“You need your rest.”
“Mom, that’s all I’ve been doing for the past three weeks is sleeping.”
Her mother sighed and nodded. “I guess you’re right. Too much sleep is just as unhealthy as too little.”
And though Ronnie had smiled in triumph, inside she knew it wasn’t because she was right. It was because she was beginning to be afraid of falling asleep. But after the movie ended, her mother told her in no uncertain terms that it was time for them both to go to bed. Ronnie went up and lay down. Her heart was racing. She closed her eyes.
She woke when she heard the tapping on her window. She lay there not moving for several minutes, listening to the dry tap and the scrape of something brushing against the glass. There was no shadow thrown against the wall here. This window faced a dark alley and a thick curtain covered it.
Tap tap. Shhhhh. Tap tap.
Maybe it was a bird, perched on the sill, looking for bugs.
Tap. Tap tap.
“Paul, please,” she moaned quietly into the darkness.
Shhhh.
At the foot of the futon was her mother’s desk, and on it her computer and printer and speakers. A constellation of tiny blue and green lights shone into the darkness, the only light in the room.
The tapping continued, no more insistent than before, but no less, either.
Then:
Ronnnieeee…
The blood became ice in her veins. She exhaled and the air above her face misted, glowing a ghostly greenish-blue.
She knew she was whimpering. She could hear herself.
Ronnnieeee…promissssssse.
The smell of smoke was thick around her, burning her nose, drawing tears to her eyes.
“No,” she whispered. “Please, Paul, please.”
Promissse…
“No, no no no—”
There was a thump on the glass. Ronnie yelped and jerked away from the window. She tumbled off the bed, tangled in the bedclothes.
Thump! Shhhhh.
“NO!”
“Ronnie!”
A blinding light suddenly flooded the room. Ronnie shielded her eyes. A moment later, her mother grabbed her and held on.
“Ronnie, what’s the matter? You’re shaking like a leaf.”
But Ronnie’s eyes spun to the window, fully expecting the grass to shatter and her Paul to come in.
Her mother rose and went over and flung open the curtains before Ronnie could yell at her to stop.
She stood looking out the window, down into the darkened alley.
“Did you hear something?”
“S-smoke,” she stammered. “Do you smell it?”
Her mother frowned, sniffing. She shook her head.
The smell of it was thick in the room, bathing them, cold and damp smoke, like a campfire recently doused. How could her mother not smell it?
“I smell it, Mom. Smoke. You don’t?”
Her mother pulled the window open and the smell overwhelmed her. “I don’t, honey. I think maybe you night—”
“It wasn’t a nightmare. I still smell it!” It was true, although the smell was beginning to dissipate, it was definitely there in the room with her.
Her mother shook her head. “There’s no fire—”
“I didn’t say fire, I said smoke!” Ronnie screamed. “Listen to me!”
“Honey—”
“He was here, Mom!”
Her mother frowned. “Who? Who was here, honey?”
“Paul.” She pointed at the window.
Her mother sank to the floor and wrapped her arms around Ronnie, drawing her head into the crook of her neck. “Paul’s gone, Ronnie. I’m so sorry. I know how much he meant to you.”
Ronnie drew away from her in horror. “Paul’s here, Mom,” she said through her teeth. “He’s dead, I know, but he’s not gone. I saw him. I’ve seen him.”
Her mother didn’t answer. She opened her mouth, but didn’t say anything.
“I’m not crazy, Mom. I saw him.”
“You didn’t see him, honey.” She shook her head. “Now, please, come here.”
“Why won’t you believe me?”
“Because, what you’re saying is… It’s not… There’s no such things as ghosts, honey.”
“You don’t know.”
Her mother exhaled in frustration. “I think it’s time we talk about going to see a doctor, Ronnie, maybe get you some sleeping pills.”
“No!”
Her mother jerked. “Your father told me about the pills, honey.”
“I took them, okay? But I don’t want them. I wish I could never go to sleep again!”
Her mother stood up and began to pace. She stepped toward Ronnie. Ronnie cringed and backed away.
“You have to sleep. You have to eat. Look at you. You’ve lost too much weight already. I can see your cheekbones, for chrissake, Ronnie. And the circles under your eyes…”
Ronnie glared at her but didn’t speak. If she only knew about the hair that was falling out, her mother would truly freak.
“Just go. Please.”
“Ronnie—”
“NOW!” she screamed.
“Veronica Matthews!”
Ronnie could see her mother was on the verge of tears, but she just couldn’t care. Couldn’t her mother see she was hurting, too?
“I am your mother. I care about you. I’m worried. Please, let me help you.”
“You can’t, Mom. Nobody can.”
† † †
They said little to each other the next morning, and even less after her mother announced that they were going to see Ronnie’s childhood physician, Doctor Safri. She didn’t argue. That look was back in her mother’s eyes.
She waited while her mother checked her in, her body growing rigid when she came over and sat down next to her. They both went in when the nurse called her name. She recorded her weight and blood pressure, then offered her a paper gown and instructed her to change into it.
After a preliminary physical exam, Ronnie’s mother elaborated on what she’d already told the nurse over the phone. Doctor Safri nodded and sighed sympathetically.
“You’re having nightmares, yes?” he said in his thick Indian accent. He bent down so that they were face to face and inspected her eyes. Ronnie glanced away.
“It is not good, not eating, Veronica. You know?” He’d always said her name with a ‘w’ and Ronnie had never really noticed it before, but now it just seemed irritating, like he was mocking her.
They talked for a few minutes about sleeping pills, but Ronnie vehemently shook her head. “I don’t want to sleep,” she said.
“Oh no, that is not good. A person needs to sleep.”
He collected samples of blood and urine, expressing alarm at how much weight she’d lost. He asked if he could speak to her mother alone. He left them alone while Ronnie got dressed, then she went and sat in the waiting room. Twenty minutes later, her mother came out. She spoke with the receptionist for a few minutes, took out her checkbook and paid what they owed.
Together, they silently walked out. Her mother didn’t say anything until they’d climbed into the car.
“He thinks you should see a grief counselor. He gave me a name.”
“A shrink?” She didn’t need a psychiatrist, she needed an exorcist.
“I think it’s a good idea, honey. When we get home, I’ll make you an appointment. hopefully we can get you in soon.”
Ronnie didn’t argue. She knew it wouldn’t help.
That night, when Paul came, she was ready. She knew moments before she heard the tapping that he was coming. She’d smelled the smoke.
Tap tap.
This time she stood and went to the window. She drew the curtains to the side and peered out into the darkness. He was there, floating, his pale skin glowing, his hand on the pane outside, scratching, tapping.
Ronnie exhaled, and her breath fogged the window. Where it reached the glass where Paul was touching, the fog froze into
delicate crystalline patterns. She could almost hear the crackle of it freezing.
Ronneeeee…
It was almost a whisper, almost inside her head.
“Leave me alone, Paul.”
Promisssse…protect yooooou…
She could see the teeth in his mouth, blackened by the fire, and she wondered why they would be so stained when his skin was so pale. Even his eyes, as dark as they were, seemed to glow. His hair fluttered in the breezeless night, and so did the loose clothes that draped his dead body.
“Please, Paul,” she gasped. “Leave me alone.”
Promisssse…
“You promised you would never hurt me, Paul,” she wept. “You promised. You said you would rip your own fingernails off if you did. And now you’re hurting me, Paul. Please.”
“You promised me, Paul,” she said.
He nodded.
“You promised you wouldn’t hurt me, but you are.”
A look of utter despair came over him and a sound of such horrible pain came to her that she collapsed to the floor.
She looked up. His mouth formed one last word before he faded away: promise.
A few minutes later, even the smell of smoke was gone.
She knew he would be back the next night, and he did come. He tapped on the glass, wanting to be let in. She backed away from the window and slid into a corner of the room, deep in the shadows, but his eyes found her and he begged her to be let in. The tips of his fingers were blackened, where the nails had been torn from their beds.
“Promise,” he uttered in his ghostly voice, repeating the word over and over again, and she knew what he was telling her: he had fulfilled his promise and now he expected her to do the same.
She didn’t say anything about the visits to the psychiatrist. She admitted to having nightmares and refused the sleeping pills he offered. He suggested hypnosis, and she agreed, but she wasn’t able to relax enough for it to work. The hour expired and her mother made another appointment a few days hence. As she was walking out, the doctor urged her to eat. He suggested they try high protein shakes.
They stopped at the store to buy some, and Ronnie tried to drink one, but she ended up throwing it all up before they reached home. The worry in her mother’s face was evident.
She heard her parents speaking on the phone. She heard her mother crying.
That night she left the window open. She couldn’t explain why. Paul terrified her, but yet she still loved him. Maybe it was the guilt. Maybe it was that she secretly longed to feel his touch, even knowing how much it horrified her. Everything was all mixed up.
She had lain on her bed, silent and still, stiff as a corpse and shivering from the cold and fear, for hours before the smell of smoke suddenly overwhelmed her. Still, she kept her eyes closed. She felt the weight of his body as he sat down next to her, and this terrified her even more, as if he still had some material aspect to him, a body. It had to be her imagination, she knew, and yet she couldn’t deny the slight tilt of the futon pad and the creak of the wood when he came.
The side of her body next to him burned with cold.
She opened her eyes, and there he was. He spoke her name.
She was crying, and the tears were burning paths down the sides of her face. She was crying for her loss and for Paul’s. She was crying for their love. She was crying because of what she knew she had to do. She had promised.
He reached out and she winced. His hand hovered above her face for a moment, then slipped around behind her neck. It was cold, deathly cold and it burned before numbing her. He lifted her up and as their faces drew close she could smell the damp earth beneath the smoke. He opened his lips.
She wanted to close her eyes, but she had no more control over her body. She was utterly within his control. Whatever he wanted, she would allow.
His breath was ice on her cheek, but now she was delirious with it. She strained upward, toward him. And when their lips touched, she knew she would keep her promise.
† † †
She stopped eating altogether, stopped talking. Two days later, her mother called her father and together, as they stood in the doorway holding each other, they called the ambulance. The ambulance came and took her away to the hospital. Paul rode it with her.
They put a tube in her arm. They put another into her stomach and yet another down below so she could pee. They tried to force feed her, but they couldn’t make her better.
The visits were becoming more frequent. Paul would show up in the middle of the day, even when she was awake. He would be right there in the room with her and yet no one else would see him. No one could smell the smoke or the dirt. They couldn’t hear him as he spoke to her, telling her how much he loved her and that he would always be with her. Soon, everything would be all right.
She slipped into and out of consciousness.
At some point, she became aware of her parents speaking to the doctor when someone came in and unlocked her bed and started to move her.
Is this it? she wondered. Have I finally died?
She tried to look around her, to find Paul, but he wasn’t there.
The lights above her head passed like lines on the highway as they pushed her down the hall. They were taking her away. She wondered if the morgue would be this cold.
Her father’s face appeared over her. On the other side, her mother’s. They bumped heads, but didn’t seem to notice. She could hear them speaking, but the words were jumbled. She couldn’t understand them at all.
A third head came into view, directly above. Paul smiled at her and said: “Soon. Then you’ll be able to sleep.”
He bent down and kissed her on the lips as her parents wept.
† † †
Ronnie?
Her head felt like it was going to split wide open. The pain inside was excruciating.
“Ronnie? Can you hear me? Open your eyes, Ronnie.”
She obeyed.
She was in a room. It looked like a hospital room and there were people all around her, people with masks over their faces. One of them pulled his mask down and smiled at her.
“Welcome back,” he said. He took hold of her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Can you feel that? Squeeze if you can.”
She squeezed his hand. He repeated the test on the other side before looking up and over to one side at someone outside of her range of vision. The doctor exhaled nasally and nodded. “So far, so good.”
Ronnie opened her mouth and tried to speak, but there was something wrong with her throat. She felt like she was choking.
“Don’t speak. You still have a tube in your throat. We’ll take it out shortly. Try and relax and I’ll explain what’s happening.”
He turned and she could hear a stool being rolled over the floor. The doctor sat down on it and said, “There was a tumor, benign. It was in the back part of your brain. You’ve probably had it your whole life, but something seems to have triggered it to grow and it was pressing into your occipital lobe, the back part of your head.” He pointed to a spot on his own head. “We think we’ve been able to remove the whole thing.”
Ronnie closed her eyes. All she wanted to do was sleep.
But the doctor wasn’t finished. “You were very lucky. It was growing quite aggressively. If we hadn’t caught it when we did, it would’ve killed you.”
Paul, she thought. He’d known. He’d come back to warn her.
“You won’t be having any more hallucinations.”
This time, when she closed her eyes, she did sleep, and there were no visions, no visitations, no smoke.
It took her two days to regain her strength, at least enough for her to get out of bed and walk to the bathroom. She ate with gusto, slept soundly. But grief wracked her in every moment that the nurses and her family left her alone. Paul really was gone. She had lost him twice.
They moved her back into her mother’s house a week later. That evening, after her mother took away the dinner plates and left her alone, Ronnie got up and we
nt to the computer. She opened a new word processing file and began to type. When she was finished, she emailed it to her father and mother, putting in the subject line: there are promises we make and promises we keep.
Then she opened the window and, taking Paul’s damaged hand, stepped out into the night.
‡ ‡
Author’s note
Of all the stories in this collection, The Promises We Keep was the only one that remained completely faithful to my original vision, right up to the very end. So, in a sense, I guess it kept its promise. When a writer gets the gift of an idea so compelling that it essentially writes itself, he feels blessed.
Promises explores two main themes: the depth and intensity of young love, and the vulnerability of the vows we make to each other, the ones we intend to keep no matter how dire the circumstances. No one ever imagines worst case scenario, and rightfully so, but sometimes we have no other choice.
Paul’s death tests the bond that forms between him and Ronnie. It challenges the rigor of their vows. But when those bonds and vows begin to work at odds with each other, how then will they respond? That is the challenge I wished them to address.
Did Ronnie make the right decision in the end? For that matter, was Paul actually real? Was he just another manifestation of her brain tumor? And what about after Ronnie’s surgery?
‡
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As always, my undying thanks to all of the devoted staff of Brinestone Press for their keen eye and gentle but firm touch in helping me bring these stories to life, for believing every step of the way that I could raise the dead and the infirm.
To fellow authorpreneur Mick Guerini, my scientist comrade-in-arms, for wonderfully productive discussions on everything from fruit flies to wizards.
To my devoted fans and followers on Twitter (http://twitter.com/saultanpepper), especially the zombie apocalypse junkies. Everything’s better with the #zombie hashtag.
My deepest gratitude goes to my family for their unflagging support, especially Cheryl, who haunts me in the best way possible. Without you, I would not be able to create worlds with such richness to them.
Insomnia: Paranormal Tales, Science Fiction, & Horror Page 26
