The Delusion

by Laura Gallier

  He lifted his face to the blue sky. “I’m just a messenger.”

  I heard a car horn and turned to look. Ray Anne was slowing and pulling over. I turned back to the old man. But he was gone.

  Ray Anne drove me home, explaining how she’d made a last-minute decision to turn onto that street; otherwise she never would have spotted me. She was horrified by my bloodied appearance, but I was just grateful to be alive.

  She pulled into my driveway and said she’d be back soon to check on me. I insisted on walking to the front door by myself—my way of proving that I really wasn’t a weakling, even if I did just get my tail handed to me.

  I hobbled into the house, and my mom took one look at me and went nuts. I felt different around her now. I was actually glad she was home. And sober.

  It would have been difficult to bring up what I’d just learned about her, even on a normal day, but now definitely wasn’t the time. She pulled out a first aid kit I never knew we had and demanded to know who hurt me.

  I didn’t tell her. She knew where Lance lived, and she was acting like one of those moms—you know, the kind that would take on a Navy SEAL if she found out he’d messed with her boy. I told her it was some guys I didn’t know.

  She wanted to drive me to the ER, but I refused. So she bandaged me the best she could and tanked me full of pain meds.

  My head was so sore it hurt to rest it on my pillow, and I was sure I had some broken ribs. No matter how I turned, I couldn’t get comfortable on my mattress, my body throbbing and my mind racing.

  There was no doubt now—I’d witnessed Dan in a full-blown possession. I tried telling myself it was Rage, not Dan, who’d attempted to beat me to death today, but I couldn’t stop blaming Dan.

  Lance, too.

  I finally fell asleep but woke around midnight to answer my cell. Mrs. Greiner, of all people, calling from out of town.

  “Have you heard from Ray Anne? She’s not returning our calls, and we’re worried sick.”

  Come to think of it, she never came back to check on me. That wasn’t like her at all.

  Her mom’s voice shook with distress. “Our neighbor saw her late this afternoon, and she said she was headed to the woods, of all places. You have any idea why?”

  “Uh, no, I . . .”

  I dropped my phone.

  Please tell me she didn’t.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  IT WAS PAINFUL TO get dressed. I hobbled out the door and drove my motorcycle like a madman to the dirt path in the woods that leads to the water well—where eyes could be opened or sealed forever.

  I still didn’t understand the old man’s explanation about motives. But I knew the outcome of drinking that water was severe, no matter the motive.

  When I saw Ray Anne’s car parked by the dirt trail, I nearly went into cardiac arrest. I grabbed my big flashlight and charged as fast as I could through the maze of towering pines, dodging fallen branches and scrawny shrubs and slippery rocks. Ray Anne didn’t know where the clearing was, but she did know what to look for and what it would sound like—thanks to me.

  I made it there and shined my light in every direction. No sign of her. I shouted her name, bracing my aching rib cage, unwilling to consider that I might be too late.

  As I approached the well, I stepped on something. A yellow cup, the same kind the Greiners kept in their kitchen cabinet.

  “Ray Anne!”

  I ran around the perimeter, shining my light in sweeping arcs, desperate to find her yet terrified that I’d see her body.

  Finding nothing, I walked back in the direction of her car, taking a close look along the path. Minutes later, my world flatlined. There she was. In the brush, lying on her side, her back to me.

  Totally still.

  I dropped to my knees behind her and gently pulled her over, onto her back. Eyes closed. No signs of life. Then . . .

  “Owen?”

  It was so faint it was almost like I’d imagined it. But her eyelids parted. I let out the biggest sigh of relief of my lifetime, then bent down and pressed my cheek against hers. She was freezing.

  There was no time. I scooped her into my arms. She winced and grabbed her stomach. “It hurts.”

  “I know. Just hold on, Ray. I’m getting you out of here.”

  I hoisted her off the ground, then walked the best I could in the dark, my injuries screaming at me. The walk was bumpy and exhausting, and she moaned the whole time, eventually mumbling, “Are you mad at me?”

  “No. I’m mad at myself.”

  I pulled her keys from her pocket and lowered her into the passenger seat of her car. I worried she’d be dead by the time I walked around to the driver’s side. When I slid into the seat, she was pale, shivering, and hardly able to keep her eyes open. But alive.

  I pulled onto the road and floored it.

  She couldn’t quit rubbing her gut and forehead, just like I’d done. Just like I’d seen Walt and Marshall do.

  “I didn’t know it would hurt this bad.” She faced away from me, knees bent into her chest.

  “I’m taking you to the hospital.”

  “What?” She managed to angle toward me. “I just need to sleep it off, like you did.”

  “No, Ray Anne. You can’t.”

  I felt like I was going to throw up, only something much worse than vomit was about to come out—a heinous confession. I waited until we passed through a brightly lit intersection and faded back into the cloak of night. She reached and dug her nails into my arm, groaning.

  “Ray, you’re going to hate me once and for all for this, but there’s something I haven’t told you. I haven’t told a single soul. But I have to tell you now. It’s a matter of life and death.”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and smothered an avalanche of emotion. “This is really hard to say, but you deserve to know the truth. Ray Anne, there’s a very strong chance that . . . that you may not survive this.”

  She pulled her cupped hand from her mouth. “What do you—”

  “It’s my fault. Walt and Marshall—they’re dead because of me!” I couldn’t help but yell. “They wouldn’t quit insulting me, so I took them to the water. Dared them to drink it. And it killed them. And it’s probably doing the same thing to you.” I gassed it through a stop sign, jaws clenched. I could actually feel the blood vessels in my eyes throbbing.

  She let go of my arm and sank back into a ball in the seat, shaking with sobs. My confession had destroyed her, just like I thought it would.

  “I would ask your forgiveness, but there’s no forgiving this, Ray Anne. I know that. You begged me to be honest with you, and if I would’ve just had the guts to own up to what I did, you wouldn’t be in danger right now.”

  The pain of my selfish choices was sharp and deep, like a knife in my chest. I wiped my face, then reached for her hand, stroking and squeezing her fingers. She didn’t squeeze back.

  “You didn’t deserve this.” I said it over and over.

  Then finally, the ER. I waited in the lobby, slouched over in my chair, shoes buried in death dust—might as well call it what it was.

  A nurse got in touch with Ray Anne’s parents, and they were trying to get a flight home. They’d already lost one child. Surely fate wouldn’t make them bury two. I hoped.

  A doctor approached and questioned me—not Dan’s dad, to my relief. “She keeps saying it was just water, but that doesn’t make sense.”

  “It is water, but it can be harmful.” I wanted him to understand so they didn’t chalk it up to something as basic as the flu and release her.

  “How do you know?”

  I struggled to maintain eye contact. “I just know.”

  He looked me over, furrowing his brow at the sight of my busted-up face. “What happened to you?”

  “Some guys . . .”

  He turned my chin, taking a closer look. “You were attacked?”

  I nodded. “But it’s her I’m worried about.”

  He instructed me to follow hi
m, then led me through some double doors into the ER. He motioned for me to sit on a stiff chair in a small room that smelled like Band-Aids and alcohol, and he made it clear I was to stay there. Finally, he left me alone.

  I couldn’t sit. I paced the room, agonizing. It hurt to walk, but I deserved it.

  From day one, all Ray Anne had wanted was to help me. And now that desire was destroying her.

  I heard the doctor say my name, and when I peeked out the door, he was pointing in my direction. I scrambled back, trying to gather my runaway thoughts. There was no way out—of the room or my circumstances.

  I faced the door and squared my shoulders, waiting. Seconds passed.

  Then Detective Benny found me.

  I’d never been inside a squad car before. From the backseat, I could see Detective Benny and Officer McFarland through squares formed by metal bars—a barrier to keep deviants and thugs and liars like me away from law enforcement.

  We were parked outside the hospital, engine running, both officers waiting for an explanation as to how yet another person connected to me was suffering.

  This whole ordeal had gone way too far, and I’d do anything if it could somehow help Ray Anne survive. But would they even believe me if I told the truth?

  Benny turned and scowled from the passenger seat. “Why don’t you tell us what’s really going on, son? So we can help you?”

  I had to give up my old story, even without my lawyer there. I took a deep breath. Held it awhile, then . . .

  “I’ve been living a lie, and I’m sick of it.”

  Detective Benny pulled out a digital recorder and motioned for me to keep going.

  I told him about the well—how I drank from it and felt like my body was shutting down. “But the next day,” I explained, “I woke up, completely fine. Still sick to my stomach but fine. I can’t say why for sure, but it bothered me. I’d expected to die—you know, have everyone grieve my death—but instead, I had to face another ordinary, depressing day. That’s when I started making things up.”

  “What kind of things?” Benny said.

  I worked to look him in the eye.

  “I pretended to see people wearing shackles, like they were enslaved by aliens or demons or something, and I was the only one who could see it. That, and also chains and gross cords draping from people’s heads. At first it was cool, like a thrilling thing in my mind. But then . . .”

  “Then what?”

  “I got carried away and started telling people, like it was real. I even said I saw evil beings attacking them.”

  Officer McFarland glared over his shoulder.

  “I know it’s weird, but it’s not like I’m crazy. I just liked the attention. The excitement, I guess.”

  Detective Benny shook his head. “Did you tell Walt and Marshall these stories?”

  “Not exactly. They heard it from someone else, then they brought it up the day we went to the park. They came down on me so hard about it, I wanted to make them pay—but not with their lives. I swear! I thought if I took them to the woods and gave them a sip of the water, they’d get sick, like I did. I never meant for anything worse than that to happen.”

  Benny huffed. “Why’d you keep this from us?”

  I tried to swallow, but it felt like I had a wad of cotton in my mouth. “I got scared. Even though I had no idea that the water could be deadly, I was afraid that if it somehow now turned out to be, it would look like I meant to kill them.”

  I shifted in my seat, weighing what I was about to say next. “And I was ashamed—really embarrassed about how out of control my fantasies had become. I couldn’t bring myself to come clean.”

  Benny wanted to know why Ray Anne had drunk the water, and I explained that she’d wanted to see the supernatural stuff like me, even though I’d warned her over and over not to do it. “She actually believed my stories. She believed them so much that she searched for the water and drank it, knowing it would make her sick.”

  Officer McFarland put the car into drive, and the detective made a phone call, arranging for some forensics people to meet us. I sat back in the worn seat, looking out at familiar street signs and intersections, mostly empty this time of night.

  How had my life come to this? My small world—so intense and complicated. And Ray Anne’s life hanging in the balance.

  We parked in the woods, and when Benny’s team arrived, I led them to the infamous spot.

  A lady in gloves retrieved the yellow cup and put it in a plastic bag. They found a sports drink bottle in the brush and bagged it, too. Had to be Marshall’s or Walt’s.

  They hovered over the well, raising and lowering the bucket, collecting numerous samples of the water that had destroyed my life and annihilated others’. About the only good that had come from drinking it was that it had led me to Ray Anne, but even that was a train wreck now.

  A forensics guy shined his flashlight down into the well, then back at the bucket several times. He finally spoke up. “This well looks dry.”

  The woman next to him smirked. “Clearly it’s not.” She tucked the water samples into a bag.

  The guy shined his light back and forth a few more times but kept his mouth shut.

  If there was any trace of toxins on anything, I’d be faced with proving it wasn’t my doing—that I wasn’t some kind of serial killer. If it was clean, I’d likely walk away. But if Ray Anne didn’t survive, it wouldn’t matter if they labeled me a sociopath and locked me up forever.

  They let me leave on my motorcycle—still parked near the clearing—and it was almost four in the morning when I got back to the hospital. The walk to the front desk was unnerving, like I was shuffling down a narrow plank, about to be shoved into the deep ocean or allowed to stay on board depending on the answer to my question.

  “Excuse me, how is Ray Anne Greiner?”

  The lady scanned her computer monitor. The longest thirty seconds of my life. “All I can tell you is that she’s been transferred to a recovery room.”

  My upper body collapsed onto the countertop like a wet noodle, my forehead pressed against the chilled granite. “Thank you, God.”

  It rolled off my tongue without any thought. A cliché, really.

  “Visiting hours aren’t until 9:00 a.m.,” the lady said.

  I went home and took a long, very hot shower. Death dust doesn’t wash off, by the way. It has to erode off of both clothing and skin. I tried not to think about where it came from.

  At exactly 9:00 a.m., I sat in a chair next to Ray Anne’s bed, scooting close enough to touch her hand, but careful not to wake her. The color had returned to her face. It made me smile. I watched her breathe, the soft, rhythmic sound like a melody in my ears. I’d never had feelings for someone like this—not this much or this strong. Sitting there watching her, an unfamiliar certainty took hold of my will and emotions: I’d spend the rest of my life with this girl if she’d let me.

  If she’d let me.

  I’d really blown it this time.

  I leaned in and stroked her cheek with the back of my hand, taking in every curve and detail of her face. Her lips—easy for the taking. But I’d stolen enough from her.

  It was May 21, two days before the suspected mass attack. But I couldn’t worry about that right now. I eased back into my chair and waited for Ray Anne’s blue eyes to open. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stop my own eyelids from drifting shut.

  The next thing I knew, Ray Anne was cowering in the corner of the room, glaring at me.

  I stood. “Ray, I’m so glad you’re okay.” I stepped toward her, reaching out, but she wedged herself deeper into the corner.

  “What is it?” I took two more steps, and she sank to the floor.

  “Don’t! Stay away!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  I took another step, and she shielded her head. “I see it.”

  “See what?”

  Slowly, she lowered her arms, then pointed at me. “You . . . you have a shackle, Owen. Around your nec
k.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  I RACED OUT OF the hospital like I was on fire. In a way, I was. Once I learned that I was shackled like masses of other doomed human beings, my last few shreds of hope went up in flames.

  What a sick joke. I was on a mission to figure out how to free others, and all along, my soul was caught in the same unrelenting trap.

  Once home, I rushed upstairs and stared at my pathetic reflection in the bathroom mirror. I was cut and bruised from yesterday’s beating, but other than that, everything looked normal. I could see others’ bondage with such clarity, but my own eluded me.

  I stumbled into my bedroom feeling like I weighed a ton—like gravity had a heightened hold on me. And the one person I would normally run to at a time like this now considered me a monster. Ray Anne would want to stay as far away from me as she could. Probably seek out other glowing people and pity the rest of us from a distance.

  The thought came to me to take my life, but I shoved it out of my mind. Molek would come claim my soul someday, but I wasn’t going to serve it to him on a silver platter. In my condition, death was a worst-case scenario. Of epic proportions.

  I sank to the floor and wrapped my arms around my frostbitten gut, imagining another form of escape. I had to leave—leave Masonville behind and go somewhere. Anywhere but here. I’d start a new life, but this time, I’d keep my stories of terror all to myself.

  No friends. No attachments. No dreams of happiness. Just survival.

  I knew full well that my new plan would likely land me under a highway overpass, filthy and stinky and swatting at Creepers, but if that was my fate, so be it. I wasn’t willing to stick around and keep exhausting myself trying to take on Creepers and rescue people.

  Who was I kidding? If Molek and his underlings were planning to rain down a holocaust tomorrow, there was nothing I could do. Maybe if I glowed, I’d discover a way to fight back, eventually even expel him from Masonville for good. But no. I was just another shackled freak.

  I got to my feet and started throwing clothes into the biggest duffel bag I owned. I decided I’d drive east and see where I ended up. Maybe I’d leave the country at some point. Settle down in a different hemisphere.