CHAPTER SEVEN
“This is it,” Tara said, her face a shiny silver in the moonlight.
I looked at the house at the end of the block, the throngs of people outside, their laughter and drunken cries filling the air. Cars littered the street, all to be driven home drunk later.
“You having second thoughts?” she asked. Her voice was small, telling me how much she was depending on me. If I didn’t go into the party with her, she wouldn’t go at all. And all her hopes of winning over Angus, Adrianna Gee’s boyfriend, would be dashed. Tara was my closest friend and yet I was still nothing but an excuse for her to come here.
I nodded quickly, despite the warnings from Jacob. The warnings that Adrianna couldn’t be trusted. That she had some deal with the devil. That all her friends were against me, waiting to eat my soul. Even though I hadn’t seen Jacob for a while, his inane ramblings were still fresh in my mind. I hadn’t told Tara any of this, of course. I knew she wanted to go to the party, even though we weren’t invited.
Luckily, Tara wasn’t a fat ugmo like myself. She was freakishly tall for her age, which did garner her a few choice nicknames, but honestly I’d rather be tall than fat. Besides, she was pretty and slim and if she wore dresses and short skirts instead of her tomboy outfit of cargo pants and vintage camp shirts, she would have turned more than a few heads. The point was, she’d be allowed into the party. I wasn’t too sure about me.
“Yeah, I’m having second thoughts,” I admitted. “But I’m down. I told you’d come and I will. I just…”
“Just what?” Tara said, pulling out a joint and lighting it.
I watched her puff back on the crinkly paper and inhale until she was a shade paler. Then she exhaled, the pot smoke drifting up into starry late winter sky.
She passed the joint to me and I inhaled half-heartedly. It would take the edge off but pot just felt like child’s play these days.
“But…” I said slowly, already losing my train of thought. Should I tell her? Oh, f*ck it.
I gave her back the joint and said, “I just heard that these people didn’t like me.”
“Who told you that?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. A boy.”
“What boy?” she asked suspiciously.
“You wouldn’t know him. His name’s Jacob.”
She gave me a disbelieving look before coughing her lungs out.
“Jacob? Mohawk dude who killed himself?” she asked between coughs.
“He attempted to kill himself,” I explained. “And yeah, so what, it’s him. He’s been walking me home a lot.” Every day for weeks, until the last week when he was acting just a little too crazy for my liking.
“I’m pretty sure he died, Perry,” Tara said.
“Oh yeah, so I’ve been talking to a dead person,” I said, laughing. Child’s play or not, the pot was strong and I was already becoming more removed from the situation.
Tara laughed too. “Well I dunno. His funeral was in the paper the other week but maybe I was too f*cked up.”
I let the giggles flow. “Or I’m too f*cked up and I’m talking to ghosts.”
“Either way, he sounds like a liar. No one hates you Perry. No one even knows who you are.”
That would have stung more a few minutes ago but now her words left just a soft pang in my heart. “Hey…”
“Sorry, Palomino. I just meant that no one cares about you.”
I raised my brow at her. Still no better.
“I mean, you’re harmless, Perry. No one hates you. Seriously. Let’s just go inside and you’ll see. It’ll be cool.”
I nodded and we resumed walking down the dark, barely lit suburban street. I was high as a kite for some reason, though it could have been the two-liter of Canadian cider that we shared on the bus earlier.
And then Tara was gone. And I was alone on the street.
I looked around me wildly, seeing only shapely shadows created by the moon and an empty, wide cul-de-sac. Tara was nowhere to be seen and the noise from the party had ceased. It was like time stopped, everyone on earth had left, and only I remained.
“Perry,” I heard a whisper.
I turned and looked in the direction of the house. In the blackness, a lone streetlight turned on. It illuminated Jacob’s spikey-haired silhouette as he stood there, frozen on the spot, a gas can in his hand.
“Let’s go in together,” he said. And without rhyme or reason, I found myself moving toward him, a creeping shadow on the lifeless street.
~~
I woke up with an extremely uneasy feeling and for a few seconds I couldn’t remember where I was. I wasn’t at home. The room was way too dark and windowless.
I slowly sat up and tried to get my eyes to adjust. There were a bunch of blinking lights in the corner coming from Dex’s computer and other gadgets.
It was the second night in the last week that I was dreaming about the past. I don’t know why. Normally if I dreamed about weird things, they had something to do with the spirits we were about to encounter. I had begun to rely on my dreams as being prophetic, or maybe a quick glimpse into the mind of a dead person (as lovely as that sounds). But I was dreaming about high school and things that I had pushed out of my mind with the help of medication, doctors and therapy sessions. I didn’t like how they were suddenly coming up now. I hope they didn’t mean anything. They couldn’t. It was all the drug use, that’s all it ever was.
Not that I could remember all that much about the dreams. I knew my friend Tara had been in it, maybe Dr. Freedman, my old shrink. Nothing scary had happened. Yet there was something so disturbingly realistic about the whole thing that my heart was pounding away and I was sweating profusely. I felt the sheets. They were a damp. Jenn would probably burn them by the time I left.
Earlier that evening, Dex had cooked Jenn and me dinner (his cooking skills were still surprising) and I had a bit too much wine with it. Just to calm the nerves. Actually, we all had imbibed a tad much, which made the conversation easier. Probably helped that we all ate in the living room, watching TV, and didn’t have to stare at each other. I had avoided looking at either of them, the conversation I had with Dex still fresh in my head. We were putting it all past us.
Now my head was spinning from the dream and I was thirsty from the night sweats and the wine. I didn’t want to get up for a glass of water; the black room was a bit creepy, and it was always weird being in someone else’s place in the middle of the night, but if I didn’t, I’d never go back to sleep. I carefully eased myself out of the single bed, unsure if I was going to walk into anything in the blackness. I made it to the door, opened it quietly, and poked my head out into the apartment. Their bedroom door was closed. The bathroom wasn’t. Fat Rabbit probably slept with them. I hope he messed up their sex life.
I tiptoed to the kitchen, my socks silent on the floor, careful not to wake them or the dog, and plucked a glass from a high cupboard and filled it up at the kitchen tap. The garish, yellow streetlights from outside came in through the balcony doors, filtered by a gauzy curtain that moved slowly, teased by a draft. Even though the apartment was small and beautiful, there was something so…strange about it. Strange and off-putting.
I finished my drink and filled the cup up again, mulling it over. There was no reason for me to be creeped out and yet I was. I listened hard; I could hear the comforting sound of someone’s light snoring in the bedroom, the occasional subdued rumble of a car outside, the tick of a clock on the wall. Everything was normal for a middle of the night Monday but that inkling of the unknown was undeniable. The hairs on my arms were rising with each second I stood there.
I gulped down the rest of the water and quietly placed the empty cup in the sink. If I hung around any longer I would just freak myself out.
I started to walk back to the room, wondering if perhaps I needed to go to the washroom, but something made me pause as I passed through the middle of the apartment.
It was that feeling.
That nauseating, lung-seizing feeling that someone, or something, was standing behind me. I could feel it, feel this solid presence at my back, watching me.
I wasn’t alone.
And I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. I felt frozen, my legs locked to the hardwood floors.
Then…
A dripping sound. My ears were so fine-tuned that the sound made my heart jump. A steady, slow drip. Had I turned off the tap properly?
But I knew it wasn’t the sink. The splatter didn’t echo, it fell in small, thick pats and from a greater distance. If it wasn’t the tap, what was dripping?
I looked at my door. It was so close. I could run into the room and lock it. I could prop the bed up against the door for security, pull the covers over my head and pray for sleep. Or I could swallow my pride and run into Dex and Jenn’s room like a child who has had a bad dream.
Or I could turn around. And see that there was nothing to be afraid of. Then my fears would be put to bed and I would follow.
I tensed up and very, very slowly, turned around on the spot.
I expected that if anyone was behind me, they would be way back in the kitchen.
This was not true.
There was someone…
Right behind me.
I was face to face with a…being…covered in graying skin that puckered in the shadows. Their chest had caved into a red abyss. Their neck looked like a piece of fraying string cheese and could barely hold up their head, which was gruesomely flattened, wider than it was long, like it was smashed in by something heavy, leaving part of it open and exposed, a mixture of brain matter, blood and bone. The blood flowed freely off this gaping wound and fell on to the ground in sticky, wet splotches. The sick source of that rhythmic pattering.
The eye closest to the wound was destroyed, only a hole of gray goo remained, and the other eye fixed itself on me sharply. It was a female eye, puffy, with running makeup underneath. She almost looked like she could be crying, but…
She smiled at me. And it sounded like wasps buzzing.
I finally screamed.
Despite taking self-defense classes, Karate, and boot camp, my instinct wasn’t to stay and fight. It was to get the f*ck away from it. With nothing in my head but absolute horror, I turned and tried to run back to my room. My socks lost traction and slipped out from under me and I was down on the floor with a frightening thud, lying at the feet of a buzzing dead girl.
I scampered up just as Fat Rabbit’s barking form came shooting out from the bedroom, followed by Jenn, who was waving around a curling iron like a weapon.
“What the hell is going on?” she asked, looking around in a total panic. I whirled around to see if the demented woman was there but she wasn’t. However, the blood on the floor still remained and trailed away toward the kitchen where it stopped.
“Perry!” Dex yelled. I looked to see him coming out of the room, practically naked and barely pulling on his pants in time. I was too freaked out to find that intriguing.
He stopped and grabbed my shoulders as Jenn flicked on the living room lights.
“What happened? What is it, are you OK?!” He looked over me frantically.
“Are you bleeding?” Jenn asked, eyeing the blood on the floor, which Fat Rabbit was sniffing distastefully.
I shook my head, trying to find my breath and my voice again. It felt like I lost most of it with that scream. It was still ringing in my own ears.
“It’s not my blood,” I finally got out between gulps of air.
Jenn and Dex exchanged a look.
“Whose blood is it?” Jenn asked. Her voice was laden with suspicion. She was not going to like my answer.
>
I looked at Dex. He tightened his grip on my shoulders and led me over to their white couch.
“Dex, not if she’s bleeding!” Jenn cried out, afraid for her upholstery.
He shot her a sharp look. “She said she’s not, so she’s not. Go get her some water.”
She jumped a bit at his brusque tone but hurried off to the kitchen, frowning as she went and careful to avoid the bloody spots.
He placed me on the couch and sat beside me, his body positioned towards mine. He took both of my hands in his and looked me straight in the eyes.
“Tell me what happened, from the beginning.”
I did, very conscious of how it sounded in front of Jenn. To her credit, she didn’t say anything during this bizarre conversation, just brought over the cup of water and perched her tiny butt on the edge of an armchair.
“And you didn’t recognize the ghost?” he asked when I was done.
I stifled a chuckle. “Recognize? No.”
“I meant the person before they died. The normal parts of her. They didn’t look familiar to you?”
“No.”
I looked down at my hands, which were still enveloped in his firm grasp. I could feel from the occasional twitch that if he let go, my fingers would be shaking uncontrollably. He felt it too.
“This is ridiculous,” Jenn said. Dex and I both looked at her. We knew it was ridiculous, but it had happened. After what had happened on the island, I knew better than to doubt myself anymore.
“It’s the truth, though,” I said quietly.
“Sure. The truth in your mind,” she said, getting up. She stretched as if it was all boring her, her gray camisole lifting up, which displayed her richly hued, flat stomach.
“Explain the blood then,” Dex said defensively, gesturing at it.
Jenn shrugged. “Could be a bunch of things. And none of them say ‘ghost.’ All I know is that I need to clean this mess up before it stains the floor.”
She walked over to a utility closet and brought out cleaning supplies. I watched Dex watching her. He seemed livid, but with an eerie, contained kind of anger. It made his eyes sparkle and fade, his jaw twitch back and forth. Finally he looked away and up at me. Now he just looked sympathetic, maybe even apologetic. It’s just us against the world, his gaze seemed to say.
Soon after Jenn had finished cleaning and went back to sleep, Dex came with me into my room to say goodnight.
“Are you tucking me in?” I asked wryly as he flicked on the light and shut the door behind us.
He smiled shyly. “I just want to make sure you’re all right.”
Well, I wasn’t all right. I never was “all right.”
I walked over to the bed and got in, pulling the covers around me. Dex followed and sat on the end of it.
“I’d stay with you here if I could,” he said, looking around him at his stuff on the walls, absently stroking the bedcover.
“That’s OK,” I said even though I never wanted anything more. I had the urge to lean over, grab him by the edge of his plaid pajama pants and pull him on top of me. His body in my hands would make the fear go away. I wanted to tug at his shaggy black hair, suck on his bottom lip. I wanted to run my fingers over the tattoo on his chest, “And with madness comes the light” and feel the madness inside of me until it consumed both of us.
I closed my eyes at the thought. I had to stop thinking this way. When did I turn into such a horny teenager?
After a period of silence he asked, “Are you having any dreams?” He approached the question softly, like he was treading on eggshells.
“Yes.” I carefully opened my eyes, afraid that I might see that girl again, but it was still Dex. His elbows were propped up on his thighs and he was holding his head in his hands, looking like he was falling asleep. It was 4 a.m. after all.
“But they aren’t nightmares. They are just dreams. Weird…flashbacks. Like I’m reliving the past.”
“What past?”
“High school.”
“When you were a shoplifting, coke-snorting badass?” he asked, now sounding amused.
I paused. “Yes, those were the days.”
“And nothing else?”
“No…”
He looked up and twisted his body to face mine.
“Are you sure?”
My brows furrowed. “Yes, I’m sure.”
I pulled up the covers even further around me and asked, “What about you? Do you ever have any dreams?”
“Yeah.” He smirked. “I’m all alone and I’m rolling this big donut…”
“I’m serious,” I said, though I obviously smiled.
“Then no. I don’t have those kinds of dreams,” he said. He got up and shivered against the chill that was creeping up in the room. That coldest part of the night before dawn.
“I really don’t want to leave you.” He walked over to me and stopped, peering down. He put out his hand for mine and I grabbed it, giving it a quick shake.
“I’ll be OK,” I said, more forcefully. He nodded then cried out softly, “Hey what if Fat Rabbit sleeps with you? He snores and farts a lot but he’s solid company.”
“Takes after his dad, I take it?” I joked. “Actually I’d love it if the dog stayed here.”
Within a few minutes, the lights in the room were off, I was snug under the covers, and Fat Rabbit was happily wheezing away at the foot of my bed. I counted down to the cadence of his breath until I fell asleep too.