Jennifer Scott has spent all of her sixteen years on earth battling night terrors. Between the intense nightmares and her overprotective parents, Jennifer feels like her teenage years are going down the drain.
That all changes on the eve of her sop...
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Death loomed over Brookland.
Jennifer Scott had known this to be true ever since she was a small child. No one ever told her so. She hadn't a speckle of evidence. There was not a singular incident that she could use to prove that claim, but still, she knew it to be the absolute truth.
Everywhere she went, Jennifer could always feel a choking grief. It wasn't that the township was particularly gloomy. In fact, the people around her were nice and cheery enough—the normal amount. No, the grief went much deeper than the people. It was something in the air.
She could feel it here, most of all, in the Brookland Cemetery.
The new moon did little to light her away through the tombstones, so Jennifer held her hands at either side and felt her fingers graze against the rough stones. She made sure not to raise her feet too much off the ground. She wanted to feel close to the loose soil, and there was a lot of loose earth that night.
Jennifer blinked until she could see the faint outlines of the graves. She walked on. Line after line of tombstones had the graves dug up. The caskets were open, and to her surprise, empty. She hovered over one open grave in particular, kneeling until her lace nightdress caressed the ground. She had to look close, but she was sure of it, the silken lining of the casket's lid was scratched. Someone had tried to get out.
A child's cry broke through that dead night. Jennifer was startled to her feet.
She needed to find that child, the only sign of life in this sullen land. Walking in the direction of the voice, the moon began to grow brighter. She watched the earth's shadow move overhead with every step she took. The moon soon turned into a crescent, a half, then into a full circle.
Jennifer approached the last grave, at the very edge of the cemetery. A man kneeled in front of a tombstone. The earth under his knees was fresh. It was the only buried grave in the whole place. She could hear his sobs in between the baby's wails. He rocked back and forth, holding a white bundle in his arms. The wind blew a hat off his head, revealing a head of matted ashen-blonde hair.
"Oh, Elizabeth," he cried, his tone hoarse as his voice cracked. "I can't. I can't. Not without you."
Jennifer glanced at the tombstone. "Elizabeth Halding" was carved on it. No date. No message. Just a name.
She approached the sobbing man warily before tapping his shoulder twice. The baby's wails stopped.
"No, no, no, no," the man cried as he stood, the bundle in his arms unraveling into a hundred long strips of cotton. There was no baby. "They're gone," he cried.
He turned her way, making her scream. Two deep sockets were all that were left of his eyes. His skin seemed to deflate, the color leaking out of his body. In seconds, what first seemed like a young man turned into a beast of gray bones. It grabbed onto her shoulders and shook her.
"It's time, Jen," it said, its jaw clacking as it opened and closed. Jennifer thrashed to get out of its grip, but its bony hands seemed to meld with her skin. "Jen," it kept saying. "Jennifer. Jennifer! Jennifer! Jennifer, sweetheart, snap out of it!"
The cemetery disappeared in the blink of an eye. The yells got stuck in her throat and she started coughing as she studied her surroundings. She was in her bed, in her room, in her house. She was safe.
"There we go," her father said as he patted her back gently. "It was a dream. Just a dream."
"Okay," she tried to say before breaking into another string of coughs. "I'm okay."
The door to her bedroom creaked open. Her mother—Maggie—peeked inside, a fleece blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She reached a hand up to lift her long curls from under it. "Charlie, how is she?"
Charles nodded as he pushed stray strands of dark hair out of Jennifer's eyes. "She's alright. Head back to sleep."
"Okay," her mother groggily replied, nearly tripping over her own feet as she tried to head back to her room with her eyes half-closed. "Good night, love."
Charles lifted a brow at Jennifer, pursing his lips. "You know this happens when you skip your medicine." He reached into the first drawer of her nightstand and pulled out a bottle of blue liquid. The syrup-like mixture bubbled as he shook it. By just looking at it, she already had the sensation of the liquid slowly going down her throat like tartar.
"I did drink it," she countered, sitting up straighter. "Two hours before bedtime, like always."
"Don't lie to me." He poured a capful of the luminous liquid and handed it to her. "It's not going to help."
Jennifer pushed the cap away. "I swear on my life. I took the medicine."
Charles scrunched up his brow. "You did? Promise?"
She nodded quickly. The night-terror medicine was the foulest-tasting thing on planet earth. She would not drink it twice, and certainly not because of a misunderstanding. Tonight's nightmare must've been a one-off. She hadn't had one since last year.
He set the cap down on his lap. His eyes traveled around her face as he seemed to be thinking something over. He seemed to get more and more worried with each passing second. "What is it?" she asked.
"Nothing." Charles shook his head. "You're just getting older. You'll need to take double the dose starting tomorrow."
"But, Dad!" she whined.
"No buts!" he exclaimed, making Jennifer shrink back against the headboard. "You will set an alarm right now. You'll drink it at the start of every day, and at the end of every day. Is that understood?"
She sighed as she grabbed her phone and started to set it up. Before she saved it, she groaned and lowered it against her lap. "Maybe there's something else I can—"
Charles put both his hands against her cheeks, his expression a textbook definition of anguish. "Promise me you'll drink it, Jennifer. It's more important now than ever."
"Okay, okay, geez," she said, taking his hands and holding them tight. She didn't get what all the fuss was about. It wasn't the end of the world if she had a nightmare. She was pretty used to it by now. "I'll drink it. I promise."
"Alright." He raised their hands and landed two kisses on each of her hands. "Try to get some rest, sweetheart. I love you."
"Love you too," she replied as she set her phone next to her pillow and turned off the light. Unease settling into the pit of her stomach, Jen could hardly sleep a wink for the rest of the night. Nightmares were common for her, so she'd learned not to let herself be too affected by scary monsters and whatnot. It was no use trying to find meaning in them; it was best to forget.
But, something about tonight's dream stuck with her. She thought of that skeletal man and the way they seemed to become one, and it made it her breakout in goosebumps. Jen lifted the covers up above her head. She pinched her eyes shut and tried to think of anything else but the baby's haunting wails bouncing around her head.
✦✦✦Author's Note✦✦✦ First chapter of the rewrite preview! It was a breeze to write this story again.
If you're re-reading or planning to, let me know! I bet this first chapter held some surprises. The first of many to come.
