by David Beers
“I looked in the glove compartment and there was a gun inside. And then ….”
Tears sprang to her eyes but she reached up and wiped them away.
“He grabbed me and started choking me. He hadn’t been able to see me before, but he could then. He … He killed me.”
Her voice cracked again and she brought a hand to her mouth.
Daniel reached forward and touched her knee. “You’re okay. Nothing in the visions can hurt you, no matter what they feel like.”
He remained there for a second as she gained control of herself. He didn’t like talking in his house, not about this, but he’d already started. He couldn’t very well make Nicki stand up and walk outside.
“I woke up in the yard,” she said. “I don’t remember going out there.”
He nodded, knowing that those things were just details. The important facts were inside the vision.
“Honey, will you think really hard for a second. Was this the same as what happened in the restaurant? Or could it have been a dream?”
“I … I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know the difference.”
“How real did it feel?”
She shook her head and Daniel thought he saw another part of her trying to take over. She’d been in a state of complete openness for a few minutes, but her rational mind might be trying to reclaim control.
“Look at me.”
Nicki did.
“How real did it feel?”
“Real,” she said, nodding her head quickly. “It felt real.”
Not good, he thought, and on multiple fronts. If it was a vision, then it was coming far too quickly—though that was something he’d have to consider later. The man in the car, that was what mattered.
Was someone coming for his daughter?
“What did the man look like? Could you recognize him if you saw him again?”
Nicki nodded. “Yes. I could.”
“What did he look like?” Daniel asked again, realizing he could only ask one question at a time right now.
“He’s skinny, almost to the point of being frail. But he’s not. He’s strong. His face is … it’s hard. His hands are all boney, and his knuckles look like knots. He might be in his 40’s, but I … I don’t know.”
Daniel nodded. “Do you know where he was?”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t tell.”
“Could you recognize the car?”
Nicki paused for a second, looking at the steaming cup of coffee in front of her. “Maybe if I saw the inside of it. Yeah. If I saw the inside, I could.”
“Okay.”
Daniel looked at the clock hanging on the wall. It was a little after 4:00, and there wasn’t any point in going back to bed, at least not for him.
“Do you want a few more hours of sleep?”
Nicki was quiet for a moment, and then she nodded.
“Okay. Go on to bed. I’ll wake you up just before we need to leave, alright?”
She nodded again, still staring at the coffee cup. Daniel reached forward and took her hand.
“Hey. I love you. This is going to be fine.”
Nicki shook her head. “I don’t know if it is, Dad. What if that man’s coming for me?”
What if he is, Daniel? What are you going to do then? Kill someone the Church sent? Because that’s who this is, whether or not you want to admit it. That fucking doctor wrote a report on your daughter, and it made its way to a Priest. Now, if she’s right, they’re coming for her.
“He might be and he might not be. We don’t know yet, but I promise you, I’m not going to let anything happen. Nothing. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said, but Daniel didn’t think she believed him.
She stood up from the table with the blanket still wrapped around her and left the kitchen. He watched her turn down the hallway, disappearing from his view.
Daniel sighed, his body slumping down into the chair.
He’d been playing the game, hoping that any additional visions would hold off for another six months. Maybe a year. He’d started looking into those damned dating opportunities, actively talking about them in the house so that if it was bugged, they would think him serious. Daniel had done his best to hide all of this, but now …
If the Church was coming, he wouldn’t be able to hide anything. There would be no reason in talking about dating or going to the events. Because once that man showed up, Nicki would cease existing.
How is this possible? How did she have another vision so shortly after the last one?
Daniel had thought they had more time. Now, there were so many questions to answer, and he didn’t have a clue where to start. Nicki might not be looking to him for guidance yet—she was still in shock—but she would soon. And Daniel didn’t know what to tell her.
Right now, you focus on the man she saw. You make sure he doesn’t get anywhere near her, and then you can deal with answering whatever other questions you find.
But then the largest question revealed itself.
How would he deal with the man from her vision?
Two days passed and Nicki saw nothing else, nor did she gain consciousness in any other strange places. The dream itself started wearing off almost as soon as she woke up that morning. It seemed less real, and the one before that? With the fire? It could have actually been a dream.
Her earlier thoughts started resuming, but with a new one thrown in.
What if her dad was crazy, and what if it was contagious? What if she was catching it? He didn’t say anything else about what she saw and Nicki was scared to bring it up. So, the next two days went on, appearing normal. Wake up, restaurant, home, sleep.
Her father even picked out a dating event they would attend. It was Church sponsored and the next town over. He sounded excited about it.
Nicki didn’t know what to think, let alone say. So, she just managed an “Okay.”
The vision happened on Monday. The man from the vision showed up on Wednesday.
Nicki didn’t see him at first. She had a plate of food in each hand and was facing a table. She placed them down.
“Can I get you anything else right now?”
“Maybe just some more water.”
“Sure thing,” Nicki said with a smile that came naturally to her face, though she didn’t feel it internally. She hadn’t felt like smiling in a week, but she did it a million times a day anyway—the muscle memory too ingrained to do anything else.
She turned from the table and started back down the restaurant’s main aisle. She had to go to the fountain first, grab the water, then go to the kitchen and get the next table’s food.
Nicki stepped into the small fountain area, and that’s when she first caught a glimpse of him.
Or thought she did.
A man had been walking on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. She had looked out just as he glanced in, though he was almost at the end of the windows. Their eyes met and then he was gone from sight, stepping from their part of the sidewalk and to the next store’s.
Nicki stopped. She didn’t move forward. Didn’t reach for another cup, didn’t even turn her head to the restaurant. She just kept staring out the window, unable to move.
A few more seconds passed—perhaps as many as 30—before her brain finally kicked into gear.
Nicki stepped from behind the fountain, facing the window at the front of the restaurant.
Was it him?
No. Couldn’t be.
Nicki walked forward, slowly, caution weighing heavily against her need to know. He’d been thin, and with dark hair. The man in the car had all those things.
Plenty of people do.
She reached the restaurant’s front door, having forgotten any of the duties behind her. Nicki grabbed the door handle and pulled.
She stepped out onto the sidewalk and looked down the sidewalk.
She saw him 100 feet off.
Too far to see anything that mattered. He didn’t turn around, didn’t appear to
have any thoughts about Nicki or the restaurant at all.
“Hey? What are you doing?”
Nicki flinched, then turned around.
Her dad was standing in the restaurant’s waiting area, staring at her.
“I …”
Maybe he’s crazy and maybe you’re catching it too.
It’s either that or your entire life has been a lie.
“I just needed some fresh air,” she said.
“You sure? You look pale.”
“Yeah.” She turned and looked back down the sidewalk. The man was gone.
Had he ever been there? she wondered.
“Do you need a break?” her father asked, and Nicki knew he didn’t believe her. She hadn’t ever needed to step outside for air in the past ten years, but now she did?
“No. I’m fine.”
She walked back in the restaurant and past her father without saying a word.
Nicki didn’t speak to her father for the rest of the day, not until they got in the car to head home.
“What happened today? Why did you go outside like that?” he asked.
“I already told you. I needed some air.”
Daniel was quiet for a moment as he pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street.
“If something happened, I need to know, Nicki. This isn’t the time to hide something from me.”
“I’m not hiding anything,” she said. “I just went outside for a second. If you don’t want me to do it again, then tell me.”
“I …,” her father started, but stopped, letting the conversation drop.
She felt his eyes on her for a few seconds, but he turned back to the road.
Nicki had grown angry with him over the course of the day, starting with the moment that she went back into the restaurant. It kept increasing until she didn’t even want to speak with him.
Her anger had even eclipsed the thoughts about the man outside. She wasn’t even considering the fact that she might have seen the person from her vision. She only focused on her father.
Because one of two things had happened. Either he’d lied to her over the course of her life, not preparing her for this … she could also throw in the small fact that he’d lied to her about the Church—preaching a Gospel that he didn’t believe in.
Or, the other option: he was insane, and now forcing his madness on her.
Nicki didn’t know which one was true, but …
She thought she might be starting to hate him for it, and that scared her. To hate her father … it was unthinkable. He was everything. Her life. Her rock. The only person that had been there since birth. The only person she had in this world.
Yet, she felt hate blooming in her heart, a diseased flower that produced poison instead of honey, putrid smells that attracted dying insects.
It was there and growing larger, her thoughts the water it needed to survive. To thrive.
They arrived home without speaking. The sky was dark as it always was when they got back. Daniel entered the house first, but instead of going to the kitchen to eat dinner, Nicki went to her bedroom.
She heard the refrigerator door open, but didn’t hear it close. She imagined her father standing there in front of it, staring in, but not really seeing anything. Because without a doubt, he was thinking about her. Nicki. Her refusal to talk with him, and now her refusal to eat with him.
Standing in her room, Nicki’s heart cracked, but she couldn’t bring herself to step back out. Because he had lied, twice, and had been lying for as long as she’d known him.
That, or he was crazy, and now making her live under that insanity.
Nicki left the lights on in her room as she got ready for bed. Once in her t-shirt, she turned them off and got underneath her blankets.
She stared up at the ceiling for a long time, unable to sleep. She hadn’t thought about the man from her vision all day, nor who she’d seen at the restaurant. Yet, when she finally did find sleep, it was that thin, hard man she saw.
Nicki woke up knowing someone was in the room with her. The window’s slight moonlight didn’t reveal anyone, but that didn’t matter. Nicki knew.
Someone was here, hiding in the shadows.
Nicki’s eyes opened but she didn’t move. The blankets over her didn’t shift at all; she held the exact same position as when she’d been sleeping, because the person was watching her.
He thought Nicki was sleeping and she wanted to keep it that way.
A few minutes passed and a part of Nicki started saying she was as crazy as her father—there wasn’t anyone in the room. Yet, a larger part said that was nonsense. Someone stood in the corner, just beyond the moonlight’s reach, regardless of what her rational mind might be trying to say.
And then he spoke.
“I know you’re awake.”
Nicki said nothing, though her heart immediately started thumping harder in her chest. Sweat rushed from her pores, but she held still. Hoping somehow that he might leave.
“I wanted to watch you for a little bit,” the man said. His voice was soft. He was whispering, his tone sounding as if he’d never raised his voice in anger. “There are so few of you left. Do you know that? You’re not quite one of a kind, but close.”
Nicki tried to control her breathing. Her heart’s hard pounding made her lungs want to suck in air quicker, but doing that would leave no doubt that she heard him.
“I’m a bit frightened, because once I rid the world of people like you, I won’t ever be able to look at any of you again. There’s something different about you. That’s what the Priests don’t understand, or don’t want to understand. I don’t know which. I see it, though, the difference. Even now, in this darkness, I can always tell when someone has the sight. You do. And strong, I think.”
The man stepped forward into the moonlight.
Nicki saw him clearly and immediately knew she’d been hiding from the truth. She’d seen the man in the car, and then she’d seen him walking outside of the restaurant. She’d hid from it all, growing angry with her father and concentrating only on that.
But the man was here now, the white light shining on him revealing every crevice of his thin face. His eyes were dark and his skull looked hollow through his sunken cheeks.
“You saw me coming, didn’t you?” He smiled, his thin lips spreading across small teeth. “You were with me in the car. I’ve grown used to feeling your kind by now. I tried to give you a little scare, though I don’t know if it worked. I think some of your kind might have rubbed off on me.”
His smile widened and as it did, Nicki understood the man was insane.
“I don’t want to do this, because it’ll be one less of you I can look at it,” he said. “But it’s my duty.”
He took another step toward the bed and Nicki broke her silence, understanding that there was no fooling him, no making him leave.
She screamed even as he rushed across the room, his smile disappearing and his face donning the hatred she’d seen in the car. Ruthless, callous hatred.
Her shrieks echoed through the room, and she had a moment to wonder if the noise would make its way outside. If her father might hear it.
And then he fell on her. The vision had known. It had told her accurately.
He was strong.
The man grabbed hold of her throat, this time with two hands. He straddled her stomach as his hands locked upon her. Nicki fought, reaching for his face, his eyes, scratching across his cheeks and mouth. Spittle flew from her lips, and both of their faces grew red, though in the moonlight, looked black.
A large vein bulged on the man’s forehead, like a black worm trying to burst from beneath soil.
Nicki fought, but she grew weak, and her strikes at him fell shorter and shorter.
She barely saw the light turn on above, or the man look across the room. She hardly felt him leap up and head toward the door.
And even as her throat opened up to allow air in, she went into the darkness.
Twelve
The Prophet
Rebecca didn’t leave her room for three days after Stellan’s death.
She participated in nothing, not even answering David’s calls when he summoned her.
Rhett stayed away, giving her space, but on the third day, he decided that she had mourned long enough. He tried reaching out to her through his nanotech, but got no response. He knew she got the messages; she just wasn’t going to answer him, apparently.
So Rhett crossed the compound, leaving his own room and making his way to hers. He knocked on her door and waited.
He heard no movement from inside.
Rhett knocked again.
Still nothing.
He shook his head in frustration and tried turning the doorknob. It didn’t budge.
“Rebecca, it’s me. Open up.”
He listened, straining his ears to hear something in the hallway’s silence. It was noon and most people weren’t in their rooms, but out doing their daily jobs. Everyone else had kept moving forward with their lives—everyone except Rebecca.
Rhett’s eyes lit green as he tried to use the door’s nanotech, but it didn’t light up in return. She’d cut it off from everyone but her.
“If you don’t come open this door, I’ll kick it down. I’m not joking.”
He wasn’t either. David needed her and the amount of things to be accomplished were stacking up. Stellan was gone, and they still had no knowledge of the traitor. Rhett and Christine couldn’t carry all this weight by themselves, even if they wanted to.
“Last chance,” he said, forcefully shaking the doorknob.
Finally he heard a noise. Someone walking across the floor.
A jingle on the knob as Rebecca unlocked it, and then she pulled the door open.
“What?”
“You’re done hiding in here,” he said.
“No. I’m not. Thanks.”
She started to close the door but he stuck his forearm up, the wood banging into him. “I’m coming in.”
He saw her debating whether to fight him or not, staring at him with the same anger that raged in David sometimes. She was the Prophet’s sister, even if she didn’t want to be right now.
