Past Presence

by Nicole Bross

  “I’m sorry,” I say when she opens it, my voice breaking. Drew shoves us into the foyer and pushes the door shut behind him.

  “What’s the meaning of this, coming into my house with a gun? Just what do you think you’re doing?” Naomi demands. She looks like she’s going to slap Drew upside the head like an errant child. I’ve never seen her so furious. Sheena looks ready to faint, I’m crying, and Drew is still pointing the gun directly at me. The matte black weapon looks huge in his hand, and very lethal.

  “So sorry to barge in on you like this, but unfortunately, I’ve got some loose ends to tie up. You can blame her, really,” and he jerks his head in my direction. His voice has lost its laid-back, easy-come-easy-go tone. This Drew is sharp and menacing, and he’s smiling like he’s enjoying the moment. “As soon as you showed up and started poking around, I knew I’d have to get rid of you. Unfortunately for you, Naomi, you’re caught in the middle of it. I guess you are too,” he says to Sheena, who’s leaning against the wall, trembling. “Didn’t see that one coming. Nice to know there are still some surprises in life. Anyway, it’s not personal, I never had a problem with either of you. It’s her that’s fucking everything up.”

  “You can’t be serious,” I say. “You’re that against me owning the inn? You think I could screw it up that badly? I’m actually doing okay.” Then something clicks. “Wait. The credit card. It’s you who’s running the fraudulent charges.”

  Drew uses his empty hand to mime pulling a trigger at me, confirming my suspicion. “I tried to run one through tonight, and it was declined. I knew you’d figured it out.”

  “And you thought killing those people would, what, scare me off?”

  “Either that or you’d take the fall for it,” he says. “Since you don’t seem to be the scared type, I guess we’re going to have to go with option number two.”

  “Fine,” I say, taking a deep breath. “I’ll go to the police right now and confess to everything. I’ll tell them how I drowned Marnie, smothered Irene Bell, and used a burner phone to lure Aaron to the parking lot where I stabbed him with a knife from the kitchen. I’ll even admit to pushing Bill Blackmoor down the stairs because you did that too, didn’t you, asshole. Just let Naomi and Sheena go. I’ll call Detective Chao right now. You can sit here and listen in on everything.”

  “Negative,” he says. “I’ve got different plans tonight. Naomi, I think your bedroom would be a much more comfortable place to hang out. Lead the way, please.”

  “You sick fuck,” I growl, clenching my fists helplessly as he pushes us forward into the house. “If you dare touch either of them, I will kill you myself.”

  “I’m not going to rape anyone. I’m not that kind of depraved, Audrey,” he says, rolling his eyes. We enter the bedroom and he closes the door. “You two,” he points at Naomi and Sheena, “have a seat on the bed. Audrey, into the corner over there.” He sends me to the far end of the room, where there’s a small space between the wall and a night table. There’s a bedside lamp on it, and I wonder for a moment if I could throw it at Drew and knock him out with it. “I’ll shoot one of them if you try,” he tells me like he can read my thoughts.

  “Look, if it’s me you want, you’ve got me,” I plead with him. “Let them go. They have nothing to do with this.” Sheena is nodding vigorously. I should have never brought her into this, I berate myself. I know Drew is here for Naomi, and how I’m involved as well, but she’s completely innocent of Drew’s entire twisted scheme.

  “Too late, they know too much,” he says. “Besides, there needs to be a crime scene, and your hand needs to be on the smoking gun, so to speak.”

  “I’m not shooting them. There’s nothing you can do to make me. I’ll never do it.”

  “It was a metaphor, Audrey. I’m not stupid enough to hand the gun over to you. I am going to get you to help me though, and depending on how well you cooperate, your friends will have an easy death instead of a slow, painful one. Understood?” I nod, even though I don’t have a clue what he means. Cooperate how?

  Drew takes off his backpack and drops it to the floor beside him. With the gun still trained on me, he unzips it with his free hand and rifles around inside, pulling out a cardboard box not much bigger than a business card. He does a practice swing to make sure I know to catch it, then tosses it over to me.

  “What’s this?” My thoughts are racing so fast I can’t focus long enough to read the words on the package.

  “Fentanyl patches.” My heart plummets into my stomach, and Sheena moans. “No, this is good shit,” he says, as casually as if he was offering us a joint at a party. “As far as having to kick it goes, this way’s pretty decent. You’re going to feel amazing, then you’re just going to nod off. I figure I’m doing you a favor.”

  This is the mirror to the drug overdose Naomi experienced in her past life, only instead of the barbiturates of the fifties, Drew is going to use the opioids that have spread like an epidemic all over the country.

  “Go ahead, open it up and take a few out. Two each should do it. I’m guessing neither of you is a user?” He looks at Naomi and Sheena, who stare back blankly. “Morphine? Heroin? Anything like that?” They both shake their heads. “Good, because I don’t want to have to use any more on the two of you than I have to. Like I said, this is good shit.”

  “Is this what you spent all the money on? You said you got cleaned up.”

  Drew shrugged. “That only lasted a few days. It was Roz’s idea, not mine. I appreciate that she wanted me to be sober, but in all honesty, I’d rather not be. What you’re going to do now is tear open the packages, and peel off the back. Then stick them on. The belly is a good spot.”

  “No,” I whimper, shrinking back against the wall. I can’t do this. I can’t put my friends to death, even if it’s under duress.

  “Yes, or I tie you up and make you watch while I do it with a knife instead,” Drew says. “Right now, Audrey, or I’m going to shoot Sheena in the knee.” Sheena huddles against Naomi, who wraps a protective arm around her. They cling to each other while I stand behind them, paralyzed.

  “You’re the devil himself,” Naomi says to Drew. “Pass them to me, child, I’ll do it myself.” She reaches her arm out toward me but Drew swings the gun in her direction.

  “Nope, it has to be Audrey.”

  “Why?” I shout. There are tears pouring down my face.

  “Fingerprints. When this is all over and done with, it needs to be clear you were the one responsible. Now no more stalling. Put the patches on right now.”

  With trembling hands, I slowly tear one of the paper wrappers open and pull the plastic patch out. It looks like a small, square Band-Aid.

  “Naomi, lift up your shirt a little. There we go,” Drew says, and motions me to come forward, instructing me to kneel down at the foot of the bed between Naomi and Sheena.

  “Please don’t make me do this,” I whisper. “I’ll do anything you want. Please don’t make me hurt my friends. I thought you were a nice person, I thought you liked me, Drew, please. You don’t have to do this. There has to be some other way. If it’s money, I can get you some, everything I have, you can disappear.” It’s like talking to a wall. Drew doesn’t show any indication that my pleas are having an effect. He presses the gun hard into the back of my neck.

  “Right on her side there, above her hip. One beside the other. Come on, or things are going to start getting messy. You’re the one making the choice, Audrey—are your friends going to have an easy death or a painful one? What do you want their last moments to be like?”

  “It’s okay, child,” Naomi says to me. She strokes my hair, which only makes me cry harder. “Let’s get it over with, all right?” She’s so calm, and there’s an expression of serenity on her face. Unlike Sheena, she doesn’t look frightened at all. My hands are shaking so much I almost drop the patch, but I manage to stick the beige square onto Naomi’s dark skin.

  Jeannie opened her eyes to find herself in an unfam
iliar room, a stark white ceiling stained with water spots above her. A blue curtain suspended by chains hung to her left, thin enough to let the light from a window on the other side through but preventing her from seeing what was beyond it. There were bars on either side of the narrow bed she was lying on. Hospital? she thought, with no recollection of how or why she was there.

  “There you are,” said a voice to her right, startling her. She turned her head to see a man in a white coat standing there. She’d never seen him before in her life. “I’m Doctor Mason, Jeannie. You gave us quite a scare there.”

  Her husband, seated in a hard, plastic chair alongside her, reached over and squeezed her hand. The dark circles under his eyes were a testament to his exhaustion, but he was smiling.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “Another one,” Drew barks behind me, making me jump. She survived. Naomi’s past self hadn’t died of an overdose after all. Does that mean history could repeat itself? Was there hope? I tear open a second package, and place another patch beside the first, this time careful not to make direct contact with her skin, then press my face into Naomi’s lap and sob. She rubs my back in slow circles, making soft shushing sounds. “Come on, I don’t have all night,” Drew says, and he shoves me with his foot. “Sheena, lift up your top. Audrey, stick the patches on.”

  Sheena is shivering from head to toe and has her arms wrapped tightly around her middle. Her face is pallid, and I’m pretty sure she’s going into shock. She doesn’t make any attempt to move her shirt, so I pull it gently up for her.

  “Don’t, please, don’t do it. I don’t want to die,” she whispers, and her voice is so small and sad I can’t go through with it. Suddenly, Drew swings the handgun and hits Sheena on the temple with it, stunning her and causing her to unwrap her arms from her stomach.

  “Last chance.” He brandishes the gun at her again while she cradles the side of her head.

  “Stop. Don’t hit her,” I yell, trying to put my body in between her and the gun.

  “Then put the fucking patch on.” Sheena whimpers, but doesn’t stop me when I lift her shirt again, exposing an inch of flesh.

  “Maybe it’ll be okay,” I murmur. Drew is directly behind me, but I don’t think he can see my hands, so I quickly fold one side of the patch over slightly so less of the medicated adhesive will come into contact with her skin. Maybe it won’t make any difference, but it at least feels like I’m doing something. I do the same thing with the second one, and let Sheena’s shirt fall back into place, obscuring the patches. Drew doesn’t seem to have noticed my small deception.

  “Now what?” I say dully, still kneeling in front of the bed. “Two for me too?”

  “No, in a short period of time, you’re going to become overcome with remorse and shoot yourself in the head. With my assistance, of course. In the meantime, you can go back to your corner.” He prods me in the back of the head with the barrel of the gun until I stand up and step away from the bed. I breathe a silent sigh of relief that he’s not going to drug me as well. Maybe I can still save us all. “Ladies, if I see so much as a twitch in the direction of those patches, I’ll give you something to hurt about. Trust me, it’s best if you relax, and let the drug take you away. It shouldn’t take long. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes, tops. You might even find you enjoy it.”

  “Please, Drew,” I beg. Sheena’s crying softly again, but Naomi still looks peaceful, her hands clasped together in her lap. I wonder if she’s praying. “It’s not too late to fix this. Is this really the person you want to be? Naomi’s your friend.”

  Drew shrugs. “I don’t have much choice. I’m in too deep now. This is the only way I can fix it. Besides, I don’t know why you’re so broken up about it. You know they’re coming back again. The circle of life, right?” He smiles knowingly and winks. “Honestly, it’s helped me feel at peace with death. You’ll all be born somewhere else and start all over again with a new life. Since you came along and showed me the truth, death has taken on a completely different meaning for me.”

  At that moment, I see the shadow of two feet appear from the crack at the bottom of the bedroom door. There’s someone standing on the other side. Could it be Kellen? I have to keep Drew distracted, get him to drop his guard. I need to keep him talking.

  “How do you know about that? About what I can see? How did you know the way they all died? Are you…like me?”

  “Not exactly.” He’s leaning against the wall beside the door, the hand holding the gun resting on top of the dresser beside him. “My sight is a lot more limited than yours. Like a finely tuned radio. I only pick things up from people who already have the gift. Everything you see, you pass along to me. Hence the fist bumps.” He grins at me. “There are more of us than you think, but you’re by far the strongest I’ve ever met. Most people have a vague sense of intuition or precognition. Some don’t even realize they’ve got it. I’ve come across a couple people who have some weak telepathy. You—it’s like going from an old black and white television to IMAX with surround sound. The whole past-lives thing is incredible. Can you do anything else? Move things? Control people?”

  “Don’t you think if I could I would have taken you out already?” I spit at him, furious that he’s so glib, and that I was the one who made him so comfortable with the idea of taking peoples’ lives in the first place, as well as the ideas for how to do it. I was practically an accomplice.

  “Fair point. When did it start for you?”

  “When I was fourteen. Meningitis. I was in a coma for a week, and it was there when I woke up. You?”

  “Surfing accident when I was nineteen, in California. I drowned and had to be revived with CPR. They said I flatlined for almost ten minutes.”

  “What are you talking about?” Naomi says. Her voice sounds a bit slurred, and my heart seizes in my chest. The drugs are starting to take effect.

  “Your almost future-daughter-in-law can see your past lives when she touches you,” Drew tells her. “I don’t think it’s something she really shares with others.”

  “She told me,” Sheena retorts. Her voice is still strong. Good. Maybe that little bit I folded over was making a difference.

  Drew raises his eyebrows in surprise. “And the whole town didn’t find out about it the next day? I’m shocked, Sheena. I’ve never known you to pass up sharing a good secret.”

  “Past lives?” Naomi swivels her head around to look at me. I nod.

  “Like little scenes from a movie in my head,” I tell her. “Any time I make skin-to-skin contact with someone, I get a flash of their past. Usually normal stuff. Sometimes important events. Drew’s been stealing them out of my head and using them to decide how to kill people. Bill Blackmoor fell down the stairs in his home on the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Marnie drowned in a pond on her family’s farm when she was a toddler. Irene Bell passed away in her sleep, probably from a stroke. Aaron Glass was murdered, stabbed in the chest.”

  “Ooh, this is a good one, tell her who stabbed him,” Drew says with a malicious grin. “It was Kellen,” he continues when I press my lips shut, refusing. “Kellen’s past-self killed Aaron’s past-self. Isn’t that wild? We all keep finding each other, again and again.”

  “Praise Jesus,” Naomi says. “You mean I’ll see them again? Kellen, Marcus, and Graham?” The latter two were Kellen’s brother and father, respectively.

  “Yes,” I tell her. “They may not be your children or spouse—maybe a good friend, or grandchild, or someone else you’re close to. You’ve known Cora and Reverend Trish in the past, too.” At that, Naomi bows her head, and I hear her weep quietly.

  “You forgot to tell Naomi how she died,” Drew says. He’s practically rubbing his hands together.

  “I don’t know,” I shoot back. “She survived it.”

  “You’re lying.” His glee disappears as his eyebrows pull together in a frown.

  “You don’t have the most up-to-date information. She woke up in the hospital the n
ext day. I saw it. All this—this is wrong. This isn’t how it went down.”

  “Bullshit. Prove it.” He holds out his empty hand to me, the gun pointed at my chest. This is going to be my chance. The shadows on the other side of the door are still there. I’m positive it’s Kellen, waiting for the right moment. I advance slowly, my hands in front of me where Drew can see them. Drew’s arm is stretched out toward me, and as I reach mine out to meet him, I shout and pull Drew forward with all my might. Kellen bursts into the room and throws himself at Drew. The gun goes off. I fall backward, caught off balance. Drew and Kellen hit the floor beside me, and in the scuffle, I take a hard kick to the stomach. Sheena’s screaming, but Naomi bounds up, grabs the lamp and swings it at Drew’s head like she’s hitting a home run out of the park. He collapses on top of Kellen and lies motionless. Naomi uses the lamp’s cord to tie his wrists behind his back.

  “Take the patches off,” I croak, trying to get my breath back. I’m lightheaded, probably from being winded—it feels like there’s a heavy weight on my chest, preventing me from taking a full breath. I can hear sirens approaching, lots of them. I hope there’s an ambulance for Naomi and Sheena. Relieved, I close my eyes, surprised at how sleepy I am. It’s still hard to breathe, but it doesn’t feel as important now. Naomi and Sheena are safe, and Drew’s been incapacitated.

  “Audrey, open your eyes, stay with me,” Kellen says, grasping my hand and squeezing it tightly. Something flashes into my head, but I can’t keep track of it before it’s gone. Then someone presses hard on my chest for some reason, making me cough.

  “Don’t,” I mutter. I want to sleep. It’s been such a long night, and no doubt once the police arrive it’ll take hours to answer all of their questions. Maybe I can rest here for a few minutes. The sirens are right outside the house now.