My footsteps echoed down the abandoned halls as I made the conscious decision to exit via the certainly empty main foyer instead of the emergency room lobby where Mariko Oshiro would no doubt be headed when she arrived to see her son. Motion-activated lights flickered to life as I opened a door into a darkened hallway, casting my shadow into eerie relief on the white walls.
Half of me expected to hear the Voice whisper in my ear, but the world was thankfully silent as I continued on my way out.
Or it was until my phone rang.
With a buzz that made me jump, the default ringtone played – the sound echoing deafeningly down the long empty corridor. If it weren't for the vibration, I would have taken longer to recognise it. Unknown numbers rarely called.
I fished the device out of my pocket, jagged edges of the shattered screen prickling my thumb as I swiped to answer the call. 'Hello?'
'Evy?' The voice on the other end was barely understandable.
'Sorry?'
Crackles surged from the speaker as the caller laughed. 'Sorry – ' The static started to clear. ' – I meant Evelyn.'
'Gwen?'
'That's me!'
She sounded so... cheerful. How'd she even get my number? 'Sorry, now's not a great time – '
'I know. My dad told me what happened.'
'He did?' Wasn't that a breach of confidentiality? I mean, I'd always known he sort of toed the line with certain things, but how much had he said, exactly?
'Yeah, he said I should make sure that you're okay. You're heading home by yourself, right?'
'Um, yeah, but – ' The lights overhead turned off.
'You did the right thing.'
Or I thought they did. When I blinked, they were back on. Was it my imagination? Maybe it was just the empty halls giving me the creeps. I started walking towards the exit.
'Sorry, what do you mean?'
'Saving Ai. You did the right thing.'
Did I?
'But Ryo – '
'You saved him too.'
'I don't think I – '
'I always knew you could. I mean, I had my doubts here and there but – '
My steps faltered. 'What do you mean by that?'
'Hmm?'
'You just said – '
The speaker crackled with static.
'Hello?'
'Oops. Sorry, bad reception. Just wanted to say, you shouldn't feel bad that your friend got hurt.'
My... friend? 'You mean Ryo?'
'Yeah, him. You saved him. You saved Ai. You saved that little boy down at the train station too. Keep doing what you're doing, Evy.'
There it was. She'd just called me Evy again. Like I knew she was a sort-of pushy, overly-friendly person, but despite the fact that she'd been to my house twice over these last few days, we didn't actually know each other very well. There was a strange feeling in my chest. Something felt off, but I didn't have the words to explain it.
'Um, Gwen, this might seem rude but... is everything alright with you?'
She paused. 'I'm not sure what you mean.'
Did I dare press it?
'Anyway, you're almost out of the hospital, right?'
'No, I – ' I stopped short, eyes wide. Actually, yes, I was. I was no longer in a corridor, but standing in the middle of an intersection. There was a sign hanging from the ceiling in front of me with an arrow pointing left: Main Entrance. When had I gotten here?
My phone hissed with static. 'Well, I have to go. Talk to you later, Evelyn!'
And without waiting for my response, the line went dead.
What the hell had just happened? I could have sworn I was nowhere near here when the conversation first started. Wary, I looked behind me. Of course, there was no one there. It was just me and my paranoia.
I glanced down at the phone in my hand. No Caller ID, my call list said. There was no way to call Gwen back.
Screw it. I pocketed the device, and headed for the doors. It was late. I was exhausted, beaten and bruised, and it wasn't just physically. Flickering lights. Voices in my head. Ghostly possession...
The last thought made me shudder as I looked down at my hand.
The tinted set of automatic doors were long since sealed. I hit a green button and the glass slid aside to reveal an abyss. It was well past midnight and still covered by storm clouds, the sky was black as pitch. There was barely any light. No stars. No moon. A billow of cool air swept into the building, carrying drops of light precipitation that felt like pin pricks against my skin.
An irrational wave of terror flooded out from the centre of my chest. All of a sudden my legs felt like they were made out of lead. I was rooted to the floor.
The automatic door slid shut again.
When it did, I caught myself heaving a sigh of relief.
How ridiculous.
I clenched my hand into a fist. Yes, it was dark, cold and rainy, but it wasn't as if I could just stand at the entrance until the sun rose.
On the other hand...
I fished my phone out of my pocket.
It wouldn't hurt to wait inside until I had a ride.
* * *
I didn't want to get out of the taxi. With trembling fingers, I opened the passenger-side door, my shoes thudding loud enough to make me wince as they made contact with the wet, concrete driveway. The shadow of the two-story, white-painted brick house with the hilariously unfunny plaque that read The White House loomed over me, warping into ominous abstract shapes as the cloud cover shifted overhead. The pair of wicker chairs on the porch seemed to creak with every change in the wind. Above them a rusty brass wind chime sang an off-beat jingle as it spun crazily in the dark.
My skin prickled. My lungs were short of breath. A cold sweat was gathering on the palms of my hands. What was this feeling?
I mean, I was scared, obviously – I'm at least self-aware enough to have figured that one out. But of what? The dark?
No, that wasn't quite it. The glow in the dark stars still stuck to the ceiling of my room had nothing to do with that.
The cold? Maybe.
Or –
The Voice's words echoed in my head. 'Alone.'
I bit my lower lip.
As someone whom you'd expect to develop some form of haphephobia (a fear of touch), the prospect of being alone had never phased me. At least not since I'd learned how the death reels I'd been seeing were triggered. Alone meant no strangers, no contact, and – above all – no visions.
Of course, by the time I'd figured that out, Ryo was practically glued to my side. At first it was just because our parents forced it on us, determined to make us into friends despite my fear of strangers and his complete and utter lack of English. Obviously their method worked, because less than six months later he started showing up on my doorstep without being prodded and hasn't stopped doing it since.
There was some comfort in knowing that when I got home after a day of avoiding the rest of the school population that I'd probably find him sprawled out in my living room or on my porch waiting to hang out – regardless of how many times I'd rubbed my death premonition in his face that day.
That wouldn't be the case today.
No, this time it was just me. Me and that big empty house. Me, alone.
The wind slammed the passenger seat door shut with a bang that made me start.
The taxi driver beeped at me and drove away.
I made my way up to the porch, my house key ice-cold against my fingers. It seemed to jam as I shoved it in the keyhole, the tumblers on the lock heavy and resistant as they slowly turned. The door swung open with a creak and I found myself staring into the shadowy, empty hall.
Something on the floor moved and I froze. What was that?
An intruder?
The owner of the Voice?
Had Andrew somehow found out where I lived?
'Woof!'
Nevermind, it was just Hobbes.
Shaking away the horrors that were being conjured by my imagination, I turned on the light and Hobbes came bounding down the hallway, tail wagging cheerfully as he nuzzled and licked my hand. He was calm, relaxed, which meant there were no intruders in the house. If there were, he wouldn't have come to greet me – he'd have been busy growling, hackles up, eying them down.
I knelt down to give him a hug, which he took as an opportunity to nuzzle and lick my bruised and battered face too. 'Good to see you too, buddy.'
He barked in response and bounded off towards the kitchen, spun around in a circle, and barked at me again. Come here, human, was what his behaviour said. Far more demanding than usual, but it was six hours past the time I normally fed him so I let it slide. The poor boy was probably starving.
'Yeah, yeah; I'm coming.' I locked the door, put my keys in their spot, and took off my sopping wet shoes so that they wouldn't leave muddy footprints all over the floor.
Making my way to the kitchen, I paused at the egress. Finding my way around in the dark would have been easy – I'd done it plenty of times before. But the idea made me queasy and after a moment's hesitation, I turned the light on in there too. Hobbes was waiting for me in front of the dog food cupboard. He sat, tail thumping impatiently against the polished wooden floor as he eyed the door.
'A pity you can't will it out of existence,' I told him.
He whined in agreement.
I scooped the kibble into his bowl and he rewarded me with a nice slobbery lick on the chin. I grimaced. 'Thanks, Hobbes. You're welcome.'
He was too preoccupied with his food to respond.
I sighed and sat on the floor beside him, one hand absent-mindedly rubbing his back and he slurped and snorted while scarfing down his dinner. When he was done, he lapped up half a bowl of water and gave me a nice, dripping wet face nuzzle, followed by a second sloppy lick. Any other day and I would have complained, but today I just gave him a hug. Breathing into his fur, I felt all my tension release. He was warm. He was furry. He was tangible. After all the supernatural bullshit I'd been through that day, tangible was what I needed.
Relaxation turned into relief. My extremities trembled and for the umpteenth time that day, I felt the urge to cry. But I'd done enough of that. Sniffing, I sat up, pressed my lips together and looked Hobbes in the eye. 'Okay, Hobbes, this is the situation – '
He sat to attention, apparently sensing that now was not the time to douse me with another dose of slobber.
'Ryo is in the hospital and won't be visiting for a while.'
Hobbes tilted his head, as if to ask why.
'I did something stupid and he got hurt in my stead. But I won't go into the details because you don't need to know about them. What's actually important is that I now hear voices and might be going crazy.'
His head tilted the other way.
'Well I know I always seemed crazy' – and talking to my dog like he was a person was probably not helping – 'but this was different to my visions. The visions come from me. This was... something else.' An uncontrollable spasm made me shiver. 'Something... possessive. I don't know how but it... took over me.'
Hobbes licked his nose.
'Okay, that was a terrible description. It... I don't know. It's like it was in me – wait, no, that sounds worse. Um...' I faltered. Words. How did I do them?
Chewing on my lip, I stared at my good hand – the one that had been trapped in ice as I'd tried to break away from Andrew's door. The cold was the key. Every whisper from the Voice had been accompanied by a chill against my neck. And when I'd felt it wrapped around my skin...
'It took control of my body. Used me like a puppet.' Yes, that was a much better description. 'I broke out of it the first time, but after that...'
After that, I couldn't do anything. Why? All I remembered was the ice flooding my veins like adrenaline. Fear. Desperation?
Hobbes let out a yawn.
My mouth instantly followed suit.
He was right, sleep would probably do me a lot of good. If I wanted to talk to someone about tonight, it would be better to talk to someone who had a vague idea of events instead of confusing my dog and pretending that his friendly behaviour meant he actually understood a word I was saying.
'Alright, Hobbes, you win...' With a groan, I got to my feet. 'Tonight you get to sleep in my bed. But don't get too excited – it's a one-time thing.'
With a bark, he trotted close to my heels and we made our way up to my bedroom.
But as I settled into my pillows with Hobbes' warmth against my chest and made the last minute decision to leave my lamp on as a night light, I knew I'd told a lie: Hobbes was going to be sleeping in my bed permanently from tonight.
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