[Anthology] The Paranormal 13- now With a Bonus 14th Novel!

by Dima Zales

  I tell him the truth: “I’m not saying this for your ego, I really mean it – it’s never been like that before for me.” But then again, I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. I’ve never needed someone the way I do now. And I’ve definitely never lost myself in it the way I did – we did – last night. I’m sure that’s got a lot to do with it.

  I’m glad it was like that for him. They say you always remember your first time, and – this is exactly the kind of thing Beth meant when she said I’m a hopeless romantic – it’s supposed to be special and wonderful and perfect and all of that. I’d say that last night qualified on that count.

  I wish my first time had been like that, instead of what it was, with Richard, the time I didn’t want to think about this morning. Rotten, awful, terrible, pick your adjective. And I can’t think of another time that I’ve ever felt worse about myself.

  We lie in bed a little longer and he asks me something else. “What happened to you?” and as he asks he’s got his hand on my belly. Right over my scar.

  “Oh, that? You noticed it?” It’s funny. The two boyfriends I’ve had since it happened never noticed, or if they did they never bothered to ask.

  “Well, I saw it last night, and after about two seconds it went right out of my mind,” he says, going quite red.

  “I should hope so,” I laugh. “Anyway, I had my appendix out, senior year of high school.”

  “Really?”

  “The night before the prom.”

  I see a flash of pain in his eyes. I know exactly what just went through his mind – for a moment there, he experienced what he imagines I must have been felt. It’s extremely touching – none of my previous boyfriends would have reacted that way. “That’s – wow, that’s horrible,” is what he finally says.

  “It wasn’t any fun, that’s for sure.” It was incredibly painful, in fact. I remember very clearly that after we got to the emergency room, I cursed at my father for the first and only time in my life. My exact words, lying there in the exam room waiting for the nurse, were: “Dad, it hurts so bad! Make them give me the fucking pills! I need them to knock me the fuck out!” When he heard that come out of my mouth, he knew for sure I was seriously ill.

  I relate that to Brian, and he gets a good chuckle out of it. It is funny now, three years later. “But I didn’t even really get my mind around the idea that I missed the prom. I was completely loopy on the pain medication for, I don’t know, three or four days. By the time I was thinking straight again, I was all caught up in getting ready for graduation. Besides, it wasn’t like I had a hot date that I missed out on.”

  I’d be happy to just lie here together all morning, but Brian’s got to go back to his dorm so he’s there for the weekly phone call from his parents. His mother apparently gets all agitated if he’s not there and awake at exactly eight AM on Sunday morning. I guess it’s a way of making sure he isn’t partying too much or something like that. It sounds dumb to me, too, but like Brian said, “They’re paying the bills, so I guess I have to keep them happy.”

  So he gets dressed and I throw on my bathrobe and walk him downstairs. The lounge is empty – it is way too early on a Sunday morning, after all – so we take the opportunity for one more kiss before he heads out the door.

  I’m just standing there watching him go, and there’s a voice behind me: “I didn’t think you went in for public displays like that.” I turn around and I see Mona Charleston, a second-year medical student and our Resident Director. She’s standing in front of the door of her little apartment. She must have just come out; she looks like she’s getting ready for her morning run.

  I’ve known Mona since she was a teaching assistant in my freshman chemistry lab. I wouldn’t say we’re best friends or anything, but we got along well enough then and she’s been a pretty good RD. And, she’s been giving me and Janet and Melanie – the other two junior girls in the dorm who are pre-med like I am – all kinds of advice. How to get ready for the MCAT’s, what to think about as we prepare for the application process, course schedules, stuff like that. So Mona’s OK in my book.

  “I didn’t think it was public. It’s not my fault you want to go running at this hour.”

  “Force of habit,” she says, looking me up and down. “It sure looks like you had a good time last night. You’re glowing. You do realize that people are going to talk.”

  I blush, even though I know she’s teasing – mostly teasing, anyway. And so what if she’s not? People talk all the time, who cares if anybody wants to joke about how I “got lucky.” They can go right ahead. “Well, I can’t complain about it, that’s all I’ll say.”

  Mona laughs. “No, from the way you look, I wouldn’t think you can. Tell you the truth, I’m glad to hear it. You’ve been looking awfully stressed lately, I was starting to worry about you. But I suppose your new friend will help with the stress relief, so I won’t worry anymore.”

  “That’s good.” I think.

  “Besides, it’s nice to know that someone had a good night. It sort of reaffirms my faith in humanity.”

  “Why? What happened to you last night?”

  She shrugs. “It wasn’t any one thing. I was on call, and every five minutes it was some stupid little problem. There’s a car alarm going off in the Brinkley House parking lot and it won’t stop, somebody’s passed out drunk on the fourth floor here and he doesn’t look like he’s breathing right, someone’s throwing stuff off the fourth floor balcony in Morgan House. All night long, nonsense like that.”

  Last year I thought, briefly, about applying to be an RA. It’s conversations like this that make me glad I came to my senses. “So nothing really serious?”

  “No. No property damage, no injuries, except to my nerves and my patience,” she says, heading for the door. “Maybe a good long run will clear my head. I’d ask if you wanted to join me, but I think you got all the exercise you need already.” I blush again.

  “Thanks, I guess.” She’s off on her jog, and it’s back to bed for me. Another couple of hours in my nice comfy bed sounds like a great idea. Before I crawl back under the covers, I take a good long look at myself in the mirror. Mona’s right. I am glowing. And why not? Good for me.

  4

  (December 3-4, 1989)

  The day flies by. I lie in bed until ten o’clock or so and then it’s time for some work. I want to get my final paper for Science in Western Thought finished and out of the way. It’s not actually due for another week, but Beth very kindly agreed to read it over for me tonight or tomorrow. She’s a much better writer than I am, besides which she had the class last year so she knows exactly what Dr. Sorenson is looking for in a final paper.

  It takes me a good three hours, but finally it’s done, formatted, saved on disk and ready for Beth to go over it. By then I’ve missed lunch at Lardner Commons, and Beth walks into our room just as my stomach lets out a particularly loud growl. I talk her into taking a walk with me off campus, up Mayfield Road to Coventry for a meal and a milkshake at Tommy’s, which is absolutely the best place in the whole city to go for a milkshake.

  Of course, I know it’s not the milkshake that convinces Beth. It also certainly isn’t the half-hour walk in the cold on a day when the icy wind and solid gray sky make it feel like we’re living on Ice Planet Hoth. It’s only the prospect of getting a full report about Brian that makes her agree. I must still be glowing; she takes one look at me and she knows exactly what happened last night. But I know her; she wants to hear about it from my lips.

  By the time we finally get there, red-cheeked and shivering, she’s got her full report. She presses for every little detail as we enjoy our strawberry and vanilla (her) and chocolate and peanut butter (me) milkshakes. I finally tell her what I didn’t tell her Friday night, too. I tell her everything he said, and what it did to me. “Nobody ever looked at me like that. I felt it all the way down to my toes. It – I don’t even know how to describe it.” As I say the words, I feel dizzy and warm all over ag
ain, and my face is flushed. Beth is looking at me like she’s never seen me before.

  In a way, maybe she hasn’t; I don’t feel like myself, and I haven’t since Friday night. After a moment, Beth closes her eyes; I know what she’s doing. She’s calling up a mental image of Brian, and trying to square that with what I’ve just said and what she saw. She isn’t quite managing it. “If it was anybody else saying that…”

  “I wouldn’t believe it either,” I finish her thought. “But he – oh, my God. Maybe I am crazy, but I’ve never felt that before. And – I couldn’t tell you the other night. I – I needed to keep it for myself. You understand?”

  She reaches over, squeezes my hand. “Completely.” She sighs. “And let me tell you – you deserve to feel that way. If he…” she still can’t quite believe it, even though the evidence is sitting right across from her. She finally shrugs. “Well, I’m happy for you. And,” she pauses, shakes her head ever-so-slightly, “maybe a little bit jealous, too, if you want to know the truth.”

  She says it with a smile and a laugh, but I’ve known her long enough to tell that crack about being jealous isn’t just a crack. There’s some truth there. She’s never been jealous of me before – she’s never had any reason to be. And I have to admit, as much as I’m not proud of saying this, I kind of like it.

  I’m rescued from having to respond to her by the arrival at our table of Jane and Jessica, who live on the other side of the floor from us. They can see Brian out their window. I’m grateful for the interruption and even more grateful that they drove here rather than walked, because they very kindly offer to give us a ride home.

  Once we get back, it’s time to concentrate on physics. I spend the rest of the afternoon straight through dinner and until nearly midnight going over some of the (many) things I don’t understand. At around nine o’clock in the evening, just after I take a quick break to call Brian, I’m reduced to going down to the lobby and pleading for someone to help me make sense of torque and all the mystifying equations that go with it. A dozen of my so-called friends let me embarrass myself for a full five minutes before Julie Paschal from the fourth floor finally takes pity on me.

  We go upstairs to her room, which she shares with her boyfriend Glenn. I don’t know where Julie is supposed to live, but as a practical matter she lives here, the only girl on the whole floor (Carson House is co-ed by floor – it’s girls on the second, and guys on the third and fourth; obviously, Julie uses our bathroom and our showers). As far as I can tell, they might as well be married already.

  Anyway, she – and Glenn, before we’re finished – very kindly spends almost an hour trying to explain torque to me, with some success, although not nearly as much as I’d like.

  Finally, it’s time for bed, and as I get under the covers it hits me that it’s now been two nights in a row without the nightmare. It’s almost starting to fade out of my memory. The details aren’t as distinct, and the whole experience just isn’t as frightening as it was. I’m not worried about falling asleep. Not at all. Not even a little bit…

  …Sara’s sitting on her bed, listening to the radio. It’s a pleasant, restful Sunday afternoon. The door opens, and in walks her roommate.

  “So?” Beth says by way of greeting.

  “So what?” Sara answers back, even though she knows exactly what Beth is asking.

  “So what happened last night?”

  “We had a very nice time at dinner, and we both liked the movie.”

  “And?”

  “And we came back here, and we – well, we kept on having a very nice time.” Sara’s laughing, enjoying the attention.

  “Details! You owe me details, girl.”

  “Let me put it this way. If we were talking about sports, I’d call him rookie of the year. Is that good enough for you?”

  Beth considers that. “Rookie? You mean…?” Sara nods. “Wow. I hope you gave him a good introduction to the major leagues.”

  Sara goes serious just for a moment. “You know I’m not one to brag, but you’re damn right I did. And it was exactly what I needed, you were right about that too.”

  They both laugh at that, and they sit there and talk. Beth manages to finally draw some of the juicy details out of Sara…

  …Sara’s not talking anymore. She’s in a bedroom. The bedroom. The man and the teenage girl are there too; the man’s carrying her limp and lifeless body out of the room. Sara is carried along; she’s not walking, but she’s somehow moving just the same. Following the guy and the girl – no, not a girl anymore, a corpse.

  And then without transition she’s in the back seat of a big tan car – a Cadillac, Sara notices. Sara knows without knowing how that the girl’s body is in the trunk, and she can do nothing but sit and watch as the man – the killer – drives out of the garage, down the driveway, and onto a tree-lined street. She doesn’t bother shouting or trying to get out of the car or anything else; she knows it would be pointless. She’s just here to watch what happens. What finally does happen is that the car comes to a stop on Old Tree Road, and the man gets out, takes the body from the trunk. He dumps it on the side of the road and calmly drives off, as though he’s done nothing out of the ordinary, as though people left corpses by the side of the road every day.

  His nonchalance is what pushes Sara over the edge, and now she does begin to scream…

  …I wake up to the sound of my own screaming. Again.

  Goddammit!

  I thought it was over with. I thought there wouldn’t be any more nightmares. Obviously I was wrong. What the hell do I do now?

  So here I am lying in bed but not asleep, again. I wish Brian was here, I wish he was holding me, telling me everything’s OK. I’d believe it if he did. But he’s not here so I guess I’ll talk to Beth about it instead. She didn’t wake up right away from all the noise I made, but she’s stirring now.

  It takes a couple of minutes for her eyes to open, and then she sits up on her bed, takes one look at me and frowns. “Don’t tell me.”

  “I don’t want to, believe me. But I had the nightmare again last night. God, I’m so sick of this!” I tell her about it, how it felt different than the previous nightmares. Neither of us has any idea what it means or what the hell I’m supposed to do about it. We stare at each other racking our brains, until Beth comes up with something. She’s got an “a-ha!” smile on her face.

  “Dr. Ritter! I don’t know why I didn’t think of him sooner!”

  “Who’s Dr. Ritter?” I can’t place the name.

  “He’s the professor in my Psychology of Personality class.” Right. Now I remember. “Last month he talked about his research. He studies dreaming and sleep patterns. You should go talk to him.”

  This idea doesn’t fill me with confidence. “What’s he going to do?”

  Beth throws up her hands. “How should I know? If he studies how people dream, maybe he’ll have some idea what’s happening with you. Look, it’s worth a shot, isn’t it?”

  She’s right, I suppose. What harm can it do?

  Here I am at the psych department office. Unsurprisingly, I’m very preoccupied and I almost walk right into someone. A man in a suit, very big, very tall, with a faint scar down his left cheek. It’s impossible not to notice it. He’s vaguely familiar, but I can’t immediately place him. Did I ever have a professor who had a scar like that?

  Out of nowhere, a name jumps into my head: Dr. Walters. Beth’s academic advisor until he left this year on sabbatical to write a book, if I remember right. He gave a guest lecture one class when I was taking Intro to Psychology freshman year; he’s looking at me very curiously right now. He can’t possibly remember me out of a roomful of people from one class session two years ago, can he?

  Apparently not; he mumbles an apology and continues on his way. Now that I’m thinking about it, I do remember that he had a scar. I think that at the time I thought it looked dashing, or something ridiculous like that.

  Anyway, I go into the office. It’s fam
iliar territory; my work-study job freshman year was here. I recognize Ray the graduate student, buried in the Xerox machine. It seemed like that’s all he did two years ago and I see that nothing’s changed since then.

  Dr. Ritter isn’t in his office, so Ray and I chitchat for a couple of minutes and I ask him to look up his office hours. While I’m waiting I see there’s someone else in the office, another student. He’s obviously waiting for something or someone and reading the newspaper. I glance at the front page, and then I look again. There’s a photo there. I grab the paper out of his hands, completely ignoring his protest, and I look closely at it.

  I’ve seen her before.

  No.

  No. It can’t be. It’s not possible. The girl in the picture looks exactly like the girl in my dreams. It’s not possible, except that I’m seeing it with my own eyes. I start reading the story. “Seventeen year old Amelia Morgan – high school senior – found murdered – body discovered on Old Tree Road…” No, no, no.

  I read it again, and the words don’t change. Of course they don’t.

  No.

  Yes.

  I just start wailing, shouting nonsense. I’m standing in the middle of the room screaming my head off. Ray comes out to me, puts his hand on my shoulder, starts to tell me to calm down and I push him away, shove the newspaper in his face. “It’s her! It’s her! It’s her, and she’s dead!”

  She’s dead, she’s dead. She’s dead and I saw it and she’s dead and – and – that’s all I know. She’s dead and I saw it and it’s all real and – and what?

  I don’t know, so I keep on screaming.

  I’m sitting in a chair. I don’t remember sitting down. I don’t remember coming here – and I don’t even know where here is. Lots of books, a desk, a computer. An office? A doctor’s office? A professor’s office?