wasn’t a good one, and she knew it wouldn’t work, but it was her doing some thing. She was so tired of not doing anything. She had to try something to stop him.

She rushed forward, grabbing the keys as she moved. Her arm rose high, she had her sites set, aimed for where she wanted to strike while fumbling in her hand to have one key out between her fingers. She was unsure of herself, having never been a fighter, but did all she could to put everything she had when she brought her hand down.

It struck just below the eyes. Or it would have, had the shadow man been anything more than shadow. Her hand slipped through him, and then she was slipping through him, her momentum carrying her into him and landing on top of Roland.

This had been a mistake. She had realized it the moment she had made contact, but as she was flung over the bed, she realized just how much of a mistake it had been.

Her skin had turned to near ice as he was just so cold. She couldn’t breathe. Her breath was frozen in her lungs. All of her was frozen. She was trapped and even worse, she was in his essence and there she could see… something.

She didn’t know what it was. Around her there was so much darkness. It was an ether. She knew she wasn’t on earth. It was an ‘other’ place, one where there was no light to cast the shadows. Shadows were not made, they were things, and hid other things.

She could feel that hate that emanated from that place, from all the creatures that surrounded her there. She couldn’t see them, only feel them, sensing that they were reaching out for her. They wanted her, to take her, torture her how they have been torture. She was a creature of the light and they hated her for it.

How did she know that?

Because she was inside of him. He was from this place and he felt that way towards her. But that didn’t make sense. If he hated her, all of them so much, then why not just kill her. Why kill all of her friends.

Because the shadow man, thing didn’t hate her, it hated man. She was a person, one who lived in night and day. The shadow man, wanted all light to be perished from the world.

She was the lock that kept them at bay. She didn’t know how that worked.

Now she was there in the dark place. The things were moving around her. They had noticed her. She could feel them moving towards her. A wave of fear ran through her but it wasn’t her fear. The shadow man was afraid of these things. It was afraid… of them. It didn’t want it to get her.

She was not sure what to make of that and she didn’t have the time to find out as she found herself ripped out of him, back in her own world and being hurled across the hotel room. She had the briefest of sensations of no control, the weightless as she flew, and then the pain. She hit the wall, and it forced the air out of her lungs. Then she fell to the floor and everything hurt. Her insides felt like they had been squished, her arms and legs were sore. She wasn’t sure if she broke anything. It felt like if she hadn’t then she had definitely sprained something, everything.

Across the room, cutting through the cold and dark was a blood curdling scream that was quickly cut short.

The room grew deathly still. The only thing Lizzie heard was the repetitive sound of her breathing. Even the hum from the electronics in the room was silent. The darkness felt out of time. She was all alone. She feared what she would find when she stood and looked on the bed.

She pulled herself up. Each movement took a concerted effort as she fought against the pain.

When she stood, she turned and saw Roland on the bed, the shadow man was gone and he wasn’t breathing. His skin was ash grey and she knew he wasn’t coming back. She was alone in the room with her dead ex-boyfriend. A man she had made many public threats against his life and bodily harm.

She was quick putting on her clothes, finding her phone and wallet before grabbing the car keys and getting out of there.

Outside, the world was dark, the street lights having burned out in the last half hour. She worked her way through the dark the best she could, got in Roland’s car, and drove away. She knew she should call the police. There would be plenty of questions and they would wonder why she just left. She wasn’t sure if she had any answers for them.

She was empty. Empty of answers, empty of emotions, empty of everything. She was a shell, and even the tears weren’t coming.

She made her way to the interstate. Within a half hour she was speeding down the road, on her way to somewhere unknown.

END OF PART 2