The cold is what wakes me. It's dark so I don't immediately recognize where I am, but the antiseptic smell reminds me that I'm in the hospital. No lights glimmer. It's completely and utterly black. This can't be good.
I try to sit up, but I can't. It feels like there is some terrible weight pressing down on me and I remember Oliver. I open my mouth to shout for help, but no sounds come out. I struggle but soon wear myself out. Whatever holds me down is too strong. Panic sets in. I feel helpless and it's not a feeling I'm used to nor is it one I enjoy.
There's a light. I squint and can just make out the outline of the door. The light is a soft hazy blue. Instead of feeling relief, I'm scared. There is no brightness in that light. It feels like death, like a dark blanket covering everything, draining the life out the things around it. A dark and depressing weight seems to be in that light and I want to hide from it, pull the covers up over my head and pretend I don't see it. I can't though. I'm frozen.
The cold intensifies and the glow gets brighter and stronger the longer it pulses outside my door. It's not going away and I can't move, but I try. I am shouting even though the words don't pass through my lips.
"Be quiet," someone hisses. "It'll see us."
My head whips around, but I can't see anyone. I try to speak again, but I can't. What will see us?
"The reaper."
Reaper? As in the Grim Reaper? The Angel of Death kind of reaper? Wait. I didn't speak aloud. I was thinking. Who could hear my thoughts?
My door slowly opens and that light floods my room. I blink at the harshness of it. When I can see I look up. Standing in the doorway to my room is a figure wearing a black hooded robe. It points to me and whispers. I shake my head. I can't understand a single word. Is that the Reaper?
The cold creeps toward me, wraps me in its icy clutches. I struggle harder, but my limbs refuse to move. I'm trapped. Good and truly trapped.
Oh, no, it's moving toward me.
Hands shake me and I slowly claw my way awake, screaming. I can barely breathe and the hands holding me feel like the restraints that held me in that awful place. I fight to get away and distantly hear someone calling my name. The panic is too much. I can't stand it. Something sharp stabs me in the arm and then I am drowning in blackness again.
When I come awake again, the soft glow of the light above the bed is on. My eyes hurt a little, but I can see. I remember feeling trapped, unable to move, so I test my limbs almost at once. Good. I'm not strapped down, but still in the hospital, though. My eyes study the room and come to rest on Dan. He's sitting asleep in the chair beside the bed. He looks tired and his clothes are rumpled. Why is he here? Did he stay with me?
The dream... or whatever. I remember it and shiver. I'm so exhausted. No wonder I'm having such awful nightmares. Between ghosts everywhere, worrying about finding Mary before she dies if she's not dead already, and all the crazy stuff I'm seeing, it's a miracle I'm still semi-sane. I should have just left it all alone. Sally was dead, there wasn't anything I could really do anyway, so why? Why subject myself to all this?
Because it's not just about you, the nagging voice within answers. Because Sally was one of us. I sigh. It always comes back to that. Sally doesn't have anyone else. No matter how much I'm complaining right now, I still wouldn't change anything I've done. Well, maybe the snake. I should have ignored that old lady. That said, if I hadn't talked to the ghosts, I wouldn't have met Dan. I'm glad I met him. He's turning out to be a really good friend. I'm so sure Jake would never have committed a crime for me. But, Dan was right there with me when I broke into the old lady's house. He complained, but he never ran away. That's important to me. He didn't leave me. I'm so used to having to fend for myself it's unusual to know someone who cares enough to stay.
"Hey, Squirt."
I start, unaware that he's awake. "We have to stop meeting like this." He gives me a tired smile and stretches. "I wasn't sure you were ever gonna wake up, you know. All that snoring was getting a little ridiculous."
"I do not snore!"
He grins and reaches out to tweak my nose. "Sure you don't."
"Did you get into a lot of trouble?"
"Not much," he says. "You saved me. Thanks for that."
I shrug. "I know how much being a cop means to you and it was my fault you were there in the first place so I owed you."
"Remind me to never get on your bad side. You weren't joking when you said you were a good liar. I almost believed you myself."
"Told you."
He reaches down and pulls a McDonald's bag from somewhere. "I wasn't sure what you liked, so I got you a Big Mac."
My stomach growls, which makes Dan laugh. I glower at him. I haven't eaten anything since breakfast at his house this morning. "What time is it?"
"Almost midnight."
My eyes pop. I've been out for over twelve hours.
"The doctors decided to admit you overnight for observation since you only just got out the other day due to unexplained head trauma. They had to sedate you earlier though," he tells me quietly. "You were screaming your head off. I helped the orderlies hold you down. You're stronger than you look."
I nod, remembering the awful feeling of that reaper coming for me. I shudder at the memory and Dan frowns. My hands shake, but I reach out and take the bag he's still holding. It gives me something to do, maybe take my mind off the nightmare.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Those big brown eyes are staring at me again, inviting me in with their warmth and I find myself falling prey to the kindness they promise.
"It was a nightmare," I say haltingly. "I couldn't move. I was trapped and then it came for me. I was so scared. I couldn't get away from it and there was no one there to save me."
"What was it?"
"The Grim Reaper," I whisper. "I know how stupid it sounds, but..."
"But you see ghosts, Mattie. It makes sense that you'd have nightmares about something associated with death."
"I think it was real, Dan," I say softly. "Or as close to real as anything else, as real as the ghosts I see."
"Can I ask you a question?" He sounds hesitant, unsure.
I nod.
"Back at the house, in the kitchen, what happened? You reached out to the touch a wall, then you started screaming, and then you were just... gone."
"Confused me, too. I don't know exactly. When we came back upstairs, the kitchen wall was all messed up. It was hazy, like looking at heat reflecting off asphalt. The closer I looked, the more it changed. It was like I was looking at snow and the snow was eating the surface of the wall. I wanted to touch it, to see if it was real, but the minute I did, my head exploded in pain. It was like the night Mirror Boy got into my head, only worse, a thousand times worse. When I fell, I just kept falling straight through the snow and landed in the basement. I don't know how."
"Has that ever happened before?"
Duh. No! "Never."
He nods, accepting my craziness. "Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"Why are you here? Why did you stay with me?"
"Why not?"
"That's not an answer, Officer Dan."
"Sure it is, Squirt."
I sigh. I probably shouldn't have asked him and put him on the spot.
"Thanks for staying."
"Not a problem. Mrs. Olson was here until around nine or so. She had to go check on the other kids. Said her husband had to work tonight and she didn't have anyone to watch them, but to tell you she'd back first thing in the morning."
"She was here?" I don't remember her coming in. Maybe it was after my nightmare.
"She got here about the same time I did," he tells me.
"I don't think she killed Sally," I tell him abruptly. "I wish Sally would come back, she might be able to at least show me who killed her."
"You haven't seen her again?"
"No," I grouch. "Not since that first night."
"Bummer."
I burst out laughing. It's such a teen thing to say, its sounds funny coming out Officer Dan's mouth. I constantly forget how young he is. So un-coppish sometimes and others so much like a cop, I want to smack him just because.
"What?"
"Nothing." I dig out my cold burger and fries. He hands me a warm bottle of Coke and I'm in heaven for just a few minutes. My stomach makes noises of appreciation.
"I saw Jake earlier."
My head snaps back around to him. "I bet he's mad."
"Well, yeah. He didn't appreciate getting the news from me, but he's not mad at you. He's worried."
"He's jealous," I laugh. "It's cute."
"Jealous would be putting it mildly." Dan grins at the memory. "I could have been nice and put his fears to rest, but..."
"But you enjoyed needling him a little too much?"
He just smiles and then looks at the clock.
"Need to go?" I feel almost abandoned at the thought of him leaving.
"Nah," he says. "I'm here all night. I just need to go call my girlfriend. We had a date tonight, too and she's about as mad as your boyfriend at the minute. I'll be back and teach you to play poker."
He slips out the room and I finish off my dinner in a better mood than when I woke up. He's not leaving me alone here in this place.
I lean back and close my eyes, sleepy. I really am tired. Dan may end up playing solitaire or some such game. It's been a long day and I'm not only tired, but I'm sore from that danged snake. I could sleep for days.
Then I think I drift off, but when I open my eyes again, the room is cold. Icy cold. I can see the fog of my breath. I look around slowly, but see nothing but the confines of my hospital room. No ghost. That doesn't mean anything though. The little buggers hide and jump out at you when you least expect it.
There's a thump and I tense.
The thump came from under my bed.
No, no, no, no. I will not look under the bed. I refuse to do it. I am not one of those crazy people in the horror movies that inevitably look outside when they hear a noise. Crazy dead people.
Thump, thump, thump...
I close my eyes. Ignore it and it will go away, ignore it and it will go away...
A whimper escapes from under the bed followed by more thumping, only it's growing feeble.
I clench my hands, making my nails digging into the palms. The thing under the bed sounds afraid. The cold intensifies and I cringe. It feels like the cold from my dream earlier. There's a sense of desperation to the feeble little thumps. I want to cover my ears up until it goes away, but I can't.
Sighing, I force myself up and swing my legs over the bed. I get a little dizzy and my head starts to hurt again. I wait a minute and then slide off and end up falling anyways. I land with my face two inches from a bloody mess. If it wasn't for the blonde hair and the clothes, I wouldn't recognize her.
Mary.