“No, I’m not yours! I’m ending this now!”
Sandy sat bolt upright. The dim light of the last burning candle stub gave the room a pale orange glow with elongated, twitching shadows. Lewis lay still along the wall. Jina was slumped over the desk, asleep at her post.
Memories of her dream flashed back through her mind. Sandy’s eyes narrowed. That sadistic, psychotic, love-starved game master was not going to get the best of her. She wasn’t going to let him win.
Sandy leapt to her feet, yanked open the closet door, and began throwing things into the room.
Jina stirred when an old boot hit the wall with a crash. She wiped her eyes and watched Sandy for a moment.
“What are you doing?” she asked sleepily.
Sandy stuck out her head. Dust covered her face and a tattered bit of cloth clung to her shirt. “Fighting for our team. Looking for a way out.” A pair of socks and a fishing pole skittered across the floor.
Jina shrugged, slid off the chair, and curled up on the ground. Lewis opened his eyes to slits when a basketball landed on his chest. He tossed it away and groggily stood. The ball bounced off the floor and hit Jina.
About that time, Jina gave up on sleep. But futile searches held no interest for her.
“What’s the point Sandy?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I tried your reality bending trick. It didn’t work. He won again.”
Sandy stepped out of the closet and walked over to Jina.
“What the fuck are you talking about? He’s a child with a temper problem. Easy to control.”
“No, I did everything you said, believed none of it was real, but he still won.”
Sandy glanced at the table. “What’s this?” She held up the remains of the joint.
“Uhh..”
“No drugs.” She tossed the roach away. “How can you have any willpower if you’re not sober, Jina? Don’t you value your life?” She looked over at Lewis. “Same goes for you.”
Sandy looked back at the desk and paused briefly when she saw the pillars of ash in the place of candles. Gently she touched one. It collapsed with a puff into a powdery mound. Then the rest fell, one right after another, like a well-coordinated demolitions team had been assigned to four buildings.
Shrugging, she regained her fury, and yanked open the first drawer. It held nothing but blank parchment paper and jars of crusty dried ink.
Jina slipped past her and picked up a piece of paper from the table. Sandy ignored her and riffled through brittle papers in the second drawer, tossing old letters with three-cent stamps, brown-and-white postcards, and scrawled ledger pages to the floor.
When she reached the third drawer, Sandy shouted a triumphant, “Ah-ha!” In the dim light, she held up a faded blue roll of paper. Pushing aside the ash, she spread the sheet on the desktop and examined the sketchy markings.
Jina leaned over one shoulder while Lewis scanned over the other.
“What is it?” Jina asked.
Sandy ignored them and continued to concentrate.
“They look like blueprints,” Lewis muttered.
“You don’t think S.A.’s just gonna let us walk out, do you Sand?”
Sandy turned her head, looked at the door they had entered by, muttered something under her breath, and returned to the map.
Jina shrugged.
“Look!” Sandy exclaimed. “Here we are!” She jabbed her finger near set of dusty white lines. Hastily, she rolled up the floor plan and charged toward the next door leaving Lewis scrambling to get the candle and Jina rushing to gather her things.
Sandy stepped into blackness.
She stopped for a few moments to let her eyes adjust.
A tiny yellow-green light blinked into existence before her. It hovered in the air, wavering around in tipsy circles. Another soon appeared beside it. Then three more at once.
Fireflies.
“Pretty,” Jina sighed.
“Not pretty.”
One landed on her hand. She flicked it to the floor and stepped on it. It left a smear on the wood that shone like glow-in-the-dark paint.
The room suddenly filled with glowing insects. One exploded in midair, and she watched the phosphorescent drops fall in slow motion.
Another burst further from her. Before the body hit the ground, it was flung against the wall. An invisible hand traced out a one-foot ‘B’.
“Don’t pay attention, you two. Come on.” Sandy tromped towards the next door. She glanced back to see if they were following, but they stood transfixed as more fireflies were sacrificed to create a luminescent graffiti. The door slammed behind her.
“Uh-oh,” Lewis softly muttered, staring at the wall.
“Lewis, Jina, come on!”
At that moment, the fireflies and the candle simultaneously blinked out. The glowing graffiti was the only thing she could see, and she could no longer ignore that it spelled out a word… “Bad.”
Sandy found it hard to breathe. A familiar force pushed her back. The room lit for a second. The three found themselves pinned against the same wall, unable to move.
The lights were off again, and “Bad Girl” pulsed on the wall, pounding into Sandy’s head. She struggled to think, to concentrate.
Flash. When the lights came back, the blank wall appeared as though nothing had ever been written there. Darkness returned completely, the writing had vanished.
Proof it wasn’t…
Flash. The lights had come back on sooner this time, and the wall they were forced to watch was covered with millions of twisting centipedes, all competing for space. Those who lost, fell writhing to the ground.
The lights remained on for only a second.
…real.
Flash. The centipedes were gone. A chalk drawing of roses reminded Sandy of the one she had drawn eons before on the brick side of a bar.
Illusion.
Flash. Rats covered the floor, their pointy noses sniffing the air out of sync. Lewis’s scream was silenced during the following moment of darkness.
By now light was throbbing onto the room. The pulsating matched that of Sandy’s heartbeats. It distracted her.
Flash. The room was upside down. The light fixture hung from the floor. The radiator clung to the ceiling.
Not..
Flash. The wall crawled again, this time with flies.
…rational.
Flash. Buzzing filled Sandy’s ears. The flies were everywhere, as if a carcass rotted in the center of the room. Several tickled Sandy’s face, and she just had time to think about blinking before they were lost into the darkness.
Focus.
Flash. Fuzzy, long legged, black and orange striped tarantulas clung to the wall. Sandy’s scream carried through the next flash.
Flash. The wall stood refreshingly clear, the room comfortingly empty. Jina struggled.
A bright light immersed the room with strobe-light pounding.
Get ahold…
Flash. A hole in the wall revealed the room behind. Naked wooden slats barely held crumbling bits of plaster. Jina managed to free a hand from the invisible bonds that held her.
…of yourself.
Flash. The wall bled. Jina grasped Lewis’s hand and whimpered.
What is that all about? Sandy thought in the second she had.
Flash. Buzzing again. The room swarmed with thousands of yellow-bodied flying insects. Jina yipped, and Sandy had just enough time to see the three wasps planting stingers into the face of her friend.
During the darkness, the words “Bad Girl” glowed at them again.
Flash. A knife pinned Sandy’s floor plan to the wall.
He has…
Flash. Flame engulfed the blue paper.
No power…
Flash. The flames continued.
Why is it so…
Flash. A lone scrap of ash floated to the floor.
…much harder now?
Flash. Thousands of spider webs of all kinds d
ecorated the walls, floor, and ceiling. Some were beautiful, ornate, while others were those of a common house spider, plain, dusty layers of silk. Sandy gasped, her lungs tightened with panic.
Flash. S.A. stood against the wall. His face held a calm, a knowing. For him, everything was under control. His keen eyes slowly scanned each of them in that instant before…
Flash. Sandy saw the room from a strange perspective. Jina and Lewis were pinned against the opposite wall, her place empty. Her feet weren’t touching the floor, and she felt an odd, erotic thrill.
Flash. She stood next to Jina again. Red roses hid the wall.
Flash. Fear.
Flash. Anxiety.
Flash. Paranoia.
Fuck…
Flash. Paralysis.
You…
Flash. The knife that had earlier held the floor plan now held nothing, its tip firmly embedded in the peeling wallpaper. It moved, digging a gash, scraping along the wall. A hollow sound echoed through the room.
Three flashes. The knife reached the corner. The pulse slowed.
Flash. It turned at the corner and proceeded along the wall next to her.
Flash. Blood began to drip from the gash, staining the dirty white with a red that matched the decorative wooden handle of the knife.
Flash. It grew closer. The flashes grew longer. Sandy struggled. The invisible grip on her grew firmer, almost to pain.
Flash. As she struggled harder, her muscles ceased to cooperate. She stood unable to move at all.
Flash. The blood fell slowly to the floor. An eternity passed in one long, slow beat, and the knife met the next corner.
Flash. Sandy could see the blade’s edge now, as it cut towards her. Her back vibrated slightly as the wall was marred.
Flash. Two feet away.
Flash. A foot.
In the darkness between the flashes, she felt cold steel press against her upper arm.
Flash. Her skin tingled at the sharp edge of the blade. The knife stopped, quivering.
Flash. The blade sunk a little further into the wall, and shook, as though it were fighting against itself. Then, trembling, it lifted. Lightly tracing over her arm, it quivered, as if it wanted to press harder, to draw blood.
It passed over her breasts and to her other arm. The shaking increased, and the knife fell from her arm into the wall with an angry force. It dug twice as deeply towards Jina.
Flash. Breathlessly, Sandy turned her head. The blade grazed Jina’s arm, and with that, she fell suddenly to the floor, grasping at her throat and coughing.
The flashing grew in speed as Sandy’s heart began beating again.
Flash. The knife continued while Jina gasped for air. Sandy still could not move. What was she supposed to be doing?
Flash. Lewis’s contorted as the knife nicked his arm. His terrified face suddenly broke into a smile. Oh yeah…
No, S.A. You will not…
Flash. The knife began carving an intricate pattern over old scars.
…win this. It’s not real!
Flash. Lewis’s left hand jerked away from his side. He snatched the handle and grappled the blade to the floor. The knife fought against him with great force.
“Ha!” she shouted aloud, gathering all her strength of disbelief, “It’s not fucking—”
Flash. Lewis screamed. He released his grip on the knife, and his hand smoldered. The knife dived towards his head, missed, and stabbed into the wall next to his head.
“Real!”
The lights remained on.
“Fuck you S.A.! I’m more powerful than you! You’re a cheap magic show act!”
The knife quivered, then relaxed and fell to the floor, lifeless. Sandy felt a physical release from the wall. She stumbled a bit but remained upright. Jina stopped choking, and she wheezed to fill her lungs. Lewis lay on the floor weeping or sleeping, she couldn’t tell. Jina rushed to his side, and examined his wound. She gently wiped away the blood with her shirt.
“He’s insane, Jina. Don’t go tripping and falling all over him like you do with every other crazy you meet.”
“What do you mean? I’m not falling for him. You’ve gotta be nuts.”
“Whatever. I want to go, Jean. Is he awake? Can you get him moving?”
Jina cooed at Lewis and tried to rouse him.
Sandy needed Jina’s help if they were going to get out of here. It was too hard to do this on her own. She had repeatedly defeated S.A. with her resistance, but Jina didn’t believe.
While pacing, her toe stubbed against on something. A floorboard had come loose. She pried at it.
The nails screeched with the pull. A small space lay below, and it was filled with little boy treasures. Bits of string, a top, marbles, a wooden yo-yo, a matchbook, a pocketknife, gum, two screws, and a kaleidoscope.
Lewis stirred with the sound. He sat up. Jina felt motherly and attracted all at the same time, and she leaned in to kiss him lightly on the forehead. He smiled and leaned toward her while she stood. She smiled back and wiped the blood from her hands.
“What did you find?” she said, as she stepped closer to Sandy.
Sandy reached in and pulled out the yo-yo.
“These are his. I know it.”
“How do you…”
“I’ve talked with him. At length. In my dream. Jina, have you been trying to fight him?”
“Yes. But… I’m sorry, Sandy, it’s easier to believe all the things around me than it is to believe your theories.”
“Jina, I’m telling you it works. That’s how I saved you two.”
“I know Sandy. It’s hard.”
Sandy sighed. “I had him cowed, in my dreams. I could make him do anything I wanted, just by being stronger than him. We can control it. That’s how I got all the madness to stop, just now.”
Jina still seemed doubtful. How could she persuade her? Jina could only fight him if she was thoroughly convinced. Sandy paused in thought and looked down at the trove. After a moment she motioned at it with the yo-yo. “This may be our salvation.”
“What do you mean?”
“He said if we had any of his personal items, he’d have no power over any of us,” she lied. She stooped down and plucked the kaleidoscope from its tomb. Just in case her ruse failed, she held it tightly, and believed with all her might that it was a magical kaleidoscope that could defeat the power of fairies.
“Really? Are you sure this is his stuff?”
“Yeah. He’s lived here all his life.”
“He doesn’t look old enough to have had toys like this.”
“He’s a fairy, remember? An imp, to be exact. They must live a really long time.”
“So how does it work?”
“Well, I’d imagine you look through the hole there, and try your best to not believe any weird stuff is happening to you. Everything he does is make-believe. Just like when we were kids, right?”
Jina raised the kaleidoscope to her eye. “Like this?”
“Yeah. Just imagine S.A. is just another kid, and he’s playing cops and robbers with us. So when he says, ‘Bang, you’re dead’, you say, ‘No you missed! I have a force shield!’ Kind of like that. Only when he makes believe we’re being attacked by bugs and knives, we remind him it’s only our imaginations.”
Jina panned the room with the kaleidoscope. The dusty old walls split into a thousand fractal reflections of themselves. She aimed it at Lewis, who sat listening with some doubt and confusion.
During Sandy’s explanation, the knife had twitched slightly. Suddenly it rose from the floor and hurled top speed towards him.
Just before touching Lewis, the knife stopped in mid-flight and succumbed to gravity. It clanged loudly as it bounced on the floor. With the sound, Jina opened her other eye.
“What the—”
“The knife… It came back to life. But you stopped it!”
“You mean when I looked into the ‘scope?”
“Yes. You did it! It works perfectly! Now we’ll be
safe.”
Lewis stood drunkenly. He picked up the knife and threw it into the other room. “I don’t care. I just want out.” He began sobbing, and Jina raced to his side. She held him and comforted him as she had before.
Sandy felt someone behind her. She turned, but saw no one. But there was something there. A presence. Somebody.
“Go… away…” Sandy insisted.
The presence moved towards the door they had entered by. Jina followed it with her eyes. She lifted the kaleidoscope. Through it, S.A. became visible. “I can see him,” she whispered. “Through here… Now he’s gone.”
They all relaxed. “Really, you could see him through that?”
“Yes.”
“Huh,” Sandy quipped. “I guess it works better than I thought.”
“Come on,” Jina coaxed Lewis. “Do you think you can keep going?”
Lewis nodded and wiped away his tears like a child.
“Ok, good. Sand, can you still remember enough of that floor plan to get us to the front door?”
“I think so. This way.”
Sandy led them to the next door. She cautiously opened it. “We have to go through here,” she whispered.
The room was dark. Darker than dark, but they could still see. A fireplace burned in the center, long black-gray flames licked upwards.
Little black shapes dangled from the chimney to drop into the fire. Tiny black legs attached to tiny black torsos guided thin, silver webs downward. Sizzling sparked when they fell.
A spider shadow covered the entire wall opposite the window. The sun was rising, and the black widow in the center of the window blocked part of its light.
Sandy froze. She reminded herself they were just spiders. And she didn’t have a fear of spiders anyway. That’s what she told herself. She especially didn’t fear spiders that did not exist. She took a deep breath and started the familiar mantra. Not real, this is not real, they’re complete illusion. I refuse to believe.
Lewis snatched up the kaleidoscope. He peered into it with one eye, and slowly the flames turned to orange. The spider on the window skittered out of the room. The black widows in the fireplace vanished.
He began laughing in hysteria. “It works!” he shouted. “You can’t do anything to us now! I’m free! Soon we’ll be gone! A child’s toy can defeat your insane power! Child magic!” He waved the kaleidoscope around in the air and laughed again. He threw his arms around Jina and whirled in a hug. Pressing his head into her shoulder, he softly sobbed, “I’m going home…”
Make Willing the Prey (Dreams by Streetlight) Page 8