Insomnia (The Night Walkers)

by Johansson, J. R.

  “Let him go.” Jeff sighed and pulled Thor’s shoulder until he released me. He seemed irritated, but nothing compared to the anger radiating from his buddy. “Seriously, Parker, what’s going on here?”

  My shoulder hurt where it’d been scratched against the rough tree bark. “What do you mean? What’s his problem?” I nodded my head toward Thor and he growled.

  Jeff stepped forward and pulled me a few steps farther away from the small crowd that was gathering nearby to watch us. He ducked his head, forcing me to meet his eyes. I thrust my hands in my pockets, mostly to keep myself from strangling him.

  “Look, can’t you see you’re scaring her? You need to lay off, man. I think everyone is a little tired of the way you’ve been acting lately.” His eyes flashed but he kept his voice low. I could see another emotion in them, something darker, but it was gone before I could place it.

  “Jeff, it’s not that big of a deal.” Mia’s voice came from behind him. I looked for her but found Addie first. She’d never looked at me like this before. With disgust. With her gaze on me, it was hard to remember to breathe.

  Shaking her head, Addie turned and stomped back toward the fire. It took me a second to remember to look for Mia. I met her eyes for one life-saving instant before she looked away.

  Jeff waved his hand at her. “Go home, Mia.”

  “Fine, I was leaving anyway.” Mia huffed. “Not that anyone asked my opinion, but I wish all of you would leave me alone.”

  She walked away. I’d have to leave soon to avoid eye contact with anyone else. The anticipation of another night of Mia’s dreams was sweet, and I was desperate not to lose it.

  For a moment, no one spoke. Jeff shrugged and watched Mia’s truck pull out of the parking lot. I kept my eyes carefully trained on the ground. The small crowd at the edge of the beach was getting larger, watching us in silence. When I saw that Finn had joined them, I decided to try and smooth things over with Jeff. Besides, Thor could probably break most trees in half. Who wants trouble with someone like that?

  “I didn’t mean to cause a problem, man. It was a misunderstanding.” I stared at a spot just to the side of Jeff’s eyes and shrugged.

  “No worries,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear.

  As Thor walked away, Jeff gave me a lopsided grin, flopped one arm across my shoulders and whispered in my ear. “Just chill it, okay?” Then he released me and jogged back toward the fire.

  The others followed Jeff. Before he was even halfway back to the bonfire, his arms were around two giggling girls and he was joking loudly with Matt.

  Finn was the only one who didn’t move. He stood staring at the ground, and I waited. I was rooted in place, torn between missing him and my overwhelming desire to bolt from the parking lot before Finn could look up and ruin my chance to sleep tonight. But he never raised his eyes. After a few seconds of awkward silence, he just turned and walked back toward the fire. I hated myself a little for feeling relieved.

  I started back for my shoes but froze when I noticed that same leather jacket guy, the one who was blocking my view in the parking lot the other day. He was wading up to his ankles in the edge of the water—totally insane. It had to be ice cold. I wondered who was that crazy, but it was too dark to make out his face.

  He turned and my skin prickled. In the darkness, I could feel his eyes on me.

  Thor stoked the fire with a long stick. Several big sparks soared up in the air and pulled my attention away. The jacket guy didn’t move from the water, but he watched me while I grabbed my shoes and walked to the parking lot, until I was out of sight.

  eleven

  Over the past three weeks, I’d gotten more sleep than I had in years. Mia wasn’t exactly making it easy, but it was worth the trouble. I’d awaken with my mind filled to the brim with images and memories from my own dreams, which I hadn’t been capable of for years. I felt whole in a way I’d never believed possible. Funny dreams, bizarre dreams, even nightmares—I loved every one of them. Mia had opened up a new world to me, a world of my own creation, and she didn’t even know about it.

  My dreams didn’t show me problems I couldn’t fix. They didn’t fill me with emotions I wasn’t prepared to deal with. My dreams happened and then went away. They were temporary, fleeting, relaxing.

  Seeing the fluidity and randomness of my own dreams confirmed my theory that when I was watching the dreams of others, I was stuck in some more realistic layer. Really, it wasn’t surprising. My brain was technically awake. My conscious mind was finding the slot with the most reason and stuffing me into it, the layer that it could force into some box that made sense and at least partially obeyed laws of nature.

  I hopped out of bed and smiled at the fading circles under my eyes in the mirror on the back of my door. Life with sleep was incredible. I could think. I could focus. And most of the bad memories and nightmares I’d witnessed in other people’s heads were fading away. Even my coordination was better—all thanks to Mia and her incredible dreams.

  Outside of the dreams, things with Mia weren’t at all pleasant. That first week, she’d been annoyed at how I’d waited outside her last class every day and she hadn’t been afraid to tell me so. But ever since the bonfire, she’d stopped telling me off and just tried to get away from me as quickly as possible. The mere sight of me seemed to scare her now. I tried not to make it worse than it had to be—I’d meet her eyes and then leave. The less complication, the better.

  Flopping down at my desk to gather my stuff for school, I glanced up and saw my sixth grade soccer picture hanging on the wall. Finn was grinning so wide I could almost see every one of his teeth, and he had one arm flung around my shoulder. I missed him, but every time I thought about apologizing I realized how much easier it was to see Mia’s dreams when Finn wasn’t around to distract me. That alone had made the decision to stay away from Jeff’s soccer practices, and Finn, an easy one.

  Reaching up, I took the picture down and stuffed it in one of my desk drawers. I didn’t want to think about him right then. I hadn’t talked to Addie either, though it was harder to keep away from her somehow.

  In fact, everyone at school seemed to be giving me a pretty wide berth now. Probably a bad sign, but it didn’t matter. I ignored them along with the voice inside my head that kept telling me this was wrong. Pushing it deeper into my subconscious was easy when everything inside me felt so much more alive.

  Shaking off the doubts, I jumped in the shower. I slept and it was wonderful. And that was all that mattered.

  The next day, after barely making eye contact with Mia at the end of school, I stood in a bathroom stall, waiting and listening. Once the halls were silent and I thought everyone had gone, I snuck out the side doors to the parking lot, keeping my head low and my sunglasses on. I couldn’t risk making eye contact with anyone else on the way out.

  I’d almost reached my car when Matt ran into me in the parking lot, hard. My backpack fell off my shoulder, and my sunglasses went flying and broke against the asphalt.

  “Oops.” Matt barely controlled his laughter. If it didn’t require looking at him, I might’ve punched him. I regretted what happened with Finn; I wouldn’t think twice about Matt.

  “Not cool, man.” I muttered without a glance in his direction. Pulling my backpack up, I left my shades where they were and kept walking. Just a few more feet and I could get away from this moron.

  I stumbled as Thor’s hulking frame stepped in front of my car door. He caught my shoulders with both hands, but he did it so roughly I could feel the bruises down to my bones. Red-hot anger boiled inside my chest, and I jerked my head up to find myself staring into his small dark eyes.

  Matt stepped up beside us and laughed. “He didn’t want you to fall.”

  I’m not sure what made me more furious: them giving me a hard time or the fact that Thor had forced me to meet his eyes. I brought both elbow
s up as hard as I could and broke his grip on my shoulders. A low growl erupted from his chest, but he stepped aside when Matt waved him off.

  “Watch yourself, Parker,” Matt said as I climbed in and started the car.

  I drove aimlessly for a while, needing to be moving, to think. This was just perfect. If I didn’t want to see a dream featuring my decapitation—not exactly at the top of my to-watch list—then I needed to find a way to see Mia again. Tonight.

  Slamming my forearm against the steering wheel, I kept driving. This wasn’t going to be easy. Her reactions bothered me—but not enough for me to change anything. It wasn’t my fault that I had to go to such extremes to get the sleep everyone else took for granted. My curse controlled me; it wasn’t by choice.

  I was pretty sure Mia would be working at the mall tonight. Glancing around, I couldn’t suppress a shudder. With my “aimless” driving, I’d managed to go straight to her. I was a block away from the mall without even consciously deciding to go there.

  Whether I wanted to resist or not, her dreams kept me coming back. Every night, they amazed me. Each setting was more beautiful than the one before, each equally worth painting. Yet she never touched her paintbrush to the canvas, every time looking just as frustrated. I got the feeling that if her sadness hadn’t been dimmed by her strange dreams, it would have been impossible to even breathe under the weight of it.

  I wished I could do something to help her, especially if her sadness and frustration were somehow tied to reality. Even unknowingly, she’d helped me more than I could’ve ever imagined.

  Pulling into a nearby fast-food joint, I killed some time eating dinner and playing games on my phone. When there was just an hour until the mall closed, I drove slowly through the parking lot, searching up and down the rows for her purple pickup. Once I saw it, I parked my car a few spots away.

  Leaning back in my seat, I rolled down my window, turned on some music, and propped my feet up on the dash. There were worse ways to spend an evening. Besides, she was worth the wait.

  Just as I was relaxing, a black motorcycle blew past my car and parked near the front of the lot. I sat up straight when I recognized the rider with his black leather jacket—the same guy I’d seen before. It was getting dark, but under the bright lights I noticed a patch on the right shoulder of his jacket that I hadn’t been close enough to make out before. It looked like a pirate skull, but instead of one eye patch, it wore two—one over each eye.

  My skin crawled and I had a vivid flash of memory. My dad, standing in his room with me bouncing on the bed. He’d chuckled and asked me to hand him his wallet. When I grabbed it off the nightstand, I saw the same skull—two eye-patches carved into the well-worn leather. I’d asked him what it was. I could still hear his rich voice echoing in my head.

  “It’s to remind me about people.”

  “What about them?”

  Taking the wallet, he’d stuffed it in his back pocket before lifting my chin until I looked in his eyes. “That a blind skull sees more than you think.”

  The memory faded and I drew in a shaky breath. It had been a long time since I’d thought about spending time my dad. The jagged pain in my chest was the reason why. Leaning out the window, I tried to see the rider’s face, but he didn’t take his helmet off until he was walking through the mall doors and out of sight.

  I should know who he was. He obviously went to school with me, but I just couldn’t identify him, at least not without seeing his face. The patch was probably the symbol of some old band or something, but still, I needed more information. I vowed to pay more attention at school the next day, see who had the jacket with the blind skull.

  Pushing him out of my mind, I focused on what really mattered: Mia. I turned up the radio and tried to bury my memories of Dad under a heavy drumbeat and wicked guitar solo.

  When she finally appeared, the parking lot was nearly empty. She carried a small silver purse and swung it around, singing softly to herself. I waited, trying not to feel like a cat ready to pounce. I stepped out of my car as she approached and moved between her and the truck. Raising my hand, I waved.

  The moment she saw me, she froze. Her terrified expression told me I shouldn’t have come. She swallowed hard, then reached in her purse.

  “I have p-pepper spray.” Her voice shook so hard it was difficult to understand her.

  “Whoa. I just wanted to say hi.” I took a step back, but then stopped. I wanted to leave her alone, but she was looking down. I wasn’t certain I’d met her eyes—I had to be sure. Why couldn’t she just give me what I needed?

  I’d never seen anyone look so scared—no, I had. Agnes had had the same kind of fear in her eyes that Mia’s held now. Was I no better than that loser husband of hers? If I had nightmares now, I knew what they would be about.

  Frustration, anger, fear, and guilt flowed through me. I wanted to comfort her and force her to meet my eyes at the same time. An idea infected my mind like a parasite; if I had a weapon—it might make her do what I wanted. I choked back the bile that rose in my throat. I was disgusted at myself, but the desperate need drove me on.

  Fighting the urge to look away, I stepped closer. “Mia, please. Calm down.”

  She gasped and thrust her hand back and forth in her bag searching for something, probably the pepper spray. I stopped where I was and she finally looked up.

  Her eyes were so filled with terror that I flinched, but something dark inside me took over. It didn’t allow me to even glance away. It made sure I got a solid look in her eyes before releasing me.

  “Okay, I’ll go. I didn’t mean to scare you.” My legs felt wobbly as I retreated to my car. Even as I left the parking lot, I could see her small form in my rearview mirror. She put her face in her hands and trembled from the tip of her head to the heels of her boots.

  I parked around the corner. The car felt stuffy and claustrophobic. I dragged myself outside and took a few ragged breaths. My fingers tugged on my hair and I banged my fist against the roof of the car. Battle lines were being drawn in my head. How could I choose which side to take? Hardly a fair conflict: my life or her fear?

  Part of me argued that it wasn’t Mia’s fault. Why should she suffer because of my problems? Another part of me raged about the situation. Anything I did was justified. I’d been calmly awaiting my terrifying future for so long, who could blame me for seizing an opportunity to avoid it? Was it my fault I’d been forced to such drastic measures to stay alive? Sleep wasn’t optional; I’d learned that. I had to have it.

  There was no way out of this situation, and every time I bent a rule, the darker part of me broke it in half. I could feel it now, could see where it had come from. It was the part of me that had kept me sane when I’d developed my curse, had helped me deal with Dad leaving and Mom working all the time. The part that helped me survive through nightmare after nightmare. But it didn’t care about anyone else, just about keeping me alive. Each step I took that I wouldn’t have taken before seemed to strengthen the instinct. It cared about survival, and only survival. Any moral problems weren’t a consideration. I didn’t want to give in to that, I didn’t want to be that guy … but if I stopped, I would die.

  No matter how much I hated myself for it, my life was still more important than her fear. She would live through being afraid sometimes.

  Maybe this could be good. Mia might fear me, but I could watch over her. Walking through an empty parking lot at night all by herself, she could run into someone much more dangerous than me. If I made sure she was safe, it could make up for any pain I caused. I could keep her out of any real danger. After all, I wouldn’t physically hurt her.

  I dragged in a few more deep breaths and the war within me stilled. It only bothered me a little that I wasn’t sure which side had won.

  The next day, I felt better. I had a plan. It had been a huge mistake to wait for Mia in the parking lot after work. Loo
king back at the situation, no wonder she’d been terrified.

  My new plan was different. It would work.

  By the time I found a parking space and climbed out of my car, it was 8:50 p.m. Only ten minutes before the mall closed. I tried to contain my smile; still plenty of time to get to her store and do a little shopping.

  I figured that this way, in public, she wouldn’t be so afraid. I could shop around the store, make eye contact, and then leave. I’d even be willing to buy something if it let me meet her eyes without freaking her out.

  It was a temporary fix. I certainly couldn’t go and buy something every day without running out of money—and fast. For now, though, it was the only idea I had.

  I walked through the front mall entrance and ran right into Mr. Blind Skull himself. But now I could see more than just his old leather jacket. He had spiky brown hair that made him look kind of wild, and muddy-brown eyes. He was an inch or two shorter than me … and I’d never seen his face in my life. Was he new to the area?

  “Excuse me,” he said, looking quickly away as he stepped around me and jogged toward the parking lot. I didn’t even have time to apologize for plowing into him, let alone ask him about the blind skull patch, before he was out of sight. I shook my head and got back to business.

  When I got to Mia’s store, I was surprised to find it empty. I checked my watch and groaned. It was only a few minutes before closing; the entire mall was pretty much deserted. Making my way inside, I tried to appear casual. I stopped at a rack here and there, but my eyes continually scanned for Mia. I’d nearly given up when I made it to an alcove near the back of the store and saw her.

  She had her back to me as she meticulously folded and straightened a table full of jeans. I couldn’t help myself. She was so close. I took a step and she visibly stiffened. Still, she didn’t turn, just continued to work. For a moment I wondered if it was even her. Moving slowly around the table, I caught sight of the side of her face—definitely Mia—but still she wouldn’t look at me.