Not Alone

by Frederic Martin

  He rolled his eyes and wondered if she could see it. She didn’t seem to be getting the hint. “It’s not like you aren’t miss pale-face.”

  “I’ve got long dark hair to cover my face.”

  “So, what are you suggesting, that I wear a cat mask?” This time he didn’t hold back on the sarcasm.

  Blue ignored him. Her shadow shrunk low as she leaned down, apparently reaching for something on the ground. He heard her spit and the next thing he knew he felt something slimy being smeared on his cheeks.

  He jerked back. “Jesus! What the hell are you doing?”

  “Don’t be a wuss,” she said. “I’m just putting some dirt on your face.”

  “With your spit!?”

  “Hold still!”

  He felt her fingers slime more dirt on. He pulled away again. This time she let him. Her silhouette head tilted back and forth, considering her work. He rubbed some of the dirt off. It felt gooey. “God that’s gross.”

  “Not bad,” she voxed. “But ashes would be better.”

  “Ashes? And spit? This just keeps getting better and better.”

  “Don’t be stupid. You don’t need spit when you use ashes.”

  He wiped away as much as he could but as the remaining dirt dried, it made a crusty coating on his cheeks that crackled if he moved. “I’m not sure I’m up for this anymore. I mean, what’s the point anyway if I can’t balance in the dark?”

  Blue put her hand up to her mouth and stared at him. Her finger tapped her cheek thoughtfully.

  “Try this. Every time you are standing around, lift one foot, close your eyes and balance,” she voxed. “And walk around with your eyes closed. I practice walking around the house with my eyes closed all the time. And I don’t just walk around, I do other things, like getting out my toothbrush and toothpaste, and brushing my teeth all with my eyes closed. It makes you work to remember where everything is.”

  “Doesn’t everyone give you strange looks when you’re doing that?” asked Will.

  She looked down. “Strange looks are about all I get any time.” She picked up a small stick and started poking at the ground absent-mindedly. “I don’t much care what anyone thinks about what I do anymore,” she said.

  Will didn’t say anything for a moment. He couldn’t stay irritated with her. She was well-meaning in her own way. And he was actually having probably one of the best times of his life sneaking out at night with her. “Well, I care,” he said at last. “I think it’s cool, you trying to teach me, and all.”

  Blue just kept poking away at the ground.

  “Why did you to learn this stuff in the first place?” he asked.

  “I had to,” she said, still not looking up.

  “You had to?”

  There was a short silence before Blue’s reply. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She stood up abruptly and started walking away.

  “Hey! Wait up!” He jumped up after her.

  Blue didn’t look back, she just kept moving, but she slowed down. Will kept pace with her but gave her space. She wasn’t trying to stay concealed anymore. She just walked like she didn’t care. They reached the O’Day hedge. She stopped but didn’t look at Will.

  It was making him uncomfortable that they were just standing there out in the open. It wasn’t likely that anyone in the house would see them, but if they did, these little excursions really would be over. And who knows what would happen to Blue.

  “Blue, we should at least get out of the light,” he whispered.

  She turned to him, the slanting shadows highlighting a face with a complete lack of emotion, as if her brain was too busy to bother updating her expression.

  “Hey. You okay?”

  Her face woke up just a little and looked at him as if it just remembered he was there.

  “I’m fine! Just go home,” she voxed in a flat tone. She turned away again as if to go and then abruptly turned back. She glanced up at him, the stony look on her face gone and replaced with something that looked more alive. She started to say something, then stopped, paused and put her hand on his chest. “Just practice,” she voxed softly. It was less than what she was going to say, he could tell, but exactly what she was going to say was still too much for him to guess.

  Without another word she turned and slipped through the bushes and across the yard. Whatever had been going on inside her, she had shaken it off because she moved exactly like a cat over to the trellis on the end of the O’Day house. She climbed the trellis like a squirrel and slipped into the half-open window on the second floor.

  He shook his head half in exasperation and half in admiration. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of her. Sneaking out with her had been fun and exciting, but it was like walking on eggshells around her sometimes. Some things just set her off. Especially when he asked her about her past. But her past is what he wanted to know, for God’s sake. He’d been like an open book to her about his. The only thing he knew for certain about her past was that a lot of demons seemed to be lurking there.

  Blue stared at the ceiling above her bed trying to get a grasp on the jumble of thoughts in her head, but each time she focused on one, another would nudge it out of the way like a room full of noisy puppy dogs nosing for attention. She sighed and rolled onto her side and stared at the shadows dancing on her dresser from the dim cast of the waxing moon shining through the trees outside her window. They were fuzzy and complex, just like her thoughts. She had shut Will down when he asked her about why she started sneaking out. And she felt bad about it and that confused her. Why should she care about how he felt? These damn caring feelings were happening an awful lot lately.

  She tried to think about something less confusing She thought about how clumsy Will was and how hard he was trying. He had run straight into that branch and plopped right onto his butt. And she had giggled. Actually giggled. It felt so strange. She tried to remember the last time a giggle had escaped her lips. It sounded so girly yet she didn’t mind. Maybe it was because it was the first time she was with someone who wouldn’t judge. Will accepted her for who she was. A really decent guy. When she had shut him down, he had even asked her if she was okay. He acted as if he cared. God, there it was again, caring feelings!

  The problem was they felt good. They comforted her. Comfort, care, care, comfort. It was like a soft chant that drowned out the other crazy thoughts. She realized these thoughts were relaxing her. Sleepiness started to creep up on her. She welcomed it, pushing off her instinctive built-in wariness that she should never relax. Relaxing meant letting her guard down. Letting her guard down always led to bad things. The problem was, it hadn’t lately. And relaxing felt so good. Yet the wariness remained there, like a tired old guard that was starting to feel like his usefulness was outgrown but still had a duty to stand his station. “Just sleep tonight, Mr. Wariness,” thought Blue as she settled her head in her pillow and pulled the covers up around her like a soft cocoon. “Just sleep.” And he did, and she did—a sweet peaceful sleep.

  And that’s when it returned—her night demon. She thought she had seen the last of it years ago, but here it was creeping up on her in a way that was far too familiar. She was asleep, but aware she was asleep and dreaming. It was always vivid, one of those dreams you swear was real, but this one was terrifying and the terror always seized her in a suffocating grip and never allowed her to wake up until the entire dream had played itself out, leaving her feeling shipwrecked. Shipwrecked on the shores of morning. It was like living through death.

  In the early days after the fire, when she was out of control and when she suffered the first visits of this night demon, she was glad of the sedatives they had given her. Those were the only thing that seemed to quell the nightmare. But it wasn’t long before the sedatives themselves started wreaking their own havoc on her sanity. She was sleepy and dizzy all the time, and she started seeing things, dreaming during the daytime. They very soon had to take her off the sedatives. However, to her relief, the dream had stopped, at l
east for a while. It stayed away until, in her first foster home, it came back. That time she hid it from everyone, because she didn’t want to go back on the horrible sedatives.

  At first she tried to change something in the dream in order to change the outcome. Instead of changing the outcome, however, something new and horrible would happen, but the ending was always the same. Then, for a while, she tried to hide in the dream, so she wouldn’t see what happened. It didn’t matter. No matter what she did, she knew that the story was going to end the same. She knew it was a dream, but it was a memory, too, and she couldn’t change what was real. It had to play itself out with the same ending every time.

  This time, however, she was ready. She had changed a lot since the last time it came. Her world was finally stable. This time she was going to accept it for what it was—a very bad memory. She had grown out of it now, she was confident. She had to accept the past. Still, once the dream had started, she knew she had to let it play out to the end.

  It started the same way every time. She and her father, outside after dinner playing night-tag. It was the week of her tenth birthday. Her mother and little sister were inside washing dishes—it was Heather’s turn to help and Blue’s turn to play. She heard a soft, “Coo coo! Coo coo!” It was her father’s call. The game was that one person would hide, but they would call with their voice—their vox—and the other person would try to find them. Because of how their vox reflected off of so many things, it was a game of ventriloquism—make your vox come from a tree, or the greenhouse, or the pond. It was great fun. He called again, “Coo coo! Coo coo! Come fiiiind meeee!” It seemed like it was from the greenhouse, but Blue had been fooled by that too many times. She knew it was reflecting from someplace opposite the greenhouse. She started tip-toeing toward the bushes across from the greenhouse.

  Just as she started to move, she heard a car and she turned to look down their long twisting driveway. She could see headlights weaving slowly through the trees. Her Dad came out of the darkness and stood quietly beside her, just like he had done in the dream a dozen times before.

  Her conscious mind tried to be indifferent to the dream, knowing that it didn’t matter. She knew who was in the car coming up the driveway and she knew what her father was going to say. She would try to run away before he said it, but that changed nothing, and then she tried warning him, but he didn’t listen. This time she just waited for him to say the words.

  He turned to her and started to speak. She looked up at him, waiting for the words. But for the first time, the dream had changed. It wasn’t her father looking down at her.

  It was Will.

  A searing hot wave of panic surged through her. She screamed—that is, she opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She tried to vox, but it was silent. She did everything to keep the words from coming, but they came anyway. They were her father’s words, only in Will’s voice. “You stay put here, little Bluebell. Be quiet as a mouse, and stay hidden! You know how! I’ll come get you as soon as these people are gone. Now look at me.” He held her chin in his hand—she tried not to look but it was part of the script, she had to look. She always looked. She needed to—to get that last glimpse of her father. It was the last time she would see his face. Only this time it was Will’s face. “You have to stay hidden no matter what! Promise me this. Promise!” He looked her straight in the eyes with the eyes that only those who can vox have, and she nodded as she knew she had to. And he went to meet the car.

  She could feel she was drenched with sweat and she tried to wake up, but she couldn’t. She knew what came next and she was afraid of what she would see, because she knew this dream was different, so much different than before. But her role didn’t change, she was powerless to prevent herself from going through the same motions. She looked toward the door of their house and she saw her mother and sister standing there, as she knew they would be, looking out the door and, curious to see who was coming. But father—Will—shooed them back inside. She saw their faces as they turned into the light to go back inside, but the faces didn’t belong to her mother and her sister this time.

  This time, the shock was so absolute, she couldn’t stay asleep. Even though the dream had not played out to the end, it had already surpassed itself in its devilishness, and it willingly released her. She woke up with a gasp, unable to take a breath, her arms pushing her away from her bed and her back arched in a spasm of shock. Her pajamas were soaked, her sheets were soaked, and her head was dripping with sweat. She felt the scream welling up from the deepest darkest part of her, and she plunged her face into her pillow before it could escape. The scream slammed into the pillow as she clutched it to her face desperately. She was terrified that someone would hear her. She nearly suffocated herself to keep from being heard but she couldn’t stop. She rocked back and forth shouting, “NO! NO! NO! NO!” into the pillow, demanding that the vision leave her head. But the faces wouldn’t leave.

  They were the faces of Ma Beth and Rose.

  16

  Lab Discovery

  Will had trouble dragging himself out of bed the next morning. He and Blue must have been out until about 2 a.m. so he’d gotten five hours of sleep, max. And this morning was a work morning. His mom kept having to nudge him to wake him up.

  “Come on kid, time to get up and at ‘em,” she said, giving him a push with her foot, for the third time.

  “Uh . . . did I fall asleep again? I’m coming, I’m coming. Just five more minutes . . .” replied Will in a groggy voice.

  “Not this time, Mister. You’ve had your five minutes. Twice. Now get up! Honestly what has gotten into you the past week? You’ve been oversleeping almost every morning!” His mom felt his forehead. “No fever, so no skipping work. C’mon, your father’s waiting.”

  Will managed to pull his clothes on, drag himself to the bathroom, stuff some breakfast down, and flop into the passenger seat of his dad’s car.

  His dad didn’t seem to notice Will’s lethargy, and he launched excitedly into talking about what they were going to do today. “Will, I think you’re going to find this incredibly interesting. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to experiment with this for a long time but never had the funding to do it. That and the technology has gotten more affordable and with my grant money, I’m finally able to do it. I’ve just received an infrared night vision camera for my research and, well . . . you’ll just have to see for yourself. It’s one of those things that you can explain and theorize about, and then one day you think of a way to visualize it and boom, there you go. It is so obvious! They say a picture can paint a thousand words, and it is true . . .” He trailed off as he appeared to slip deep into thought.

  This outburst of speech brought Will out of his stupor, “Whoa, whoa Dad, slow down. What are you talking about? Night vision camera? But we don’t have night vision—not really, just infrared voice . . . eyes . . . vox oculis. What is it you are talking about?”

  “Well, my ‘official’ research actually is about night vision and other types of vision, but for us, for vox, well you’ll just have to see!” said his dad.

  The night vision camera was very cool. It had an infrared illuminator—like a night vision flashlight—on top of what looked like a small telescope, only with buttons and switches like a camera.

  “Is this a telescope or camera or a flashlight?” asked Will.

  “All of the above,” said his dad. “It has lenses like a telescope, but instead of the light going to your eye, it goes to a video sensor that then turns the light into an image and displays it on a tiny screen inside the eyepiece, which you look through like a camera. The sensors can detect not only visible light but short infrared, too . . . the same sort of light that our eyes use for vox oculis.”

  “You mean you can see the light in our eyes?” said Will.

  His dad smiled. “See for yourself. Just flick the red switch on the side, and look through the camera and focus on me, but don’t turn on the flashlight part.” Then his dad moved to stan
d opposite him.

  Will turned the switch on. A slight glow came from the eyepiece as the internal screen lit up. He looked through the eyepiece at the screen and then pointed the camera at his dad.

  At first, he didn’t notice anything except that the image in the screen was sort of off-color—more like a black and white image than a regular color image. He pointed it at his dad’s face and focused on his eyes. They looked normal but then suddenly they flashed bright and Will heard in his head a strange chopped up vox “C..a..r..p..e..D..i..e..m”. He nearly dropped the camera.

  “Holy crap! Dad!”

  His dad started chuckling. “Cool, eh?”

  “Oh my God! Do it again!” He held up the night vision camera once again. This time, when the flash came he heard “T..e..m..p..u..s..F..u..g..i..t”. He put the camera down. “Dad, this is incredible! No one has ever tried this before?”

  “Well, no one that I know of,” said his dad, “And I think I know every one of our kind that has studied this.”

  “So why does your vox sound all chopped up? How did you do that?” asked Will.

  “Well, it’s because this camera wasn’t designed for sound, it was designed for images,” said his dad.

  “I don’t get it. Why would that make a difference? Isn’t sound simpler to capture than images?” asked Will.

  “That is a very keen observation, and that is indeed true. But an interesting thing about our vision is that it responds slower than our ears. Our brain can only process images at about 40 images per second, but it can process sounds coming to our ears at up to 20,000 cycles per second! You see, this camera only captures light at 40 frames per second, but our eyes vox sound signals at much higher frequencies. You can only hear very low-frequency vox through the camera, which is why I said ‘carpe diem’ very low and slow.”