Neverwake

by Amy Plum

  “Does anyone recognize her?” Fergus asks. We all shake our heads, but I’m not completely sure.

  I take the photo from him and turn it over. Last week of freshman year. BFFs! We’re going to miss you, FayFay! New schools suck! That doesn’t mean anything to me.

  “I feel like I might have seen her before,” I admit. “But I’m positive this isn’t my dream. Maybe she just has an easily mistakable face.”

  “Nice,” Sinclair says.

  “You know what I mean,” I retort. “Like the ultimate girl next door.”

  “There’s something strange about her,” Ant says. “Her lips are smiling, but her eyes aren’t.”

  “That’s a weird way of putting it,” Fergus says.

  “Facial expression recognition cards,” Ant replies.

  “Facial what?” Sinclair asks, confounded.

  “Nothing,” Ant says.

  “No, wait, I’ve heard of those. They’re used to teach autistic people to read body language,” Sinclair says.

  Ant ignores him.

  Sinclair has leaned in to take a better look at the photo. He snatches it from Fergus’s fingers. “Look,” he says, pointing to the girl on the right. “That looks like BethAnn.”

  We all lean in. “A little bit,” I concede.

  “Didn’t she say she had a sister who died?” Sinclair asks Fergus.

  Fergus nods.

  “Well, maybe this is the sister’s room and we’re in BethAnn’s dream.”

  “That would mean BethAnn’s still alive. And that Fergus’s experience in the lab was just a dream,” Ant says, a glimmer of hope in her voice.

  “If that’s the case, then the graveyard dream with the coffin could be hers too,” I say.

  “We still haven’t established why none of the dreams are yours,” Fergus says to Sinclair.

  “Maybe I am a figment of one of your imaginations,” Sinclair says, a wry smile curving his lips. “Or BethAnn’s. Or Remi’s. Or even Brett’s. Or I could be a complete fabrication of the Dreamfall.”

  Ant shifts her gaze to Sinclair and frowns. “Even allowing for George, that doesn’t follow any of the rules we’ve seen so far.” She goes for her notebook and then stops herself. “We must have been brought here to find something. So let’s look.”

  We spread out and begin combing through the girl’s things. I take the bulletin board and study the photos. Another has the same “FayFay” nickname written on the back, and a third has a list of girls’ names. “I think her name’s Faith,” I say.

  “Faith . . .” Ant says, and looks like she’s trying to remember something.

  “It goes with the initials,” Fergus says, pointing to large letters—FPL—that have been covered in floral paper and hung above the door.

  “What was BethAnn’s last name?” asks Sinclair.

  “She never said,” Fergus responds.

  Ant moves to the side of the bed and picks up a plasticine pouch sitting by a glass of water. “There’s a tiny bit of powder left in this. I wonder what it was?” she asks, raising it to her nose to sniff it. She picks up the glass and swirls it around. “Must be medicine. Looks like she poured it into this glass. There’s white sediment that settled to the bottom.”

  A buzzing noise comes from the corner of the room and, as I turn, the computer lights up. Everyone scrambles toward the desk. On the screen, an instant messaging window is open showing a long conversation between two users called FaithAndLove016 and Nick-At-Night. I pull the chair back, sit down, and begin skimming through it.

  “What’s it say?” asks Fergus.

  Ant has crowded in beside me and moves her lips as she reads. “Oh my God,” she whispers.

  “What?” asks Sinclair testily.

  “Faith . . . I’m assuming that’s her . . . is talking to someone else about wanting it to ‘all be over.’ And the other person is telling her that she’d be better off getting it over with,” I summarize.

  “He’s telling her to kill herself,” Ant concludes. “Listen to how it ends.”

  FaithAndLove016: You’ll give my parents the note, right?

  Nick-At-Night: Promise. What time did you choose?

  FaithAndLove016: Midnight. My clock is set.

  Nick-At-Night: That’s in fifteen minutes.

  Faith: I know. I’m ready. But I’m scared.

  Nick: I’ll stay here with you. You can keep writing me ’til the end.

  Faith: Thanks. Don’t worry, though. I’ll click out of the window after we’re done, like you suggested. I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble for helping me. You’re the only person I’ve been able to talk to about it. You’ve been my only real friend at my new school.

  Nick: ♥

  Nick: Do you have it?

  Faith: Yep. Can’t thank you enough for getting it for me.

  Nick: You’re supposed to take the entire thing in a glass of water.

  Faith: I know. The last thing I want is to wake up being resuscitated in an ER. Thanks for worrying about me.

  Nick: Be brave.

  Faith: Five minutes.

  Nick: Are you scared?

  Faith: Yes.

  Nick: You can tell me how you’re feeling, if that helps.

  Ant stops reading and meets my eyes. I haven’t seen her this devastated since George disappeared. She studies the plastic pouch still clutched in her fingers, then flicks it away from her, rubbing her fingers frantically on her leg as if she touched something radioactive.

  “This Nick guy was egging her on,” I say, turning to Fergus and Sinclair. I feel the blood draining from my face as the realization sets in. “He gave her poison and encouraged her to take it.” I’m so horrified, my face and fingers are numb.

  “That is the sickest thing I’ve ever heard,” remarks Sinclair, covering his mouth with his hand, his forehead furrowed in horror.

  Fergus puts his hand on his stomach. “I feel physically ill.”

  A bell starts ringing, and we all jump. It’s not the screeching violins. This sounds more like an alarm clock. Fergus goes to the bed and, crouching, grabs something lodged between the bedside table and the mattress. He holds it up, tapping the button on the top to stop the ringing. “My Little Pony,” he says, looking amused. The glitter of the horse’s rainbow-colored tail sparkles in the overhead light. The hands both point to twelve: midnight.

  My head spins. “No!” I gasp.

  “What?” asks Fergus.

  “What’s wrong?” asks Ant at the same time.

  “It’s from the other dream,” Sinclair says, visibly shocked.

  “One of the corpses in the coffin . . . She was holding it in her hand. Wait . . . that’s where I’ve seen her!” I say. But I’m unable to think any further, because the bed has started trembling. It’s like we’re in an earthquake, but the only thing shaking is the bed.

  “The walls!” Ant cries, pointing.

  Water has begun to course down the walls on all sides, running in streams across the floor and puddling around the bed. Fergus slips and falls. The clock crunches under him, and he yelps. He holds up his bloodied hand to his mouth and then looks up in surprise. “It’s salt water,” he says.

  A loud creaking noise comes from the floor, which cracks down the middle and starts caving in toward the center of the room. The bed gives one last shudder and, with a crash, falls through the hole that has opened in the floor. Underneath is dark, churning water, fed by the water streaming from the walls. I grab on to the desk for leverage, but it’s no good. The entire floor is caving in and taking us with it. Water splashes across my face as I feel myself slipping, grabbing on to the soggy rug, and falling into the watery pit.

  I’m sucked into a waterfall, tossed around by the crazed currents, and then carefully deposited, feet on the ground, on a city street at night. Fergus, Sinclair, and Ant stand around me. It’s raining hard, but we’re all already soaked, and it feels like a warm summer night, so it doesn’t make much of a difference.

  “Where are w
e?” Ant asks.

  “Look,” Fergus says, pointing to a row of lit-up skyscrapers in the distance. “I think we’re in New York, but I can’t tell where. Sinclair, you’re from New York, right?”

  “It looks like we’re way uptown.” Sinclair looks toward where Fergus points then scans the street. “I’d say either Harlem or the Bronx.”

  “Doesn’t look good, wherever it is,” I say, looking at the decrepit buildings around us. Some look abandoned, and others—with lights in the windows—don’t look habitable. The walls are covered in graffiti, but not the kind that qualifies as street art. More like tagging of property. The traffic light at the nearest crossroads is broken. A rat climbs out of a trash can with something that looks like a finger in its mouth and makes a dash for the nearest gutter. I shudder and wrap my arms around myself.

  All of a sudden, the screeching violin pulses start up again, full blast. Our hands fly to our ears. Unable to communicate, we nod to each other and spread out, walking in four different directions. “This way!” Ant yells, crouching over so far she’s almost bent double. We follow her, jogging to get away from the sound.

  We turn right at a corner and run down another street, still holding our ears. I wonder what we must look like to anyone watching, but there’s no one on the street besides us. Finally, we turn right onto an alleyway and the violin sound fades and finally becomes silent.

  We are standing below a web of fire escapes, drying clothes draped over the sides of the ladders and on clotheslines strung from building to building. The walls are so full of graffiti that they remind me of the Jackson Pollock splatter-paint canvases we studied in art class.

  On the ground where we’re standing, it looks like someone spilled a gallon of dark red paint. The rain has slowed to a drizzle, and the red stain glimmers in the light cast from the windows above.

  Something moves on the periphery of my vision, and I turn to see figures coming toward us from the nearest avenue. “Um, guys?” I say.

  “Oh, great,” murmurs Fergus, and turns to move in the other direction. But there are people coming from the far end of the alley as well.

  “Looks like someone noticed us running through the rain like maniacs,” Sinclair says.

  Ant looks like a wet mouse and is tapping the side of her leg repeatedly.

  “Should we draw our weapons, or would that be a bad idea?” I ask.

  “Well, if we had guns like someone suggested earlier,” says Sinclair, throwing a poisonous look at Ant, “that might make a difference. We draw our blades, and these guys will shoot us before they can get close enough for us to scratch. And I can only take out one at a time with the crossbow.”

  “Aren’t you out of bolts?” I ask.

  “Nope. Automatic refill in the Void,” he responds.

  “So we don’t draw our weapons,” Ant summarizes.

  “No weapons,” I repeat, as if convincing myself this is the best plan.

  As their faces pass under sheaths of light shining from the apartments above, I can see that they are all boys—some would qualify as men—of all different shapes, sizes, and skin colors. But there’s something they all share: a tattoo on their upper arms. As they draw near, I can make out what it is: a stylized wolf face with numbers on either side.

  They stop about five feet away from us, hands in pockets except for those holding cigarettes. One steps forward. “You’re obviously not from around here. What business you got in our ’hood?”

  His eyes flick to me, and I see him note that I’m the same color as he is. It doesn’t look like that’s earning me any points, though.

  “To be honest, we’re in the middle of a nightmare, and you’re just figments of our imaginations. Or at least one of our imaginations,” Fergus says in a steady voice.

  The guys all look at one another, some with confusion, others verging on rage. The hands previously in pockets begin to draw out objects.

  “Fergus!” I whisper, suddenly cold with fear.

  “What? It’s true!” Fergus says, turning to me. “What are we supposed to do, play some stupid game? If this is BethAnn’s dream, she can’t manipulate reality like I was able to in the last one because she’s not here. We’re basically fucked.”

  “Excuse me,” comes a voice I haven’t heard before. And then I realize I have. It’s Ant. But she sounds confident. She sounds like George. “We didn’t mean to come here. It was kind of an accident. But we’re happy to leave if you let us.”

  “Haven’t you heard the saying?” the leader says. “There are no accidents. At least not in my book. Now tell us why you’re here . . . in the very spot”—he gestures at the red stain on the ground—“where we had to teach another intruder a lesson.”

  He looks at a tall lanky boy on his left. “Hey, Tommy, do you think they might be here because they’re doing their own investigation into that tragic accident?”

  The tall boy folds his arms across his chest and shakes his head in mock regret. “Yeah, Dutch, that was really sad how the guy just kind of fell on his own knife. I’ll bet they’re friends of his.”

  We stand there, speechless.

  “Fine,” Dutch says. “Fish here has a really good way of getting people to talk. Why don’t you show them, Fish?”

  A guy steps out from behind them. His fingers are threaded through a set of brass knuckles, and he pounds them into his fist as if to demonstrate what they’re used for. He strides straight up and sticks his face into Sinclair’s. Sinclair flinches but stands his ground.

  “Do something,” Ant says to no one in particular.

  “Yeah, do something,” says Fish to Sinclair, and draws his fist back.

  But before he can carry through, Fish spins and punches Dutch in the face. The gang leader falls back, cupping his nose in both hands. “What the fuck, Fish?” he gurgles.

  Fish drops his fist and gapes at Dutch in shock. “I don’t know what happened!” He stares down at his hand like it doesn’t belong to him.

  “Get him!” Dutch says to the tall guy beside him, who raises the knife and steps toward Fish with a look like he wants to cut him in half. But instead he turns and drives the knife into his leader’s stomach. Dutch doubles over and falls to his knees.

  “Tommy!” says Fish in horror. “Why’d you do that?”

  But before Tommy can answer, the other gang members start piling on top of them—some helping their leader and the others attacking the two traitors. Only two guys stay with us, one with his eye on Sinclair, like he wants to ask him a question.

  “The bloodstain!” Ant says. I look down and see that the red mark beneath us has begun to rise and thicken, as if the pavement itself is bleeding. It’s halfway up my Converse, lapping up over the toes.

  “I can’t move!” Fergus murmurs from behind my right shoulder. I turn to see his worried expression. He’s trying to walk, but he’s stuck in the blood. He’s able to pull his foot up about an inch before it snaps back down, splashing into the red slush as if he’s stepped in liquid cement.

  “I’m stuck,” Ant says. I can’t tell if the blood is rising or she is sinking, but the red stuff is lapping around her ankles. She holds her fingers to her wrist. “We’re only forty minutes in. Nineteen to go,” she says, looking panicky.

  Sinclair is mesmerized by the fight taking place a couple of yards away. His eyes are glued on the gang members, even though the blood is halfway up to his knees. Our guards are staring at us with something like fear in their eyes, but neither of them moves until we begin to sink through the puddle of blood.

  I’m struggling, blood up to my chest, when one steps forward and hands something to Sinclair. “I think you should have this,” the boy says, and presses a huge hunting knife into Sinclair’s outstretched hand, slicing through his palm. Sinclair screams with pain.

  The blood puddle makes a horrible slurping noise, and I feel myself being pulled forcefully downward. I take a deep breath and hold it as I am sucked into the ground.

  Chapter 23
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br />   Ant

  WE’RE IN A HALLWAY FULL OF DOORS. THE DOORS and ceilings are painted a shade of gray so bland that it shouldn’t really count as a color. I hold my arms out. The hallway is four feet wide, and I count twenty doors on either side. A standard door measures, on average, thirty inches across, and the spaces between the doors are a little less than the height of Fergus, who is six four (when I asked how tall he was, he didn’t even look at me weird). So that is twenty times one hundred two, which is two thousand forty inches. Meaning the hallway is one hundred seventy feet long. Ticking that box in my head makes me feel safe enough to turn my attention to other details.

  Each door has a number on it. We are standing in front of 327.

  Judging from the fact that several of the doors are padlocked, and the entire place is made of uninviting gray concrete, I am guessing we are in a storage facility. It smells like cleaning products, with just the slightest whiff of mildew. The place is spotless, unlike my family’s storage space under our house, which Mom says she’d rather just avoid than clean.

  Sinclair is moaning, his hand dripping with blood from where the gang guy sliced him with the knife. It’s dripping in a puddle on the painted floor, and for some reason I can’t stop looking at it. I like the patterns made when things drip, but realize it is probably strange to watch someone bleed, so I try hard to avert my eyes.

  Sinclair catches me looking. “Why couldn’t you put basic first aid supplies in one of the backpacks?” he asks.

  “I thought about that a couple of times, but then I forgot when we were in the Void,” I explain.

  Frowning, he pulls his yellow button-down shirt up over his head, then tosses it to the ground. Using his foot to anchor it, he rips an arm off and winds it around the bleeding palm, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain.

  Cata takes a few steps away from the rest of us, and the horrible screeching noise starts back up. I press my hands to my ears. Everyone’s covering their ears and looking around, like some kind of obvious clue is going to pop up and show us which way to go.

  “I guess it wants us to figure out which door to look behind,” Fergus yells.