Dream for the Dead (Completed/Editing)

10

"You two. Come with me, now," a recognisable voice sounded from above us, sending a chill down my spine, though I couldn't remember to whom the voice belonged. Elias and I shot our heads up at the source of the voice.
"Let me finish my mocha, Will," Elias groaned.
He turned back to his coffee, but I kept my eyes on the man above us. He looked to me and smiled mischievously.
"Doctor Carver?" I asked quietly.
He doesn't really look as creepy as I expected, I thought, he's kind of like a kooky-looking grandpa.
"Yes, young Tabitha. Ah, that's right, you hadn't seen me yet," he spoke in a smooth tone.
Carver turned back to Elias and lost his smile.
"Hurry up, Elias. We don't want to be late."
I asked in a small voice, "where are we going?"
I was worried about this situation, as well as disturbed by the fact that even in death this man could walk among the living without any limitation on where he could go, especially since they existed in exactly the same way as living people: they could touch people and objects, and I knew from my experience the previous night that they could definitely hurt people.
"You'll see," Carver chuckled lightly, "be patient."
"Tell her," Elias almost growled.
"Why? She'll see for herself soon. Well, if you ever finish your coffee, that is."
Elias stood quickly and stared at Doctor Carver for a few moments, his face anything but happy, whilst Carver maintained his calm smile. Eventually, Elias turned to me, grinning.
"Come on, Tabbi. I can protect you from anything that might happen."
I stood and as soon as I did so, Elias put his arm around my waist and pulled me towards him.
"Sorry, it's safer this way. I can't tell what he's up to."

*

We followed Doctor Carver - trying our best to keep up, as he was walking very quickly - as he led us to a small, abandoned building close to a field, with hardly anything else in the surrounding area.
"The meeting house?" Elias asked, eyes wide. He followed, "we haven't met here in years!"
"Well, Tabitha here has given us a reason to meet today," Doctor Carver snapped, and continued towards the entrance.
I halted him in asking, "wait, why don't you just meet inside the mansion?"
Carver sighed and rolled his eyes as he shot me a glance, before continuing inside.
"Because this is where they put important stuff from the manor house when something tragic happens. They started doing it in the eighties. People know it's here but they don't dare to come here, they think the stuff is cursed," Elias explained, "of course, near enough everything is here, besides the tape in the basement. We can't find it. I'm assuming you read about the tape?"
I nodded, feeling a heavy weight in my stomach as I remembered the details of that particular portion of the mansion's somber history, and we made our way into the building.
"Sweetheart, you've finally arrived," Kyle greeted me as I walked in, and pulled a whiskey flask from his pocket. He flashed me a toothy grin before taking a long swig.
"It's Tabitha," Elias corrected, pulling me closer into him until I felt we might merge into one.
"Looks like you have an admirer," Kyle winked at me.
"Is everybody here?" Doctor Carver called out into the dim building.
"I'm here," Elizabeth sounded more sad than enraged today.
"Mary, my dear, are you here?"
I heard a deeply disturbing series of babbles and mutterings from somewhere within the room. It was a haunting sound of something that had been tortured and tormented beyond belief, and I longed for it to stop.
"Good, good..."
"Mary is his wife," Elias whispered to me, disgust evident in his tone and expression.
"Oh..." I felt a sharp pain in my chest. Even in death the woman had to live in the same mental state she'd died in... such tragedy was difficult to bare. I felt massively relieved when she stopped making noise, but the aching feeling it gave me didn't disappear for a long, long time.
"Abigail, are you and your children here?"
"I'm here," a woman's voice sounded from the back of the building, "along with Kimberly. But, Seth isn't. He didn't feel like it."
"Well, go find him and tell him he does feel like it!" Doctor Carver half-shouted.
I turned to Elias and asked, "is Doctor Carver the leader of you all or something?"
"You could say that. He's the first of us, so he just kinda took control from the beginning."
"If my Seth wants to stay home, he can." Abigail's voice harboured an aggressive tone.
Doctor Carver sighed, "I guess it isn't too important that he's not here today. Just remember to tell him what's said, do you understand?"
"I'll tell him!" A younger girl's voice came from the back of the building, sweet and full of energy.
"Thank you, Kimberly."
"I'm here, too," there was a new voice, mild and somber, "I left the baby at home. You already know about Peter."
"Ah, Danielle. Is she sleeping soundly?" Doctor Carver replied.
"Yes," was all the voice said.
"Now, it appears that's everybody..." Doctor Carver looked at Elias and me, speaking pleasantly, a wild contrast to his true self, "please, follow me."
Doctor Carver strolled further into the building, revealing a long, aged table and chairs to match. I feared that if we were asked to sit, the chairs would collapse immediately. The floorboards beneath the chairs didn't look too stable, either.
"Everybody, please sit. We have a very important matter to discuss today," Doctor Carver moved towards a shaking woman clad in a dirtied, white nightgown who stood hunched over by one end of the table and said softly, "that includes you, Mary, my dear."
He took her gently by the shoulders and moved her towards a chair. Everybody else sat in turn.
"Now, as you're all aware we have new residents at Goldstein Manor," Doctor Carver looked to me with a savage glint in his eyes, causing everybody else to do so, too. I felt quite uncomfortable with so many eyes on me, especially since they were strangers; dead ones, at that. I looked at a few of their faces before I cast my eyes down, and every pair of eyes revealed the same feelings: intrigue, interest, and desperation.
"Young Tabitha here just so happens to be one of those residents," Doctor Carver rested his elbows on the table and sighed, "as you all know, we're trapped in this town for eternity. That is, unless we find our Saviour."
"Saviour?" I asked," what Saviour? And you're trapped in the town?"
I looked to each face now, mouth agape, and finally settled on Elias.
"Yeah, we can't leave the town. Things don't change at a fast enough rate for people stuck here forever, so it gets pretty boring," Elias explained to me, his arm now around my shoulder as we sat.
"And the Saviour?" I repeated, and my eyes hesitantly fell into Carver's.
"All you need to know, Tabitha, is that you're our Saviour. You're the one that can free us." Doctor Carver stated.
"What?"