Chapter Seven

That night, I had a most terrible dream.

I went to bed a fitful, exhausted mess, annoyed because, though I had searched everywhere, I'd been unable to find my necklace. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. But no sooner had my eyes drifted shut than they flew open again, propelled by an invisible force hidden inside my mind. I'd told myself, during all those hours I'd spent in my room since arriving home, that when the nightmares came, I'd be ready. That I knew what they were, and they couldn't hurt me, and I wouldn't panic when they inevitably appeared.

The reality is, I can lie to myself all I want; but fear will do as fear does, and it has no discretion as to what decisions you have made or what bravery you have tried to muster. And it certainly did not hold back in volume when the shadow creature appeared before me, staring me down with those intrusive, soul-searching eyes.

Frozen in place, unable to breathe, I watched in horror as the dark being that stood at the foot of my bed, the monster with a human shape, moved closer, circling around my bed to move right beside me—just outside of my peripheral vision. I couldn't see it, but I felt it, felt it moving closer, closer, closer, its cold, evil breath brushing against my cheek.

The demonic weight on my chest shifted, digging deeper into my ribs , as the shadow brushed its ghostly hand against my throat. I thought I had braced myself, but nothing could have prepared me for the finger of cold that seeped slowly into my bloodstream and turned my heart to ice.

My mind was screaming, brimming with hot panic, and I swear the monster could hear it because suddenly, it began to laugh. The sound was harsh and metallic, like knives being struck against each other, and it took air right beside my ear. I felt the stagnant heat of rancid breath against my cheek.

An invisible shudder rode a wave down my petrified body. It seemed that the shadow could sense my fear; as I became more terrified, its laughs escalated to hysterical cackles. Yet I still could not see it, at my side and just out of sight.

And somehow, that was even more terrifying.

It's just a dream, I told myself. Just a dream just a dream just a dream.

And I found that, after repeating those words a few dozen times, my eyelids began to drift shut. Somehow, they alone had been freed from the paralysis. The rest of my body was still trapped, that weight seeming to grow heavier by the heartbeat, but I saw only the innocent calignosity of my mind.

I thought I would fall back to sleep, after that. Already, the presence beside me was fading, my body seeming to relax. But just as I was turning over my mind to rest, feeling my breath return, a massive, crushing force came down on my torso. It should have crushed me. Instead, it peeled my eyelids back from my pupils and forced me to watch the scene unfolding before me.

There were phantoms lurking at the edge of my bed.

If it had been possible for me to scream, I would have. I would have emptied my lungs, woken all the neighbors, then sucked in a new breath and begun again. My terror was so tremendous at that moment that I am surprised it didn't simply break me in two.

Just like the monster who had laughed at me, these specters were nothing but shades, dark splotches against the already lightless room. I can't tell you for certain how many there were—four, perhaps five—but they stood in a cluster, surrounding the iron steeples of my footboard with their hulking presence.

As one entity, each the figures raised their right arm (if you could call it an arm), and pointed the wispy limbs at me. And gradually, deliberately, my comforter began to slip off my body.

To begin with, it was pulled up tight to my chin. But as the demon-things beckoned, it slipped off my bed, revealing my pajama-clad form hidden beneath it. They began to laugh, that nails-on-chalkboard screech, as the plush blanket of gray-and-white stripes began to bunch up at the foot of my bed. And all the while, there was this feeling, like a dozen miniscule spiders swarming across my body.

Oh, Jesus, I thought, my mind a whirlwind. Oh dear sweet Jesus someone help me this is just a dream this has to be a dream dear lord—

Suddenly, the horror stopped. The creatures froze their laughter, the comforter stopped its movement, the relentless insects ceased to exist. One by one, with terrible, gut-wrenching moans, the shadows dissipated. The pressure on my chest lessened, just slightly, and my comforter was just beginning to creep back up my legs when all of a sudden, there was an unholy scream and right in front of my eyes, manifesting in thin air—

A face.

Sharp, darkened planes; dark features; sunken, ember eyes. With a mouth wrenched apart in its terrible cry, the face appeared before me for a fraction of a second, spitting icy saliva onto my flesh. Then it was gone, vanished. It dissolved into the same darkness from which it had come. I was thrown up from my mattress in the bundle of nervous energy, my legs tangling in the half-drawn blankets as I literally flew over the edge of my bed. I landed hard on the carpet with a painful thud, my arm twisting beneath me.

It was still dark outside. My curtains were drawn, so my room was still in shadows; perfect for hiding whatever devils lurk in the darkness. But somehow, I was certain that whatever they were, they were gone.

At that moment, curled on the ground in my bedroom in the darkness, the line between dreams and actuality was stretched frighteningly thin. Though all rational thinking insisted that what I'd seen was another, more vivid nightmare, there was that defiant corner of my mind that told me whatever phenomenon had just occurred could not merely be attributed to science. It knew before I did that there was something else at play here, something dark and demonic that barely existed in my sliver of reality.

I'd never felt more helpless in my life.

The thing about the darkness is that once it's gone, all the lurid happenings that define it disappear as well. When there's light, there is safety, security. Knowledge that all the monsters beneath your bed can't touch you anymore. Even if you're possibly being followed by sinister men or haunted by invisible demons, there's something about daytime brightness that chases fear away.

I slept with all the lights on for the rest of the night.

◙════════════◙

“Find anything interesting yet?” Logan asked, leaning inquisitively over my shoulder. Sighing, I shook my head.

“Oh, I've found plenty of interesting things. I just don't know how to figure out what's important.”

I made a frustrated sound at the back of my throat, slapping five new sheets of paper onto the table in front of me. Logan and I had been in my backyard since early afternoon, taking advantage of my mom's working hours to begin sorting through the file Dr. Hennessy had given me. So far, I'd found the same stuff about intruders and old hags, but nothing that could make my situation any more relevant.

“We'll find something eventually,” Logan assured, squeezing my arm gently before retreating to the other side of the bench. The papers were spread out on the picnic table before us, held down in stacks by rocks from the garden. I yanked out another stack forcefully, angry at my own inability to figure out what was going on.

“I don't even know what I'm looking for,” I admitted. “This, all of this”—I waved my hands to encompass the whole table—“has to have some kind of significance, but I just... I don't know. Maybe I need a break.”

Logan nodded in agreement. “I'll second that. There's no way reading about sleep disorders for hours on end can be good for your mental health.”

I scoffed. “Yeah, because it's not like my sanity's already under question or anything like that.”

“It's not,” my best friend said seriously. He looked at me imploringly until I turned to face him, then grabbed my hand and squeezed it tightly. “Parker, no one thinks you're crazy, all right? I don't know what's going on with the people you've been seeing and these nightmares, but we'll figure it out. And I'll be here for you no matter what.”

A squeak of relief escaped my lips as Logan pulled me into his arms. He was wearing his jacket, the one I'd borrowed from him on Sunday, but it'd been at my house for two days so now it smelled like my room mixed with his familiar scent.

“So this means we're taking a break, right?” he asked slowly, once he'd released me. “I can go in and make hot chocolate, and we can just watch TV for a while, get your mind off all this.

I nodded vigorously. “Yeah, break. For sure. Let me just put this stuff away so my mom doesn't freak out on me.” He was already standing, looking dubious at the idea of me staying outside alone. I flashed him an easy smile. “Seriously, Logan, I'll be inside in a minute.”

“Fine,” he grumbled, glancing back at me over his shoulder as he made his way back to the house, like he thought I'd disappear at any second. When he opened the screen door, Zipper, who we'd left in the house, came hurtling into the backyard in a stream of fluffy white. She sped over to me, rubbing her face against the hem of my jeans.

“Hey, girl,” I cooed, scratching her between the ears. She was only eight months old, still a puppy; we'd gotten her from a woman two streets over whose American Eskimo had given birth to an unnaturally large litter. Zipper was high energy, always a blur of snowy white against the world.

She propped her short front legs onto the bench and tilted her head, her little pink tongue lolling out of her mouth expectantly.

“I have no food for you,” I cried, laughing as she licked my hand, hoping for a treat. I gently pushed her paws away. “Go, Zip! Go play, I'm busy.”

After whining a bit, Zipper backed up and began her waddling run into the center of the backyard. What I loved about my house, and other houses in the culdesac, was that the forest was literally a stone's throw away. All that separated us from the tree-filled expanse was a low stone fence. When I was little, Logan and I used to play back there all the time, sometimes managing to convince his older sister, Aubrey, to take us down to the small old lake that was hidden back there, beyond the trees.

I watched my dog bullet through the grass as I gathered the papers, slipping them all back into the file. Two hours of reading had done nothing but restate information I already knew, and we weren't even halfway through the pile. It was disheartening, not to mention the fact that I was still extremely groggy from my inability to fall asleep the night before.

I knew that if the night terrors got any worse, I'd have to tell my mother. I was already a mess internally; anything worse and I'd flip out for sure. And, unsurprisingly, I still wasn't able to get over the idea of that man watching me. Maybe I'd imagined it—maybe. But it was so easy to call his face to mind that was was inclined to think he had been real.

Just then, a frantic barking startled me from my thoughts. I looked up quickly to see Zipper, fur on end, standing by the gate that lead out to the forest and growling. Her little tail was ramrod straight, her eyes focused somewhere beyond the fence.

“Zipper,” I called, suddenly worried, “what is it, girl?” I followed her gaze, scanning the dimly lit trees, but saw nothing. Yet something had Zipper spooked; I'd never seen her so tense before.

Hugging the stuffed file to my chest, I shouted out a wary, “Come on, Zipper!” before backing away toward the house. Zipper let out one loud bark that bounced off the trees, followed momentarily with a plaintive whimper. She sneezed quietly, a final sound, before running toward me with her tail between her legs.

◙════════════◙

Once my mother got back from work and Logan had gone home, I retreated to my room with Zipper at my heels, ready to delve back into the papers. I read page after page, information in tiny print scattered across ivory sheets, trying to sort through medical definitions and common cultural legends and real accounts.

It was the latter that I was most interested in; I read countless stories by different people, all of them recounting tales similar to my own. Some were visited by The Intruder; some had seen the shadows; some even claimed to have woken up to an alien perched on their chests. But although a few accounts reported a feeling that their covers were being dragged off their body, none reported that the phenomenon actually happened.

I looked down at my comforter, tucked neatly beneath me. Somehow, last night, it had been drawn all the way down my bed. In the past, I had woken up with my blankets at crazy angles, or even on the floor, and I knew that it was because I'd moved around in my sleep. But I'd watched them move this time. I hadn't been able to move, much less kick my comforter off my bed, but I'd seen its slow progression, peeling away from the mattress at the hands of the dark beings. Even now, staring at my footboard, I could see the entire thing repeating in my head.

“I swear to God, I'm going insane,” I muttered.

Zipper, curled up on a pillow beside me, looked up and offered me a consoling tap with her cold nose. She seemed to have recovered from whatever had spooked her in the woods, but she now refused to leave my side.

At around eight-thirty, my mom came into my room uninvited, calling me for dinner. She didn't even seem to notice the mess on my bed, thank goodness. I had a feeling that she'd flip out if she knew what I was researching.

Dinner was bland; unseasoned chicken and brown rice. It definitely beat the health food experiments we'd been having recently, though, so I didn't complain. Zipper had come downstairs with me, much to my mother's annoyance, and was trotting circles around the table as we ate in silence. The only sound in the dining room was that of metal cutlery on china plates, with the occasional clink of a glass being set down on the wooden table.

Halfway through the meal, my mother cleared her throat. “So,” she said, trying to be offhand, “have you had anymore of those dreams lately?”

I paused for a split second, my knife halfway into a slice of chicken. It was the penultimate moment, the one that would winnow down all her possible reactions to a single one. If I said no, I'd likely be questioned. If I said yes, I'd never have peace.

“Nope, none,” I said, a beat too late. Mom's eyes narrowed.

“Are you lying to me, Parker Sage?”

I masked a gulp by swallowing a bite of food. “Of course not,” I retorted indignantly. “Why would I lie about that? I haven't had any more dreams.”

My mother didn't blink, nor did she move her gaze from my face as I reached for my glass of water. I was careful to keep my expression impassive, smoothing my feature into a mask of nonchalance until she looked away.

“Good,” she stated, and I thought I caught a flash of relief in her eyes. Her jaw clenched as she brought a forkful of food up to her lips. Even when she ate, she did not drop her head. Her chin stayed stiffly raised, like a 1940s movie star. Like an evil queen in a fairy tale.

I returned to my room as soon as humanly possible without looking suspicious, and my mom came in at about ten o'clock to tell me she was going to take Zipper downstairs, then go to sleep.

“What's that you're doing?” she asked before leaving, belatedly noticing the papers scattered across my room.

I resisted the urge to pull them all to my chest, instead saying, “Just some research for school. Nothing big.”

Mom sniffed, shrugged, and left the room.

By ten thirty, I had a pounding headache and a lethargic feeling in my limbs. I had school the next morning; it was probably a good idea to go to sleep. I told myself that, yet the seconds ticked by, and I continued staring at the same page for ten minutes. The three bare bulbs that hung from my ceiling swayed slightly from a breeze coming in through my balcony window.

At eleven o'clock, I dragged myself to the bathroom, intending to take a shower and then go to sleep. I was still wearing my t-shirt and hoodie from that afternoon, and my hair was a ratty mess around my hair. Despite my intention to wash up and get ready for bed, I spent several moments, wiping away smears in my makeup and combing my fingers through my hair.

When I emerged from the bathroom soon after, makeup and hair completely redone, I resigned to the fact that I was too afraid to go asleep, and sitting around forcing myself awake was not going to help anything. After taking a quick peek into the hall to make sure the light was out in my mother's room, I snatched my phone off my nightstand and dialed in a number.

“Hello?” Juliette murmured, answering the phone after a few rings.

“Hey, I need to get out of here,” I hissed, gathering my papers into a messy pile. “You up for it?”

There was a yawn from Juliette's end, then silence; for a moment, I worried she had fallen back asleep. But after a moment, she muttered, “Parker Sage, it's a school night for both of us. Are you kidding me?”

I bounced on the balls of my feet, making a silent mad dash around my room in search of my shoes. “Pleeeease, J,” I whispered, drawing out the syllables. “I'll love you forever.”

I heard grumbling and rustling from her side, then a resigned sigh. “God, you're so lucky you have me.” She yawned again. “Stan's?”

“Stan's,” I confirmed, a grin spreading across my face. “I'll meet you outside.”

The good thing about having a balcony outside your room is that it makes sneaking out impossibly easy. All it took was a leg over the rail and a few nervous airborne seconds before I landed in a crouch on the grass of my front lawn. My half-laced combat boots made no sound as I sprinted around back, feeling for all the world like a ninja in an action flick.

When I hopped the fence into the woods behind our houses, Juliette was already waiting with her arms crossed tightly against the nighttime chill. She waved a gloved hand at me as I sprinted over, and we took off into the trees.

Stan's was about half a mile away, but if you took the forest shortcut, it only took about five minutes. We'd learned the route years ago, back when we were going just to spy on the older kids getting wasted, and now traversing it was second nature, even in the dark. We sped through the trees by the light of the moon, the constant movement keeping us warm.

We were about halfway there when Juliette stopped.

“What is it?” I demanded, skidding to a stop. “What's wrong?”

Juliette's eyes were wide white saucers in the darkness, her arms rigid at her sides. “Do you hear that?” she whispered.

I froze completely, straining to listen as the leaves settled around me. I heard nothing.

“No,” I replied slowly, “Juliette, what do you hear?”

“Shh!” My friend hushed me violently, her lips trembling. “Listen. It's coming Parker Sage, it's coming closer.”

I edged closer, my heart in my throat. “What is, J? What the hell are you talking ab—”

My question was cut off abruptly as Juliette let out at earsplitting shriek, throwing her arm up to point behind me, her face contorted in terror. I automatically screamed as well, hurling myself to the ground as terror pulsed through me, frenzied and untamed, and gasping laughter erupted above me—

Wait, laughter?

“Oh my God, that was the best!” Juliette cried. I dared my eyes open to see her standing a few feet away, one hand against a tree, quaking with laughter.

“You should have seen your face!” she gushed.

I pushed myself to my knees, anger and annoyance flooding through me as I struggled to calm my heartbeat. “Dude!” I shouted. “Not cool! That was not funny!”

Juliette slapped her thigh, cackling. “No, it was freaking hilarious! Oh God, Parker Sage, you're a mess!” She staggered over to me, helping me to my feet and beginning to pull leaves and twigs out of my hair.

“Jesus,” I muttered, resisting the urge to smack her hand away as genuine irritation coursed through my veins. “You're such a jerk!”

My friend smiled sweetly, giving me a condescending pat on the head as she said, “Oh, lighten up, hon. After all, you can't have thought that you'd be able to wake me up at eleven at night without having to deal with a few consequences.” She winked, and though I was still peeved, she either didn't notice or dutifully ignored it.

“Come on, Parker Sage,” she beckoned, “let's go.”

◙════════════◙

At Stan's, we ordered our usual drinks: strawberry daiquiris on the rocks. The first time we'd gotten them, when we were fifteen, it's taken us about two minutes each because we couldn't stop giggling long enough to get the words out. Now, the bartender, Stan, after whom the joint was named, immediately got our orders going the second we came through the door.

Stan was from New Jersey, and he never said much, because a lot of kids would make fun of his accent. Usually, he just made you your drink, took your money (plus the two dollars extra for minors), and left it at that.

But that night, when Juliette and I came in with cheeks pink from the cold, Stan sped right over to us in his apron, towel draped over the crook of his elbow.

“Parker, you got a new boyfriend or something?” he demanded immediately, blatantly skipping any introductions, as was his custom. “'Cause some guy came in 'bout an hour ago, lookin' for ya. He was real nice lookin', too, all fancy clothes and blond hair slicked back—a real playboy type, if ya know what I mean.”

I raised an eyebrow, sharing a bemused glance with Juliette. “No, I don't,” I replied, shaking my head, “I don't think I know anyone like that.”

“Well.” The bartender snorted. “Guess you have a secret admirer, then, 'cause he gave me the money to pay for your drink. Knew what you liked and everything, and paid the extra bit.”

If it was even possible, my eyebrows arched up even further and my mouth dropped open as I took in what Stan was saying. I tried to rack my brain for whom it might have been, but I didn't know any blond guys who might be interested in me like that. Besides, most of the teenage boys around town were too cheap to spend their own money on a girl.

Seeming not to notice my confusion, Stan continued, “Anyway, you girls go on and sit down. I'll get your drinks stirred up.”

“Wait, Stan!” Juliette called after him. “Did anyone come pay for my drink, by any chance?”

Stan just laughed.

“So, a secret admirer,” Juliette said, once we'd found our seats at the bar and Stan had given us our drinks. She waggled her eyebrows suggestively. “Scandalous.”

I shrugged as I sipped my drink, feeling the gratifying buzz zip through me.

“Probably just a fluke,” I said. Music pulsed around us, and in the corner, old men and teenage boys alike shouted at a football game on the television.

“Or maybe,” Juliette whispered, “it was Logan. He could have told Stan to keep his identity a secret, so you'd never know it was him.” She sighed, her eyes searching the ceiling. “So romantic.”

I snorted. “Yeah, right. Because buying a girl a drink at the seediest bar in town is the most romantic thing ever. Call the police, he stole my heart.” Rolling my eyes, I fixed Juliette with a dry stare. “And anyway, why Logan, of all people? You know how much he hates bars.”

My friend sipped her drink, smirking. “Well sure, I know that. But I also know that the reason why you couldn't sleep tonight is because you were thinking about him. Am I right, or am I right?”

“You're wrong, actually!” I gaped at her, appalled. “Why the hell would that be the reason why?”

“I don't know,” she chirped in a singsong tone. “I just haven't seen his hanging around my place so much lately. How is Logan?”

“Deeply in love with you,” I ground out.

“Mhm.” Juliette didn't sound convinced. “Come on now, Parker Sage. Try and tell me that you don't notice the way he's been doting on you like crazy lately. I mean, he jumped at the chance to give you his jacket at church. And earlier today, when I looked out my window, I saw him hug you, just out of nowhere.”

I smacked my friend across the arm, eliciting a tipsy laugh. “You were spying on us?” I spat.

“When you put it like that, it sounds wrong,” she pouted. She spread out her hands in front of her, placating. “Anyway, all I'm saying is that Logan hasn't been acting the same with you lately. You'd have to be blind not see it.”

“What, so I'm blind now?”

“No, hon, no.” Juliette put a dainty hand on my arm, sighing prettily. “I just think that maybe, you don't want to accept the fact that things are changing between you and Logan. It happens all the time, no big deal. All guy-girl best friends go through this phase.”

I burrowed my neck into the collar of my jacket, mumbling, “I don't believe you.”

Tilting her head, Juliette waved a dismissive hand. “Suit yourself,” she trilled. “But just you wait, Parker Sage; I know I'm right.”

Taking another sip of the half-drained daiquiri, I shook my head. Juliette had tired of the subject of my and Logan's nonexistent romance and moved on to a description of a boy in her French class who she thought was totally cute.

“He actually lives in Butler,” she told me, “so he has, like, a ton of connections to all these cool parties and stuff. And he has the cutest accent when he speaks in French, it practically melts my heart.”

“Mm,” I grunted. Juliette, if she noticed my noncommittal response, did not comment. She waved her hands around, telling me about his amazing hair, and I tuned her out. I felt bad, I really did, but there was a pleasant buzzing in my head and it was very distracting.

I glanced over Juliette's shoulder at the football game playing on the TV, a rerun of that night's earlier match for those late workers who had to rely on sleazy bars for their entertainment. A group of men of varying ages were crowded around the dented flat screen, yelling or booing accordingly. I didn't understand a bit of football, but the colorful blur of their jerseys made pretty watercolor streaks.

As I sat there, grinning tipsily at the screen, I became aware of a tugging presence at the corner of my eye. I reluctantly drew my attention away, focusing instead on the blond head of a man—the only man who wasn't flying out of his seat.

Juliette was slightly drunk and still talking, so she didn't notice as I leaned forward to get a better look. The instant I noted the penguin suit the man wore, his entire body went completely straight. I inched backward in my stool, suddenly nervous, as very, very slowly, the man turned his head to face me.

And he smiled with his inkwell eyes.

This time, I did not jump or scream. I locked eyes with the man, hazel to jet black, as his teeth glinted in the dim light. There was something mysteriously alluring about his gaze, yet decidedly evil, and I felt a rampant fear course through me at the mere sight of him.

His lips moved. He was speaking to me, silently.

“I hope you liked the drink,” he mouthed.

My breath flew out of my lips in a gasp, as if someone had punched me in the stomach.

“Parker Sage?”

I must have blanked out for a moment, because the next thing I knew, Juliette's hands were steadying my shoulders, her blue eyes boring into mine.

“Hon, are you okay?” she asked anxiously.

I couldn't speak for a moment; my mouth was strangely dry. I licked my lips and swallowed, then managed, “Fine. Too much alcohol.”

But that wasn't it, not at all. I could down five glasses and not get drunk, and I had never half passed out before. This was something else, something darker, and I was absolutely certain that it had something to do with the mystifying man in the penguin suit, along with his apparent colleague whom I'd seen the day before. My heart hammered in my chest as I realized that these men, and maybe more, were following me, stalking me; I didn't know what they wanted, but they existed, and that was enough to have my fear clawing its way up my esophagus.

For a long, drawn out moment, I didn't dare let my gaze slip from Juliette's face. If she saw the man too, I didn't know what he would do to us. So I waited for thirty seconds, until her eyes glazed over again, and she went back to babbling about the boy from French class. That's when I finally chanced a peek at the booth across the bar, and presently swallowed a gasp.

I hadn't seen him leave, but the man with the onyx eyes was gone.