by Sara Clancy
Scrambling back over the earth, Benton’s eyes widened with fear. This couldn’t be happening. It was impossible. Within his dreams, he always melded with his hosts. Their minds entwined, their bodies as one, completely inseparable until the dream shattered and he was flung back into reality. He was never felt, never noticed, never separated by force. This was the first time since he was ten years old that he was simply Benton within a dream, and he didn’t know what he should do.
The turmoil of his thoughts were cut short when the horseman jumped down from his steed. Each step he took shook the earth, and Benton scrambled to pull himself back faster. Grass twisted around his fingers like vines trying to trap him to the earth. His limbs were heavy and useless. He still couldn’t breathe. The world in his dream crushed in around him, tightened by the coils of the horseman’s rage. As the last of it fell away, the one thing that remained solid was the charging horseman. It reached for him.
Benton screamed.
***
Benton snapped his eyes open as his spine dropped against the thin mattress of the hospital bed. The world swirled around him. Colors locked in a hurricane until they settled back and the world became solid once more. Air rushed deep into his lungs as quickly as it was forced out, and he was panting hard enough that his head spun. He tried to sit up, desperate for the elevation like it could somehow make everything tumble back into some kind of sense.
The separation rushed through his body like a phantom pain. He could almost feel the raw wound where the horseman had ripped himself free. The edges of the laceration wheezed with every breath, releasing the air before the tattered remains of his body could absorb it.
As if slipping from between the threads of reality, his parents materialized by his side. Their hands were cold against his heated skin. He couldn’t tell which one was rubbing his back, but he was endlessly grateful when the circular motion turned into a sharp blow against his spine. Each strike increased until the intangible clog in his throat was forced free and his lungs swelled.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” his mother cooed as she squeezed his hand.
Her attention shifted from him as she talked to the nurse that was pressing an icy disk to his chest. Half a heartbeat later, he realized it was a stethoscope. His father continued to hit against his spine, stopping only when the nurse needed to reposition the disk.
“Your lungs sound clear,” the nurse said before appearing into his field of vision. “Do you have any history of asthma attacks?”
Benton shook his head. There wasn’t enough air in his lungs to form a word and all that came out was a broken gasp. Bit by bit, as the cold disk repositioned itself seemingly at random, he was able to settle.
“I’m okay,” Benton weakly said. Bits of his memory came back as his vision sharpened. His gut twisted up like razor wire and he searched the room with quick glances. “Nicole?”
“It’s two in the morning.” Theodore’s deliberate calmness had the opposite effect. Benton was a second away from screaming with frustration when his father finally continued. “She’s at home.”
“Is she okay?” The extra words made him lurch forward and he started heaving again.
“She’s fine,” Cheyanne said. Her chipped tone could fracture like ice.
His mother had long since started to believe that Benton was responsible for all of the deaths that followed him. He doubted that she would ever say it directly, but it would have been impossible not to pick up on her growing suspicion through the years.
She had been subtle when she had first started to suspect him. He just hadn’t been allowed over at other kids’ houses anymore. Simple enough. But then they weren’t allowed to come over, either. After that, he wasn’t allowed to interact with anyone unless it was within her direct line of sight. The conditions had grown and grown until her suspicions became blindingly obvious to everyone. They had actually gotten to the point now where there were extra locks on his parents’ bedroom door. Which wasn’t as insulting as his mother’s kneejerk reaction to assuming his involvement in any and all missing person’s cases. She had once gave him a worried look when she heard that a hiker had gone missing in Alaska. They had been in Toronto at the time.
Before they had moved to town, before he had known Nicole, he had been able to endure it all easily enough. Benton never had much of a desire to socialize and, in many ways, he still didn’t. Nicole was the exception, not the rule. Neither of them had actually planned on him developing a friendship. And, now that he had, their precarious relationship had been forced onto shaky new ground that neither of them knew how to deal with.
Benton looked between his parents as he spoke, “I want to talk to her.”
“She’ll be asleep,” Theodore said. “It can wait until the morning.”
He shook his head. “She won’t mind.”
It was something that he knew with absolute certainty. Any time he called, she would always answer, without hesitation or resentment. Nicole would answer. His parents tried to soothe him as he painfully pushed himself higher up on his pillows.
“I need a phone.”
“In the morning,” Cheyanne said sharply.
He met her angry gaze. “Kimberly’s dead, isn’t she?”
It only took a second for her anger to fade, replaced by a mix of fear and concern. “No one is blaming you for that.”
“It wasn’t my fault.”
“We know,” Theodore said as he gave his son a few more firm pats. “We all know.”
It didn’t matter how many times they reassured him. He knew that tone. Knew what it meant. The town might not be rallying to drive him out, but his parents weren’t so ready to believe him innocent in tonight’s events. They were scared and were closing ranks fast. At this moment, he didn’t have the effort to break free, so he slumped against their hands and surrendered to the pounding pain radiating from his temple.
“What happened?” he asked through clenched teeth.
Cheyanne stooped down to capture his eyes. She spoke in a deliberate manner, more like she was telling him which lie to keep rather than explaining anything. “You fell and hit your head.”
“And Kimberly?” He needed to know what everyone was saying.
“They’re still looking into it,” she said. “But from what I have heard, it sounds like she had a heart attack.”
“People are buying that?”
“It’s just one of those freak things, sweetie,” Cheyanne said. “No one could have done anything.”
Benton finally felt settled within his own skin once more, but even that couldn’t remove the hollow sensation lingering in the pit of his stomach. Images of the horseman remained lodged behind his eyelids, reappearing with his every blink. He could still feel it, even now, like frost encrusting his skin. His brain was filled with horrors but nothing he had ever seen compared to the figure of the horseman. Half of him resented that no one else had been forced to witness it. The other half burned with jealously because he knew that he’d never be able to forget what he had seen. How it had so effortlessly ripped her apart to retrieve its trophy.
Is her heart now in a cage? The thought blistered across his mind and made his brain ache. Kimberly hadn’t even been on his radar. He had dreamt of a thousand people dying in excruciatingly gruesome ways, but Kimberly had never been amongst them. For all the times he had woken up screaming, her name had never been in his head.
“I didn’t see it coming,” he whispered numbly.
Cheyanne brushed her hand over his hair. The comfort of the gesture was tarnished when his parent’s both skirted their attention to the nurse entering the room.
His mother crouched lower, kissed his forehead and said, “There was no way anyone could have.”
Her words were soft, but still the undercurrent of a warning was clear. Don’t talk about past deaths. Don’t speak of your dreams. Don’t try and contact the next victim whose name was now lodged within your mind like a railroad spike, he thought to himself. Interpreti
ng his mother’s words drew his attention from the horseman and it hit him; he didn’t have a name.
He had rode in the horseman’s skin on his hunt, and felt his delight, the thin trails of bloodlust that warmed his very being with a predatory glee. It hadn’t been aimless. The horseman had selected its next victim. It knew exactly who it wanted, what part of them it wanted. It was already coming for them, and Benton didn’t have a name. He hadn’t even been able to see the victim before the connection had been severed. Right now, his banshee need to give warning should have been setting the back of his skull alight with the fires of hell. But there was nothing. Just a bottomless gaping void.
“The doctor will be in shortly,” the nurse said as she patted his shoulder. “But you look good. Just try and rest up, okay? You’ve had a hell of a shock tonight.”
“He’s a sensitive boy,” Cheyanne said as she pulled closer to Benton’s side. “Always has been.”
The nurse smiled and gave Benton one last lingering pat before she allowed Cheyanne to usher her towards the door. His mother never stopped talking and he was able to hear her long after she had left the room. Benton remained silent as they watched them go. Theodore pulled slightly back from his side and smiled softly. Within that moment, it was tough to tell which one of them felt more awkward.
“Thanks,” Benton said awkwardly. “For not letting them drug me.”
“There was no need. You just hit your head,” Theodore said dismissively.
“Right. Still.”
Theodore cupped the back of Benton’s head in a motion he was sure was supposed to be one of fatherly affection.
“Just get some sleep, son.”
Benton nodded and began to slowly lean back against the pillows. The sheets felt plastic and sterile against his skin, and he was grateful for the warm light that flooded the room. His insides twisted and raged, but without the scorching pain within the back of his skull. There was no way to fend off the fatigue that pressed down against him. With a jaw cracking yawn, he shuffled further down on the bed, which wasn’t overly comfortable. But, within that moment, he was tired enough to sleep on a bed of nails.
“Did she leave a message?”
“Who? Nicole?” Theodore asked.
He couldn’t suppress his yawn. “Yeah.”
“No,” Theodore’s voice followed him as sleep slowly trickled around him and pulled him down. “Just go to sleep.”
Chapter 4
The endless blue sky looked almost disrespectful to the grief that had broken Fort Wayward like a tsunami, leaving nothing but desolation in its path. It wasn’t just Kimberly’s sudden death, it was the mystery that surrounded it. Rumors had spread through the night and by the time morning had come, everyone had their own theory of what had happened. They ran the spectrum from believable to complete lunacy, and still more were evolving as everyone searched to make sense of the senseless.
The school had still opened for the day, but it was more for a sense of normalcy than in any belief that the students would pay attention. It had also been the easiest way to gather them for grief counseling. Since Aspen was the only therapist in town, the process was slow, and the teachers had decided to allow the waiting students to either attend their classes or wait out in the school yard. It was a beautiful day, and sitting at her usual picnic table with her two closest friends, it was almost possible for Nicole to think that it was all just a nightmare. Something that she would wake up from. Something that could drift away with time and become a strange memory in the dark corners of her mind.
Despite being identical, there were little similarities in Meg and Danny Yellow Wolf's personalities. Meg’s default setting was to abandon all sense of tact, while Danny was gentle and thought through her words a dozen times over before she spoke them aloud. It was a rare occasion when both of them were silent. The novelty left Nicole reeling and at the mercy of her encroaching exhaustion. Hyped up on adrenaline and panic, Nicole had obsessed over the events all night. Her first instinct had been to research what had happened, to find something to fight, but her limited information had led her from one roadblock to the next. Her other coping mechanism had proven far more fruitful.
After decimating her cupboards, Nicole had spent what had remained of the night baking. The result was one cherry pie, good enough to give to the grieving Bear Head family, and two dozen others that she had lugged to school in an attempt to get rid of. The visit with the Bear Head family replayed in her head as she stared down at the smooth paint of the picnic table. They had all been so lost in their grief. Numb to the point that they simply walked around unsteadily, a hollow shell of their normally vibrant selves. Nicole doubted any of them would remember that she had visited moments after she left, and maybe it was better that way. It seemed like a mercy not to remember the day you were told a loved one had died.
Nicole tried to stifle a bone cracking yawn. It turned into a sob. It wasn’t an uncommon sound today. She clutched at the purse on her lap, running her fingers endlessly through the buttery soft tuffs of coyote fur that created the bag.
“So you got her new bag, huh?” Meg asked weakly before she helplessly waved an iPod for a moment.
The case studded with fake diamonds was instantly recognizable as Kimberly’s. They both turned to Danny and she meekly placed Kimberly’s school bag on the table.
“I wouldn’t have thought they’d be allowed to give away her stuff yet,” Meg mumbled as she picked at a random stone in the case with one fingernail.
“It’s tradition,” Danny said. “Everything she owns … owned, will be given away.”
“Yeah, I know. We have the same heritage, sis,” Meg snipped. “I just meant that, well, wasn’t she just murdered? You’d think that a police investigation would stall the process a bit?”
“She wasn’t murdered,” Danny sighed. “She had a stroke.”
“Yeah, that’s something that healthy teenagers have all the time,” Meg said.
“There were witnesses, Danis.”
“Saying my full name, Megis,” Danny shot back, “doesn’t mean that poisons no longer exist.”
Nicole drove her fingers deeper into the fur bag, clutching the strands as if it would help her hold tight to her silence. She had promised her mother that she would keep the secret and, while she knew that she was going to tell Benton, she was determined to honor it to some extent. The siblings continued their argument without her. It was the same argument that everyone around them was having, and Nicole tried not to listen to any of it. She had her own internal arguments warring within her. Something had been there with them. Benton had seen it. And she couldn’t shake the suspicion that whatever had attacked them at the Jump had followed them down. That led her swirling thoughts to the single question that haunted her; Would Kimberly be alive if I had just kept driving?
“How many of those did you make?” Meg asked suddenly.
Nicole turned her head towards Meg, who sat across from her but wasn’t looking in her direction. Instead, she was eyeing the neighboring picnic table that was currently hosting the dwindling collection of pies. It wasn’t uncommon for her to bring food to share, so no one ventured over to their table to ask permission. Instead, people just grabbed a slice of comfort food, sometimes threw a smile in her direction, and headed back to their own groups.
Nicole chewed on her lower lip until it hurt, only vaguely aware that she had yet to respond to Meg’s question. Over the years, the twins and Kimberly had grown further apart until the beginnings of resentment had started to grow between the three women. It was just enough to immunize the Yellow Wolf girls from the sharper edges of the collective grief. It also gave them more time to worry over Nicole.
“I didn’t count,” Nicole finally forced herself to say.
She barely heard the words over the constant questions that echoed within her mind. Something had hit Benton. There were a few rumors that offered a different take, and they too were becoming more outlandish over time. Some were saying th
at he had fainted. Others said that he had taken the same mystery drug that had killed Kimberly. But she knew something had struck him. Out of all of the wild speculations clogging her mind over what could and should have been, rose a singular concern; Benton still hadn’t called. He should have called by now. What if he hadn’t woken up? her brain whispered. What if it found him again? What if this paranormal creature had poisoned him like it did Kimberly? Did his parents change their mind about the sedatives?
“I’m out of flour,” Nicole added numbly.
Where is Kimberly’s heart? The thought slammed into her and she jumped to her feet, wobbling, as her foot got caught up in the leg of the chair. The sudden movement startled the twins and they reached for her in unison.
“I have to go,” Nicole forced out. She was going to be sick. She couldn’t breathe. “I have to do something.”
Sitting next to her, it was far easier for Danny to grab Nicole’s wrist than it was for Meg. With surprising strength, Danny yanked, destroying Nicole’s already unstable balance and forcing her to slump back down on the seat.
“There is nothing you can do, Nicole,” Meg said.
Danny opted for a far softer tone as she agreed with her sister, “You already paid your condolences. The Bear Heads know that you care. Now you need to give them some privacy to grieve.”
What if it comes back? Her hands began to shake as she swatted at Danny’s hand. What if it follows me again? Nicole pushed the thought back into the rising swamp of guilt that bubbled within the pit of her stomach. She refused to believe it. There was always an answer. An option. Something she could do. She just needed to find where to start. She just needed a moment to think.
“I need to see Benton,” she decided and quickly tried to get up again.
Danny’s grip tightened, keeping Nicole in place. “If he’s not here, it’s probably because he needs to rest.”