Nightmare

by Robin Parrish

  I knew that no matter how many times I took her investigating, it would always run the risk of never being enough, since there would never be any resolution to the experience. There was no evidence strong enough to convince the whole world that ghosts exist.

  I looked at her, frowning, and tried to think of a way of cutting off that craving in her before it grew too strong. "You said you wanted to touch the paranormal. You just did, Jordin. More than most people ever will."

  She was silent for a moment before she quietly said, "But I didn't find what I'm looking for."

  "And remind me what that is?" I tried to coax her.

  "Pick the next place, Maia."Jordin's expression hardened as she stared out the windshield. "We're going again."

  Carrie Morris had tired eyes.

  I was trying to give Jordin's roommate time to sort through her memories, using kind-but-firm questioning techniques I'd learned in class. But I'm not known for my patience. And this chick wasn't going out of her way to hide her disdain for my presence.

  The three of us sat on a sidewalk bench in the courtyard outside Hogan Hall in the cool morning sun. Carrie was on one side of me, and Derek-who hadn't said a word since introducing the two of us-was on the other.

  It turned out that the group of friends Jordin routinely went off on this "annual vacation" thing with were all members of the Columbia volleyball team, of which Jordin was once a proud member. But not anymore.

  "So you saw Jordin Thursday afternoon, August 5, on the beach ... ?" I tried to prod her. "You're sure that was the last time you saw her?"

  "Yeah," Carrie replied, watching other students bustle about, bobbing one knee up and down in agitation. "She kept saying how she wanted to go to England, she was planning a trip to England, she talked about it all the time. So when she disappeared, we figured she'd finally gone."

  England. Jordin's interest in England didn't surprise me. I knew all about it.

  "So you didn't suspect anything was wrong right away. How long was it before you went to the police?"

  "The next Wednesday, I think."

  "Derek said they didn't take you seriously."

  Carrie yawned. "Well, this officer gave us a big condition that had to be met before a person could be declared missing. We were in the middle of explaining to him how long Jordin had been gone when he recognized her name. He said it was probably some kind of `rich person eccentric impulse' and suggested we `contact her estate.' "

  Every time she quoted from someone else, Carrie made annoying little rabbit-ear quotation marks with her fingers.

  I turned to Derek. "Has Jordin ever done anything like that? Disappeared for an extended period of time without warning?"

  He shook his head, and I caught the wary look in his eye, though he was trying to hide it. He didn't want to appear ungrateful for my help, but he was indulging me without a lot of confidence in my abilities or in this particular witness. I supposed that as a future pastor, it was a good thing that honesty came so naturally to him.

  Whatever. I wasn't here to pacify him. I was sure there had to be more details I could wring out of Carrie. My mind spun, thinking through the kinds of questions a detective would ask.

  "Did you notice anything unusual about Jordin before she disappeared?"

  Carrie glanced at me warily. "You mean more than ever? She's always been weird, even more so since she met you."

  When I said nothing-I was trying to practice reading Carrie's expressions and body language, and ignore her belligerence-she went on. "She used to be a fun person, you know. Carefree. Spontaneous. Really funny. And an amazing athlete. Then you came into the picture, and she quit the team and stopped hanging out with us. We had to beg her to go with us on this year's trip."

  "And when you say `go with us,' " Derek quietly interjected while examining a nearby tree, "you of course mean `pay for.'"

  Carrie squinted at him but made no response.

  "Why didn't she want to go this year?" I asked, trying to stay on point.

  "Guess she had `more important things to do,' " Carrie replied, popping out the quotation marks again. "But she may as well not even have been there, because we barely saw her. Well, she would always turn up in her room each morning, but we could never find her in the evenings when we wanted to go out."

  Well, sure. That wasn't surprising at all.

  "What about her behavior? Any sudden mood swings? Did she complain of any odd pains?"

  It was entirely possible, though I had no intention ofvoicing the possibility aloud, that Jordin had fallen ill and was languishing in a hospital somewhere. Or, the much worse possibility ...

  And that was a suspicion, I told myself forcefully, that had nothing at all to do with what I'd seen at Ghost Town amusement park.

  "She was having nightmares."

  My ears perked up. "Nightmares?"

  Carrie nodded, remembering more as she spoke. "Yeah, she always seemed tired during the day, and she kept mumbling about this nightmare she was having over and over...."

  I carefully filed that away for later.

  "Also," Carrie went on with a rather satisfied glare at Derek, "I think she'd just gotten a tattoo."

  Derek looked as if he'd been jolted out of his daydream. "I'm sorry?"

  "That morning before she disappeared, she kept rubbing the back of her neck like it was sore," Carrie explained. "I got a glimpse of it when she turned around, and it looked like some kind of tattoo. I remember thinking it was kinda rude of her to go off and get one by herself, since that was something all of us could have done together. You know, to commemorate the trip."

  "Jordin would never get a tattoo," Derek whispered under his breath.

  I leaned close to him. "You're sure?"

  "She hates them. It's a sin to defile your skin that way."

  "So, she hates them, oryou hate them?"

  Derek didn't seem to like my tone of voice, and turned away from me.

  So I turned back to Carrie. "What did this tattoo look like?"

  "Her hand was covering it so much, she kept rubbing at it," Carrie said, trying to remember. "I never really got a solid look at it. But it was pretty small and I think it was black."

  "And no one said anything to her about it?"

  She shrugged. "IfJordin wants to talk about something, she'll bring it up herself."

  Derek rose from his seat, apparently done with this. As he walked away, he mumbled something so low, I only caught part of it. Something about ". . . forbid you should be an actual friend ..."

  Ten minutes later, after reluctantly giving my cell number to Carrie in case she thought of anything else, I caught up to Derek and suggested heading for the school library. I needed to get online and didn't really want him poking around my dorm room while I sat at my laptop.

  "I assume you have contacted Jordin's `estate' already?" I commented.

  Derek was slow to respond, his thoughts seeming to linger elsewhere. "If you call her housekeeper Linda her `estate,' then yes, I did. Jordin's never been comfortable living in her parents' old house alone. She mainly holds on to the mansion for sentimental reasons. When she's not in school, she keeps a small condo in downtown Manhattan. Linda's the only employee still working at the Cole house, and she hasn't seen or heard from Jordin in almost a year. Which isn't out of the ordinary."

  Derek opened the front door to the library and held it open so I could enter first. Still he never made eye contact with me, his features distant and filled with impatience. I thought how glad I was that today wasn't the first time I'd met him, because I'd be getting a very poor impression of him if it were.

  I found an empty computer in the library and began a quick search for tattoo parlors in Martha's Vineyard. It was a long shot, but it was all I had at the moment.

  The search pulled up more than three dozen tattoo parlors.

  "What was that about back there?" I asked, keeping my voice just above a whisper to be respectful of the other library patrons.

  Derek s
at to my left in a chair he'd borrowed from a nearby table. "What was what about?"

  I knew that he understood exactly what I was asking about. I kept reminding myself that Derek wasn't himself-he was agitated, worried about his fiancee, and barely keeping control of his feelings of helplessness.

  "You seemed to hold Carrie in a bit of contempt," I said.

  Derek feigned shock. "I'm a pastor in training. I'll have you know I bear nothing but compassion and love for everybody in the world."

  I waited until he sighed and continued.

  "It just ... frustrates me sometimes," he explained. "Because she's wealthy, Jordin tends to attract people who want to be around her but have very little interest in actually being a friend to her. Sometimes I think I may be the only real friend she has. Although for a while, she seemed to consider you one, too," he added as an afterthought.

  That was a strange notion. During our adventures, I'd never thought of us as close. At best, I merely tolerated her.

  Derek seemed to read the confusion on my face. "I think it's because you didn't fawn over her the way everyone else does. You told her what you really thought. You never worried about offending her, and she found that ... invigorating."

  My eyebrows popped up. "Was that a compliment?"

  Derek frowned, running a nervous hand through his closecropped hair. "Just because I don't agree with your ... shall we say, `unique occupational history'... doesn't mean I think you're a bad person, Maia."

  I almost smiled, but I think it came off instead as an unintended smirk.

  "But you've spent way too much time meddling in things that shouldn't be meddled in," he added. "It's a dangerous way of living, and it's going to burn you eventually if you keep at it. I used to wish I could make you-and Jordin-see that."

  My smile turned sour, and I quickly lost interest in hearing any more of his beliefs about the paranormal. He had no idea what he was talking about.

  "There are dozens of tattoo parlors within driving distance of Martha's Vineyard," I said, back to business. "We'll have to contact each one of them individually."

  "You really think this is that important?" Derek asked. "I know my girl, and I don't buy for one second that she would ever get a tattoo."

  "Because she's never done something you wouldn't approve of," I shot back. Instantly I wished I could take the words back.

  Derek ground his teeth, though he was working to hide it. "Your excursions with her would be the sole exception."

  I sighed. "Look, if she really did get a tattoo, and if the person that gave it to her was one of the last people to see her, then it could be important, yeah," I said. "But if you have any other leads, I'm listening."

  He didn't reply.

  "All right, then," I said. "Now, most tattoo parlors don't require identification for the procedure. So they're not likely to recognize her name. Which means we'll have to give a physical description ofJordin and hope it rings a bell with someone. The more specific we can be, the better. Jordin's a tall, lovely blonde. I'm sure they see plenty of those, so we need to give them details that aren't as common."

  Derek looked at me, thoughtful. I thought he was going to ask me something else about tattoos, but he had other things on his mind. "Carrie said Jordin was never around in the evenings in Martha's Vineyard. Was she ... was she doing what I think she was?"

  "Probably. Martha's Vineyard is very old," I acknowledged. "It has tons of locations believed to be haunted. Jordin must've been sneaking out each night to investigate. By herself. She was still chasing the paranormal."

  "What was she thinking?" Derek's expression turned hardedged, but he was silent for a long time. Finally he said, "She was really obsessed with this stuff, wasn't she?"

  I remained silent. That was one question I wasn't eager to answer.

  I fell asleep quickly that night, feeling content that the day had been well spent. We hadn't found Jordin but we'd narrowed the search, and I believed it was only a matter of time until we turned up some new information about her.

  And cracking a missing persons case while still in college would look killer on my job application.

  I woke up around midnight when someone rapped loudly on my door. Worried it was Derek with dire news aboutjordin, I quickly jumped out of bed. But when I opened the door, nobody was there. The lights were on out in the hall, as they always are, and I could hear other residents behind their closed dorm doors, listening to music or talking and laughing. But no one was in the hall.

  I figured someone was just being stupid and trying to get a rise out of me. I went back to sleep.

  By two a.m., I was dead asleep again. Yet for no reason I could identify, I sat up with a start, opening my eyes wide and looking around my room.

  At the foot of my bed stood the outline of a human figure. I had all the lights out and the curtains drawn, so I couldn't make out any features. Just a silhouette.

  I was startled, but quickly my experience in the paranormal kicked in, and I studied the apparition as best I could, staring at the spot where its face should have been. Part of me wondered if it might be Jordin, come to bring me another ghostly message.

  Then I blinked once, and the figure was gone.

  I was sure it had happened, that it was real and not a dream. Yet the more time that passed after I lay back down, the more I was inclined to think I was just over-tired and seeing indistinct shapes in the shadows that my mind tried to form into a familiar pattern.

  I eventually fell asleep again.

  Less than two hours later, I awoke once more.

  Surrounding my small bed were five dark, hazy figures.

  My first thought was that this whole night was probably some kind of hazing. Someone in my dormitory had learned about my past and cooked up a prank as some kind of senior year rite of passage.

  But then I realized that I could see through all five figures.

  As before, they vanished almost as fast as I laid eyes on them. But at the same moment my bed raised up off the floor by an inch and then slammed back down. Every muscle in my body clenched, and I didn't know if I should get out of the bed or stay put.

  Loud, clomping footsteps echoed across my small room's floor. My bedside lamp flew off the nightstand and shattered against the front door on the other side of the room. Books from my desk flew open, their pages fluttering. My small television, mounted atop my chest of drawers, came to life and began changing its own channels. Faster and faster the channels went by as I watched, until the TV finally let out a giant spark and fizzled out.

  The room fell completely silent, and I sat up a little straighter. My familiar surroundings had just become hostile territory, and I didn't feel safe. For ten, twenty, thirty seconds I remained still and the room stayed quiet. It seemed the activity had ended.

  I finally decided to get out of the bed, swinging my legs out over the side, when every single object in my room-every piece of furniture, every book, article of clothing, snack food, every appliance-leapt into the air like a jumping bean and came back down. I couldn't hold back a scream as I crawled backward on my bed until my back was against the wall.

  Sheets pulled out from under me, flying into the middle of the floor, followed by my pillows.

  I sat there and waited, somehow knowing that wouldn't be the end.

  I heard an inhuman laugh, and everything in the room jumped again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Suddenly I knew. The rhythm. Everything was slamming in time to my heartbeat.

  My heart gave a thunderous bang against my ribs at the realization, and everything in the room jumped again.

  Again and again it happened, keeping up with my heart rate, which now pulsed faster with fear. Bang. Bang. Bang. Quicker and quicker and then I could hear people shouting, wondering what was going on. Someone even rattled the doorknob at one point, but the door wouldn't open.

  And I hadn't locked it.

  With one final heartbeat, everything jumped higher than b
efore, and I was tossed from the mattress to the middle of the floor. I crashed, burning my hands and knees on the carpet.

  I lay on my stomach, almost unwilling to turn over for fear of what might happen next. But when something touched my ankle, I spun over lightning fast.

  Something like a very cold, wet hand was crawling up my bare leg, but I saw nothing.

  Suddenly, objects all around my room tore themselves free from wherever they'd been at rest and began flying around in all directions. One after another after another. My backpack, my desk chair, my keys, my laptop. Around and around they flew, crashing into one wall and then flying up into the air to go crash into another.

  I put my hands on my head and curled into a ball, trying to keep from being injured, but it wasn't long before things started brushing past me or just flying into me. There was so much happening now, a hurricane of energy and rage, destroying everything it touched, and slamming items both blunt and sharp into my skin. I heard my own screams and cries muffled within the storm. And all the while, the freezing hand continued its slow climb up my leg, past my knee now. I tried to grab it, to claw it away from me, but you can't take hold of nothing.

  Someone was beating on my door from the hallway outside, trying to get in and save me, but I couldn't reach the door. I couldn't move. I just lay in a fetal position in the middle of the room, screaming for it to end. My heart was racing so fast, I knew it would soon give out.

  I heard terrible, loud crashes and disembodied cackles of laughter. I could feel hot, wet, sticky spots pouring across one hip, a shoulder, and the top of my head. I was bleeding.

  The tempest reached a powerful crescendo, sounding as if the entire building were coming down. And then without warning, everything simply stopped. The violence ended, the chilled hand vanished, and everything was still.

  One second passed, and I heard the tiny sound of my cell phone vibrating against the floor. Aside from the beating on my door, the only other sound I could hear was of someone crying.

  It took me a moment to realize that the person crying was me.

  I was trembling violently as I opened my eyes and looked around. The entire room had been destroyed, stripped down to the studs in the walls. All of my furniture, all of my belongings, reduced to debris.