I Am Chosen

The Waking Sleep

Hollis had finished talking with the tow truck driver and walked back to where Kacey was standing. "Got what I need to know. You ready to do this?"

"Ready as I'll ever be," Kacey answered.

Before very long they were on the road. To Kacey, she might as well have been driving a semi. The biggest vehicle she had ever driven before was the Tahoe. By the time they ventured onto the freeway, however, Kacey was beginning to feel comfortable with it. She had even gotten somewhat used to the bouncing and racket of her Daytona.

She glanced in her rearview mirror: everything looked fine. Her car was right where it was supposed to be, and looking to her side mirror she could see Hollis's Taurus, cruising along at four or five car lengths behind. Just then, his voice issued from the phone sitting on the passenger seat. They had kept the line open, on speaker, since they had left.

"Feeling okay?" Hollis asked.

"Yes dad," Kacey teased.

"Just making sure," Hollis responded, sounding a little put off.

Kacey kept an eye on her speed. Outside, a thick cloud cover had cut off the sun and cast the world in a dim, gray monotone - it was as if the color had been sucked out of everything around. Seasonal depression wasn't something Kacey suffered from, but the surrounding bleakness dampened her spirits somewhat. Time passed, the scenery changed; Kacey's mind drifted, the kind of numb detachment that preceded sleep. Several times, just before her consciousness slipped into whatever void awaited, Hollis's voice over the phone pulled Kacey back. Each time, she lied and said she was just fine. They didn't have that much farther to go. She could hold on.

At some point after that, her ability to judge time abandoned her. She was unaware how long she had been on the road when up ahead an old Cadillac drew closer, going several miles less than the speed limit in the fast lane. Kacey sighed and slowed down, shaking her head. She had to keep her mind busy. Focus on something. Her thoughts drifted to J.D....

How could she mend that relationship?

You've tried, it didn't work.

There had to be something; some way to reach him.

What's the point? If he really loved you, really considered you family, he wouldn't continue to shun you. Forget him, he's not worth it.

No, that wasn't-up ahead, the Caddy slowed even further. A car in the right lane was preventing Kacey from passing. She took a deep breath and blew it out.

J.D. always resented your drive, your ambition. Even when mom and dad were around. He never had any initiative. He was always weak.

This Cadillac was getting on Kacey's last nerve. She hit her horn. The vehicle in the right lane sped up enough for Kacey to cut over. She did so, and blew past the Caddy, fixing the geriatric driver with a malicious stare and for a split second, a thought entered Kacey's head-she was driving a tow truck; how easy would it be to just swipe that Cadillac, send it into the opposing lanes of traffic, rid the world of this... encumbrance?

J.D. never really loved you. He should drown... they should all drown in their own blood.

"Still doing okay?" Hollis's voice roused Kacey from what felt like sleeping while awake. Her brain was foggy, her thoughts disordered. She looked to her left and saw that the Cadillac was not there. Glancing in her side mirror she could see Hollis's vehicle behind her, and the Caddy way back behind, in the fast lane. It was as if time had skipped.

"How much longer?" Kacey asked.

"It's your cabin," Hollis answered. "But from the directions you gave me we should be coming to the turnoff in less than a mile."

Good. Kacey didn't like the feeling of not being fully in control of her own thoughts. That stone-whatever force inhabited it-made her skin crawl. The presence that had invaded her mind was nearly indescribable. She had felt it: a presence rooting around inside her brain. Its touch had left an impression, a notion of what it was Kacey and Hollis were faced with: It was the monster under the bed and in the closet; it was darkness and death and the devil and doubt; it was pure hate and it was the absence of all light and reason. It was the thing that stood behind you and caused the hairs on the back of your neck to rise before you turned and saw that nothing was there.

Finally they reached the turnoff. Kacey took the turn slow and wide, onto a tree-lined path. Boughs extended overhead, creating an arboreal tunnel that the sun filtered through weakly. Kacey felt the stone's black essence at the perimeter of her mind, circling like a buzzard. She was aware of it, and that was something, but she also had a very definite sense that her mental defenses were slowly weakening. How much longer could she resist?

Just then the hunting cabin, a two story A frame, appeared on her left side, set a few yards back in the forest. Relieved, Kacey turned in and pulled tow truck into the large, clear patch of dirt that served as a driveway. Hollis pulled in and brought the Taurus to a stop just off the path.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out, Kacey tried to collect her thoughts. Her mind and body were fatigued. It was as if she'd stayed up for three days straight and then tried to run a marathon. Hollis opened the tow truck driver's door and frowned. "You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah I think so," Kacey said. Now, more than ever, she felt the urgency, driven by a certainty that unless they could destroy it, the stone would bring madness and death to anything and anyone in its path.

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I hope you're all trying to guess what the stone is! It's been a lot of fun to write about it messing with peoples' heads. See you all in one week!