by Sara Clancy
She turned to continue her pacing anew and almost smacked into her mother. Dorothy Rider was out of uniform and looking more than ready to turn in for the night.
“We’re going home, Nicole.”
“Did you hear about Benton?” she asked at the same time.
Dorothy sighed. “He’s stable but still unconscious, just like the last eight times you have asked me.”
“And they haven’t sedated him? He hates that. You can’t let them do that to him.”
Releasing her crossed arms just long enough to rub her forehead, Dorothy suppressed a groan that sounded oddly close to Nicole’s name.
“We’ve been over this. Neither of us have any legal right to determine his medical treatment.”
“I know but–”
“His parents will take care of him. And I’m going to take care of you. Get in the car, we’re going home.”
“Just another hour.”
“You have school in the morning.”
“I don’t want him to wake up alone.”
“His parents are here,” Dorothy insisted. Her struggle to keep her composure resulted in a viciously sharp tone when she said, “He doesn’t need you.”
Nicole cringed under the words. Tightening her arms around herself she lowered her eyes to the floor.
“Mom, what happened to Kimberly?”
Her mother instantly huffed out her frustration. “We’re not doing this.”
“Fine,” Nicole said and squeezed herself tighter. “Don’t tell me. I’ll find out on my own.”
With fatigue pressing down against her, Dorothy pinched the bridge of her nose. “You do not have the right to another person’s medical file. No one will tell you anything.”
“Sure,” Nicole said. “But, really, how hard can it be to break into a morgue?”
“That’s a crime.”
“So just tell me.”
They stood frozen, glaring at each other, neither giving in an inch until Nicole flung her arms out with a huff.
“Everyone will know tomorrow anyway. Where’s the harm in telling me?”
Dorothy grabbed her daughter’s arm and pulled her further away from Benton’s parents. Somehow, despite everything happening within a few feet from Benton’s room, neither Theodore nor Cheyanne entered into the hallway.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Dorothy whispered harshly.
The question caught her off guard and she shrugged a shoulder. “Nothing.”
“Nicole, if you know what killed Kimberly, you need to tell me.”
“I told Chuck everything I saw, I swear,” Nicole said.
“I’ve read his police report. You have to be holding something back.”
“Why?” Nicole said with a matching whisper. “What happened?”
Dorothy took a long breath, caught between her duty as a police officer and her concern for her child. Nicole didn’t know which one won out in the end, but didn’t question it as she got what she wanted.
“This stays between us.”
“Of course.”
Dorothy looked at her with an icy gaze. “I mean it, Nicole. No further.”
Nicole nodded and watched as her mother quickly glanced around the hallway. When she turned back to her daughter, Dorothy’s face had hardened into her police persona.
“Her heart is missing.”
“What?!”
Dorothy didn’t flinch as she repeated the statement.
“Who loses a heart?” Nicole said, struggling to keep her voice down. She barely managed it as she continued, “It has to be in the morgue somewhere, right? There can’t be that many places to look.”
Dorothy shook her head. “It wasn’t in Kimberly’s chest when she came in.”
Nicole couldn’t wrap her mind around that. “That doesn’t make sense. I talked to her, mom. I would have noticed a gaping chest wound. And she had to have been using it, by the way.”
“The oddest thing is that there wasn’t a single mark on her body.”
Nicole blinked at her. “How do you stay alive when someone has removed a very vital organ?”
Dorothy raised her eyebrow.
“You think that someone stole it after she was dead?” Nicole ventured hesitantly.
“Doesn’t that make a little more sense?” Dorothy said.
For Nicole, the possibility of a dead person talking was a lot easier to swallow than the idea that someone she knew was stealing organs. But then, her idea of what was possible had changed drastically from what she had once believed.
She tried not to sound defensive when she asked her mother, “What do you think the question is?”
Dorothy didn’t miss a beat, “How can you remove an organ without making a single cut?”
***
He had no eyes but he didn’t need them. He could feel. Vibrations rattling against skin that wasn’t his own. It trickled and pricked. Waves of sensation that brought the world into sharp focus. Every molecule brushed against his skin, charged with its own energy, each shaking with a unique intensity. One vibration in particular captured his attention and drew him on, the horse below him; charging, racing with the northern wind as it swept across the brewing storm clouds.
Below him, the sparks of life he had been searching for called to him with a siren tune. Without a signal from himself, his stallion dipped down. Cool air rushed around him, chilling the meat that was draped over his body, clamoring the cages attached to the saddle against his thighs. The earth moved up to meet him with a bone-rattling thud, but his horse never faltered, never slowed. Bit by bit, his target’s vibrations grew and took shape. With a sudden jerk, he brought his horse upright, forcing it to whine and strain, its teeth gnashing against the metal bit within its mouth as it pulled against the reins.
Benton felt like his skin was severing, ripped apart by a thousand unseen fingers until he was tossed aside as a heavy slop against the dirt. Sensation bombarded him, ravaging his every sense as each one snapped back into existence. The world shattered and reshaped itself as he looked up to find the horseman looming above him, its non-existent eyes glaring down at him with unbridled rage.
Scrambling back over the earth, Benton’s eyes widened with fear. This couldn’t be happening. It was impossible. Within his dreams, he always melded with his hosts. Their minds entwined, their bodies as one, completely inseparable until the dream shattered and he was flung back into reality. He was never felt, never noticed, never separated by force. This was the first time since he was ten years old that he was simply Benton within a dream, and he didn’t know what he should do.
The turmoil of his thoughts were cut short when the horseman jumped down from his steed. Each step he took shook the earth, and Benton scrambled to pull himself back faster. Grass twisted around his fingers like vines trying to trap him to the earth. His limbs were heavy and useless. He still couldn’t breathe. The world in his dream crushed in around him, tightened by the coils of the horseman’s rage. As the last of it fell away, the one thing that remained solid was the charging horseman. It reached for him.
Benton screamed.
***
Benton snapped his eyes open as his spine dropped against the thin mattress of the hospital bed. The world swirled around him. Colors locked in a hurricane until they settled back and the world became solid once more. Air rushed deep into his lungs as quickly as it was forced out, and he was panting hard enough that his head spun. He tried to sit up, desperate for the elevation like it could somehow make everything tumble back into some kind of sense.
The separation rushed through his body like a phantom pain. He could almost feel the raw wound where the horseman had ripped himself free. The edges of the laceration wheezed with every breath, releasing the air before the tattered remains of his body could absorb it.
As if slipping from between the threads of reality, his parents materialized by his side. Their hands were cold against his heated skin. He couldn’t tell which one was rubbing his back, but he was endless
ly grateful when the circular motion turned into a sharp blow against his spine. Each strike increased until the intangible clog in his throat was forced free and his lungs swelled.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” his mother cooed as she squeezed his hand.
Her attention shifted from him as she talked to the nurse that was pressing an icy disk to his chest. Half a heartbeat later, he realized it was a stethoscope. His father continued to hit against his spine, stopping only when the nurse needed to reposition the disk.
“Your lungs sound clear,” the nurse said before appearing into his field of vision. “Do you have any history of asthma attacks?”
Benton shook his head. There wasn’t enough air in his lungs to form a word and all that came out was a broken gasp. Bit by bit, as the cold disk repositioned itself seemingly at random, he was able to settle.
“I’m okay,” Benton weakly said. Bits of his memory came back as his vision sharpened. His gut twisted up like razor wire and he searched the room with quick glances. “Nicole?”
“It’s two in the morning.” Theodore’s deliberate calmness had the opposite effect. Benton was a second away from screaming with frustration when his father finally continued. “She’s at home.”
“Is she okay?” The extra words made him lurch forward and he started heaving again.
“She’s fine,” Cheyanne said. Her chipped tone could fracture like ice.
His mother had long since started to believe that Benton was responsible for all of the deaths that followed him. He doubted that she would ever say it directly, but it would have been impossible not to pick up on her growing suspicion through the years.
She had been subtle when she had first started to suspect him. He just hadn’t been allowed over at other kids’ houses anymore. Simple enough. But then they weren’t allowed to come over, either. After that, he wasn’t allowed to interact with anyone unless it was within her direct line of sight. The conditions had grown and grown until her suspicions became blindingly obvious to everyone. They had actually gotten to the point now where there were extra locks on his parents’ bedroom door. Which wasn’t as insulting as his mother’s knee-jerk reaction to assuming his involvement in any and all missing person’s cases. She had once gave him a worried look when she heard that a hiker had gone missing in Alaska. They had been in Toronto at the time.
Before they had moved to town, before he had known Nicole, he had been able to endure it all easily enough. Benton never had much of a desire to socialize and, in many ways, he still didn’t. Nicole was the exception, not the rule. Neither of them had actually planned on him developing a friendship. And, now that he had, their precarious relationship had been forced onto shaky new ground that neither of them knew how to deal with.
Benton looked between his parents as he spoke, “I want to talk to her.”
“She’ll be asleep,” Theodore said. “It can wait until the morning.”
He shook his head. “She won’t mind.”
It was something that he knew with absolute certainty. Any time he called, she would always answer, without hesitation or resentment. Nicole would answer. His parents tried to soothe him as he painfully pushed himself higher up on his pillows.
“I need a phone.”
“In the morning,” Cheyanne said sharply.
He met her angry gaze. “Kimberly’s dead, isn’t she?”
It only took a second for her anger to fade, replaced by a mix of fear and concern. “No one is blaming you for that.”
“It wasn’t my fault.”
“We know,” Theodore said as he gave his son a few more firm pats. “We all know.”
It didn’t matter how many times they reassured him. He knew that tone. Knew what it meant. The town might not be rallying to drive him out, but his parents weren’t so ready to believe him innocent in tonight’s events. They were scared and were closing ranks fast. At this moment, he didn’t have the effort to break free, so he slumped against their hands and surrendered to the pounding pain radiating from his temple.
“What happened?” he asked through clenched teeth.
Cheyanne stooped down to capture his eyes. She spoke in a deliberate manner, more like she was telling him which lie to keep rather than explaining anything. “You fell and hit your head.”
“And Kimberly?” He needed to know what everyone was saying.
“They’re still looking into it,” she said. “But from what I have heard, it sounds like she had a heart attack.”
“People are buying that?”
“It’s just one of those freak things, sweetie,” Cheyanne said. “No one could have done anything.”
Benton finally felt settled within his own skin once more, but even that couldn’t remove the hollow sensation lingering in the pit of his stomach. Images of the horseman remained lodged behind his eyelids, reappearing with his every blink. He could still feel it, even now, like frost encrusting his skin. His brain was filled with horrors but nothing he had ever seen compared to the figure of the horseman. Half of him resented that no one else had been forced to witness it. The other half burned with jealously because he knew that he’d never be able to forget what he had seen. How it had so effortlessly ripped her apart to retrieve its trophy.
Is her heart now in a cage? The thought blistered across his mind and made his brain ache. Kimberly hadn’t even been on his radar. He had dreamt of a thousand people dying in excruciatingly gruesome ways, but Kimberly had never been amongst them. For all the times he had woken up screaming, her name had never been in his head.
“I didn’t see it coming,” he whispered numbly.
Cheyanne brushed her hand over his hair. The comfort of the gesture was tarnished when his parent’s both skirted their attention to the nurse entering the room.
His mother crouched lower, kissed his forehead and said, “There was no way anyone could have.”
Her words were soft, but still the undercurrent of a warning was clear. Don’t talk about past deaths. Don’t speak of your dreams. Don’t try and contact the next victim whose name was now lodged within your mind like a railroad spike, he thought to himself. Interpreting his mother’s words drew his attention from the horseman and it hit him; he didn’t have a name.
He had rode in the horseman’s skin on his hunt, and felt his delight, the thin trails of bloodlust that warmed his very being with a predatory glee. It hadn’t been aimless. The horseman had selected its next victim. It knew exactly who it wanted, what part of them it wanted. It was already coming for them, and Benton didn’t have a name. He hadn’t even been able to see the victim before the connection had been severed. Right now, his banshee need to give warning should have been setting the back of his skull alight with the fires of hell. But there was nothing. Just a bottomless gaping void.
“The doctor will be in shortly,” the nurse said as she patted his shoulder. “But you look good. Just try and rest up, okay? You’ve had a hell of a shock tonight.”
“He’s a sensitive boy,” Cheyanne said as she pulled closer to Benton’s side. “Always has been.”
The nurse smiled and gave Benton one last lingering pat before she allowed Cheyanne to usher her towards the door. His mother never stopped talking and he was able to hear her long after she had left the room. Benton remained silent as they watched them go. Theodore pulled slightly back from his side and smiled softly. Within that moment, it was tough to tell which one of them felt more awkward.
“Thanks,” Benton said awkwardly. “For not letting them drug me.”
“There was no need. You just hit your head,” Theodore said dismissively.
“Right. Still.”
Theodore cupped the back of Benton’s head in a motion he was sure was supposed to be one of fatherly affection.
“Just get some sleep, son.”
Benton nodded and began to slowly lean back against the pillows. The sheets felt plastic and sterile against his skin, and he was grateful for the warm light that flooded the room. His insides twiste
d and raged, but without the scorching pain within the back of his skull. There was no way to fend off the fatigue that pressed down against him. With a jaw cracking yawn, he shuffled further down on the bed, which wasn’t overly comfortable. But, within that moment, he was tired enough to sleep on a bed of nails.
“Did she leave a message?”
“Who? Nicole?” Theodore asked.
He couldn’t suppress his yawn. “Yeah.”
“No,” Theodore’s voice followed him as sleep slowly trickled around him and pulled him down. “Just go to sleep.”
Chapter 4
The endless blue sky looked almost disrespectful to the grief that had broken Fort Wayward like a tsunami, leaving nothing but desolation in its path. It wasn’t just Kimberly’s sudden death, it was the mystery that surrounded it. Rumors had spread through the night and by the time morning had come, everyone had their own theory of what had happened. They ran the spectrum from believable to complete lunacy, and still more were evolving as everyone searched to make sense of the senseless.
The school had still opened for the day, but it was more for a sense of normalcy than in any belief that the students would pay attention. It had also been the easiest way to gather them for grief counseling. Since Aspen was the only therapist in town, the process was slow, and the teachers had decided to allow the waiting students to either attend their classes or wait out in the school yard. It was a beautiful day, and sitting at her usual picnic table with her two closest friends, it was almost possible for Nicole to think that it was all just a nightmare. Something that she would wake up from. Something that could drift away with time and become a strange memory in the dark corners of her mind.