“It’s Cedric.”
“Okay Cedric thanks for the invite but we can’t stay long, I have to get home.”
“Home, are you serious why are you going there they won’t want to know you, of course you can try but you’re wasting your time.”
“You don’t know shit about my family so how can you be the expert!”
“I know enough, you’ll be disappointed.”
The conversation dropped to an awkward silence as Adam and Summer looked at each other, wondering what was going on, again.
Am I really in this small dark room in a run down house that’s seen better days or is it imagined? Maybe I’m still on the road with Summer and I’m nearly home. Cedric is just a figment of my imagination he isn’t real!
“Can I get you some tea or coffee or a soda?” Cedric asked hoping to lighten the mood.
“I’ll take soda.” Summer replied.
“Nothing for me.” Adam was fearful that he’d slip something in his drink.
Summer couldn’t wait for Cedric to disappear in the kitchen so she could speak freely,
“He’s a bit weird huh?”
“A bit, he’s wacko I’m sorry we agreed to come here, he’s making me more paranoid than ever.”
“He’s just a senile old man I don’t think he means any harm. I doubt he even knows your folks that well.”
“What did he mean they wouldn’t know me?”
“Like I said he’s losing his mind, ignore his ramblings, it doesn’t matter.”
He couldn’t ignore what’s going on all he wanted to do was get the hell out of there but thought it mean- instead he waited for Summer to finish her soda.
“Drink it fast.” He whispered as Cedric reappeared grinning from ear to ear as if he secretly enjoyed taunting Adam.
They made their escape when Cedric left the room to get more cookies, running out as fast as they could while Summer giggled from nerves. They kept up the pace for two blocks until they were sure he had absolutely no chance of catching them up.
“Wow that was so freaky!” Summer remarked her adrenalin running high from nerves and excitement.
“Tell me about it, what the hell was that shit?”
I’ll get home and the nightmare will be over, I can sleep in my bed, Summer can sleep in the den until they decide what to do with her and mom will be happy I’m safe.
The closer they got the greater the apprehension. All the years he would saunter home without a care in the world never observing curfew or worrying about homework. It never plagued his conscious that either of them would be sitting up waiting for the key in the door at 3.am. Now it was different, having made the break something he deeply regretted he feared that they would reject him; or worse Roy will push his mother to agree not to let him back in the house. If that was so then everything rested on one person, his hated step father who’d done everything in his power to push Adam out,
“We’re almost there.” He was dubious, scared but willing to try,
It had gotten very late and he doubted they would even be up. Somewhere in his jeans pocket used to be where the key was, but that had gone missing as well. The only option was to ring the bell and keep ringing until they answered.
“Will they be pissed if you wake them up?” Summer asked.
“Oh yeh very, especially Roy my mom will come running for sure but him? I doubt it.”
They reached the drive and to Adam’s surprise the lights were still on. It was good news in a way but he was still unprepared, emotionally drained and desperate. For the sake of family he found the courage to go to the door and ring the bell. No-one came so he tried again.
“Why aren’t they looking out of the window, that would be the first thing Roy would do?” Adam remarked slightly panicked.
“Keep trying maybe the television is way too loud.”
The countless times that Adam was locked out and unable to get in because Roy had put the safety chain on, madly ringing the bell in red hot anger only resulted in a peep through the blinds and a look of death. Only after he was content that Adam had suffered enough would he let him in, ordering him up to his room, sometimes with a push and a sharp reminder never to do it again.
But he did, pushing Roy's boundaries to the absolute limit and now the scenario was beginning to feel very familiar. Frustrated he continued to press the bell over and over until Summer ran out of patience and suggested what was painfully obvious,
“Maybe we should just wait here till morning, someone has to come out of the house.”
“Wait where, here?”
“Yeh where else is there to go.”
“This isn’t the city, the cops drive through here sometimes checking up, they’ll see us hanging around and it’ll be questions.”
“So what, we’ve done nothing wrong, if they see us that is.”
“I just don’t want anything to do with the cops right now.”
Not wanting to disclose that he was charged with possession of marijuana the year before he changed the subject,
“I want to show you something, not far from here wanna see?”
“Sure why not, there’s nothing else to do.”
To her surprise after quite a walk they arrived at the gates of a cemetery. She shuddered at the thought of being inside of one in the dark, street wise she may have been but there were some things that scared her and cemeteries were high on her list of activities not to indulge in.
“It’s closed Adam it’s the middle of the night.”
“I know that but we can climb this gate it’s easy, I’ve done it many times.”
“Why would you wanna come here in the dark, you’re so weird?”
“Yeh it sucks…are you coming?”
Adam went first clambering up the metal gate like a monkey. Fortunately it wasn’t that high and because he’d done it so many times it appeared easier than it was. Summer tried to follow but struggled to get to the top, the strength needed in her arms and legs eluded her as she valiantly attempted to show Adam what she was made of. She’d always been a bit of tomboy who never resisted a challenge and she was determined to get to the top; not even considering that once there she would also have to climb down the other side.
Having made it she then had to negotiate herself around to climb down, fortunately Adam was there to grab her as she dropped into his arms.
“It’s not far just over there in the corner.” He said confidently leading the way.
“Adam this place is so dark what do you expect to see, ghosts or something?”
“My dad’s grave.”
This was the only place he could come to find peace and be as close to his father as he could be. Away from the misery at home and the world at large he would lie across the grave to connect to the man he idolised and it was there that he first heard the voice of his father. The last couple of days had cast a shadow of doubt over the validity of voices in his head as he was forced to question his sanity and entertain the idea that he might just be schizophrenic.
“So sad that he died so young, he was only 32.” Summer said gently as she tried to read the headstone in the dark.
“It was a massive heart attack on the wrong day for sure. He was at work, just like those in the towers, only he was someplace else.”
“What a day to die.”
“He could have timed it better. I might have been only eight but I remember it so well, he had no right to leave me.”
“It wasn’t his fault Adam that’s unfair.”
“Why didn’t he stay a while longer at least until I was okay, you know more adult?”
“Why are you wishing for things that can’t be, I gave up on that years ago.”
“Sometimes I forget that you’re only sixteen.”
Time slipped by fast as they sat side by side next to the grave talking about Adam’s father and childhood memories he could recall. Summer shared some stories too, painful ones that she was trying to put behind her. They never even noticed that dawn was appro
aching, neither had a watch but Adam was sure the gates would soon be open. Hiding behind a tree they waited patiently for someone to come. Minutes turned into hours as they waited, worried to climb the gate in daylight they were overjoyed when they heard the clink of keys in the gate.
It was still early when they returned to the house and Adam resumed the work of ringing the door bell repeatedly- again with no success.
“They know I’m here, it’s him. He’s making sure I don’t come in hey…hey Roy open the damn fucking door you bastard!”
“Calm down Adam there’s no point in freaking out.” Summer remarked hoping that he’d control himself.
Adam repeatedly banged wildly on the door with his fists, “I’ll fix you man, get your ass out here now!”
Finally the door opened. It was Roy on his way to work, his glasses still perched on the end of his nose as he headed straight for his car. Adam followed on his heels and continued to scream obscenities even though he was getting a zero reaction, he didn’t give up. Summer couldn’t handle aggressive anger or extreme emotion and with her stress levels rising she could feel the familiar desire to run.
“Stop it Adam he can’t see us!” She pleaded, attempting to drag him away.
All he could do was watch in vain as Roy reversed out of the drive on his way to work, seemingly impervious to the carnage going on around him.
“Adam are you listening he didn’t see us…please say something!”
“He didn’t see us, am I nuts are you real, was he…who the fuck am I?”
“I’m real and so are you, something’s really screwed up and we need to find out what it is.”
“He didn’t see us.”
“Yeh okay stop repeating, we have to get outta here and get help!”
“You know what? If we’re both dead then where’s the damn light, you know the light they tell you about or maybe in my case the dark, where the hell is it?”
“How would I know? I’m not sure we’re dead, maybe we’re both in the same bad dream and we’ll wake up soon.”
“Hey God… you up there man? Tell us what’s going on. Joke’s over man, where’s the fucking light!”
Summer fell to her knees sobbing while Adam stood with his arms outstretched to the heaven’s repeating himself and demanding an explanation that just didn’t come.
Her emotions touched him. Something inside told him it was futile to be angry at someone who couldn’t see him. Instead he did his best to comfort her because he couldn’t bear to see her so upset.
“Hey baby don’t cry we’ll work it out, you know we come good every time don’t we?”
“Why aren’t we in heaven then if we’re dead?” She sobbed.
“Cause maybe we’re not dead, it could be a weird dream or shared psychosis.”
“Or we’re in some kind of parallel world where the only people we can see are like us.”
“That could work, I never thought of that.”
Cradling her in his arms he couldn’t help notice his neighbour’s on their way to what he always referred to as the daily grind. Mothers were taking the kids to school and fathers in suits were on the way to the same boring jobs. The speedy paper boy had arrived throwing the daily onto each drive without any care or attention. They both cringed when a newspaper flew through the air narrowly missing them.
“Being invisible does have perks.” Adam remarked.
“Like what exactly cause I don’t see what’s good about it.”
“We can take whatever we want, go into stores and help ourselves, no more going in garbage bins for food. We can get the best of everything. Hell we could even get cash if we wanted.”
The door opened once more. For Adam it was the moment of dread as he looked on helplessly to the sight of his mother. She looked anxious and unhappy as she walked to the car, convincing Adam that Roy had manipulated her into believing life was better without him around- but her darkened eyes told another story. Summer followed her to the car taking in all the details,
“She looks like a nice person, real nice like a mom should look.”
“Yeh she could be okay, there were moments.”
“That’s a real mom.”
For Summer the word ‘mom’ had become associated with the word ‘devil’ whenever she evoked memories of her past. She had become a classic case for child services as she was dragged along in her mother’s turbulent life. Taken from one relationship tornado to another fuelled mostly by alcohol and drugs they were often homeless as a result of her mother’s drunken violent outbursts toward the equally drunk and abusive men in her life. She tried to blot out the memories of the men who touched her in inappropriate places while her mother was passed out in a drunken stupor; and the men who didn’t think twice to slap her for the smallest misdemeanour. Drifting from state to state and living on welfare her education suffered as her mother would invariably hook up with someone for a few months at a time until it turned bad. Occasionally the cops showed up because neighbours had reported a disturbance- the sound of her mother in a drunken rage. The threat of her being arrested left Summer in a state of endless fear that she’d be put into foster care.
There was a brief moment of happiness and a taste of family life when the then ten- year -old was sent to stay with her aunt because her mother had been hospitalized for liver problems.
For weeks it was blissful.
Summer played happily with her three cousins and there was always food on the table. She slept on clean sheets in a comfortable pretty pink room that she would imagine was a castle and she was a fairy princess. She dreamed and fantasized that if she could stay long enough in the magic bedroom, until she’d grown then a dashing prince on a white horse would take her away. Just like in the fairy tale books she read endlessly.
But the good life ended the day her mother showed up unannounced ignoring the pleas of her sister to keep Summer for a while longer. Instead she took her straight back into a life of endless misery.
By the time she was fourteen she’d had a succession of boyfriends mostly older, one abortion a rising drug problem and bulimia. One night, after her mother’s latest boyfriend hit Summer across the face in a drunken rage she ran away vowing never came back. Life on the streets wasn’t much better but she considered it the only choice and when she found out her mother had died, she shed no tears, preferring to keep them locked away.
“Maybe we don’t exist or we never existed or they don’t exist.” Adam said.
“Yeh okay which is it to be, face it we’re screwed which ever way we turn.”
“We don’t exist.”
All hope of reconciliation had failed. The only option left was to head back to the city to find people like themselves, people that could see them and wouldn’t take advantage of them. Lost and confused they reluctantly head back to the city with Adam still smarting from the rejection. Silently they walked away from the suburbs heading back to the place they couldn’t wait to get away from. Adam had nothing to say his mood was sombre. Summer struggled to find some logic to their situation but it didn’t come- no matter how hard she tried.
“What day is it?” Adam had become totally disorientated.
“How would I know? I’ve forgotten what year it is let alone what day.”
“Big help, what’s your problem now?” She stopped in her tracks and with her hands firmly on her hips she blew,
“I’m done with you, you’re making me crazy…I…I’m outta here, find your bridge throw yourself off I don’t give a shit!”
“Come with me.”
“What?”
“Off the bridge together and zoom pow we’re out of our misery.”
Summer began to shake and cry, her tears of sorrow were not just for the hopeless situation she’d found herself in, but for the years of pain she was forced to endure in her short life. She had started to believe that being with Adam was a kind of punishment even though she couldn’t deny that a part of her did feel the love growing between them. The other part hat
ed his guts. Was it fate that brought them together and would it be fate that would tear them apart?
Adam interpreted her tears as a sympathy ploy used to play on his emotions and weaken his defences. He saw her as an attention seeker, creating arguments to get insults; that way she’d get him to notice her, even if it was negative. She makes Katie look like Alice in Wonderland and I thought she was a pain in the ass.
“I’m going now,” She said through the tears. “Do what you want, kill yourself or whatever. But if you change your mind and wanna come with me then stop with the suicide talk, I can’t stand it anymore.
He wanted desperately to put an end to what he saw was a wasted life yet he lacked the courage to do something. There was only one choice, keep trying to make sense of everything that was going on and head back to the city to search for answers.
“You lead I’ll follow.” He meekly replied.
Chapter 9
Heading back meant another long laborious walk. They’d lost the appetite for food preferring to just walk silently hoping to find someone who would help them. The lights and sounds in the distance told them they were close but which direction to take was eluding them as they weren’t communicating. Neither wanted to face what was coming next- losing faith came easy when you couldn’t find the answers.
Summer was first to see a park in the early afternoon sun, the soft green grass and a chance to sit was inviting as her swollen feet and old flip flops had become a bone of contention.
“Can we sit for a while?” She requested afraid to upset the delicate situation.
“Yeh sure why not?” Adam replied wanting to keep the peace.
It was a peaceful deserted oasis with no-one to spoil the calming atmosphere. The sight of a bench was heaven as they both flopped down with relief. They scanned the few people they saw in the distance hoping to be seen, praying that there were still others like them.
Summer spot a girl alone. “The girl over there looks friendly, go say hello.”
“Why me? She’s gonna think I’m hitting on her, you go.”
“If I do will you be nice to me for once?”
“Yeh yeh just go.”
Dead Dreams ((Young Adult Paranormal Romance) ( Dead Dreams Trilogy)) Page 9