by Sara Clancy
“What stage is he in?” Nicole asked as she crammed herself into the minimal patch of space still vacant in the room.
While Kyle’s face clearly showed his annoyance, he didn’t comment on it. “He’s just left stage one.” He tapped a long, tapered finger against the screen at a particular patch of squiggles that seemed to be no different from the other patches. “And he’s well on his way through stage two.”
“So, one more stage and he should be dreaming?” she asked.
“That’s right,” he said absently as he checked everything once more with fleeting glances. “Everything looks normal so far.”
Nicole sucked her lips between her teeth and bit down. Energy strummed under her skin, growing stronger and sharper the longer she struggled to gather even the slightest meaning from the monitors. On the other side of the glass, Benton shifted in his sleep, snuggled down on his back and absently pulled up the blanket higher. He was still cold. It was nothing compared to the way his body heat had plummeted while he traveled the Highway of The Lost, but she couldn’t help the twist she felt in her gut every time he shivered. In her mind, the movement had come to mean that there might be a ghost hanging nearby. She had seen what they could do. She never wanted to see it again.
Wrapping one arm around her waist, she began to toy with her other hand with the trails of beads dangling from her choker. She could swear that time itself was slowing just to spite her, and she bounced on the balls of her feet.
“Here we go,” Kyle said as he sunk down further, resting one forearm on the counter as he tapped at the screen again. “He’s slipping into stage three now.”
“So he’s dreaming?” Dorothy asked.
“He should be any second now.” Kyle jolted up. The easy calm drained from his face as his spine became a straight bar. His jaw dropped slightly, but he didn’t say anything. In rushing movements, he began to turn, trying to see every monitor at once.
“What is it?” Nicole asked.
He turned back to the first monitor and she quickly followed his gaze. The squiggly lines were now as flat as the horizon.
“What does that mean?” Nicole said, alarmed.
Dorothy pushed off from the doorframe. “Doctor?”
“The machines must be malfunctioning,” Kyle said in a rush, his words tumbling out of his mouth as he struggled to remain calm. “It’s probably the storm. Just let me check a few things.”
Nicole peered through the mirror, squinting at the one machine she recognized. A heart monitor. There were three bars and one jumped at a steady, strong rhythm. With the reassurance that he still at least had a pulse, she watched Benton carefully as Kyle continued checking the machines. Oblivious to the flurry of activity, Benton’s breathing was deep and even, his body still.
“What is going on, doctor?” Dorothy asked with a distraught voice.
Kyle put a hand up as if to fend off that very question. “It’s not possible.”
“Is Benton in any danger?” Dorothy asked, beginning to feel a touch of panic.
“No. All of his base vitals are fine. It has to be the machine. It just can’t happen like that.”
Dorothy’s patience had met its end and she growled in an imposing voice, “What is?”
Kyle stood still, took a steadying breath, and seemed to piece himself back together. When he had a resemblance of calm again, he turned to the two women.
“These monitors, that I’m sure are broken,” he stressed, “are registering Benton as being in a PVS. That’s just, I mean, he’s…” Shaking his head, he looked back at the monitors. “It’s saying he’s in a persistent vegetative state.”
“What?” Nicole whirled around to him. “He’s brain dead?”
“No. They’re two very different things,” Kyle assured her quickly. “All of his basic functions are still working. But these monitors are saying that his higher brain functions have all stopped.”
“The lights are on, but he’s not home?” Nicole questioned, metaphorically.
“If that helps you understand,” Kyle said. He shook his head and went back to fussing with the monitor. “Of course, that’s impossible. It has to be the machine. We should probably wake him up. None of this data is going to be useful.”
Nicole turned to find her mother who was already looking at her. Benton had always described the sensation as being absorbed by another person. She had never given much thought to how much the description could be accurate. It couldn’t be. Benton dreamed of the future.
In unison, every monitor within the room began to emit a static buzz, the glow of the monitors increasing until it hurt to look at them. Kyle pulled back and bumped into the two women who were blocking the exit. Their bodies knocked into each other as they stumbled out into the hall. The overhead lights began to strobe, flicking on and off, faster and faster as the bulbs strained. They all ducked, covering their heads as the monitors began to pop, sending the thick glass scattering onto the floor.
“Wake up Benton!” Dorothy commanded over the noise.
Nicole was already racing to the door. She flung it open. The rotating night light spun wildly, turning the dancing shapes into streaks of color over the shadows. Something smacked sharply against the outside of the window and she leaped back at the sound. The second sharp blow came with the pained cry of an owl and the thick creak of cracking glass. Then there was another. And another. Glass savagely slashed through the curtain as the next owl burst into the area.
It shrieked as it hurdled around the room, a blizzard of white feathers and murderous talons. A terrified scream escaped her as it swooped past her, its claws finding the arm she had thrown up to protect her face. Blood oozed from her slashed skin and dripped on the floor. The once steady rhythm of the heart monitor became the sound of a loud, shrilled drone that combated against the howling wind and manic animal that now filled the space.
Benton thrashed against the bed. He twisted and kicked in the air. The wires attached to him couldn’t withstand his violent movements and were being ripped out from both the monitors and his skin. His motions made the bed shake and shift over the floor. His spine ached, his neck strained, and his hands pawed across the thin mattress.
Nicole tried to step into the room once more but the owl had been joined by at least five more, their true numbers lost amidst the spinning lights, wind, and the rainwater streaming into the room. Standing in the doorway, her fingers uselessly trying to lessen the flow of blood, Nicole screamed for Benton. The wind fiercely blew at her long hair and tossed it across her face, blocking her vision momentarily. Still, she knew he hadn’t heard her. That her desperate cry hadn’t changed anything.
“Benton!”
Lightning streaked across the sky and for one, glaring moment, the room was filled to the brim with a stark light. Benton bolted upright. His eyes wide. Horror twisted up every muscle of his face and turned his body to stone. Nicole barely had time to cover her ears before Benton’s wail exploded through the room. The colossal sound was layered; a human scream, beneath a high-pitched shriek that emulated microphone feedback. The sound vibrated and pulsed, reaching notes no human vocal cord could reach.
The heavy monitors rattled across the floor as the room shook. Never pausing, Benton’s banshee wail rose to a pitch that the two-way mirror, the nightlight, and shards of the window couldn’t weather. Dorothy grabbed Nicole by the back of her shirt and yanked her off her feet as everything glass in the room detonated, like a bomb, all at once. Then there was silence.
Safe in her mother’s arms, Nicole tried to catch her breath as a piercing whine rang in her ears. Dorothy touched her shoulder and Nicole nodded that she was okay. The cuts on her arm weren’t too deep and the adrenaline that pulsed through her system dulled the sting. As Dorothy turned to soothe the rattled doctor, Nicole made her way back to the doorway. She had expected to see Benton heaving and confused. Or perhaps hurriedly covering himself with the blanket to protect himself from the still swirling owls. She hadn’t expected hi
m to be already on his feet.
With complete disregard for the deadly talons swooshing past him at the height of his eyes, Benton crossed the debris barefoot, found his socks, and yanked them on.
“Benton?”
“We need to go,” he said as he put on his jacket. “Now!”
She ducked under a few of the birds as she moved to his side. “It’s okay. This wasn’t your fault.”
Benton laughed and her stomach dropped. She knew that laugh. It was the kind of manic, delirious, bellow laughter he gave when he knew something she didn’t; when he had something horrific captured within the cage of his ribs. The sound cleared the panic clashing within her just enough for her to remember what kind of wail he had just produced. It wasn’t the one she had heard him give as a furious warning. It was fear. Whatever he had seen was enough to terrify him to the core of his soul.
“Benton?”
He stormed to the door, only hesitating at her side long enough to whisper.
“Something is headed to Fort Wayward. And it’s going to kill everyone it finds.”
Chapter 7
Lightning stretched across the sky like skeletal fingers, its electric glow spreading across the world, subduing it in a sterile haze. Thunder trembled the earth as the wind clobbered into Benton’s wiry form. He staggered across the narrow parking lot, slumping against the few parked cars as he searched through the sheeting rain for any sign of the bus. The task was made all the harder by the obsidian clouds that choked off the sunlight. They left the day in a perpetual state of nightfall, and with the growing shadows and unrelenting rain, anything beyond a few feet was reduced to splotches on unsharpened color.
He was barely beyond the clinic’s doors and already his clothes were heavy from the downpour. Water streamed over his skin in thick rivulets and trickled off of his nose, his ears, and each of his fingertips. The icy deluge had only needed a few seconds to rob him of the warmth that his clothes had kept. Now, as he worked his way deeper into the chaos, the cold had seeped down into his bones.
His fingers trembled as he finally found the bus. From somewhere hidden within the fury of the monsoon, Benton picked up on the faintest cries of the great horned owl. It was impossible to hear their movements and he didn’t attempt to get them in sight. His sole focus was on getting the electronic, folding door of the bus to open. With wavering fingers, he clawed at the hinges, pushing and pulling. But the sheets of metal held in place.
Each time his attempts failed, the panic within him surged to a new height. He had dreamed again. And while so much of it had been unlike anything he’d ever known, he instantly recognized the slow, surfacing burn at the back of his neck. His most basic instinct was surging to the surface knowing he needed to raise the warning. He needed those about to die, to hear and listen to him. But he didn’t have a name to warn them about, not even a cluster of names. The only thing screaming in the back of his mind, repeating over and over in a frantic mantra, was ‘Fort Wayward.’
His fingers slipped over the slick metal again. A bellow ripped from him as he began to pound against the door. The sound didn’t emerge from him, from the paranormal part of himself. It was him. His voice, his foreboding, his terror, and dread poured out in a single cry. With every step, every heartbeat, his dream replayed within his mind. He had never been the victim before. For years, he had slipped under the skin of killers and sociopaths, parasitically feeling their euphoria of the destruction and pain they caused, awakening, back into his own mind, the repulsion with himself. He had never been the prey before. He had never been the one being hunted.
A hand fell onto his shoulder and he shuddered from the touch. His feet tripped up around themselves as he whirled around. The bruises on his back flared with pain when he banged against the bus door, but he pressed against it, forcing the wall of metal to keep him upright as he blinked into the rain.
Nicole had pulled her hand back but still kept it in the air. Her long hair, darkened by the rain and shadows, draped over her tawny skin like a sooty cloak. In that instant, she closely resembled the specters that he spotted standing motionless in the downpour. The grim reapers hid too well within the shadows of the storm for him to truly see their numbers but he knew they were there. Each one of them watching. Each one waiting.
“Benton!”
He snapped his eyes back to Nicole, a steady burn filled his lungs, telling him that he had yet to take a decent breath. She inched closer and he flattened his back to the door.
“It’s just me,” Nicole comforted him. “It’s okay.”
“We need to get on the bus,” he insisted.
“Okay, we will. But breathe for me first, okay.”
She walked him through it, exaggerating the motion so even his frazzled mind could understand and mimic. The rampaging energy that ravished his chest began to ease. Then Death drifted closer. Latching onto Nicole’s shoulder, Benton flung her around as he lunged forward, effectively putting himself between her and the ghostly figure. He stared into the hollowness of its eyes and Death stared back. Still waiting.
Out of the corner of his eyes, Benton spotted Dorothy emerging from the fog of the rain. Having grabbed their forgotten umbrellas, she stood as the only dry human in their group, a hint of sanity poking in through the clashing thoughts that filled his skull.
Before she could ask, Benton yelled over the storm. “Open the bus. Get inside!” His voice must have come out with a lot more authority than he heard it because she didn’t argue. With a quick flick of the key and a mechanical whoosh, the doors folded and they all huddled inside, Benton never taking his eyes off of the nearest grim reaper. It didn’t try to follow. It remained where it was, untouched by the rain, watching as he closed the door between them.
“What are you looking at?” Dorothy asked.
Benton didn’t look at her as he spoke, “Death is out there.”
“Right. A thin metal door should take care of that.”
It was clear that the older woman had thought her words would be lost under the rain pelting against the metal roof. Since Benton wasn’t particularly keen to think through the legitimacy of his plan, he didn’t comment. Finally, ripping his gaze from the foggy glass, he looked around the bus. Wind howled along the sides of the bus, creating the illusion that the bus was filled with hundreds of people. Shadows clung tightly to every crevice they could find and a thick chill spilled across the floor.
Dorothy closed her umbrella and sunk down unto the driver’s seat, twisting around enough to keep Benton and Nicole in sight. Nicole pulled her backpack out from under the first row and hurriedly opened one of the pockets.
“How’s the doctor?” she asked.
“Shaken,” Dorothy said. “But very rational. He thinks that the storm blew out the windows and a power surge destroyed his equipment. He’s sending his staff home and was very comforted when I assured him that we’re not going to sue.”
“Well, that’s a win. Right? Go team banshee!”
The light quiver in Nicole’s voice drew Benton’s attention. He looked over just as she flipped open the lid to the small first-aid kit she constantly carried with her. Blood drooled from three gashes that ran across her forearm. The crimson liquid mixed with the water pouring from her made her entire arm look ripped and raw.
“It’s just a scratch,” Nicole assured, when she spotted them both watching her. “I got a bit too close to an owl. They have really sharp talons.”
For all the cheer she forced on her words, she couldn’t suppress her whimper of pain as she began to clean the wound. Benton was faster than Dorothy and had less space to travel. He sat on the seat across the aisle from Nicole and, with gentle insistence, took over the task.
“We should get you to the hospital,” Dorothy said.
“I’m a registered first-aider,” Nicole said, with no small amount of pride. “And in my professional opinion, I don’t need stitches. Just a stable bandage and a couple of pain killers will do."
“You’
re not a professional,” Dorothy argued.
Her angry tone vanished when Benton, being a little too enthusiastic with the antiseptic cream, pushed against the wound. Nicole winced with a pained moan and it took a few minutes to reassure them both that she was okay. Benton was still mumbling apologies as he began to wrap a clean bandage around her arm.
“Almost done,” he promised.
Nicole smiled. An expression she refused to lose even as pain flickered across her face.
“I guess this means that you’re dreaming again,” Nicole said with overenthusiastic glee. “That’s great. I told you Death was there to help.”
“I’m sorry,” Dorothy cut in. “Death helped you?”
Her question was left unanswered and Benton concentrated on making sure each wrap of the bandage was perfectly in place.
“I never stopped dreaming,” he said. “I just wasn’t strong enough to handle it. We need to get back to Fort Wayward.”
“Why? What did you see?” Dorothy pressed, with obvious frustration. She scowled as Benton remained silent. “I’ll start you off. When you closed your eyes you saw...”
“A horde,” Benton said.
“A horde of what?” Dorothy snapped.
Benton couldn’t stop himself from matching the tone. “I don’t know. These dreams don’t actually come with an encyclopedia entry. There are gaping blind spots to my knowledge, and no amount of yelling is going to fix that.”
Drawing in a steadying breath, Benton carefully worked the tip of a safety pin through the layers of fabric, cautious to not poke the soft skin underneath. He could feel Dorothy’s gaze burning against the side of his head, but it was nothing compared to the fire raging at the base of his skull.
“Please start the bus,” he said, with all the calmness he had left. “I need to get to Fort Wayward.”
Nicole was quick to rush in before her mother could respond. “Benton, we can’t be prepared unless you tell us everything. I know it’s hard. But can you please try?”
