The Phoenix Project Series: Books 1-3: The Phoenix Project, The Reformation, and Revelation

by Pritchard, M. R.

Today I get a spoon. I use the spoon to mark the wall. There are ten lines, ten days I think I’ve been here. I stare at the bottle of water, wishing it were coffee. I guess I was really quite spoiled having a coffee maker in my house. I’m not sure where they got the coffee beans from. I never asked. Thinking about it now, I realize that was quite stupid of me to never ask Morris where those products came from.

  I open the bottle of water and take a sip. It tastes sweet today, as though they’ve added a bit of sugar. I stare at the wall. I pace the room. I hold my ear to the door, listening. Only footsteps, no voices. This is how I spend my day.

  “Let me out!” I yell and bang on the door. “Mack! Chuck!”

  Nothing.

  The light is switched off. I lie down and close my eyes. The nightmares start. I’ve been so long without them I almost forgot how bad they were, how bad they are. They must hear me screaming in my sleep, whoever is standing guard outside my door. They wake me by pounding on the door. But the light stays off. It must still be night. Eventually I keep my eyes open, afraid to close them, afraid of what I will see. I lay there drenched in sweat, my throat dry, waiting until they turn the light back on.

  When they push the tray into my room, I get up and sit by the door. More crusted stale bread and a bottle of water. My throat is so dry from the sweating nightmares. I open the water and take long gulps of it. When half of the bottle is gone, I stop and give myself a chance to breathe.

  The water is sweet again today. I stare at it, with the feeling that there is something not quite right. I hold it up to the bare bulb that illuminates my room and notice small particles floating in the water. They aren’t small translucent sugar particles, these ones are solid. I get that dropping feeling in my gut. Something is in this water.

  I push it away, along with the bread. I push it all the way under the door and away from me so it can’t tempt me. I turn on the water from the small sink. It’s tinted a rusted red, the same with the toilet water. The same way it’s been since the first day I got here. I can’t drink this water.

  Sitting on the edge of my bed, focusing on the newly worn hole in my sock, I have just one thought: I have to get out of here.

  When the light goes off, I don’t close my eyes. I keep them open. I envision the starry night sky from the Pasture. It’s a perfect picture with tiny dots. I start counting them.

  Two days of this. I don’t eat their food. I don’t drink their spiked water. My stomach grumbles. My lips are dry, cracked, and sore.

  I can feel it starting again, like when I was first banished to the Pasture. Except this time there’s nothing to distract me, just white walls and a cot. There’s no water tower to climb. No forests to wander. I never thought this would happen, but I suddenly crave the Phoenix District. I miss my home, the people. I miss my children. God help me, I miss Ian and all his smothering goodness.

  I have to get out of here.

  They turn the light off. I don’t close my eyes. At least I didn’t think I did, but somehow I am transported to the Pasture. I’ve had this dream before, I remember it. Wake up! I stare at the house before me. The small farmhouse. I can see them. Lina, Sam, Ian, even Blithe and the boys are all trapped in the house, pounding on the windows, screaming for help. I can see the bomb whistling through the sky. It looks like one of those atomic bombs from the old cartoons, large and bulbous, headed straight for the house. I run, screaming, pulling on the door, trying to break the windows. But it’s no use. I can’t get them out. I stay on the porch as the bomb whistles down, crashing through the house, exploding. I was hoping it would kill me too, but all it does is throw me away from the house so I can watch it go up in flames, consuming everyone I love.

  Then I am screaming, trying to run back to them so I can pull their bodies from the wreckage, so I can be a nurse again and fight to save them. But I can’t. Something is holding me back, pulling me by the hair. Even in my dream state I remember it was Crane before, holding me back. This time when I turn it’s nothing more than a faceless man. A ghost.

  “Let go of me!” I scream at the ghost.

  He reaches his bony skinless phalanges and, grasping the skin of my upper arm, he twists it, hard. My eyes open. The burning house, the faceless ghost, they are gone. I take a deep breath. Someone is shaking me. The light flicks on. A face comes into focus before me.

  “Andie, wake up,” it says.

  I recognize the voice. I focus on the man in front of me. His hair is long, his beard thick, but his eyes, those are the same light blue.

  I’m still dreaming. I have to be dreaming because Adam’s ghost is right in front of my face.

  “No!” I feel myself freeze. I don’t know what they put in that water, but it’s making me hallucinate, I’m sure of it.

  “Andie?” it asks.

  “No! No!” I pull back. “You’re dead! You died!” I pull harder, trying to get away from it. His hands are cold, freezing.

  “I’m here,” the ghost tells me, its voice calm and soothing.

  “Get away from me!”

  “It’s me, Andie,” the ghost says again.

  “No!” I scream, pulling. The ghost grips my arms tighter. “You’re dead.” I close my eyes hard. Wake up, wake up, wake up! I pull myself harder, I wretch my shoulders. He won’t let me go. I pull my knees up, tipping myself back and I kick him square in the chest with the soles of both of my feet. He stumbles back. Ghosts don’t feel like that. I’m sure they aren’t that solid, like kicking a brick wall. The ghost regains its balance, staring at me as though it’s surprised.

  I should be surprised. I’m the one seeing a ghost. I’ve never seen a ghost before. I must be stuck in some horrible dream, or somewhere in the middle, is there a place between dreaming and awake? They definitely put something in the food or in that water.

  “Go away,” I tell it.

  “I won’t. I’m here.”

  “No, you are dead!” I scream at the ghost. I push my tangled hair away from my face. I’m losing it.

  The ghost paces, just like I’ve been doing for days. Every few steps it stops and looks at me, its eyes sunken, almost hollow. I pull my legs up, burying my face in my knees, trembling. I can’t look at it anymore. He’s dead. Adam is dead. He died years ago to save me and Raven. I buried him. I buried his T-shirt that smelled so good, just like he did, so I could forget him. I mourned him and then I hated him for leaving us and for lying to me about who he was. I can’t think straight. I need to wake up.

  “Go away!” I tell the ghost.

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You lied to me,” I tell the ghost. “I went to the house. That was not your family. Waters is not your last name.”

  The ghost sighs. I lift my head. He’s still there, standing across from me, leaning back, his shoulders resting on the wall.

  “Leave me alone!” I yell at it.

  I rock myself and count. One, two, three, four, five… I have to focus. I have to wake up. When I reach one hundred I raise my head. Adam’s ghost pushes off the wall. It stalks towards the door and knocks three times. The door opens, he leaves.

  Ghosts don’t use doors. They walk through them. They can walk through walls. I’m sure of it. All the ghost stories I heard as a child or watched on television, ghosts don’t use doors.

  I crawl to the door and knock three times just like the ghost did. Nothing happens. I stare at the door longer, waiting for the ghost to return. I knock three times again. Nothing. I crawl back to my cot. I resume my position of my forehead on my knees. I rock. I count. I try to remember the smell of Lina’s hair, the feel of Raven’s chubby fingers on my cheek. I sniff, holding back the burn of impending tears.

  The light goes off and since I never woke up, I just continue on dreaming.

  --

  We sit at the dinner table just as a normal family would. Not a family that has been saddled with the tasks that we have. The promises of the future. One child destined to run this District with her peers, the other whose
destiny is uncertain because he has never spoken a word. My Lina. My Raven. Even though I’m sleeping, I can feel the wrenching in my chest. I miss them so much.

  Just a few years ago, when I took the tour of the Districts, there was a time that I feared I would die. I told Adam so. And that fear of death, of uncertainty in my future, it gave me fear in life. I see now that I was afraid that from the grave I could not protect my children. I could not ensure that Crane wouldn’t steal Lina way from me. I look at her now. Almost ten years old, smarter and stronger than I ever expected her to be. She is caring and attentive towards her little brother, a brother I never thought I could give her. Yes. I was afraid of death. I was afraid of their future without me. But now Ian is strong. Sam and Elvis are ready. And while I may fear the Survivors descending upon this place, I no longer fear for the safety of my children. I am certain that Ian will protect them. He will find a way, now that he knows a fraction of what he is up against.

  Somehow as I sleep the realization comes to me: I no longer fear death. I know it will bring me one thing: peace. This new awareness comforts me.

  “You okay?” my dream Ian asks from across the table. I look into his scrutinizing eyes and see a flash of concern. Perhaps I was making some type of a face. I smile, relishing in the fact that I can see his dark brown eyes one last time.

  “Fine,” I tell him.

  My stomach grumbles and I look down at the plate in front of me. It’s spaghetti and I am hungry. Starved from two days of denying the food my keepers have slid under my door. But this is not real food. This is dream food, it will not give me comfort. Seeing my family will though.

  I look up at Ian. His face is so perfect in this dream. He reaches across the table and squeezes my wrist, the wrist that has the imprint of the Phoenix District. “You sure?” he asks again.

  Lina and Raven look up from their meal, Astrid too.

  “Perfect, actually,” I tell him.

  “You sure?” He squeezes my wrist again.

  The children look between us. I smile at them. “Yeah, I’m sure,” I tell them all. “I love you.”

  When I open my eyes it’s still dark. I remember the dream. It wasn’t like the others. I wasn’t scared, or worried. This dream was my soul divulging one true fact: I’m not afraid to die, not anymore. At this point I could almost welcome it. Dr. Drake was right when he told me I was weak. Only a weak person could totally give up right now.

  Lying on the cot, defeated, I can feel it before it hits me; the heavy shallow breaths, the soda-bubble burn in the back of my nasal cavity. I press my lips together, trying to hold it in, trying to swallow the tears that are threatening. A small squeak gets out. I roll over and press my face into the mattress with the realization that I am sure I will not make it home ever again. I cry.

  --

  The light comes on. The door opens. Still lying on my stomach, my face pressed into the damp mattress, I turn my head to the side, looking to see who has entered the room. It’s the ghost again. I stare at him from the cot. I should move to a more defensive position, but I just don’t care anymore. The ghost stares back as it sits on the floor across from me.

  “Want something to eat?” the ghost asks.

  “No,” I whisper to the ghost.

  “You look hungry.” The ghost itches its now neatly trimmed beard on its chin.

  “I’m not hungry and I don’t want the food, it’s poisoned.” My stomach growls loudly.

  The ghost makes a face. “You’re obviously hungry.”

  “I’m not hungry. I’m dreaming and dream food doesn’t fill a stomach.”

  “You are still a particularly bad liar,” the ghost replies. “And you’re not dreaming.”

  “Then how am I talking to a dead man?” I blink at the ghost, my eyes feeling like sandpaper. “I am dreaming.”

  “I’m not dead.”

  “Yes, you are. And this is a dream, a terrible horrible dream, just like I used to have.” I glare at the ghost before pressing my face back into the soggy mattress. “They stopped when you died,” I mumble out into the mattress. “And now they’re back.”

  “Mine never stopped,” the ghost tells me.

  I turn my head to look at him. “Ghosts don’t dream.”

  He shakes his head, frustrated. “I’m not a ghost.”

  “Yes, you are. It’s the only way, the only explanation.” I move to sit up, ignoring the quivering of my limbs. “My God, they’ve had me in here so long I’ve lost it. I’ve gone mad. I have to wake up. I have to do something to wake up!” I hear my voice in my ears. But it doesn’t sound like me. I sound crazy. I slap my cheeks.

  “You are awake,” the ghost tells me with a calm voice.

  I point at the ghost with a trembling arm. “Shut up, Ghost!” I let my feet drop to the floor and walk to the door, the ghost watching me as I move. I knock three times. I hear footsteps.

  “Don’t answer the door!” the ghost hollers.

  The footsteps stop and then walk away.

  “What the hell!” I turn back to the ghost.

  “You are awake,” it tells me again.

  “You are a ghost!” I point angrily at the figure on the floor. I look at my hand, it still shakes.

  “No. I’m not.” He stands. This ghost is tall. I don’t remember Adam being this tall. But then, it was years ago that I last saw him or stood next to him. Maybe we get taller when we become ghosts. That would be nice, gaining a little height. I drop to a crouch as the ghost takes a step towards me. Creeping along the wall, pressing myself against it as though it may protect me, I scoot away from him until I reach the comfort of my cot.

  “Get away from me, Ghost,” I warn it.

  He starts walking toward me slowly, as though he is trying to calm a feral animal. His eyes are boring into mine, his palms face-up. “I’m not a ghost,” he repeats.

  He has to be; his eyes are sunken, his face thin, but… his skin seems darker, tan from the sun. Maybe my vision is going, from not seeing daylight in so long. “You’re a ghost. And I’ve lost my shit. Now go away so I can wake up.”

  “I’m not a ghost.” He stands in front of me now, his arms crossed.

  I pull my knees up and close my eyes. I squeeze them shut as hard as I can, pressing my face into my knees. The mattress gives as he sits on the cot next to me. I feel him scoot closer.

  “Go away, Ghost.”

  He smoothes my tangled hair back, tucking it behind my ear. “I’m not a ghost,” he replies softly. I feel him reach under me and pull me onto his lap.

  “Stop it, Ghost,” I tell him numbly.

  “Still not a ghost.” He wraps his arms around me and pulls me into his chest.

  Oh God. I remember this smell. It’s just like the shirt I buried in the ground, a woodsy spice and bergamot. Ghosts don’t smell like this. They can’t. I am certain. This is a dream. It has to be. I raise my head. He looks pale now. Crap, he could still be a ghost. Or I could be losing my vision.

  “They took my necklace,” I tell him.

  “I’ll get it back.”

  “You’re dead.”

  “No. I’m right here, Andie.”

  “I’m talking to a ghost.”

  “It’s ok.” He rubs my back.

  “I’m fucked up,” I think.

  “It’s ok,” the ghost says.

  It must be able to read my thoughts. Unless… I touch my lips, maybe I was talking. “I’m dying in here,” I think. My lips move. I must be talking.

  “I’ll get you out.” He kisses the top of my head.

  “You can’t. You’re a ghost.”

  “God damn it, Andie.” He pushes my shoulders away from him and stares into my eyes. They’re still the same light blue, tropical ocean water blue. Just like Raven’s. “I am not a ghost. I am here.”

  “You are dead, Adam! You died. And I haven’t been the same. I’ve been sad ever since you left us.”

  “Did you cry?” The ghost asks oddly, tipping his head to the side.<
br />
  “No. Not for you.” I never cried for him. I’ve only cried for my children.

  The ghost frowns. “Maybe you should. Maybe it would help.”

  This ghost is pissing me off. He just won’t go away and he’s killing me, making me it worse. I can’t handle this. “Fuck you,” I tell him.

  “That’s not nice.” His eyes emit a glimmer of amusement.

  “Neither is tormenting me.”

  “I’m trying to help you.”

  I push at him, wanting to get away, but his hands are clasped behind my back. Each time I struggle he just pulls me closer. Finally, I reach up and slap him as hard as I can. I’m expecting my palm to pass through him, just like the ghosts of the movies. But instead of feeling cold ghost air I feel something else: there is skin and bone and red that seeps from his lip.

  Oh shit. Ghosts don’t bleed.

  He lets go, his hands releasing my back the instant I make this realization. Ghosts definitely don’t bleed. I scramble off his lap, my eyes wide and panicked. I am not sleeping, this is not a dream.

  “Oh my God,” I tell the ghost. No, I tell Adam. “You’re alive.”

  chapter twenty-one

  Adam has escaped death once already. Back when the world was different and he was in the Middle East being tortured for information. He escaped his death then, when they decided they were done with him. He has the scars to prove it. But this survival, there was no military to fix his battered body, if what Crane told me was what really happened. The only things out here are the Survivors. Still, he somehow survived. I have never known a person who has escaped death twice.

  “You’re not dead.” I back up to the wall, feeling comfort in its solidity, hoping that the sensation of pressing my bones against the hard wall might ground me for this moment.

  It seems we have switched places.

  “No. I’m not. I told you that already.”

  “Why?” I ask him, shaking my head. “How?”

  “Long story.”

  “But… you’re supposed to be dead, Adam.”

  “I’m not. I never died. I may have come close a few times, but it didn’t happen.”