by E. C. Bell
That scream drove me to my knees, because she wasn’t just screaming out loud, she was screaming in her head, and then she was screaming in my head, and with the screams came pictures, not pictures but a movie—a silent movie with only her screams punctuating the horror that was being shown on the screen of my mind.
I started screaming too. I couldn’t help it. The jerky, shadowy, snowy images drove it out of me as surely as if I was being beaten to death. Again.
I could see my face. My screaming face. And I screamed, matching the image. Watched me as I begged for my life, among the rain of blows. Then I was being dragged to the tree, and I could see the hammer, and I watched the blood, and it all came back to me, the way I had died came back to me, a rain of blows hitting me so hard I curled into a ball on the floor by her bed.
“Stop it!” I cried. I was yelling it at her, even though I knew she couldn’t hear me. Because I knew the images of my death—and that’s what I was watching, a frigging movie of my death—were coming from her. And I couldn’t stand it anymore. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”
But she didn’t. Or couldn’t. Just sat upright in her bed, screaming her own ghastly screams at the visions we were both seeing.
I crawled to the door and through to the other room. The visions were not as clear there, but I could still see them, and I could definitely still hear her. So I crawled out of her apartment and into the dark, dank hallway.
Better. Mostly snow, and my eyesight had cleared so I could see where I was going. I pulled myself to my feet, shakily, feeling like I was going to puke. And then, I heard her voice, clear as a bell.
“Trust Marie,” she said in a singsong voice. “She’ll save you. She’ll save us both.”
That’s when I ran to the park and rolled into the first guy I found, taking as much of his high as I could stand. Finally, that voice in my head faded away to grey.
I pulled away from the guy, and stood, shakily, then walked east.
East. Away from the blonde. I was going to get as far away from the blonde as I could. I never wanted to see any of that again. Never wanted to see her again.
Ever.
STAGE TWO
AVOIDANCE, TO THE EXTREME
Marie:
The Next Day Brings More Crap
I THOUGHT I heard the phone ring, but didn’t want to move. I was warm, lying in James’s arms, and I wanted to stay there forever.
James groaned in his sleep, and pulled me closer. My body tingled, that good tingle, and as I snuggled into him, he murmured something, possibly my name—I hoped it was my name—and wrapped his hand in my hair, gently pulling my face close to his.
The phone rang again. I groaned and disengaged myself from James’s warmth, reaching the desk before the phone had a chance to ring a third time. Way deep inside, I was hoping to get rid of whoever it was and sneak back into bed. With James. To hell with normal. Being with him, lying in that bed with him, felt absolutely right.
“What?” I barked.
“Marie?” It was Honoria. Calling the office phone. What was going on?
“Yes,” I said shortly, “I’ll get James.”
“No. I want to talk to you.”
I glanced at the clock. 4:30 in the morning.
“Do you know what time it is?”
“No.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“No.”
I frowned and looked at James, who was moving restively, as though he was waking up. “Can’t this wait until morning?”
“We need to talk. Now.”
I sighed, and grabbed a pad of paper and a pen. My feet were starting to get cold, and I wished I’d grabbed my socks. “All right. Tell me what I need to know.”
“No,” she replied. “Not over the phone. You have to come here.”
“What?”
“Please.”
I looked back at the bed, and the man, once more. “Why?”
“Because I had another dream.” She sniffed, and I almost imagined her crying, distraught.
“Don’t you have sketches or something I could pick up tomorrow?” Please?
“No.” She sniveled, and it was all I could do not to roll my eyes. “This was different. He was here. In my place. I could feel him.”
“Who?” I asked, a jolt of fear running through me. “Who was in your apartment?”
“It was Eddie,” she said.
“The dead guy.”
“Yes. He wanted to talk to me—or something. I tried, but he ran away.” She sobbed. “Please,” she said. “Please come over. By yourself. James wouldn’t understand any of this. You know?”
“I know,” I said. He’d continue to think she was crazy—or worse, he’d think she was trying to make us believe she was crazy, to keep out of jail. “What did Eddie say to you?”
“Please,” she pleaded. “Just come over. I’ll tell you everything. Everything.”
“All right,” I muttered. If this could get me some real information and help me figure out who killed Eddie, I’d do it. “I’ll be there soon.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Hope you weren’t sleeping.”
I looked at the man in the bed, regretfully. So much for my grab at normal.
“No problem,” I whispered, and hung up the phone. “No problem at all.”
I LEFT JAMES a note telling him where I was and crept out of the office. I almost knocked down the chair I’d set under the door handle and froze as it clattered and banged, but James didn’t move.
I walked the fourteen blocks on my own. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as frightening as I thought it was going to be.
It was so late that it was early. The streets had that cold grey look, as though everything in the world were holding its breath, waiting to see if the miracle that was the sun rising would actually happen again. The still air felt cold, and only a couple of cars crept along the streets. Even they were quiet.
I got to Honoria’s apartment building and saw her through the scratched plexiglass of the front door. She let me in.
“Thank you for doing this,” she said.
“You’re welcome.” I tried to keep the aggravation out of my voice, because she really looked spooked. “So, what happened?”
She gestured toward the stairs. “Not here. Let’s talk upstairs.”
I followed her up the flight of stairs to her apartment, where the smell of freshly brewed coffee put me in a better mood almost immediately. Honestly, it was like walking into heaven.
“Want some?” she asked.
“That would be wonderful.” Truly wonderful.
As she poured the coffee, I looked around. The tiny kitchen table was empty of the mound of mail, and her desk was tidy. All the books were back on the shelves, and the air smelled fresher. Less like a cave where someone had hidden out for the past few years. The window in the kitchen was open, and a gentle breeze made the old curtains wave. “Looks nice.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Cleaning helps with the dreams, sometimes.”
I sat down as Honoria brought two steaming cups to the table. I grabbed one and took a sip. It tasted as good as it smelled.
“So, tell me,” I said. “Why did you want to talk to me? James is the private detective, you know. I’m just the—”
“I think we both know you’re more than just a secretary,” Honoria said. “You understand me, better than James does. Don’t you?”
I stared down at my coffee cup as I considered whether I wanted to know what the hell she actually meant by that. Decided I didn’t, and smiled disarmingly. I hoped.
“You said that Eddie came to you in another dream,” I said. “Why don’t you tell me about that?”
“Yeah, okay,” she said. “It started the way all the dreams about him start. At that horrible tree.”
“And you saw the crucifixion?”
“Yes.”
“You see ducks again?”
She blinked, but did not speak, so I tried again.
“You saw the peo
ple wearing duck masks?”
She nodded, once.
I sighed, knowing the next words out of my mouth would sound stupid, but I wanted to eliminate Eddie’s book club foolishness as quickly as possible. “Any old women behind those duck masks?”
“Old women?” Honoria looked surprised, then amused. “No old women. That I’m sure of.”
“I knew it,” I said, feeling quite vindicated. I was good at this detective thing. One question to the right person, and I had the answer Eddie was seeking. “What did you see?”
“Men,” she said shortly. “I saw men doing—that.” She stared again, but this time it was at me. Directly at me. “Why would you ask about women being there?”
“Just trying to eliminate all the possibilities,” I said, studiously ignoring her oh-so-sharp eyes. “What happened next?”
“It moved past the tree pretty quickly, this time,” she said. “But then—”
“What?” I took another sip of coffee and wished she’d get to the point.
“He showed up. Here. In my apartment.”
What?
“You mean, he showed up in your dream. Right?”
“No.” Her voice sharpened, and she frowned. “He was here. Really. I tried to wake up, tried to talk to him, but he freaked out and left.” She laughed, her voice quivering. “This has never happened to me before.”
“Are you telling me Dead Eddie was in your apartment? For real?”
“Yes.”
I wondered, briefly, how Eddie was moving from place to place so effortlessly. This was not usual for a spirit—which was, unfortunately, pretty usual for me. Then, I quit worrying about Eddie, because Honoria said something that freaked me out to the extreme.
“I told him to trust you,” she said.
I blinked. “Why would you tell him to trust me?”
“Because you can see ghosts, too. Can’t you?”
“Huh?”
All right, not the best reaction, but wow, she caught me off-guard.
“That’s your deal, isn’t it? You see ghosts.”
I couldn’t answer her. Just stared, doing my oh-so-famous “deer in the headlights” imitation.
That damned fantastic smile lit up her face. “I knew it,” she said. “I was getting a vibe from you. We have the same gift!”
None of this was going the way it was supposed to. I had come here expecting to have to comfort someone being plagued by her gift, but here she was, happy as a clam, it seemed, and trying to figure out what my deal was. Because she got a vibe from me. A vibe. I was giving off a vibe!
“Don’t you want to talk about your dreams anymore?” I could hear panic in my voice and hated myself for it. “I mean, that’s what I came here for. Because you called.”
“We can talk about that later or you can take the sketches.” She pointed over at her drawing table, and I saw that the stack of drawings was half again as high as it had been when James and I were here before. “Do you get visions, the way I do? Or, is it different?”
“Um.” I tried to figure out a quick and easy way out of both the conversation and the apartment. “I would feel much more comfortable talking about your dreams,” I finally said, stiffly. “Really.”
“I’m sure you would,” she replied. “But . . .”
“But nothing.” This had to stop. “Just leave it alone.”
She stared at me for a long moment, and I felt my face heat. It felt like she could read right through into my soul.
“Have you ever talked to anyone about this?” she asked. “Maybe it would help.”
“I’m normal,” I said.
“Normal. Yeah, I got that.” She stood up and put her mug in the sink. “How’s that working out for you?”
I glared at her, hating her. “It’s working out fine.”
“Yeah, sure. I bet you don’t have many friends in your normal little life, do you? Relationships are hard when you’re lying about yourself all the time.”
“I’m not lying!” I cried. I stood up, so I could get away from her. I didn’t want to hear anything more she had to say. “I just don’t tell everybody everything. That’s all.”
“Lying by omission. Still lying,” she said. “Does anybody know everything about you?”
“My mother,” I whispered.
“And how is she with your everything?”
“She’s fine with it,” I said. “Hey, but why not? She’s the reason—” I cut off my words. What was I doing? Why was I saying anything to her? Had I lost my mind? “Forget it.”
“Ah. So, you have a bit of the love-hate thing going on with her—”
“I love my mother!” I snapped.
She laughed. “And your dad? How does he feel?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “He left, years ago. I don’t have much to do with him anymore.”
“Oh. So you have abandonment issues too.”
“Too? What do you mean by that?” I shook my head, suddenly furious. “I do not have abandonment issues! What are you, a freaking psychiatrist?”
“No.” She laughed. “But I’ve definitely been around them enough to know a few of their favourite theories about why people act the way they do.”
“Well, you’re wrong,” I snapped. “I don’t have abandonment issues, or a love-hate relationship with my mother.”
“Let’s say you’re right,” she replied. “What about relationships with men? Had any good ones? Had any?”
“I’ve had relationships with men!” I barked. Creep Arnie popped into my head, and I did my best to exorcise him. Hoped he was still in jail, for what he’d done to me. Realized that he was the only long-term relationship I’d ever had with a man besides my father.
“What about James?” Honoria asked.
I thought about the cot, and snuggling into James’s warmth, and how right it felt. My face grew hot, and I shook my head.
“What about James?” I snapped. “I have a business arrangement with him, and that’s all. And you know he thinks you’re crazy, don’t you? Absolutely loony. I defended you! If it hadn’t been for me, he wouldn’t even be considering your case! Why would I want to hook up with someone who—”
“Could think that people like us are crazy?”
“Yes.” I grabbed my coat, feeling angry, and stupid, and frightened. All at the same time. And I hated it. “This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come here.”
“Oh, calm down!” Honoria said, a tinge of anger colouring her voice for the first time. “I understand completely why he thinks I’m crazy. Doesn’t surprise me a bit.”
“Well, I don’t,” I replied. “He should be—”
“What? More understanding? Why?”
“Well, because—” Then I really thought about it and didn’t actually have a good answer for that one. “I don’t really know,” I finally said. “It just feels like he should.”
“If you let him in, just a little bit, he probably would be more open to the idea that people like you and me are not crazy, just different,” Honoria said. “You know?”
“I can’t do that,” I said. “Because—”
“Because then he’d leave?” she asked. “Abandonment issues, I—”
“No!” I cried. The fear and anger and stupidity were boiling up in me so I could barely contain myself. I wanted to run away from this woman and her words that were making me feel this way. I wanted her to just shut up. “Because I’m afraid he wouldn’t!”
“Oh.”
She stared at me for a long moment, and I finally had the silence I was hoping for. But in that silence, I had to listen to my own brain trying to make sense of what I had just said.
Was that really it? Was I afraid that he wouldn’t be driven off by my ability? Was I actually afraid that he’d stay—and that I would have to live with my gift, out in the open in front of everybody? Was that really the way I felt?
“I gotta go,” I muttered. “Things to do, and all that.”
“Thanks for coming over,” sh
e said. “I feel better, knowing I have you in my corner.”
“Oh, I don’t think James is going to take your case,” I said. “I think it would be better if you find someone else. I really do.”
Honoria’s eyes narrowed. “Seriously? You’re going to abandon me just because I guessed your stupid secret? You promised—”
“I don’t care what I promised!” I yelled. “He won’t help you! I won’t help you!”
“But you have to,” she said. Her voice turned brittle, angry. “If you don’t, I’ll tell James everything.”
“What?” I swung around, fear making my heart pound so hard I was pretty sure she’d be able to see it through my tee shirt. “You wouldn’t do that!”
“Yes,” she said. “I would.”
I glared at her, feeling sick, and frightened, and angry. Definitely angry. And I believed her. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll convince James to stay on the case. But you say nothing to him about me. Absolutely nothing. Got it?”
“Got it,” she said. Through my haze of fear, I could hear relief in her voice. “Don’t worry. It’ll be our little secret.”
Fantastic.
I grabbed the pile of sketches and left. As I walked the fourteen blocks back to the office, I tried to convince myself that a little bit of blackmail wasn’t going to do anything to wreck what was left of my life.
I just wanted normal. And I knew that James—especially a James who knew my secret—would never fit in that life. Ever.
So I picked up a morning paper. I would scour the want ads, find another job, and get the heck away from stupid James and the ghosts that seemed to haunt everywhere that he was.
Yeah. I even tried to blame him for the ghosts. What kind of a person was I, anyhow?
I was one scared person, that’s what I was. But as I searched those want ads, found a job at the Leary Millworks Inc., and faxed a copy of my resume, I never admitted it to myself, even once.
He could deal with Honoria the frigging clairvoyant. I was done.
