by Karina Halle
“Yeah, east coast time. It’s only 10PM for us.”
She went to her bed and threw back the fluffy covers. “And I go to bed at 10 anyway. Beauty sleep, hello? What’s your deal? Do you really think we’re going to go searching through the streets of New York fucking city past midnight, just the two of us? I don’t think so.”
That made me pause. I took in a deep breath. “Stop being the voice of reason.”
“Someone has to,” she said as she crawled under the covers and gave me a dry look. “I know you want to find Dex and we will. I believe you and Pippa and everything that was said. But we don’t even know if he’s here right now. Did they fly? Did they take a road trip? We don’t know.”
“He’s here,” I muttered to myself.
“Either way he will be,” she said. “But there is seriously nothing we can do right now, am I right? Right. So let’s just chill out and go to sleep. I’m tired, you’re tired and this bed is really fucking comfy.”
I sighed, staring at my phone that was still dead but charging. I did tell Maximus what hotel we were staying at, so at least he could call us that way.
I reluctantly wiped my makeup off my face and then went to bed too.
I expected to stay awake the whole night, just tossing and turning, but I didn’t have to do so for long. I was out in a few minutes.
Ada was right. The bed really was comfy.
***
I dreamed about Dex. We were back on the Brooklyn Bridge, but it was a glorious, warm sunny day. We were holding hands, his strong, familiar fingers laced with mine, and were swinging our arms like little kids. There were people milling around us on the walkway but it felt like we were the only people alive.
At some point we stopped to stare at the buildings of Manhattan and he pulled me to him, kissing my temple. I felt flooded with the warmth of his touch, of his love, and with the sunshine that beat down on us from above.
Even though nothing unusual was happening, I knew it was a dream and that this moment of peace and clarity wouldn’t last.
And yet it did. The dream continued on so seamlessly, so real, that I couldn’t believe my luck. No burning embers fell from the sky, no Satanic creatures came crawling out of the sea. People were happy.
We were happy.
I leaned into Dex and admired the sparkle of my ring in the light. It looked brighter here, with him. Better. Everything was better with him by my side.
But the dream didn’t last forever. Just as I was laughing over something he said – because when wasn’t I laughing with Dex – and melting at the sight of his smile, everything started to fade and get fuzzy. He was slipping from my grasp, from my view.
The dream was ending.
And suddenly I was in a hotel room in New York, Ada snoring softly beside me. It was dark, though a sliver of orange light slid in through the blackout curtains. Outside the city hummed with constant noise and it was impossible to tell whether the city was winding down or waking up.
My face was wet with tears and my fingers were gripped firmly around my engagement ring, the stones cutting deep into my skin.
My chest was utterly bereft. I felt like I’d left my heart in the dream.
And real life, now this was the nightmare.
***
When I woke up again, the light in the room was a hazy grey and my head throbbed with a dull ache, the kind you get from crying all night. I spent a few moments there, pulling my thoughts from sleep, before there was a knock at the door that made me jump.
Ada immediately turned over too, her hair in her face as she struggled to sit up.
“Who is it?” I asked loudly, my mouth dry from sleep.
“Room Service,” a familiar voice said from the other side of the door.
I got out of bed and crept over to the peephole. A tall ginger was on the other side.
I sighed with relief and quickly opened it, not caring that I was just in my Dream Theatre concert tee and underwear.
“Hey,” I exclaimed as the door opened up to reveal Maximus. I heard Ada squeal behind me and pull up the sheets to cover up her pajama top but I was so exhausted that I just fell forward and collapsed into his arms.
Thankfully, Maximus was always the gentleman and held me for a few moments with no questions. He had a strong hold and it gave me a bit of strength, just to know that I had someone who really had the power to help me and help Dex, at least more so than I did. It also didn’t hurt that he was a big, strong man and we were two young girls in a scary, unknown city.
“How are you holding up?” he asked in his drawl.
I pulled away and stared up at him. “I think you’re the only thing holding me up right now.”
He gave me a quick smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Maximus was usually quite easy going, to see the worry on his brow made my heart kick up a notch again.
“Mornin’, little lady,” he said over my head, nodding at Ada.
She held her sheets to her chest and nodded gravely in return. “Mornin’, big dude.”
“So now that I’m here,” he said, walking over to the edge of my bed and sitting down, hands clasped together, “why don’t you fill me in on everything, from the start.”
His eyes briefly trailed to underwear and I quickly grabbed a robe out of the closet and covered myself up before I launched into the events of the last twenty-four hours. Maximus listened patiently as I went on, his brow furrowing even deeper.
When I finished, breathless, he ran a freckled hand through his thick hair and sighed.
“What?” I asked. “What is it?”
He shot me an apologetic look. “Sorry, Perry. It’s a lot to take in, and to be honest with you, I’m not sure where to start.”
My face fell. “What do you mean? You knew Dex back then, when you both lived here.”
He nodded. “It was a long time ago, too, don’t forget that. Dex was living in an apartment. I can take you there, but he rarely talked about his childhood, about where he lived with Michael. I don’t know where that is.”
“But,” I said, stepping closer to him and staring hard at his green eyes, “you do know something, you have to.”
He gave me a sympathetic smile. “New York wasn’t the best of times Perry. I’m sure you know the story by now.”
I crossed my arms. “How you were best buds and then Abby died and then he slept with your girlfriend and went insane all while you turned a blind eye? Yeah, I heard the story.”
His eyes narrowed briefly, a flash of hurt and warning. “Hey, I reckon it’s not as black and white as it seems. But either way, many mistakes were made and I gotta be honest with ya, it’s not easy for me to be here.”
“Well what the fuck are we supposed to do?” I yelled, throwing my hands up in the air.
“Perry,” Ada said gently, about to tell me to take a chill pill.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, turning away from them. Then I turned back, fueled by desperation. “No, you know what? I’m not sorry. Not one bit. I’m mad. I’m freaking the fuck out. I’m panicking. You guys don’t seem to fucking understand what’s happening. Dex is my best friend, my fiancé, my future husband,” I pointed my finger at Ada, “your future brother-in-law. He’s everything to all of us and I am not joking, I am not exaggerating, when I say that we have to get to him now. We have to or we will never ever see him again.”
Maximus studied me for a few moments and a wave of fear trickled onto my shoulders. He thinks I’m crazy. He’s regretting coming here. He’s not going to help me. He’s going to turn around and go home. He doesn’t believe me.
“Okay,” he said after a minute. “I’ll do what I can.”
I raised my brow. “So you believe me, you believe everything I said.”
He gave me a lopsided smile. “More than you know.”
I had no idea what that meant and it didn’t assuage my fears. Though Max saw a lot of the supernatural stuff when we were in Red Fox and New Orleans, I could never really forget that this was
the guy that watched me become possessed in front of his eyes and still denied it.
Just then my phone started ringing, now that it was fully charged. I looked over it and at Ada. We knew who it was.
“I’ve got it,” Ada said, snatching it up from the bedside table. Before I could tell her not to answer it, before we could come up with a plan of what to do, what to say, she did.
“Hi mom,” she said lightly, as if everything was just peachy.
She immediately winced and the hotel room filled with the tinny sound of my mother yelling over the airwaves. I watched as Ada tried to get a few words in before she suddenly blurted out, “We’re in New York City.”
You could feel the silence as the truth soaked in.
Then the yelling started all over again. I let it continue for another minute until I pulled out the older sister card and took responsibility.
Naturally, it didn’t matter what I told my mother. Or my father, once he came on the line. They obviously didn’t believe a word of me when I said Dex’s brother was trouble and we had reason to believe he’d been taken against his will.
In the end, it was all my fault and I was to take Ada back to Portland. I promised them I would when we got Dex. I told them they could reach us if they we’re worried about us and gave them the hotel name too, but that this was our call and we’d come back when we could.
Obviously that didn’t go over very well and I was quickly forced to put my phone on silent, knowing that they would call again and again and again. I couldn’t be distracted by that, not now.
“All righty,” I said, fighting the urge to clap my hands together, as if this could be trivial. “Let’s get started. Let’s find him.”
“I reckon you may want to put pants on,” Maximus said. “I know anything goes in New York but that might be pushing it.” He added, with a smirk, “Not that I’m complaining.”
I gave him a look but quickly got changed in the bathroom. While I was in there, staring at the retro medicine cabinet above the sink, I was reminded of what I had done to my mother. How I had taken the pills. I wondered if she was starting to unravel a bit without them, if she’d already made an appointment to have them replaced, if she knew it was me.
I wondered if she was going to start feeling like her daughters any time soon.
But, like all thoughts that weren’t related to Dex, I couldn’t even let myself think about it. Each moment I was away from him was a moment that my heart sank deeper into my chest. I felt there would be nothing left of me if we didn’t find him soon.
It was too bad then, that even with Maximus there, we still had no idea where to start looking.
Somewhere a clock was counting down to something none of us wanted to understand.
CHAPTER THREE
Dex
I’ve woken up in some fucked up places before. Once, on a bench in some park in Bellevue, a ritzy Seattle suburb, with happy squirrels bouncing all around me like over-caffeinated rats. Still not sure how I ended up there. Another time I was on the roof of a Vancouver hotel, rain pelting me on the face and an empty bottle of Jack Daniels beside me. I remember how I ended up there – damn stripper led me astray and stole all my money. At least I had Jack for company.
But I have never woken up in my old bedroom of my childhood home, a home I tried to erase from my memory until I was certain it no longer existed.
And yet it did exist. More than that, I was lying on my puny old bed, legs hanging off the weak frame, and the room was exactly the same as I had remembered as a child.
Which was, you know, pretty much fucking impossible. But there you had it.
I lay back on the bed for a few drawn-out moments, blinking first at the ceiling at the stick-on stars that I had affixed on it back when I was a little shit. My eyes slowly trailed down the walls, pausing on the Alice in Chains and Nirvana posters and cut-outs from Spin and Rolling Stone magazine I had placed haphazardly on the greying wallpaper. I bet if I peeled back the corners, I would see the Blu-tack I used to put them up. God forbid I put a pin or thumbtack into the wall without my father slaughtering me.
Suddenly memories flooded my mind and I could barely contain them, feeling like a thirsty alcoholic with an undersized bladder. Holy shit. This wasn’t some crazy fucking dream. I really was here, in my old room. Everything was the same, everything except me. I was Dex Foray, not Declan O’Shea, yet the essence of who I was clung to the carpet like mildew, just as the fear used to.
But there was nothing to fear now, was there?
I slowly sat up and stared at my feet, at the toes of my boots, tapping them together loudly. The sound was hollow, peculiar. It didn’t quite feel real. But this was real. Right? Every breath I took in made me second guess it, every breath I exhaled told me the truth.
I reached up and pinched the tip of my ear. It hurt like hell. It had healed since it had been sliced off in New Orleans, but it was currently the most sensitive part of my body (other than my dick, but that seemed unnecessarily cruel). Anyway, point is, I was alive and well and this was no nightmare manifested of unresolved issues from my childhood. This was real.
I was motherfucking Dr. Who.
Outside the window, the light was starting to fade. I eased myself out of bed and looked out of it. The view was the same as I had remembered. The neighbor was so close, you could touch their brick wall– well, I couldn’t because I was never tall enough, but my friend Joey once did. He nearly fell out the window and crashed into the garbage cans below, which would have really ruined his drumming skills. After that, I made a rope ladder for emergencies.
Craning my neck, I could see the street out front. 78th or 88th or 98th, I couldn’t remember. It was framed by leafy trees and busy with passerbys going about their business. The Upper West Side. A place completely and totally removed from my life and everything that I was.
So why was I there?
I racked my brain, surprised at how sluggish it was, how slow the other memories came to me. My life before I was here.
Perry.
My chest clenched at the thought of her and then the novelty of where I was vanished in an instant.
I had been at Perry’s parents’ house in Portland, editing the video we shot at the sanatorium. Perry had decided to go for a walk. Her parents were out somewhere. Her sister, Ada, was downstairs doing some annoying workout video by that angry chick who yells at everyone.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed before I heard a knock at the door. I remember I was staring at an image of Perry on the computer screen, her face beautiful even in the grainy green light of the night vision. For some reason the sight of her, combined with the knock at the door, brought this whisk to my gut, turned me inside out.
Without thinking, I had got up and looked out the window. There was no car outside except for my Highlander, something that inexplicably made the feeling worsen. I opened the door and poked my head out into the hall and heard a voice that made my spine stiffen.
A voice that should never brought such fear into me.
Yet it did. And before I knew what I was doing, I was walking down the stairs, feeling almost pulled toward my brother.
I had told Ada to run, to get Perry, to get out of there. But that was all I could do.
I don’t remember the rest. I have no fucking clue how I ended up in New York, in my old house, if it was even in this plane of existence.
And – shit your pants scarier than all of that – I had no idea where Perry was and if she was okay. Because, god help me, if Michael had done something to her, I had no problem getting blood on my hands.
At that thought, I went for the door and cautiously opened it. Now that my brain was in high gear, all my senses were following suit. I refused to submit to fear.
The hallway looked different, was different. Though my bedroom had remained trapped in the past, a clean, pleasant version of all my years in the house combined, the hallway that led to the other bedrooms and bathrooms was blackened, as if there w
ere a fire recently that scorched the walls and tinged the dingy carpet.
But on closer inspection, the walls weren’t charred. They were coated with a black substance that oozed and wriggled on the wall. I had a feeling if I looked even closer than that I’d see creatures in it moving, as if it were a wall of pulsing insects.
Luckily the light in the hallway, coming in only from the foyer’s wide windows at the end, didn’t allow for much detail. I stepped out and was met with a wash of frigid air that cut deep, momentarily stealing my breath.
The hall resounded with a creak and I slowly turned my head to see the door to Michael’s room swinging open. Purplish smoke followed, wafting out, then disappearing.
Wanting to leave but knowing I couldn’t without answers, I turned and went toward it. The carpet was wet under my feet, sticking to the bottoms of my boots, smelling like an old drunk: mold and alcohol.
At his door, I stopped and peered inside. Michael’s room didn’t look anything like mine, or like his back in the day. I mean, he was an annoying, straight-laced kid but there wasn’t anything about him as a child that made me think he was Damian from The Omen. But now, now was a different story.
Here, his room was a black cave, the doorway framed by hanging stalactites that looked as heavy and dense as iron. Inside, the cave looked like it went on forever, a tunnel of cold, dripping walls that led to a dancing flame, as if there were a fire at the end, raging far away.
“Declan,” my brother said, his voice impossibly low, almost guttural. He was sitting on the floor, staring at nothing.
“Where’s Perry?” I asked. I’d hoped I’d come across as commanding but it felt like I wasn’t speaking over a whisper.
He looked up and I was struck by how much he looked like my mother. Our mother. But it was hard to think that way, to think we both came from her, because he lacked something that I had, or at least I hoped I had. His eyes were dark pools that had no depth, no sign that the man had any empathy at all – or that he was even a man.
I thought back to my mother, the last time I had a vision of her, before she stopped haunting me. What had she said about him? What was it that I didn’t understand?