Eidolon

Chapter 9: Picking Up the Pieces

Alex awoke suddenly, thrashing in her bed. She found she was covered in cold sweat and breathing heavily. Had it just been a nightmare, some kind of terrible fever dream?

Moments later, her bedroom door swung open, and her father poked his head in. "Alex, you need to get up. It's already—are you okay?"

She must have looked dreadful, based on his expression. "I've been better."

He stepped in and placed a hand on her forehead. "You have a temperature. I think you'd better stay home today." Alex nodded weakly. She wasn't going to argue with that. "What are your symptoms?"

"I've got the chills," she replied. "Runny nose, sore throat...and body aches."

"No cough?" he asked. Alex shook her head. "Sounds like the flu. I'll get you some medicine." Her dad kissed her gently on the forehead before leaving the room.

Alex retrieved her phone from her bedside table, and dialed Lucas's phone number. He didn't pick up, and she received the same fake-out voicemail message that she had last night. Well, it seemed that much hadn't been a dream, at least. And if Lucas wasn't picking up, that meant...

Her father returned with the flu medicine, and told her to get some rest, and to call him at work if she needed anything. Soon, he had left for work, and Sarah had gone out to catch the bus just down the street. Within a half hour, she was alone in the house again.

She knew she should get more rest, but the events of the previous day kept playing through her mind, and it was now impossible for her to get back to sleep. She retrieved her laptop from the desk in front of the window, then returned to her bed where she sat cross-legged, the covers draped over her like a cloak, and began researching.

She started by performing a web search for the phrase monster in Ellison Park, but didn't come back with anything that seemed relevant. She tried replacing monster with other words including creature, demon, ghost, and even undead. Still nothing.

What was that thing? she wondered. Just then, the image of the woman she had seen on the roof of Weisman's Drug Store rose in her mind. She remembered Lucas saying that it looked like she had seen a ghost.

What if it was a ghost? she thought. The ghost of Heather Cole. It hadn't looked anything like the woman she had seen in news articles, but it had been distinctly female, and was right in the spot where Heather had died. And if she was right, did that mean the thing that had killed Lucas was also a vengeful spirit? If so, whose ghost was it?

Another puzzle piece fell into place in her mind; the girl who had asked her to deliver that note to another student. Rachael Allen's reaction to the letter suddenly made sense if it had come from, say, a friend who had been dead for some time, especially if that note was delivered by a relative stranger a few days before Halloween.

Halloween. All Hollow's Eve. Also known as All Saint's Eve, the fall equinox, and Samhain. According to ancient traditions, it was the night upon which the barrier between the world of the living and that of the dead was at its thinnest, a night when spirits were free to roam the physical world. That was where the tradition of costumes had come from; in the old days, people wore gruesome masks and costumes so that any malicious ghouls or goblins that might do them harm would be scared away... or mistake them for one of their own. Perhaps there was some truth to all the superstitions and old wives tales after all.

Alex broadened her search to ghosts in Arcadia City. Unsurprisingly, this returned a lot more results, and it was difficult to sift through them all to find anything useful. Most were urban legends about the Sisters of St. Mercy Hospital, a supposedly haunted abandoned hospital deep in the inner city, or the ghost town of Blackhaven somewhere in the nearby woods. She couldn't find anything about the school or Ellison Park being haunted, though. On a whim, she decided to try searching the term other self, but the phrase was too generic. Nothing she found seemed to relate to otherworldly creatures or weird, doll-like doppelgangers.