by Sara Clancy
“I’m sorry,” Nicole finally said. “I got distracted. It was a weird night.”
“And you are going to pay me back for all the damages,” another instruction Dorothy laid down.
“Of course,” Nicole said. “I’m really sorry. Was the front desk mad?”
“You trashed a room. They were a bit upset.”
“I’m sorry,” Nicole’s voice turned weak.
Benton flinched and was about to open his eyes when Dorothy replied in a kind tone, “It’s okay. You did the right thing. I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks, mom. And thank you for handling Benton so well. I don’t think he’s used to supportive, authority figures.”
And just like that, the conversation had gone from embarrassing to mortifying. He opened his eyes and scrambled up from the examination table.
“You both know that I can hear you, right,” he mumbled.
“We’re having a private conversation,” Nicole said, a smile curling at the corners of her lips. “You hush.”
Benton smirked but still swung his legs over the edge. Sleep had been illusive, and after Allison’s visit, it always seemed close, but never within reach. He had spent most of his time scrolling through the internet on Nicole’s phone. After a certain point, all of the sites were just repeating the same cluster of suggestions. By the time midnight had rolled around, he had given up on both sleep and his study. Nicole had tried to stay up with him but the long hours and adrenaline crash had worked against her. She had ended up drifting off more than once, waking up only when a particularly loud thunderclap shattered the silence.
Getting dressed in the morning had been a lot less painful than what Benton had expected. Dorothy had offered to walk his parents to the nearby Tim Horton’s for breakfast, at the same time, Nicole mentioned that she needed to grab a book from Benton’s backpack. His parents had gone with Dorothy and had even given Nicole one of the spare keys so Benton could get back in later. The thunderstorm still hadn’t passed so the clothes had arrived damp, but he didn’t complain. It was good to have pants on again.
He rested his elbows on his thighs and winced, aching from the bruises on his back that hadn’t faded away yet. Instead, the pain had sunk deeper into his bones as the night had progressed. Benton had snuck peeks at the injury, never wanting to linger on it for too long. It was harder to ignore his ankles. Against the battered skin, his socks felt like metal shackles, solid and unforgiving. The bruise had darkened enough to resemble frostbite.
Nicole noticed his discomfort and was about to go to him when the doctor came in. He wasn’t dressed in the standard white lab coat, instead favoring jeans and a plaid shirt. It was that kind of casualness that kept his near seven foot height from being intimidating.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.” He checked his chart and frowned. “Benton? Huh, you don’t really hear that name much anymore. Do you prefer Ben? Benny?”
“I don’t really care,” Benton shrugged.
“Well, I just go by Kyle. Nice to meet you.” The second Benton took his hand to shake it, the smile dropped from the doctor’s face. “Wow, you’re cold. I can get them to turn up the heat.”
“Thanks.”
Kyle kept up the idol conversation that Benton knew was designed to ease patients into the, sometimes, personal matter of sleep. It wasn’t the first time the teenager had been assessed. He knew just how delicate a matter can get as soon as people wanted to explore what could be going on in your subconscious. Eventually, after assuring the doctor that he didn’t mind Nicole being present, Kyle pulled up a chair, sat down, and clicked the top of his pen.
“So, you’re not sleeping. What specifically are you experiencing?”
“I normally suffer from night terrors,” Benton began, trying to find the right way to word things so that they would be helpful but not get him referred to a psychologist. “I've had them since I was little, but can function pretty well around them. I still get a few good hours of sleep.”
“But that’s changed,” Kyle prodded.
“About two weeks ago,” Benton nodded. “My dreams have become more … I guess you would call it, static. It’s just a giant mess that wakes me up. I’m only getting a few minutes of sleep at a time, and can’t get back to sleep for hours afterwards.”
Kyle nodded and glanced down at his sheet. “I’ve just got a few questions. Just standard stuff.” He waited until Benton shrugged before going down his list. “Any allergies?”
“No.”
“Well, there is something,” Nicole cut in. “We just don’t know what it is.”
“Right,” Kyle said slowly.
Benton rubbed a hand over his burning eyes and struggled to come to terms with the fact that Nicole was bringing this up here and now. It just didn’t seem possible that she would honestly try and produce a reaction from the doctor, on Leanan Sidhe venom, in a medical dialogue. There isn’t a box for paranormal allergies, he threw all of this mental might into the thought, but it didn’t seem to register.
“When he was new to town, we went out into the fields and he got really sick,” she said. “We don’t know exactly what set him off, but it hasn’t happened again.”
“I’ll put down a note,” Kyle said, before scribbling something and turning back to Benton. “But nothing else?”
Benton shook his head.
“Are you on any sleeping medication?” Kyle asked.
“He can’t go on that,” Nicole said before Benton opened his mouth. “He has very bad reactions to them. Psychologically, not physically.”
Kyle glanced over his shoulder at Nicole, smiled politely, and then scooted his eyes back to Benton.
“They just make the night terrors longer.”
“Okay,” Kyle said. “Nutrition. Are you eating right? No late night snacking?”
Benton nodded and barked a laugh when Nicole rushed forward, waving a sheet of paper at Kyle. With his eyebrows slowly creeping up to his hairline, the doctor took the sheet and read over it in a quick glance.
“You’ve documented his eating,” he stated.
“Just from memory. He tends to skips meals if I don’t watch him so this should cover most of what he’s eaten the last three weeks. Of course, it won’t be a complete record and he probably has a lot more caffeine when I’m not looking.”
“Who are you again?”
“Nicole Rider. I’m Benton’s best friend!”
“Okay, well, thank you for this, Nicole.” Slipping the sheet under his paperwork, he continued down his checklist. “No recent trauma? Emotional or physical?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Benton said.
Kyle’s eyes shifted to Nicole and she quickly became very interested in the far-ended wall.
“Are you sure?”
“Yep.”
Benton said before Nicole could answer.
It didn’t matter how they tried to word it. There was no way to explain recent events without sounding insane. By his thinking, there was nothing to be gained by mentioning weird owls, monsters, and ghost stalkers. He only prayed that Nicole had the same opinion or this was going to get awkward, fast. She seemed to be struggling under Kyle’s suspicious gaze, so Benton shrugged.
“Just the normal adolescent stuff, really.”
“Speaking of–” Kyle began to say, but Benton cut him off before he could try and get into some of the more personal questions.
“I’m not sexually active. And I’m healthy.”
“Right. And you’re not just saying that because we have company?”
“I’ve had this questionnaire before,” Benton reminded him. “I knew it was coming.”
“Okay,” Kyle said.
Benton didn’t know what the doctor was scribbling down but it took him a while, long enough that Nicole began to strain her neck, attempting to read over Kyle’s shoulder. It took him a few moments to notice. When he finally did, he flipped over his clipboard and glared at her.
“Now, personally, I would
like to keep you overnight. To really get a sense of what is happing in that skull of yours. But I know time is a factor. Especially when you have to go back to Fort Wayward. So let’s see what we can do in the time that we have.”
He motioned for Benton to lie back down on the examining table. The sheets were comfortable and soft, but the mattress itself was like a strip of cardboard. Staring at the ceiling, Benton tried to relax as Kyle began to attach electrodes to different points around Benton’s temples.
“So that will tell you what he’s dreaming?” Nicole asked.
“Not exactly,” Kyle said as he began to turn on the machines. “When we sleep, we cycle through four stages of sleep. The first two are light stages while the second two are known as the REM stages. That just stands for ‘rapid eye movement’ and it is at that time that certain parts of our brain light up, our amygdala gets pumping, and the more rational parts of our brain go dormant. That’s why dreams are pictures and emotions instead of a series of logical events. Generally, nightmares and dreams happen during REM. These will help me measure Benton’s brain activity during these stages and how long he stays in each one.”
“But how will you know if something’s wrong?” she asked.
“You mean like a tumor?” he asked. “These can’t measure for a tumor. That’s a completely different machine.”
“I don’t have a tumor,” Benton said sharply. “I had a brain scan six months ago. My brain is healthy.”
Nicole rubbed his shoulder in a way that was both reassuring and condescending. He knew he should feel one or the other, but it just made him smile and he bit back a chuckle.
“The most likely problem is that Benton isn’t transitioning from one sleep stage to the next like he should.”
“And it won’t hurt him, right?”
Benton lifted his hand, the iron bracelet slipping along his forearm, and he blindly reached back until he could find her. Her hand wrapped around his, a blazing fire to the chill that still encased him.
“It’s just a monitoring system,” Benton assured. “I’ll be fine.” Her only response was to squeeze his hand before she continued her conversation with the doctor.
“Why do you think he gets nightmares, anyway?” she asked. “I mean, more than anyone else?” It didn’t matter how much casualness she tried to force into her words, it still sounded completely forced and fake, at least to Benton’s ears. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation, but he wasn’t quite sure what Nicole was fishing for. It wasn’t as if Kyle was going to turn around and declare his belief that Benton was a creature from an Irish folklore.
“The same reason most people get nightmares,” Kyle replied. “His subconscious is working through some things. Although, there have been some studies that suggest some people are naturally more emotional, and more prone to nightmares. Is he the sensitive type?”
“He can be very empathetic,” Nicole answered.
“I can still hear you,” Benton said, only to be shushed quickly by Nicole.
“Okay, Ben, you’re just about set.”
From somewhere behind him, Benton heard Kyle pull a metal tray closer. It was a common, scraping clatter. That didn’t stop the sound from instantly flooding his mind with dark memories. It wasn’t that rare for serial killers to like to think of themselves just as skilled as surgeons were. His dreams had made him a witness, a participant, to their games of ‘doctor.’ He hated that noise and instantly balled his hands on the sheet under him.
“Some people have been having trouble with the storm,” Kyle said, now standing to Benton’s right. “So we’ve brought in a sound machine to help you relax.”
The lights flicked off, casting the room into murky gray shadows that shifted with every flash of lightning. Benton kept his eyes on the ceiling, kept his focus on breathing slowly, as Kyle plugged up the final device. Ever since this had begun, Benton had been fighting to keep his questions sealed in the darkest corners of his mind. Now, with the possibility of answers lurking closer, it was getting harder to keep them contained. His fingers tightened around the sheet until his knuckles ached, as if he could keep ahold of his stray thoughts if he just held on tight enough.
A sharp click made him jolt, and almost instantly, a music box began to play. The tune was simple, rising and falling down along the scales, almost like a nursery rhyme put to a waltz. Colors splashed across the ceiling. They were pale, given the competing light, but he was still able to just make out the silhouettes of different animals as they drifted around the room.
“Is this a kid’s night light?” Benton asked.
“Ours broke and we don’t have the budget to replace it until the next fiscal year,” Kyle admitted.
The curtains rasped as he pulled them down and drove the room into darkness. The silhouettes grew stronger. Blue horses in full gallop. Pink seahorses. A green bird with its wings spread out in flight.
“Besides,” Kyle continued. “Soothing techniques are relatively the same for all ages. What works on us as a child works just as well on us as adults; we just tweak it a little.”
Benton longed to tell him that he had definitely outgrown the need for a lullaby and pretty pictures. But his eyelids were already feeling heavy and his bones began to melt into the bed. Someone touched his hand. Benton was surprised when he moved his gaze from a golden lion to discover that it was Kyle, not Nicole. The doctor fixed a heart monitor over one of his fingers, the cuff fitting snugly, before his brow furrowed and he slowly turned Benton’s hand.
“That’s a nasty burn,” Kyle whispered. As if he didn’t want the others to overhear. “How did you get that?”
Even in his drifting state, the lie was easy. “I’d never been to a bonfire before and I seriously underestimated how hot a smoldering log can be.”
The glow of the nightlight painted Kyle in constantly shifting shades of color, making it nearly impossible to read him.
“You need to be more careful.”
Benton forced a weak smile as Kyle drifted away. He didn’t see the doctor again, but someone draped a thick blanket over him and he was grateful for that. Already, the soft tune and relative calm was working to lull his weary mind. His eyelids drifted down, remaining just open enough that he could watch the parade of shapes. The tune filled his mind, and he drifted on a haze.
The door clicked shut. He expected to hear only the music after that. Instead, footsteps came closer to his bed. Snapping his eyes open, he jolted back to reality, only to find Nicole standing at the side of his bed.
“Scoot over,” she commanded.
The bed was narrow and forced them both onto their sides if they were going to fit. She carefully placed herself around the cords that were littered across the expanse and settled down in front of him.
“Wow,” she whispered as she squirmed for a better position. “You’d think that a sleep center would have more comfortable beds.”
“There’s a child’s toy behind you.”
“That, I like.”
The tune continued to play on a loop, covering their whispers from any prying ears.
“I’m supposed to be sleeping, you know,” he said.
“I know. But we’re running out of time and you still haven’t.”
His brow furrowed. “I just lied down now.”
“That was two hours ago.”
Benton blinked at her, watching the glow of the ghostly animals create a multicolored halo around her. “Two hours? It barely felt like a minute.”
“Well, it was two hours and I’ve already fielded like five calls from your parents. There are only so many times they’ll believe me when I say we’re on the other side of the store. You need to sleep.”
“I’m trying.”
“We only have an hour left before we have to go,” Nicole insisted.
“If I could, don’t you think I would?” Benton said.
She paused for a moment. “Maybe not. I mean, if it were me, I wouldn’t be too keen to start dreaming about killing people again.�
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“Well, I’m not exactly looking forward to it,” Benton muttered. Since they were separated by only a few inches at most, it was hard to avoid her gaze. “Do you think I’ll dream about them all at once? All the people that died because I didn’t dream in time to warn them?”
“That’s not your fault, Benton,” she whispered.
“Do you think they’ll see it that way? Maybe that’s why Allison and Oliver hate me. I didn’t help them.”
“That’s silly,” she dismissed gently.
“Is it? Collin seemed pretty chill and he was the only one that I wouldn’t have dreamt about.”
Her hand slid into his. He felt the warmth of her body, both pleasant and excruciating, against his bitterly, cold fingers. “You help who you can and mourn with the rest. That’s called the human condition.”
“I don’t think that’s the exact definition,” Benton mumbled.
“Hush,” Nicole said with a slight smile.
Benton didn’t return it. “Nic, have you ever thought that maybe I’m the reason these things happen?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Last night, I stumbled across a site talking about a tulpa. It’s when people can create something from nothing by sheer focus and mystical energy. They were talking about how, when a group of people have the same fear, and they focus all their energy into that fear, they can literally bring to life whatever they were worried about.”
“You should not be allowed on the internet without my supervision,” Nicole joked.
“I’m serious.”
“You think that all of these murders never existed until you dreamed about them?”
“No. But I’m not so sure that any of these monsters did. You said it yourself, this was a quiet place. I haven’t been here a year and things have gone to hell.”
“You didn’t dream about the Dullahan until after he attacked us and killed…” her voice trailed off. Closing her eyes, she licked her lips and forced herself to continue. “Until after it killed Kimberly. You didn’t create it.”
