Ashes to Ashes (Experiment in Terror #8)

by Karina Halle

  “But I mean, why? You’re a lesbian. Why are you sleeping with men?” Maybe it was a stupid question on my behalf, I don’t know.

  She let out a long, tired sigh. “It wasn’t the first time for me. It’s happened before. Similar circumstances. Too much booze, just got out of a relationship…”

  “Wow,” I said slowly, letting it all sink in. “I had no idea. So do you have a type of man you sleep with? Ones that look like girls or…?”

  I half-expected her to give me a snippy remark over that but she just stared at me, her forehead creasing with worry. “No, not at all,” she stated gravely. “Perry, there’s something that’s been weighing on me…promise you won’t get mad.”

  My eyes widened defensively. “If you’re starting something off like that, I can probably promise I will get mad.”

  She nodded a few times, licking her lips. “All right. But please don’t get mad at Dex.”

  This conversation was definitely heading in the wrong direction. A direction that was making me feel sick to my stomach, considering what we had just been talking about. I shook my head. “Please don’t tell me what I think you’re going to tell me.”

  She gave me a crooked smile. “I still can’t read your mind.”

  “Then just stop talking,” I pleaded.

  “You really want me to?” she asked but the damage was already done. She put forth the bait and I was biting. I couldn’t be left dangling like that over something I wasn’t allowed to get mad at Dex over. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything though, so I just stared at her.

  She dabbed her tissue at her nose before taking a deep breath and looking me straight in the eye. “Remember when we first met? When we first had lunch together?”

  I barely nodded.

  “I had told you that when Dex first joined Wine Babes, before he was with Jenn, that he asked me out and I turned him down?”

  Oh dear lord. No. No. No.

  She continued, “And I’d said that he wasn’t my type, that we were just flirting together but it didn’t mean anything, because, hello, lesbian here.”

  I couldn’t even breathe.

  “Well, that was all true. But…” She looked away, eyes drifting to the ceiling as if there was something interesting there. “One night, around the time that all of this was happening, maybe the first week of filming the show…erm….stuff kind of happened.”

  This was not happening. I was not here. It was not the middle of the night in a haunted sanatorium and I wasn’t in the bathroom with one of my best friends hearing her say what I feared she was going to say.

  “What kind of stuff?” I asked, my breath hitching.

  She looked back at me, chagrined. “Well, at least that time I didn’t get pregnant from it.”

  My hand flew to my mouth and I gasped. “What the actual fuck?”

  “Sorry,” she said, swallowing hard. “We never told you because we’d pretty much forgotten about it.”

  “You slept with Dex!” I yelled, my voice surprising me.

  She winced. “Ugh, yes, please don’t be mad. It’s really not what you think at all.”

  “How do you know what I think?” I cried out, my fists clenching at my sides. “I’m thinking about hitting you right in your face, did you know that?”

  She looked uneasy. “I figured. But seriously, Perry, it was nothing. It was my fault. I got really drunk and Dex was there and I knew he was into me and it just happened.” I gasped again, I couldn’t help it. Now I felt like I was going to be sick. “It meant nothing, which is why we never spoke of it again. It was just…a bad time all around, even though I’m sure Dex thought he was brilliant.”

  I pressed the palm of my hand to my forehead and closed my eyes, trying to stave off the coming headache. “Oh god, please shut up.”

  “No, you have to know,” she said, getting off the toilet seat. “You have to know that it was something we put past us as a stupid silly thing. I like pussy, not dick. And Dex, well I knew he could tell.”

  “Oh god,” I mumbled. “Why are you still talking?”

  “We were better off as friends, both of us knew that. A few days later he started shagging Jenn. This was so long ago.”

  Finally I snapped my head up and looked at her. “Will you please just shut up? Why the hell are you telling me this now if it didn’t mean anything? Look, I get that the past is the past and I have no control over it but…Jesus Christ, Rebecca, you’ve made everything really fucking weird for us now.”

  “I know!” she exclaimed in a shaky voice. “I know I have, but that’s why it was weighing on me. Because you didn’t know. And it probably should have stayed buried but I just thought…”

  “You just thought what?” I asked, folding my arms. “That because you’re having a shitty time now that you’re pregnant, you thought I should have a shitty time too? And Dex? Because believe me, if you think I’m not going to have it out with him over this, you have another thing coming!”

  “Perry, please listen to me.”

  “I did listen to you. I’ve had enough.”

  “I just thought you guys should…have no secrets at this point in your relationship.”

  “No secrets?” I repeated. “That’s really none of your business, you know. And this point…what point is that, exactly? All this does is prove how little I actually know Dex. You think I didn’t have enough to think about trying to ignore what Uncle Al said to me, that we’ve only known each other for eight fucking months?”

  “That wasn’t my intention,” she said, angrily brushing her hair behind her ears. “It was the opposite. You guys are in this for the long haul, I know this. You know it too.”

  I groaned and turned away from her. I couldn’t deal with this anymore. Dex and Rebecca had slept together. Suddenly every single time he acted like he was hitting on her or hinting at a threesome seemed less like an endearing joke and more like something he had prior knowledge of. Fuck, I hated this. Hated it. It changed the way I saw the both of them forever. I couldn’t believe that all this time they never said anything to me about it.

  “Perry,” she said again, her voice cracking a little.

  I walked over to the door and glanced at her over my shoulder. “I’m sorry that you’re pregnant and everything,” I told her. “But I just need some time to process this.”

  What I really wanted was time to think. And considering it was the middle of the night, I had it. But the last thing I wanted was to go back to bed beside Dex—I just couldn’t do it. On the other hand, I didn’t exactly feel like going for a stroll on the first floor. With my luck I’d see Shawna again and this time she wouldn’t be as coy.

  “I’m going to spend the night in the teachers’ lounge,” I informed her. “Okay?”

  She sniffed, looking absolutely forlorn, but nodded. “Okay.”

  I started walking away but she called out to me. “If you’re staying up, do you mind rolling the camera? You know, just in case? It’s our last show and all, and…”

  I sighed. It was a good thing that Rebecca was a lesbian because the two of them were way too alike.

  I headed down the hall, my pace quick, my eyes downcast, not wanting to see any shadow people in the walls, and went back into our room to grab a blanket and the camcorder.

  “What the hell is going on out there?” asked a groggy-voiced Dex from his bed. “Are you having a pillow fight or a cat fight?”

  With blood boiling in my veins, I switched on the small light by his bed and turned to face him. “A pillow fight? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I sneered.

  He raised his brow, eyes all squinty. “This is a trick question, I can tell, and as such, I won’t answer it.”

  I glared at him. “Rebecca is pregnant.”

  His mouth dropped open. “What?”

  “Oh don’t worry, it’s not your baby. I’m sure you used a condom when you fucked her all those years ago.”

  Oh yes, there it was. The look of utter doom on Dex’s face. His wi
de eyes stared at me like he was caught in headlights and I could almost see his brain trying to make sense of what I just said, trying to figure out how to play it off.

  For once, he was actually speechless.

  Finally he licked his lips and said with a tilt of his head, “Perry…”

  I rolled my eyes and moved over to my bed to get the blanket. “I’m sleeping in the teachers’ lounge.”

  “Perry,” he said more sharply this time and reached out to grab me by the elbow. “Seriously, don’t go. Stay here. We’ll talk. I’ll tell you everything.”

  I wrestled out of his grasp. “I already know everything. Rebecca told me—she told me more than I wanted to know.”

  “Well why the fuck is she telling you this shit?”

  “I don’t know, cuz she’s gone hormonal and crazy?”

  “Oh god, come on, baby,” he said, swinging his legs off the bed. “I understand you’re mad, but it’s in the past.”

  “Well what the fuck else is in your past, huh?” I asked angrily as I picked up the blanket. “Anything else you’re hiding, any other affairs I should know about? Any secrets you’ve been harboring?”

  He seemed to flinch at that before running his hands down his face in exasperation. “Baby, I don’t even think about it,” Dex said. “Seriously. Never. Just like I never think about any of the other women I slept with. Do you think about the other men you’ve slept with?” His voice became harder there at the end.

  “All two of them? No, Dex, I don’t.”

  His nostrils flared for a moment before he exhaled noisily. “Let’s not fight here. We can fight back in Seattle, but not here, not in this place. This place is already fucking with us and it’s our last show.”

  “I’ll fight with you wherever the hell I feel like fighting with you.” My stomach twisted like a hot knife was inside it but I kept to my guns.

  “This is dangerous,” he warned. ”Please, stay here with me. Or I’ll go in the lounge and you can stay here.”

  “With Rebecca? No thanks. I don’t feel like seeing either of you right now.”

  I tried to walk away but he suddenly stepped in front of me, all hard lines and steely eyes. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “Get out of my way, Dex,” I told him, looking up at his face and matching him glare for glare.

  “Sorry,” we heard Rebecca say and Dex turned around to see her standing in the nurse’s office, her face in shadows. “I didn’t mean to cause a fight.” She looked to Dex. “I just thought you’d want her to know.”

  I took that opportunity to squeeze past Dex and head out to the hallway.

  “Perry,” Dex called after me in frustration, but I was quick on my feet. I ignored Rebecca as I walked past her and headed straight for the lounge. I could hear him yelling at Rebecca now. “What the fuck did you do that for? What’s your problem?”

  Rebecca yelled back at him, something about “having a clean slate going forward” and then I didn’t want to hear anymore. I went into the lounge, flicked on the lights, and immediately closed the door after me. I leaned against it and breathed in deeply through my nose. Okay, I was going to be okay. Eventually this sick feeling would pass and I would get over it. I only wished I was one of those people who didn’t let everything bother them, who didn’t feel everything. My mind knew that what happened between Dex and Rebecca was in the past, that it really didn’t mean anything to a lesbian and a man-whore. But still. It was going to take some time to get the images of them having sex out of my head, let alone the fact that they had both kept it from me.

  Now, of course, I could see why they did. This was going to be an awkward shoot for the next day. As if we didn’t have enough to deal with already in this hellish place. A part of me wished I was a little less stubborn, so I wouldn’t be holed up in the lounge by myself to make a point.

  I sighed and stepped away from the door. I laid the blanket out on the couch and pushed the couch further down the wall so one arm was against the side of the kitchen counter. If I were to get any sleep, it had to be so that there was no space behind me so I could clearly see the door. I sat on the couch and looked around, feeling vaguely protected. I stuck the camera up on the counter above my head and then got up and pulled the two beers out of the fridge that I knew Dex had stuck in there earlier. Beer was my only way out of this night.

  I went back to the couch, pulled the blanket up over me, and drank, staring intently at the door as if I were expecting it to open, and listened to the muffled sounds of Dex and Rebecca as they were fighting. As much as I didn’t want to see them at war, their blurred obscenities were soothing, reminding me that I wasn’t alone.

  I drank until their voices faded.

  Then I close my eyes and slept.

  And I dreamed.

  ***

  Everything was cold. The air whooshed past me, whistling quietly in my ears, and even before I opened my eyes, I knew I was someplace else.

  I opened them cautiously, preparing for what I might see. In front of me were white swirls rising up from the ground, waltzing a ghostly dance in the night sky. It was snowing lightly, the air filled with that muffled, peaceful sound that comes with snowfall, and I was standing in the middle of an empty bridge. Only it wasn’t just any bridge. It was the Brooklyn Bridge, and beyond the trails of snow, I could make out the lights and the glowing skyline of Manhattan.

  “New York City,” a voice said from behind me.

  I whirled around, my hair swinging around me as if in slow motion, and I saw Pippa sitting on a chair a few yards away. Just sitting there in the middle of the bridge’s walkway, the cables framing her on either side, making criss-cross shadows appear on her face.

  Her face. My god, she looked even worse than the last time I saw her. She was hunched over in her coat, her hands in her lap looking as breakable as twigs, her legs nothing but bone under her long skirt.

  “Pippa?” I said gently.

  No need to speak, she said weakly. I must save my energy.

  Why are we in New York? I asked, hugging myself against the cold. It was amazing that even though I knew I was in one of my dreams, I was feeling everything like it was real. The damp smell of snow, the cutting chill of the wind.

  It all started here, she said. Everything. For both of you.

  Me and Dex? I asked.

  And me.

  Pippa had moved to New York after she left Sweden and became a nanny to Dex and his older brother Michael, but I wasn’t sure how I came into it.

  She gave me a sly look with her tired, hooded eyes. You come into it because that’s where I saw you, Perry. When I first used the Veil to look into your life. It’s where Dex and Michael were born, brought into this world. Where both Dex and I were put away. It’s the beginning of so many horrors. And I believe it will be the end.

  I frowned and wiped the cold flakes of snow off my face. End? What do you mean?

  I don’t know. It’s a feeling.

  You know what? I said angrily. I started stomping through the snow to get to her, the cold sinking into the tops of my Converse shoes. I stopped right in front of her, close enough to count the flakes nestling on the top of her thinning hair. I am getting sick and tired of you and your feelings! Why can’t you ever be sure of something for once? Why is it always a hunch? It’s never real.

  Because I’m not real, my dear, she said. And I can never be sure of anything. All I have is what I feel and what I fear, and it’s better that than nothing.

  Well, what am I supposed to do about it? I shoved my hands in my back pockets to keep them warm. I’m quitting the show now, didn’t you hear? Didn’t you feel that?

  I did. A timid smile stretched across her wrinkled lips. And for that I am glad.

  Then what’s the problem?

  I think the problem is something you won’t see coming. I think the problem will come in the form of someone who is trustworthy. And I think when he comes, he will bring you here. Where everything will end. She breathed out
slowly, like her lungs were labored. It will come full circle.

  He? I repeated.

  She just stared at me, eyes dull. There will be death. And in that, I cannot help you.

  “Death!?” I cried out loud.

  The world is changing and I am growing weaker. The death may be my own.

  “You’re already dead,” I tried to say as politely as possible.

  She cocked her head and for once her eyes sparkled as if they belonged to a younger woman. “Death is never the end, only a transition. I have tried to stay here, in the Veil, for as long as I can, to look after you and Dex. But time here can run out. It can be used up. Just like the time in your hands. And when I go, I don’t think we’ll ever have contact again. So whatever I am able to pass onto you, even if it’s a feeling from deep inside my lost soul, I will. While I can.”

  Her words seemed to exhaust her. She breathed in deeply through her nose just as the snow began to fall harder, thicker, until she was gone and all I could see was white.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I woke up with a start.

  My eyes flew open and I sat straight up, trying to get my bearings. I wasn’t on the snow-covered Brooklyn Bridge anymore. I was in the teachers’ lounge at Oceanside Arts Academy.

  But what the hell woke me up? I thought to myself, holding the covers close to my chest while my heart pounded as if set off by something else, something I wasn’t aware of yet.

  I tried to listen, keeping my breathing as quiet as possible, and surveyed the room for anything unusual. The clock on the microwave above the fridge read 3 a.m. It was always 3 a.m. when the scary shit happened, but the room looked normal to me. I’d fallen asleep with the lights on, naturally, and though the window above the sink showed the black sky outside, if I tricked my mind hard enough, maybe I could pretend it was morning and I was safe and I could fall back asleep.

  I laid my head back on the armrest and tried to think of nice thoughts. I was drawing a blank. I kept thinking about my dream, about Pippa, trying to decide whether that was a figment of my imagination or if it was real. I kept thinking about Rebecca being pregnant and the fact that Dex stuck his dick in her all those years ago. I kept thinking about Ada and how alone she felt, then about my parents and how disapproving they were going to be when I showed up with Dex.