Nightmare

by Robin Parrish

  It giggled again.

  "It sounds like a little girl," Jordin whispered.

  I nodded in agreement, listening, standing perfectly still. After a moment, I motioned for Jordin to follow, and the two of us moved slowly down the dark corridor, which had actual mountain rock exposed right up against the foundational walls. I tried to track the sound to its source.

  "Hello?" I called, and Jordin jumped at the sound, though she tried to cover it.

  "Hell-o," came a muffled, singsong response, from one very happy-sounding little girl. Her voice was stifled, like she was behind a wall, or maybe inside it. It was like she was playing somewhere nearby, unconcerned with where she was or what time it was and just wrapped up in her own little world.

  "Hello?" called Jordin, following my lead. I didn't mind. Initiative was good, when it was properly placed.

  "Hell-oooo-oooh," called out the playful little voice.

  "Who are you?" I asked.

  No answer.

  "Where are you?" asked Jordin.

  "Right here, silly! " the girl happily replied. She giggled again and began humming a lullaby.

  Jordin and I exchanged a stunned look.

  Jordin almost smiled as she whispered, "That is the craziest thing ever."

  The two of us spent the next hour searching through the tunnel for any sign of a little girl-alive or otherwise. It made so much more sense to assume that a girl staying at the hotel had wandered down here alone in the middle of the night and was calling out to us from the other end of a ventilation duct or something.

  But we found no evidence to support that. The basement was utterly bare, aside from pipes and wires and the hotel's hot-water heaters, and there were no ventilation ducts to carry the sound from another room. It was like an ancient cave down there, and we made absolutely certain that it was completely sealed off, making our way through the darkness into every last square inch of the place.

  There was no child to be found, though she called out to us again every fifteen minutes or so.

  Once again, the Stanley had not disappointed.

  "Wait, what time is it?" Jordin asked, halting suddenly in the dark.

  Did she already notice ... ? I wondered. "Three thirty-two."

  Jordin had been sharp this trip, I had to admit. She'd come pretty far in a short time.

  "We've had major activity since three," Jordin noted. "And didn't the same thing happen back at Waverly?"

  "Three a.m. is believed to be the hour when spirits-and dark forces in particular-are most powerful," I said. "And as you've already seen, it's often true."

  "Why?" she asked.

  "It's called the witching hour," I replied. "Some call it the demonic witching hour. Its significance comes from the fact that Jesus is believed to have died at three p.m. on Good Friday. So the exact inverse of that hour is when dark spirits most often choose to manifest. It's a perversion of Christ's death on the Cross."

  Jordin shivered. "Wait a minute ... `dark forces' ... Are you saying this little girl isn't a little girl at all?"

  I shrugged. "It's not a universal rule. I've been to plenty of places where nothing happened at all at three, or most of the activity occurred at other times of the day. Or things happened at three that were quite harmless."

  "But ... you said we weren't going to deal with demonic hauntings," Jordin protested.

  "We're not. Though demons are definitely the darkest of entities."

  "What other kinds of dark entities are there?"

  "Angry spirits. Malevolent ghosts," I said, and decided it was time to call it a night. "Come on, I'm ready for some sleep."

  As we were walking back to our rooms, Jordin seemed to become sullen again, like she was during our travel to Estes Park. I was tired and couldn't handle her mood swings anymore.

  "What?" I said, a little louder than I should have in the dim, quiet corridor.

  Jordin looked up as if suddenly remembering I was next to her. "Huh?"

  "What's with you? You've been temperamental all day long."

  "Oh,"Jordin replied, almost whispering. "I, uh ... Derek and I had a fight. He's my fiance."

  Great. I'd just ventured into territory I had no desire to get into. Jordin's personal business was way outside my interests. I was here as her employee-I didn't need to be her confidante.

  Despite this, my mouth betrayed me and formed the words "What happened?"

  Jordin grimaced. "I told him about you. About this. Our ghosthunting trips."

  "We're not `ghost hunting,' " I said mechanically.

  "Right, right, I meant our paranormal investigations."

  "And Derek doesn't approve?" I asked, though it was obvious.

  "I can't remember if I told you before," she said, stopping in the hallway, "but Derek's a religious studies major. He's planning to go to seminary in a couple of years and eventually start a church of his own."

  She didn't have to say any more. It all made perfect sense. Of course her fiance didn't approve of his future wife carrying on with a "ghost hunter." Such things were taboo for most of evangelical America. If it got out after the two of them were married that his wife had once been obsessed with the paranormal, it could do major damage to his reputation.

  I'd never met this Derek, but didn't at all think less of him for being concerned about his social status. If anything, I empathized. My own reputation was a daily concern for me; I often worried that my past might keep me from ever being taken seriously by my peers as a law enforcement professional.

  I had to wonder how much Jordin really loved her fiance if she was willing to risk his future by going on these trips with someone like me. Or maybe her reasons for doing it were just so important they blinded her to all other concerns.

  Another thought occurred to me, and I had to suppress a tiny laugh.

  "What?" she asked, not offended and ready to join in on the joke.

  "It's just an odd picture...." I tried to explain. "A minister... married to one of the richest women in the world. Who happens to be defying his wishes and his beliefs by investigating things he probably thinks are dangerous and better left alone."

  Jordin nodded knowingly. "People never quite seem to `get' me and Derek. I know we're an unlikely pairing."

  "Hey," I said, "I'm the product of an unlikely pairing. I'm not gonna judge. So, what, were you childhood sweethearts?"

  I was half joking, but she replied, "We were, actually. Best friends since kindergarten, in love since high school."

  "So," I said, trying to get a better picture of the two of them in my head, "do you ... share his beliefs? His worldview?"

  Jordin almost seemed surprised that I'd asked. "Oh, of course, totally! That's one of the reasons we met and fell in love-we went to the same private Christian school growing up."

  "Huh," I said, without humor. "You don't strike me as a typical Christian."

  "What's a typical Christian?"

  I paused. "In my experience, they tend to be very closedminded. But you're not."

  She sort of shrugged. "I suppose that's true. About some things."

  Okay. Kind of makes sense, I decided. More than it did before, anyway. Jordin and Derek's union would certainly present its share of challenges when her money was someday combined with his ministry. I couldn't imagine a scenario where that would end well.

  But it really was no stranger than my own parents-a devout Catholic married to a strict agnostic. There were always those who beat the odds.

  "But he doesn't believe in ghosts, right?" I asked. "I mean, you said you had a big argument. It had to be about that."

  "He doesn't think it's all in my head or anything," she said, quick to defend her beloved. "He's never condescending. He's not that kind of guy. He thinks the stuff we're investigating is real. But he doesn't believe in ghosts. He thinks it's ... something dangerous."

  I knew exactly what that meant.

  "So if Derek doesn't want you to be doing this, and you love him as much as you say you do
, why are you defying him?"

  I was pretty pleased with myself for finding a way to ask the same question I'd been asking of Jordin since this whole thing began. But she was too clever to let me get away with it.

  "I told you ... it's none of your business, Maia. No offense," she added quickly.

  I sighed. "Well, you're going to have to tell me sooner or later, 'cause as long as we keep taking these trips, I'm never going to stop asking."

  "Fair enough,"Jordin replied. "When I'm ready to talk about it, I'll tell you."

  Derek found me at St. Luke's Hospital the morning after the attack, around eight-thirty. I was poring over a book on criminal psychology that one of my dorm mates-who also offered to let me crash on her bottom bunk-had been kind enough to let me borrow. Even in my condition, I was trying to work ahead for my first class of the semester, which was scheduled to begin that afternoon. And I was determined to be there.

  Word had spread overnight about the girl in Hogan who was hurt in the night, but in the absence of facts, fiction was distributed without qualm. The most prevalent story was that some kind of bomb had gone off in my room, utterly destroying it but miraculously leaving all the other rooms on my floor untouched.

  I was covered in scratches and bruises over nearly every square inch of my skin, but thankfully nothing was broken. I'd had more stitches than I could count, in numerous places, but all things considered, I was very fortunate. And at least my face had been spared aside from a few mild scratches, so as long as I wore warm clothing and kept the wincing to a minimum, no one would be the wiser.

  What really hurt was knowing that I'd lost everything I owned-everything I had brought with me to school, anyway. Many of my clothes were salvageable, and thankfully I'd backed up my laptop hard drive on a USB flash drive that didn't get destroyed. Otherwise, there was very little that was irreplaceable, but the thought of losing so many personal belongings still stung.

  The ER doctor-an alarmingly short man with perfectly groomed hair and fingernails-decided to keep me until morning for observation, because I had a big, ugly egg on the top of my head.

  Derek arrived just after an unappetizing breakfast, and once he was sure I was okay, I told him everything I could remember. Knowing full well what he would think it was.

  "It was a demonic attack!" he whispered to me conspiratorially as a nurse left the room after taking my blood pressure for the millionth time. "I told you, you shouldn't be nosing around in the paranormal all the time! You've opened the door to something and your life is in danger!"

  I normally welcomed a good intellectual debate, but I didn't feel up to it this morning, so I changed the subject back to our attempts to find Jordin. Last night's attack only strengthened my resolve to find her.

  "No luck, I take it?" I asked, referring to the tattoo parlors in Martha's Vineyard.

  He shook his head.

  "Me neither. Most of the places I talked to were kind enough to look back through their records for a small tattoo at the top of the neck, but ... their records ..." My voice drifted off as a new thought came to mind.

  "What?" he asked.

  "Her journal," I said, thunderstruck. "When we were traveling, Jordin recorded all of her experiences in a journal, and if she was planning to keep investigating without me, she probably kept writing in that journal all summer. Possibly right up until her disappearance. Did you ever see it?"

  "Never," he replied, his features pained, probably at the thought of another part ofJordin's life he knew nothing about. I could only imagine what terrible fears he might be fighting against right now, like wondering if he ever really knew Jordin at all. I hoped he wouldn't give in to those worries.

  The doctor showed up a few minutes later to go over some of the results of the tests and give me the good news: I was being released. No permanent damage had been done, and as soon as I signed some papers and changed my clothes, I was good to go.

  When he was gone, I picked up our conversation where we left off. "We need to find that journal," I said with conviction. "Maybe one of those girls she went to Martha's Vineyard with-"

  I was interrupted when my phone rang. I didn't recognize the number, so I asked Derek for privacy before answering.

  "Hello?"

  "Um ... is this Maia Peters?" asked a timid female voice. I didn't recognize it.

  "Yes," I replied. "Who is this?"

  "It's Carrie-Carrie Morris. We talked yesterday? About Jordin. You gave me your number. "

  "Oh," I said in shock. I hadn't actually planned on her calling me. But she was and she didn't sound well. I said so to her.

  I thought I heard Carrie's voice trembling as she spoke. "I, uh ... I'm scared. I think something's really wrong."

  "Okay. . ." I said, thinking fast. "Do you want to tell me what's going on?"

  She let out a shuddering breath. "Could you just come to my dorm? Please?"

  Somehow it sounded like a setup, and I didn't feel like playing any games. Still, something about her voice ...

  "When would you like me to-?"

  "Right now, if you can," she said, sounding close to tears. This was no joke.

  I sighed. Apparently restarting my own life, heading to class, and finding a room would have to wait.

  "What dorm?"

  I knocked hard on Carrie's door, ignoring the stares I drew from other girls in the hallway on their way to class. Apparently girls in this dorm didn't look like they'd lost a fight with a bear. I hoped whatever it was Carrie needed to tell me would at least be quick. Class time was soon approaching and I didn't like being late. It made a very poor first impression.

  Carrie opened the door wearing a bathrobe. Her eyes were puffy, her cheeks moist and red. The sight of her this way stopped me in my tracks. I couldn't quite believe this was the same girl I'd met yesterday.

  "What's going on?" I asked as she stepped aside to let me in, closing the door behind me.

  Carrie walked around me to sit up at the head of her bed, leaning back on pillows. I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to join her by sitting down or what, so I stood awkwardly at the foot of the bed, trying to ignore the pain all over my body and wishing I'd taken up the doctor on his offer to prescribe some quality painkillers. I had been thinking that I didn't want anything in my system that might dull my senses just now, but the nagging pain turned out to be equally distracting.

  "I've been having nightmares," Carrie said, her voice an emotional squeak. "For about a week now."

  "What kind of nightmares?" I asked, more out of an impatient desire to get to the point than to express sympathy.

  "I'm in this empty, dark place ... and I'm lost ... I'm being chased by a dark figure. It's so vivid, so real. Sometimes it's hard to think during the day because it keeps coming back to me."

  I glanced at my watch. "I'm sorry to hear that, but I don't understand why you called me."

  Carrie had been staring far away as she recalled her dream, but now her weary eyes, filled with fear, came into focus.

  She stood from the bed and walked so close to me that she violated my personal space. I was about to take a step back when she turned her back to me.

  "When I got out of the shower this morning, I found this." She tugged at the back of her bathrobe until the collar fell down a few inches.

  A small, dark black symbol was on her skin right at the spot where her head met her neck.

  My heart skipped a beat and then returned with a heavy thud against my rib cage.

  "It's not a tattoo," Carrie whispered, barely able to choke the words out through sobs. "And it won't come off."

  I had never seen anything like it. It was complex for such a small mark, with intricate shapes extending in labyrinthine directions, crisscrossing over one another like a very complicated knot.

  It was a long minute before I could think of something to say.

  "You're sure you have no idea how it got onto your neck?"

  Carrie just shook her head, trembling with the effort of trying
to keep calm. Finally she spun back around to look me in the eye. "Is what happened to Jordin ... happening to me? Am I going to disappear or be abducted or something?"

  "I don't know," I answered honestly. All thoughts of my first class had just been shoved far out of my mind. "Come here. Sit down."

  I guided her unsteadily to the edge of the bed, where we sat down side by side. My mind was racing through possibilities, scenarios, all thoughts centered around a forensic analysis of what was happening here, and I couldn't stop glancing at the mark on Carrie's neck.

  "Do you think someone could have broken into your room in the night and put that on you while you were asleep?" I asked.

  She wiped the tears from her eyes. "I'm a really light sleeper. I would have heard someone breaking the lock long before they ever touched me. Besides, the door's fine." She pointed at the door I had walked through just minutes ago. It was true; the door and the lock were perfectly intact, with no sign of tampering.

  "Why didn't you tell me about this yesterday?" I asked, thinking of how she had been the one to first reveal to me thatJordin was having nightmares the entire week before she disappeared. Didn't Carrie think it might be relevant that she herself had been having nightmares for a week?

  "I don't know. I guess I didn't want to believe that Jordin's nightmares and mine could be related."

  I don't know why I felt compelled to do what I did next. Instinct took over.

  "I need to ask you something that may sound strange," I said.

  "All right."

  I took a deep breath and blurted it out. "Have you ever been to the Ghost Town amusement park?"

  If Carrie was confused or annoyed by this question, she didn't show it. She was still trying not to cry. "Some friends and I have been wanting to go for weeks," she said in a small voice, "but we haven't made it yet."

  My mind continued to spin. "What about Jordin? Has she ever been to Ghost Town?"

  Carrie took a moment to think. "I don't know. She didn't mention it if she had."

  I shook my head, clearing it. "Never mind, it was just a hunch. Okay, whatever's happening to you seems connected to whatever happened to Jordin-I think that's safe to assume. But it doesn't mean you're going to just up and vanish like she did."