Insomnia (The Night Walkers)

by Johansson, J. R.

  And I’d have to deal with the horror I’d become.

  I looked around at my empty hospital room. Usually I enjoyed being alone, but after Addie’s dream it was like a unified confirmation from everyone in my life that I didn’t deserve visitors. Like they all finally understood what I was and they wanted nothing to do with me. It didn’t make sense, and I knew they didn’t actually feel that way, but a big part of me was starting to believe they should. I tugged off the heart monitors and blood pressure cuff, everything that tied me to this place.

  The machines went wild and the door to my room open-ed. Patti rushed in and gave an aggravated sigh when she realized I’d unplugged everything again. “You feel all right?” she asked, flipping off the machines beeping around me.

  “Yeah. I’m fine. Just tired of being tied down.”

  My door swung open again and I barely suppressed a groan as Addie stepped through it. Her hair was slightly frizzed on one side, making it obvious she’d rolled out of bed and come straight here. Her eyes were red, puffy, and accusing.

  Of course, the one time when it would have come in handy for someone to forget their dream, it was clear she hadn’t.

  “That’s fine,” Patti was saying. “You’ll probably be going home in an hour or so anyway.” She turned to Addie. “Let me know if he has any problems.”

  I snorted at the nurse’s choice of words, and she glared at me. I held up my hands in surrender as she walked out the door.

  Silently, Addie pulled a chair next to the bed, but I could-n’t meet her eyes. The pain there sent ice shards through my spine and into my heart. For a few agonizing minutes, she didn’t say anything. When her voice finally came it was hoarse and hollow.

  “Don’t ever do that to me again.”

  “Addie, you don’t understand.” My words came out more like a groan. I was protecting her, whether she could see it or not.

  “Freeburg was the monster, Parker. Not you.” Her voice was pleading. “You’re not even sure if you killed him.”

  “And I’m the one who has to live with not knowing, Addie—me,” I mumbled without looking up. “Can you honestly say you’d be fine in my position?”

  She fell silent.

  “I need you to let me figure things out on my own for a bit.” I stared at the divots in the white ceiling above me.

  “It doesn’t matter whether we’re together or not.” Addie leaned forward, trying to make me look at her, but I couldn’t. I knew if I did, I’d give in. “Parker, you can’t run away from this—not from me.”

  I gathered all the strength I had and withdrew all emotion from my eyes. If I had to hurt Addie to protect her, I would. Turning, I stared her straight in the eye.

  “There is nothing between—”

  The door to my room opened and my mom walked in with a stack of papers in her hands. She was followed by a much older man in a long white coat. I thought I’d seen him in one of my hazy awakenings.

  “Oh, hello, Addie.” My mom actually winced when she glanced at her. “Oh no, honey, you haven’t been here all night, have you?”

  Addie patted one side of her hair and shook her head. All at once, she seemed embarrassed. On the verge of tears, she reached down and squeezed my hand with a frown and a slight shake of her head. The message was clear—we weren’t done. She glanced at my mom, then hurried from the room.

  Mom raised her eyebrows at me, but I shrugged. She smiled and her entire body lit up.

  “Good news.” She indicated the doctor. “Dr. Rees says you’re ready to come home now.”

  Dr. Rees walked over to the bed. He lifted up a miniature flashlight and checked my eyes, and then he hit my knees with his ridiculous little hammer. My leg jerked on command. As he spoke, he pulled off a couple heart monitors, removed my IV, and gave me a cotton ball to stop the bleeding.

  “Are you feeling any pain, champ?”

  I flinched. I hadn’t been called “champ” since I was about six. The man meant well, but it grated on my already raw nerves. I needed to get out of here.

  “Just a headache.”

  He nodded and looked me over one more time. “That’s to be expected.” He turned back to Mom and signed one of the papers she held. “He should probably stay down and rest for another week or so, keep the strain on his body to a minimum while his brain recovers.”

  I stifled a laugh and Mom sent me a look. My sense of humor was becoming as twisted as the rest of me.

  “Sounds do-able.” Mom shook his hand and he headed out the door. “Ready?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  Sucking in a lungful of air, I ignored the ripple of terror that moved from my brain to my spine. This was it.

  I stood up from the bed, forcing my feet to move. Mom stood in the hall while I got dressed and gathered my stuff. A giant bulldozer of pain crushed me when I picked up the get-well card from Addie and Finn.

  It was time to stop hiding from my own worst enemy—myself. I needed to know if I was responsible for the threats Mia had received. Whether I’d killed Dr. Freeburg or not, I would find out if I had the strength to keep Darkness at bay, to keep control. If I didn’t, then I had to be stopped.

  I faced the empty hospital room and clicked off the light.

  twenty-nine

  My fingers produced a strange rattling noise as they shook the keys. I couldn’t make them behave. They didn’t want to type the right combination any more than I did. When the keyboard shuddered off the desk onto my lap, I put it back and reclined in my chair, propping my bare feet up on the computer tower. I needed to calm down. There was no backing out now.

  The phone rang in the living room yet again and I heard Mom pick it up.

  “Hello?” she answered. “I’m sorry. Parker isn’t feeling up to having visitors yet.” I heard her sigh as she listened. “I know. I’ll tell him you called.”

  Obviously it was Finn or Addie. She thought I was asleep or she might’ve come in to tell me they wanted to talk to me … again. It was the fifth time one of them had stopped by or called since I’d turned off my cell phone when we’d

  gotten home from the hospital that morning. But Mom didn’t seem to mind screening their many calls and visits for me. There was some kind of unwritten rule that when your kid has a near-death experience, they get whatever they want for a while. And, really, wanting to be alone and get some rest wasn’t asking for much.

  I took three deep breaths and sat back up. Pressing my wrists firmly into the keyboard pad seemed to still the shaking a bit. One clumsy finger strike at a time, I typed the e-mail address in the login box. Each click echoed like a pounding gavel in my mind.

  My soccer jersey hung from a hook on the back of my door. The eight was printed in ominous black over the vertical blue and yellow stripes. I omitted the 1 from my normal address, leaving only the 8. I tentatively tried to guess what Darkness might use as a password.

  Darkness—no

  Mia—no

  Watcher—no

  I only had one more guess before the security default would lock the account for an hour. Darkness laughed morbidly from the back of my mind. What else might it be? Out of frustration, I entered the password for my normal e-mail address: s0cc3r. One word flashed across the screen.

  LOADING.

  That single word sent me spinning, gasping for air. I jammed my finger into the power button on the monitor before anything could come up. Still, I could feel the secret e-mails tugging at me from behind the dark screen.

  More air, I needed more air. I scrambled to my bed and slammed my fists against the window. Then I hit it with the only other thing I could reach, a soccer trophy from last year off my desk. Again and again, I beat the tiny brass soccer player against the glass until I heard it crack, and then it wasn’t in my way anymore. The air in my room seemed impossibly thin; each breath was a struggle.
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  It was true. Darkness was the stalker. He’d sent Mia the e-mails. No, I did. Whether I was aware of him or not, could control him or not, he was me.

  Images of the past few weeks floated like ghosts in the tomb of my mind, a barren wasteland where they hovered and plagued but never held still long enough for me to push them away. Flashes haunted me: Finn, his cheek already swelling as he glared at me from his locker; Mia, cowering with blood blossoming from her head; Addie, sobbing and screaming for me in her dream until her throat was raw.

  Then the images burst through the flood gates I’d carefully erected to protect myself, one pounding over the next: Mia’s parents melting in the blaze; Darkness standing in the road with his maniacal smile; me watching Mia through her window; Dr. Freeburg running his hand up Mia’s leg; the bloody paperweight in my hand; Darkness bashing Mia’s head until hot, red blood was all I could see. They wouldn’t leave me. They were my constant company.

  And there he was, leaning against the wall in the corner of my room. His cold eyes seemed to confirm everything I’d suspected for so long. My control was an illusion. He had the real power—always.

  “So, now you think you know all my secrets?” Darkness sneered and shook his head. “You make things so easy.”

  Pounding sounded on my door. It was locked. Somewhere I recognized the sound of Mom’s voice, yelling about a key. Mom sounded scared. I wondered if she knew she was safer out there than in here with me. Near the window I heard a horrible howling. It was outside, or maybe in my mind. Perhaps it was the sound Dr. Freeburg made when I killed him.

  I leaned out the window and threw up into the bushes. The howling stopped. Only then did I realize that the terrible noise had come from me.

  The door burst open and my mom was next to me, pulling me away from the window. She pushed me back on the bed, speaking in soft tones.

  “Parker! Oh no, oh no.” She grabbed a towel from the bottom of my bed and wrapped it around my hands. That was good. Someone needed to tie me up … lock me away so everyone was safe. But it was just to stop the blood coming from the cuts on my arms. Why was I bleeding? Was it my blood or someone else’s?

  Didn’t she know about all the other blood on my hands? The pain I’d caused? Couldn’t she stop that?

  “No. No. It’s okay. Shh, it’s okay.” Her face was wet as she knelt next to me, warm brown eyes staring into mine. The muscle in her cheek flexed and I could see the fear behind her trembling hands. She was trying to be strong, always strong. “It’s only a nightmare. It will pass. Shh.”

  I wanted to tell her to run, to get away from me as fast as she could, but I was weak. Words were past me, so far away I couldn’t reach them. My hands and arms were still bleeding a little. Blood covered me inside and out: my clothes, my sheets, my thoughts.

  Darkness stood in the back of the room. He watched us. I closed my eyes and breathed the smell of my mom, a combination of peppermint gum and rose lotion that always signaled home for me. I tried to absorb it, willing it to wash all my thoughts away.

  To wash Darkness away.

  My eyes were closed but I wasn’t sleeping. Time was a distorted abstract that didn’t matter anymore. The last two days I’d spent mostly watching Mom’s dreams, watching the white walls of my void, or in bed pretending to be asleep. My mom’s dreams were filled with worry about me. They tumbled me in guilt and refused to release me until morning. Still, they were better than the nightmare my life had become.

  The bandages on my arms itched. My hands were healing faster, but there were nicks and scratches all over me. Half a cardboard box covered the hole where my window used to be. I could have just opened it. Not my most brilliant moment, or my sanest for that matter.

  I’d caught up on my sleep during my hospital stay, so my more-rested mind refused to give up the way I wanted it to. It wanted a plan, and my tattered emotions couldn’t present a valid argument against it. Denial was getting me nowhere. Neither was bashing the window with a trophy, cutting my arms up, and puking—although it’d been worth a try.

  One fact kept bobbing back up to the surface like a body that wasn’t tied down properly. I needed to make my decisions now, when I was still rested. It was the only way to be sure I had control.

  Sitting up in bed, I slipped on a pair of shoes. The house was quiet and I needed some fresh air to think. If I could sneak past Mom, or if she was out somewhere, I could go to the back porch and breathe for a minute.

  I stood up and a shudder ran through me. It happened every minute or so, like clockwork. Nothing I did could stop it. My body wanted to rid itself of the foul creature inside it. It wanted me gone, and I wished I could oblige. I’d probably already killed one person, and the only thing I could do to even begin to make amends before I was gone would be to make sure I didn’t kill anyone else.

  I passed through the kitchen on my way to the bathroom. The note on the table said Mom went to the store, so I had a few minutes to myself. In the bathroom, I tried to keep my eyes closed as much as possible. One glance in the mirror brought on another shudder. My skin had a weird greenish tinge, and in spite of the extra sleep I’d gotten, my blue eyes were pale against the dark hollows beneath them. I looked like death. Maybe I was death.

  Shuffling out the back door, I pulled out one of the black wrought-iron chairs on the deck and slumped into it. The metal was frigid even through my sweats, but my mind felt clearer and more focused from the cold. I rubbed my hands over my arms and wished the sun would come out from behind the clouds for just a few minutes before it set against the horizon.

  Okay, no more stalling. I needed a plan. The way I saw it, I had three options. I could run away, confess to the police, or kill myself.

  I rapped my knuckles against the iron tabletop and shook my head. I’d spent too long fighting to keep myself alive for suicide to ever sound like a good plan. Of course, if that was the only way to keep from killing again, from killing Mia, then I would do it. But I’d prefer the other options first.

  Confessing came with its own set of problems. The more I thought about it, the more I thought no one would believe me if I tried to confess. There was no real way to prove it. My confession would be full of holes big enough to run a hearse through.

  My chair creaked as I leaned back. Assuming they could try me as an adult and get me convicted—both of which I doubted—and that they didn’t put me in the mental hospital—again, improbable—I couldn’t even begin to imagine how horrific it would be to experience the dreams of other criminals every night in jail.

  The wind picked up and blew a few leaves around on the grass below. I shivered. Part of me felt like I deserved to watch the dreams of killers and thieves, a fitting punishment. The other part knew it would make things worse. My gut instinct told me that Darkness would take over more and more every day if I was surrounded by criminals, seeing their dreams and feeling their emotions.

  No. I’d rather be dead than alive with Darkness in complete control.

  Standing up, I walked to the railing, resting my bandaged arms on the worn wood. I was left with only one option. Running away was an unknown, but at least it would keep the people I cared about out of danger. Maybe to the desert or out in the woods, somewhere I wouldn’t be around anyone. My life, as I knew it anyway, was over.

  I stood outside on the deck until my body ached from the cold, then came back inside to my computer and sat down. Emptiness filled me as I pushed the power button and the screen blazed to life. Every hope I’d ever had retreated to a safe place deep within as I opened up the first e-mail and started reading.

  I kept expecting memories of the e-mails to surface now that I’d accepted the truth, but they didn’t. I wasn’t sure if I’d protected myself from them, or if Darkness just kept them private. Either way, I was grateful. Knowing he had that much power was enough. I didn’t need to remember any more than that.

  Over the next
hour, I forced myself to read every de-praved sentence I’d sent to Mia. Every word, every threat, every perverse declaration of love. I read them again and again until I was numb. They were filled with imagery from her nightmares—fire and blood. The only time she didn’t receive one was while I was in the hospital. She must have been terrified—should still be terrified.

  I checked the date on the last one against the date in the corner of my computer screen—yesterday. Last night, while I’d been watching another of my mom’s worried dreams, sleeping in my own bed for the first time in nearly a week.

  I coiled into myself, pulling my arms in a tight protective ball around my head until my body stopped shaking. Even now, I had less control than I thought.

  Opening the last e-mail again, I pushed all my emotions away as I studied it. It was the shortest of all, only six words long.

  Time is nigh—time to die

  I forced away the little voice in my head that rebelled against the idea that these were my words. I couldn’t suffer under that delusion anymore. The intent was clear. Part of me, somewhere down deep that I didn’t want to know about, wanted Mia dead—and soon.

  But why? Why would I want Mia dead? She was the only one who could save me.

  It didn’t matter why. These weren’t my motivations; they belonged to Darkness. It should be a relief that at least part of my mind still didn’t understand the monster within me.

  Then bubbles of fury broke through my numbness. He’d ruined everything. Stolen my last hope, my life, my friends, even my ability to die near those I loved. Darkness was my enemy, and I felt that driving desire to kill that I’d felt in Dr. Freeburg’s dream. I knew if I could, I would act on that instinct. I would kill Darkness. He was dangerous—to me and everyone around me. My eyes dropped to my hands. I gripped the keyboard in front of me so tight that the skin under my thumbnails turned purple.

  But how do I fight an enemy that is inside me?