Ashes to Ashes (Experiment in Terror #8)

by Karina Halle

  After dinner, where my parents perfected the art of small talk and Dex and Ada argued over some film remake, we all went our separate ways to digest the food, have some more wine, and talk. My parents told us they were going out to a friend’s house. I’m thinking that was code for grab a drink somewhere and bitch about me and my poor life choices. The rest of us hunkered down in the TV room, hoping something good would come on HBO.

  After my fifth glass of celebratory wine that evening though, I wasn’t feeling the best. I pulled a bottle of water from the fridge and told everyone I was heading up to bed.

  “I’ll join you in a minute,” Dex said.

  I nodded, slugging back the liquid, and made my way upstairs to my parents’ bedroom to fish out some of the Excedrin my mom often had lying around.

  I went into their washroom and opened the medicine cabinet, going through their bottles of medication, but coming up empty for something that would stifle the headache that I knew was coming on. It was my fault for drinking so much red wine after a week of drinking Jack Daniels and beer, but once we started toasting to our engagement, I got carried away.

  I gave up, shutting the cabinet door, and was about to leave the room when I decided to check my mother’s bedside table. I opened up the drawer and saw the bottle of Excedrin in there. I snatched it up and saw a few prescription pill bottles underneath. I didn’t think my mother was on any meds these days, and a naughty part of me was wondering if it was something fun and stronger, like the Vicodin I used to use as a teenager.

  I picked up a few of the bottles, wondering why there were so many, and held them up to the light that was streaming in through the hall.

  They were all prescribed from Dr. Freedman—my doctor, my old damn shrink—and had medical names I recognized. Though I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, I was fairly certain they were the same meds that Dex had been taking back in the day, the ones that kept him from seeing ghosts, the ones I hid on him in order to uncover the truth.

  And now, it looked like my mother was taking the same medication.

  With shaking hands, I stuck two of the bottles back in the drawer, along with the Excedrin, and sat down on the edge of their bed, rolling the other two bottles between my hands. I stayed like that for a few minutes, trying to make sense of it, trying to figure out what to do. When I heard the door to my bedroom close further down the hall, I got up and left the room, pills in my hands.

  I couldn’t believe I was doing this again.

  I went to my bedroom and gently closed the door behind me. Dex was sitting up in bed, reading a copy of The Gunslinger which he must have pulled off my old bookshelf, looking totally immersed in it. I subtly put the pills into my purse, hiding them for now, then stripped and slipped on my sleep shirt.

  “Baby?” I asked as I got under the covers.

  “Mmmmm?” he said without looking up. He thumbed a page over.

  “What was the name of the medication you used to be on, you know the ones that made you stop seeing the ghosts?”

  “Clozaril, Zyprexa, to name a few,” he said. He slowly put the book down and gave me a hard look. “Why? You’re not thinking about going on them are you?”

  I shook my head absently, totally focused on what he said. The same fucking pills that Dex had been taking to keep the ghosts at bay were the exact same ones my mother was taking. How was that possible? Why was my mother taking pills for people who hallucinated?

  “Hello?” Dex asked, waving his hand in my face. I stared at him blankly. He shook his head. “Nevermind. It’s like talking to a wall.” His eyes rested on my chest. “With boobs.”

  “What were you saying?” I asked.

  “I said why did you want to know?”

  I shrugged as casually as I could. “No reason.”

  I wasn’t about to tell him what I was doing; it ran a little too close to home for him. I didn’t want to be known as the pill-switcher, but I had to know. I had to. My mother wasn’t the type of person who would ever admit to anything like that, especially after what her own mother and daughter had gone through. Holy shit. Holy shit. The more I thought about it, the crazier the whole situation became, the more fucked up the implications were.

  If my mom was taking pills because she was like me or Pippa, that meant this entire time she knew what I was going through. It meant she was in complete denial about our affliction, about every fucking thing.

  I had to know if this was true—I deserved to know.

  “Perry?”

  I looked at him.

  “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

  “I think we should stay here for the rest of the week.”

  He jerked his chin back. “Uh, what? How about no?”

  “Come on, I think you’ll make good progress with my parents.”

  “Baby, no. Maybe they’ll come around, but as much as I’ll keep trying to win them over, after some time you have to know it’s out of our hands.”

  “Please, Dex.”

  “What about Fat Rabbit?”

  “Call Ana Rita and tell her we’ll be back later. Or see if Rebecca can take care of him. She might want the company while she deals with the Dean situation.”

  “How is she going to get back home if we have the car?”

  I thought about that for a moment before I exclaimed, “She can take Putt-Putt! I need to get that bike to Seattle anyway.”

  “I’m not sure if Rebecca knows how to ride a bike,” he said.

  “She told me she used to have a Vespa in England. Same thing.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure tooling up I-5 on Putt-Putt is the same as popping over to some English pub on a Vespa.”

  “She’ll do it,” I told him. “She’s always wanted to ride it, she told me that herself.”

  He pursed his lips as he watched me closely for a few beats. “Okay. We’ll stay. Because if it’s important to you, it’s important to me.”

  “I knew there was a reason I said yes to you,” I told him, kissing him quickly on the cheek.

  He grinned, running his hands through my hair and leaning in closer. “Do you want me to show you all those other reasons?”

  I closed my eyes into his kiss and buried the thought of what I was going to do in the back of my head. I would watch my mother for a few days and see what happened. If it seemed like a big mistake, I’d put the pills back. But if it seemed like she was like me, was like Pippa, was like Dex and Ada, then I was going to get to the bottom of it. I was going to let everyone know and I was going to confront her.

  She didn’t have to be alone in this. Not like I had to be.

  I took the book off of Dex’s chest and tossed it to the floor. He brought his head down between my legs and I let all the other reasons wash over me.

  ***

  The next morning Rebecca agreed to take my bike back up to Seattle. Actually, she seemed kind of excited about it, although it led to her fretting over what to wear since she didn’t really pack for that kind of excursion. Luckily, Ada came to the rescue and let her borrow her McQueen leather jacket and designer jeans for the ride. Turns out both of them could wear each other’s clothes with ease. I pretended I didn’t hate them for that.

  After we said goodbye to Rebecca, who also assured us she would love to take care of Fat Rabbit, Dex and I went back to work on the footage for the show while Ada popped in and out, enjoying her weekend. My parents kept themselves scarce and decided to head into the city to do some shopping. I think I even heard the phrase, “I’ll keep an eye on the bridal boutiques” come out of my mother’s mouth, which both thrilled and horrified me. Thrilled me because it meant she was accepting I was getting married—not to mention it reminded me that, holy crap, I had a wedding to plan—and horrified me because clothes shopping with my mom was always a nightmare. I could only imagine how wedding dress shopping was going to go, let alone anything else that had to do with the wedding.

  But we would cross that bridge when we came to it. For now, I w
as just going to enjoy being engaged, and when it came time to pick a date and plan a wedding, well then I’d jump right in with both feet.

  We’d been inside my bedroom for hours, just editing and adding music and talking about how we were going to tell Jimmy that it was all over, when I’d had enough.

  I got up off the bed, stretching as I went. “I’m going for a walk, you want to come with?” I asked Dex.

  He shook his head. “You go ahead, kiddo. I’m so close to being done here.”

  “All right, be right back.”

  I was halfway out the door when he said, “I love you, baby.”

  “Love you too,” I told him. I skipped down the stairs and called out for Ada. She came out of the TV room looking sweaty. “What are you doing?”

  “Exercising,” she said, wiping her sweat off her face. “Remember, I told you about it and stuff?”

  “Right,” I said, only then hearing the Jillian Michael’s DVD that was playing on the TV. “Well, I’m going for a walk to the river if you want to come do exercise the healthy and natural way.”

  She put her hand on her hip and said, “Boring,” in an exaggerated Valley Girl impression and bounded back into the room before Jillian could yell at her.

  I left her to her sweat session and stepped outside. It was back to being cloudy again, although the air was warm and there was a nice breeze coming out of the north that smelled like sweet wildflowers. I breathed in deeply and walked off down our quiet street like I used to do all the time.

  I made my way down to the river, following the winding path, and found a bench where I could stare at the far bank, the Washington side. I plopped myself down, bringing my knees up to my chest and breathed in deeply. It was crazy to sit here and think about how far I’d come, even from the last time I was here at this very same spot. My life had changed so quickly, and in the end, so brilliantly.

  With the wind whipping up my hair and a bunch of ducks waddling ashore that made me giggle about “duck spunk,” I sat there and let myself feel really, truly happy. I had no idea what the future held for us, but knowing Dex loved me, that I was going to marry him, that I’d be with him every step of the way—nothing seemed scary anymore.

  I sighed and closed my eyes, leaning my head back on the bench.

  “Hello there.”

  I abruptly sat up and looked behind me.

  There was a man standing a few yards away, in the middle of the path and smiling at me. Though he was handsome with his sharp features, sandy brown hair, and blue suit, there was something both unsettling and familiar about him.

  I think it was his eyes. They were set deep and very dark, framed by long lashes.

  I didn’t say hello back, just stared at him while all my warning bells were going off inside. It’s not like Portland was the rapist capital of the world, and it was the early afternoon, but still. There was something about this man who made my heart race and my legs want to run.

  Finally, after he didn’t say anything else, just stared and smiled, I said, “Sorry, were you talking to me?”

  He took two fluid steps forward and I noticed how shiny his wingtip shoes were. “Yes,” he said simply. “Sorry if I startled you.”

  I forced a stiff smile. “That’s okay.” I immediately started thinking of plotting my way out of the situation. I could excuse myself and say I needed to get back somewhere. I could try walking past him, or I could try going further down the path. I looked over at the opposite riverbank, thinking maybe someone over there could help, but it was too far away.

  “Don’t be alarmed,” he said, putting his hands behind his back and rocking on his feet. “I don’t mean any harm. I’m new in town and wanted to see the Columbia River.” He grinned at me and stroked his clean-shaven face, and again I was hit with a weird sense of déjà vu.

  “Where did you move from?” I asked, trying out my parents’ art of small talk. I knew I was probably overreacting in every single way, but the more I knew about this man, the more I could use against him later.

  You are being so paranoid, I chided myself. Still, I brought my phone out by my side, my fingers twitching to hit the emergency call button.

  “I’m here from New York City,” he said with a touch of arrogance. “Manhattan. And I haven’t moved here, I’m just visiting. I heard my brother was in town.”

  I nodded, trying to ignore the tightening in my chest. “Cool.”

  “Yes,” he said slowly. “Very cool. What’s your name?”

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. My tongue felt especially thick.

  He chuckled coldly. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure I could guess your name if I tried.”

  I didn’t smile. “I doubt it.”

  If that fucker made any kind of move, he was going to know just how hard I could fight back. My karate skills were rusty and my hamstrings were tight, but instinct always brought them out.

  “Pam,” he said. “No wait, Priscilla.” He took another step forward, only ten feet away now. I flinched, my body ready to run. “Nah, Priscilla is too fancy for some like you. It starts with a P though, I can tell.” He said the rest of that in a rich, velvety voice.

  I found myself getting up, my thumb hovering above my phone. “Nice talking with you,” I told him. “I have to go back home.”

  I started walking toward him, my body tensing as I went past, our shoulders almost touching because of the narrowness of the path.

  “See you in New York then,” he called after me. “Perry.”

  I stopped dead, my blood thumping through my head. I blinked stupidly and turned around to look at him.

  He stood there looking like a cocky asshole. The stance was familiar; his eyes were familiar.

  I felt like I couldn’t breathe. “How did you know my name?”

  He smiled and shook his head, strolling toward me. I tried to run, tried to move, but I couldn’t do anything. I was stuck in place, paralyzed somehow. This wasn’t just fear, this wasn’t something on my end.

  I couldn’t fucking move.

  And he was doing it.

  He frowned at me as he came close. “You really are pretty, you know that. And young. So young. Young blood is the best. My brother has excellent taste.”

  No.

  No.

  Pippa’s message from my dream came flying back into my head.

  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 when I think he comes, he will bring you here. Where everything will end.

  He tilted his head and watched me with a discerning eye, watching my face contort in horror. “He doesn’t know I’m here, and I wanted to keep it that way. I already tried to call the other week, but you answered and well, that was probably a blessing. I could never convince him to talk to me over the phone. You see, I was rather a jerk to him after our mother died. And yet, now I need him. And I’m sure I’ll need you. Perry.”

  He reached out and put his fingers into my hair, cupping the back of my head. I could only stand there and watch as he brought his face in closer. Though the deep, almost exotic shape of his brown eyes were so much like Dex’s, this man lacked something that made him human, that made him real. As I stared into the black pupils, I could see a swirling vortex, a hole with nothing underneath.

  No soul.

  “I’ll give Declan your regards,” Dex’s brother, Michael O’ Shea, whispered before kissing me on the lips. I felt like a hand was reaching into my skull, into my brain and twisting it around until my world started turning black. “See you soon, princess.”

  I slumped to the ground.

  And that was that.

  THE END

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I’m keeping it simple this time.

  Thank you to my readers, my wonderfully loyal Experiment in Terror fans who love all things Team Derry. Your passion and devotion does not go unnoticed. Yes, I write for myself but I also write for you.

  Simply put
, you guys fucking rock.

  Read more for an excerpt of Donners of the Dead

  A Standalone Paranormal Romance coming February 2014

  Jake McGraw was unlike anyone I’d ever known. He was brash, rude, unapologetic and arrogant; chauvinistic, close-minded, and terribly stubborn. He was built like a tree, tall with a hard chest and wide shoulders and hands that looked like they could wrestle a bear. He was a cigar-chomping, scruffy-faced, beast of a man. I was pretty sure I hated him. And I know he hated me. But among the flesh-eating monsters in these snow-capped mountains, he was the only thing keeping me alive.

  The year is 1851 and pioneers in search of California gold are still afraid to travel on the same route as the tragic Donner party did years before. When the last wagon train to go into the Sierra Nevada Mountains fails to arrive at their destination, Eve Smith, an 18-year old half-native girl with immense tracking skills is brought along with the search party, headed by an enigmatic former Texas Ranger, Jake McGraw.

  What they find deep in the dangerous snow-covered terrain is a terrifying consequence of cannibalism, giving new meaning to the term “monster.” While the search party is slowly picked off, one by one, Eve must learn to trust Jake, who harbors more than a few secrets of his own, in order to survive and prevent the monstrosities from reaching civilization.

  An Excerpt of Chapter One

  The dream never starts the same, but it always ends the same.

  In death.

  My father’s death.

  Sometimes I am six years old again and playing in the Truckee River, throwing up the cold, mountain runoff with my tiny hands and shooting shy glances at him as he watches me, the smile spreading wide on his auburn face. Sometimes we are walking hand-in-hand down the dusty dirt road toward Mrs. Young’s homestead where he’ll leave me for a few hours to learn maths while he enquires at Barker’s General Store whether there are any hunting requests for him. And sometimes we are just sitting on the rickety porch back at our old place, watching the insects gather around the lantern as he tells me the Washoe names for them. They always sounded so poetic coming from his Native tongue.