Paranormal After Dark

by Rebecca Hamilton

  “What’s going on?” I asked, sitting next Casper. The heat of the fire felt good against my hands and face, and did a lot to make me feel steadier.

  “Waiting for you, Van Winkle,” Casper said, and threw a wrapped cheeseburger at me. “No tomato, cause you think they’re gross.”

  “They look like sliced up organs. They are gross,” I said, unwrapping it. It smelled like heaven and, when I took a bit, it tasted even better. “But I meant, what are you talking about?” Time was when I would have made it a point not to chew with a quarter pound of burger in my mouth, but I was exhausted, starving, and way too distracted to care right now.

  “You know, I don’t have a clue,” Casper grinned and motioned to Wendy. “She sorta talks and I listen. It’s a system we’ve developed in the last couple hours.”

  “Sounds like good practice,” I said, taking another bite of burger. “Especially given the future the Mrs. here has in store for you.

  “Shut up,” he smiled. Brushing a few stray bangs out my eyes, he asked, “How ya feeling?”

  “I’ll feel better in a couple hours,” I said.

  “I know. It’ll be okay, Cress.” He put his arm around me and pulled me closer.

  “Do not worry Cresta Karr,” Wendy looked at me with pale Seer’s eyes. “I do not feel threatened by your close, yet platonic, relationship with my future love. I understand that many girls would see your supportive, somewhat symbiotic, companionship as threatening. Rest easy, for I do not fall into that category.”

  “I…I’m so relieved,” I said. Wendy smiled a sweet smile; the kind of smile usually reserved for really young children who don’t know how horribly unfair a place the world is.

  But she must know. She sees it all; every awful, horrific thing that ever has or could happen.

  Still, it was so sweet, so refreshing at a time like this, that I couldn’t help but smile back.

  “You know, you could do a lot worse than her,” I looked up at Casper.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, and stood up. “I gotta go hit the head. Or something that’s more polite and gentlemanly,” he said, and walked away.

  “It will be hard for him,” Wendy said when he was out of earshot. “It will be hard for everyone, but him particularly.” She folded her hands and looked deep into the fire. “When he yearns for you, do not turn him away.”

  “He doesn’t yearn for me,” I scoffed. “It’s not like that with us.”

  “And when he asks for me, tell him the truth.”

  “You’re only gonna talk to me like that, aren’t you; like you’re a fortune cookie?” I was tired, and not up to whatever back and forth Wendy had planned for me.

  “The future is a puzzle set on water. The pieces never sit still long enough to be placed together. When you touch it, it moves because you touched it. And when you refrain, it moves because you did not.”

  “How much do you know,” I asked, standing.

  “Both more and less than I would like,” she answered, standing herself. The fire flickered off her face, giving it the only glow I had even seen on it.

  “But you knew Dahlia would find us at that store. You knew I’d have to do…whatever it is I did to save us.” It wasn’t a question, and she didn’t answer it as one.

  “There are things you must do, places you must go. Otherwise, you will not be ready.”

  “Ready for what?!” I asked more sharply than I intended.

  “For what must be.”

  “Are you saying that I’m the Bloodmoon?” My voice shook with the question.

  “We all race toward fixed points, clinging to free will, to the myth that we have control over our lives. What must be will be; only the shape it takes lies within our grasp.”

  “That’s enough of that!” Owen was behind me now; his hands rested on my shoulders. “They told me I was a fixed point too once, you know,” he glared at Wendy.

  She looked back. The fire flickered in her white knowing eyes. “You still are.”

  “Come on,” he pulled at me. ”Don’t listen to that.” We settled on a bench a couple hundred yards away from the van. We were far enough away from the fire that the crispness of the air cut through me. When I shivered, Owen took his jacket off and put it around my shoulders, along with his arms. “None of what she said matters,” he whispered into my ear. “You’re not that awful thing, and even if you were, fixed points can be changed. I’m supposed to be dead, remember?”

  “Except I don’t have an angel to save me,” I lamented, nuzzling closer to him.

  “Yes, you do. You have me,” he answered, and kissed the top of my head. “So don’t worry. It’s almost over. We’re going to get your mom. She’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna have this entire mess behind us, and then I’m going to take you out for the best birthday dinner ever.”

  “And then what?” I asked more sharply than I meant to. “You gonna go back and marry Merrin, have a dozen little Breaker babies?”

  I felt him tense under me. He didn’t deserve this. He had fought for me. Even up until now, he was with me. But I couldn’t help it. Merrin’s voice was swimming in my head, telling me all the reasons it wouldn’t work.

  “Why would you say something like that?” Owen asked.

  “Because it’s true, isn’t it?” I pulled away from him. “She’s your mate, right; your perfect? She’s who you’re supposed to be with.” I clutched at my throat, instinctively looking for my long gone necklace.

  “And that’s fine”

  It wasn’t.

  “I mean, I get it.”

  I didn’t.

  “That’s the way you were raised. It’s who you are, but it isn’t who I am. Even if this all shakes out, I’m not ever going to be the type of girl who can marry someone just because our DNA syncs up, not even if that person was you. I’m sixteen, I’m not-“

  “That’s who I was,” he interrupted me. “It’s not who I am anymore.”

  “That’s what you say now, but what happens when you get back home, when you’re surrounded by your friends and family. They have expectations of you, Owen. I don’t wanna be the person who stops you from becoming who you want to be. I know about the calls; the ones to Merrin.”

  He looked at me quizzically, with his dark eyebrows knitted together. “Oh, from when you had my phone,” he answered his own unasked question. “That wasn’t Merrin. Those were exercises; a series of tones meant to keep my mind sharp. I had been in rural Georgia for two years. I was trying to keep myself in practice.”

  “You labeled it Merrin. You used her name,” I said flatly.

  “I know this might be hard for you to understand Cresta, but for a long time, she was my whole world. It wasn’t that I was in love with her, or even that I knew what love was. But, when you grow up knowing that your entire future is going to rest on one person, they sort of become important to you.”

  “I get that,” I answered, running fingers through my hair. “And if she’s still important to you, you should …you should just-“

  “What part of ‘I’m in love with you’ didn’t you understand?” Owen asked curtly. “It doesn’t mean ‘I’m in love with you when the circumstances are right, or ‘I’m in love with you so long as my parents say it’s okay’. It means we’re in this together. It means I can’t breathe without you. It means that the only way this ends is with my hand in yours.”

  He cupped my hand in his. I couldn’t help it; the strain of everything rushed onto me, and I started to sob harder than I ever had before; harder than when my dad died, harder than at his funeral, harder than when I woke up to find my house had exploded with my mother inside.

  Owen rushed me, burying my head in his chest. I drank in the warmth of him, and cherished the way his heartbeat felt against me. I loved that heart.

  “There’s a credo that we take whenever we’re given our Breaker names. It’s like a code. It runs down all the things we believe in, all the things that are important to us. When I was a boy, I used to pract
ice it over and over again, and dream about the day I’d stand up, in front of my father and everybody else, and say those ancient words.”

  “And now you won’t get to,” I said, looking up at him. “Because of me.”

  “That’s the thing,” he said, smiling down at me. “I don’t care about it anymore. None of it matters. You’re all that matters. You’re my code now.”

  Suddenly, I felt the stars’ pull again. Looking around, I saw that the sun had set. It was night, and time to go. But something wasn’t right. The stars felt wrong somehow, like they were attacking me. A bloom of pain sprouted in my chest, and I jerked away from Owen.

  “Something’s wrong!” I gasped.

  “What is it?” He asked.

  I looked up. The only star that was shining; the only one that pinged me, was the one right above us.

  “It’s here,” I said breathlessly. The pain was growing by the second. “It’s here! It’s leading us here!”

  “Cresta, calm down. I’m sure it’s a lot to take in. Just breathe and let the stars talk to you.”

  But they were talking to me. They were screaming, and it was lighting a fire inside of my chest. “It doesn’t make any sense,” I said.

  Then, Merrin came walking out from behind the van. Her face was pale and her steps were hurried and tense. Behind her, holding a gun to her back, was Ezra; the floating amputee.

  “Does it make more sense now, Bloodmoon?” He grinned.

  Owen stiffened beside me; his hands balling into fists. “Cresta, run,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “That’s sort of redundant, old buddy,” Ezra grinned. Looking around, I saw how right he was. At least a dozen people had come; from the woods, from inside the rest area, from the air, it seemed. We were surrounded.

  I caught Casper’s glance. He made a slight, almost imperceptible, nod of his head, and then struck off running. He wanted me to follow him, and maybe I would have, if his second and third steps hadn’t been taken in midair. One of the Breakers surrounding us, a heavyset man with black braided hair, lifted his hands. Casper lifted with them, leaving the ground. He moved his arms again, and Casper fell unconscious. His entire body went limp.

  “Casper!” I screamed.

  “He’s not going to hurt him, Bloodmoon. Not if you come with us.” Ezra dug the point of his pistol into Merrin’s back. She shuffled forward, but didn’t give him the satisfaction of whimpering.

  “Or I could just beat you into submission,” Owen said.

  “Not when I’ve this pretty little thing under my thumb,” Ezra leaned into Merrin and took a long, longing sniff of her hair.

  Merrin spun. As quickly as I’ve ever seen anyone do anything, she grabbed the pistol, and took it from Ezra. “You don’t know me very well, do you?” She kicked him in the chest, sending him flying back into the van.

  With that, all hell broke loose.

  Things went flying. People went flying. I heard shouts and crashes. I heard the snapping of bones and the crunch of metal. It all happened so quickly. There was a flash of red, then a battling flash of blue. I watched Ezra send Merrin shooting up into the air and, to my horror, saw Casper fall out of it. I tried to run; to get to him or Owen, but my feet went out from under me. The ground came up to meet me, and my head smacked hard against a rock. I got back up, but as soon as I stood, I was down again; facing straight up, staring at the stars.

  They were playing with me now; all of them flashing and pinging. They winked at me. They sang to me. They swayed back and forth like waves in an ocean. And then I saw Wendy’s eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, leaning over me. “This was the only way it could happen. Remember, lie to the stars, Cresta. Lie to the sta-“

  She went flying, hit by some unseen force. I tried to sit up, to gather myself and fight, but it was no use. Whatever had hit her had me by the throat now. It wasn’t letting me move. I watched the stars flicker, and then disappear.

  The next thing I knew, I was in bed; looking up, not at the stars, but at drawn stars painted on a ceiling. But it wasn’t celling. No, my ceiling was gone; blown up with the rest of my house. My head spun, and my body ached, but I managed to sit up. The room around me was nice. Filled with flowers and paintings (of flowers), it was a bit girlie for my taste. Still, the bed was soft and it was definitely better than the ground, or the backseat of a van, for that matter.

  I stood, feeling heavy and hearing a swish. The events of the day danced back into the forefront of my mind. Where was I? Where was everybody else? Were they okay? Was there any way I could get people to stop mystically putting me to sleep?

  As I rubbed my eyes, nearing a mirror in front of me, those questions melted away. My mouth dropped as I realized they didn’t matter anymore.

  “Oh my God,” I said to the girl in the mirror, taking in the layers of silk and lace, rubbing at the lipstick on my mouth. “Why am I wearing a wedding dress?”

  Chapter 19

  Who You Are

  I STARED AT myself; half in shock, half in horror. A wedding dress, an honest to God wedding dress. It fit perfectly, hugging all the right places, and flattering all the wrong ones. I almost looked like a woman. I almost looked beautiful.

  “You forgot the veil.” A man’s voice sounded from behind me. I spun, the fabric of my gown ruffling, to find Allister Leeman leaning against the doorway. He smiled a wide, dark smile. The raven at his throat seemed to caw and move; its wings flapping against his Adam’s apple. His dark hair was slicked back, and a toothpick peeked out from between his lips. His eyes cut into me. A delicate white veil danced around in his fingers, and he was dressed in a tuxedo that, sickeningly enough, seemed designed to match my dress.

  “Where are my friends?” I asked, trying to steady my voice.

  “You don’t have any friends.” He plucked the toothpick from his mouth. “If you mean the people that were captured with you; they’re fine.”

  “And my mother?”

  “She’s fine too,” he answered, and started to make his way toward me.

  I flinched away. “I want to see them. I want you to let them go. I’m here. I did what you asked.”

  “You did part of it,” he thumped his toothpick onto the floor in front of him. “I’ll let them go when you do the rest. “ He reached for me, and ran his disgusting hand through my hair. I shivered and slapped it away. “Though, I don’t know why you’re so attached to them,” he grinned. “They don’t care about you, my darling. Not really.”

  “They risked their lives for me,” I snorted.

  “They don’t even know you. To them, you’re something to kill, something to change. Even your mother-Or, more appropriately, the woman who calls herself your mother, has only the most conditional of loves for you. None of them accept you for what you are. They would never try to understand you, or embrace the truth of who you are. That’s why they’re here, Cresta Karr. Not for you; it was never for you. They’re here because they can’t stand the idea that you are more than them; that we’re more than them. I’m the only one who understands you, Cresta. Because I know what it is to be called for something so monumental. I share your pain and your exhilaration in the same way that I will soon share your bed and your life, because it is mine as well.”

  “We’re not sharing anything!” I couldn’t help it. I slapped his stupid face. I probably shouldn’t have done it. After all, he did have everyone I cared about in the entire world in his clutches. But he was just so smug, pushing all my buttons. “What the hell is the matter with you anyway?” I shouted. “What kind of lunatic actually wants the world to end?”

  He put a hand up to his quickly reddening face. “The kind that knows it has to.” A broad dangerous smile crept across his face. His eyes glowed menacingly. “They haven’t told you all of it, have they?” He did a little shuffle with his feet, almost like he couldn’t wait for what came next. “This isn’t about the way the world ends. It’s about what comes next. The world has ended a hundred times b
efore; with ice ages, and floods, and meteors that have purged this planet of everything it could find. But each time, the world has come out of it for the better, stronger, and more evolved.”

  There it was, that word, evolved.

  “Just as human replaced the dinosaurs, we will replace humans. It’s the way of the world. The strong always replace the weak, my darling.” He held the veil out toward me. “And you are the one who will set it all in motion.”

  I slapped it away too. “I would never hurt anybody.”

  “Just as the wave would never hurt the mountain. Still, the mountain erodes. “He picked the veil up, folded it, and put it in his pocket. “They paint you as an antichrist, but you are a messiah.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “I’m not the Bloodmoon. I’m not anything. Look, I’m not going to kill anybody. So, I can’t be the Bloodmoon. The sun will be up soon, and then everybody will know. So, just give me my mom and my friends, and let me go.”

  “Still, with these friends, “he muttered. “Come here. Let me show you something.”

  He extended his hand. I didn’t take it. He shrugged, and motioned for me to follow him out the door. As I followed, I found myself in a huge bunker. This place was insane. A windowless metal area, it stretched as far as I could see. Closed doors lined the walls and, looking down and up; I saw that we were on the fourth of seven identical floors.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “We’re at the end,” he answered, without looking back at me. “Or the beginning, depending on which side you’re on.”

  “I meant what kind of place is this?” I asked impatiently. There were people on either side of me, lining the walls and watching us as we passed.They were all dressed in formal wear; tuxedos and evening gowns. Most of the women had flowers in their hair and hands. They had a look in their eyes that told me they definitely agreed with the Raven when it came to that whole messiah or antichrist thing. What was that about anyway? Not that I cared. I didn’t want to be a messiah or an antichrist. I didn’t wanna be a Bloodmoon or even a Breaker. I just wanted to be plain old Cresta; the girl with asthma who had way too many graphic tees, the girl who never quite fit in in Crestview. I wanted to be Casper’s best friend; Owen’s would be girlfriend, and God willing, my mother’s daughter. Walking through this crazy place though, with these crazy people watching me, I wondered if I ever could be that again. Was that girl gone? Was there any way to get her back?