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

by Dima Zales

  Someone’s office, anyway. Someone who’s here. He’s sitting across the cluttered desk from me, he’s speaking to me. “Miss Barnes? Sara?”

  Who? Who’s Sara? Me, right? I think so. “Yes? I’m Sara. That’s right, isn’t it?” It sounds right – it feels right.

  “Sara Barnes. That’s what I was told, at any rate. I was also told you were here to see me.”

  Sara Barnes. Yes, that’s me. I’m Sara Barnes, and I’m sitting in someone’s office, someone I was here to see. Someone who was going to help me? “Um – I don’t know. Who are you?” There’s a glass of water in front of me on the desk. It’s only half full. I don’t remember drinking out of it, but I must have. I take another sip as he talks.

  “Michael Ritter. This is my office.”

  Ritter. Someone told me that name. Someone – Beth! Beth, Beth is my roommate. She’s taking a class, she told me about her professor. Her psychology professor. Everything comes back into focus.

  “That’s right. I was looking for you.”

  He doesn’t smile. “Good, we agree on something. Can you tell me what you wanted to speak to me about?”

  He’s holding a newspaper – today’s newspaper, with the picture, with the article that set me off. The girl, the dead girl. “Her!” I point to the picture in the paper. “I saw it! It was a nightmare, every night I’ve seen it. I saw her, I saw him kill her, and I saw him dump the body!”

  “Calmly, please.”

  I take a deep breath, try to find some composure. I don’t really succeed. “The girl in the article, that picture there. I’ve been having the same nightmare, over and over, every night. I see that girl, and this guy – he – he – he kills her, and last night when I had the nightmare it kept going and I saw him dump the body. I saw him, it was exactly where they said in the paper.”

  He gives me a nasty look, as though I just insulted him or something. “This isn’t something to joke about, or pull some stupid undergraduate prank, Miss Barnes. Someone was killed.”

  You asshole! “I know that! I know it better than anyone! Do I look like I’m joking? You think I freak out and start yelling and crying just for fun? You think I’m getting a laugh out of this, you creep? Well, fuck you, then!” I get up and head for the door.

  God, where did that come from? That isn’t like me. I never talk like that, not to anyone, certainly not to a professor! I hope I don’t, anyway. That doesn’t seem like something I’d want to do.

  “Miss Barnes – Sara – please.” He’s almost pleading all of a sudden. I guess he can hear in my voice that I’m serious, that it’s not some stupid horrible joke or something. I stop two steps from the door. “I’m sorry. Please sit down. You’re very upset and I shouldn’t have accused you like that.” Well, that’s something. I walk back to his desk, sit down again.

  “Thank you. And I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have said – I never – this has been so stressful.” He looks at me a little more seriously now. Maybe he’s actually considering what I said.

  I take a deep breath, and I go on. “I only came here because Beth – my roommate – said maybe you could help me with this nightmare. I didn’t know it was real until just now, when I saw the newspaper. But it is, it’s all really happening.”

  He asks me to describe the nightmares in more detail, and of course it’s awful but I do. Finally: “You’re sure the girl in the article is the one you saw in the nightmares? Really sure?”

  I’d bet my life on it. “I know that two plus two equals four. I know the sky is blue. I know my little brother is a pain in the neck. And I know the girl I saw is the same girl in the picture! OK?”

  It’s OK with him; at least he says it is. From his expression, I think he at least believes that I believe what I’m saying. There’s nothing else I can say anyway if he doesn’t. I have no way to prove what I saw.

  He is still listening. I guess that’s worth something. He asks about specific details of the nightmares and I tell him everything I remember. Then he asks if I’ve had any other unusual experiences recently and I tell him about that first dream with Brian and then meeting him at the club a few nights later. He asks for more details, and I tell him those too, leaving out Saturday night of course.

  When he’s satisfied, he ticks off what he sees as the possible explanations on his fingers:

  “One, nothing at all is happening. You’re consciously making everything up,” I start to protest, but he sighs and holds up his hand. “I don’t think that’s it. I’m just laying out all the possibilities.” I nod my head, and he goes on. “Two, you’re unconsciously convincing yourself that your nightmares have some connection to this story in the newspaper. Perhaps you read an article about the girl’s disappearance, or you saw a flyer her family put up in the neighborhood and it so upset you that it worked its way into your dreams.” If it was anybody else telling all this to me, that explanation would make sense. But I know that’s not it. The dreams are so real. It’s not just my subconscious making stuff up!

  “Three,” he continues. “You saw something you don’t even realize you saw. It’s possible you actually saw the girl herself, perhaps you saw her getting into a car with an older man. Your conscious mind may not have registered anything odd about it, but you subconsciously knew you’d seen something wrong, something criminal. And now your subconscious is trying to get through to your conscious mind in your dreams.” I could almost accept that. Almost. Except…

  “But last night, I dreamed – I saw where he left the girl, and it was Old Tree Road, just like in the paper! How could I come up with that on my own?”

  “Are you sure you’re remembering the dreams accurately? Most people have great difficulty remembering dreams even five or ten minutes after they wake up.”

  I wish! “I told my roommate about it. I woke her up at four o’clock in the morning. You can ask her. And we didn’t see any newspaper or TV or anything, so I don’t think it’s any of those explanations you said.”

  He shakes his head, sighs again. “Well, your roommate is correct that I do research with dreams and sleep patterns. Actually, I run the Sleep Lab at University Hospital. I can bring you in for a night, monitor you while you sleep, and we’ll see what the data shows. Would you be willing to do that?”

  I want these nightmares to go away. I’m willing to do whatever will accomplish that. A night at the hospital probably won’t be too unpleasant. I do ask if it can be tomorrow night instead of tonight. “I’d like to spend some time with my boyfriend.” Well, there, I finally said it out loud.

  “I’d prefer to get you in as soon as possible, but it’s obvious you’re very shaken up by this experience. I can understand that you’d want to be with someone who cares for you.” He finally smiles. It’s not much of one, but it is there. “It seems there are quite a few people in this department who care for you as well, by the way. Do you remember Ray bringing you into Dr. Korben’s office and sitting with you?”

  No, I don’t. I blush at that and look away from him. I don’t want to think about Dr. Korben seeing me – well, how I must have looked. She’s the department chair, I reported to her when I worked in the office two years ago. I liked her a lot. I hate the idea that she saw me in that state.

  “There’s no need to be embarrassed, Sara.” Not “Miss Barnes” anymore. I guess I made a good impression on him after all. “You had a traumatic experience, and you had a very natural reaction to it,” he smiles again, and there’s a little actual humor there this time. “Who would understand that better than a couple of psychology professors?”

  I manage a very weak grin.

  “Go home, see your boyfriend, try to get some rest and we’ll plan for you to come in tomorrow night. I’ll make the arrangements and I’ll call you with the details.” He hands me a slip of paper and I write down my phone number for him.

  “Thank you.” We shake hands and he shows me out. I guess it could have gone worse. I’m not really sure how, but there’s probably some way it could
have.

  I don’t remember walking home from the Psychology department, but obviously I did. I don’t remember throwing my coat and scarf and everything in a pile on the floor but there it is. All I remember is getting into the bed, under my blankets, reaching up to grab the phone, and dialing 1550.

  The phone rings five times before Brian answers it. “Hello?” He sounds out of breath.

  “It’s me.”

  “Sara! I’m glad I ran back to get the phone, I was just heading over to the library.”

  No! “Can you not go over there?”

  He sounds confused. “Why?”

  ”Can you come over here instead? I need you to come over here, OK? Please?”

  “Is something wrong?” I wonder what gave it away?

  “I’ll tell you all about it, just please come right over.” Please? Now?

  “Sure. Give me two minutes.”

  It feels like the longest two minutes of my life, but Brian is true to his word. “Come in, and lock the door behind you,” I tell him when he arrives. I’m under the covers, peeking out at him. He looks all concerned and worried, which is entirely appropriate.

  “Sara, what’s wrong?”

  Everything. Simple, isn’t it? “I need you to hold me. Come over here, get under the blankets and hold me. Make me feel safe. Tell me everything’s going to be OK.”

  That’s exactly what he does. I only wish I could believe him when he says I’m perfectly safe and that everything will be OK, but I know he’s just lying to make me feel better.

  I haven’t told him about the nightmares yet. He has no idea what I’ve been going through. I tell him now. I tell him everything, right up to my little breakdown in the Psychology department office. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry,” is the first thing he says when I’m done. “What can I do?” is the second thing. It’s so sweet of him. Not to mention being exactly what I need to hear.

  “You’re already doing it. Just you being here makes me feel better.” It’s true. I do feel ever so slightly better right this second. As long as I’m in his arms, things can’t be that bad. What’s really amazing is that he’s not trying to make a move on me right now; I think most of my past boyfriends would have. I know that’s not what I need at the moment, not when I’m in this frame of mind. Later, maybe. Definitely.

  The words spill out from me: “You know I want to make love to you – just not right now. Not when I’m still scared and everything, this isn’t the right time. But we will, you know that, don’t you? It wasn’t a one-time thing, we have something real, don’t we?” His face lights up when I say it. He needs to hear it as much as I need to say it, I think.

  He holds me even closer. “We do, definitely.” The strength, the look in his eyes that I can’t even describe, is there. Then, he starts to say something more and then catches himself, and it’s gone again. He’s afraid to say it, but I know what it was going to be. I want to hear it. I need to hear it.

  “What were you going to say?”

  “You’ll think I’m crazy,” I shake my head no, “I – I think – no, I know, it’s so fast, I don’t want to mess this up, but – I – I love you.” I haven’t known him for even 72 hours. Can he possibly mean it?

  “Say it again,” I whisper.

  And now the fear in his voice is gone; he’s back in that place – our place – again, and so am I. “I love you, Sara.” Yes, he can. Yes, he does.

  I kiss him, and then I’m still whispering when I tell him, “I love you too,” and that’s the last thing I remember before I fall asleep.

  5

  (December 4-5, 1989)

  I hear voices. Brian’s, and – Beth’s? Can that be right? I must have fallen asleep. Beth must have come back, they must think I’m still asleep. That’s fine. I keep my eyes closed and I listen. Brian’s still holding me, keeping his voice down so he won’t wake me. That’s very thoughtful of him.

  “Don’t worry about it, she sleeps like a log,” Beth says, not keeping her voice down at all. “Until the last week, anyway.”

  “The nightmares.”

  “The nightmares. She wakes up screaming,” Beth says in a resigned voice. “I hate to see it. I mean, obviously I don’t like being woken up like that, but that’s not really the problem. She’s helped me out enough times, I figure I owe her, and I’m a big girl, you know? I can deal with a few bad nights. It’s just – seeing her like that, it’s – really horrible. It shouldn’t happen to anybody. Definitely not to my best friend.”

  “You’re very close to her,” Brian whispers back.

  “Let me put it this way. I’ve got five sisters. Four by blood and then Sara.” Wow. She’s never said that to my face. How do you respond to something like that?

  “I think she feels the same about you.” We talked a little about it on our date. I told him how close Beth and I are, how she spent a week at my house last summer, how I went on a cruise with her and her family the summer before that.

  “I know she does,” Beth tells him, “so you better keep making her happy, you understand me?” She doesn’t need to say that, but I love her for saying it all the same. For all the crap I’ve been going through, I’m so lucky to have her in my life. And Brian, too, now.

  This seems like as good a time as any to “wake up” and join the conversation. I let out a big yawn and Brian jumps a little. “Hi. How long was I asleep?” I ask, giving him a good squeeze. We’re still wrapped up in each other’s arms under the covers. Fully clothed, if you must know.

  “A couple of hours,” Brian tells me. “Your roommate – Beth just came in five minutes ago.”

  “Brian here was just telling me what happened when you went to see Dr. Ritter.”

  Yes, and a happy topic of conversation I’m sure it was. Also a conversation I don’t want to have right now. I feel much better, at least for the moment. I don’t want to go into the nightmares and what they mean and ruin my better mood. I know I have to talk about it, and Brian and Beth are going to be the two people I know I’ll be able to talk about it with, but not now.

  I should be studying, or doing something more productive than lying in bed, anyway, but I’m not going to. Instead, what I think I’m going to do – well, it does involve getting out of bed briefly. Just long enough to go from here over to Brian’s room, and then it’s right back into bed again.

  I tell Brian about my plan for the rest of the afternoon, and he’s fine with it – heck, why shouldn’t he be? Beth, however, looks surprised. “Sara, what Brian told me, we have to talk about that, don’t we?”

  “Yes. We do. I need to talk to you about it, and I need to talk to Brian about it. Not now, though. I’m not scared, I’m not shaking, and I want to go and do something happy and life-affirming, and we can talk about unpleasant things later. OK?”

  When I put it that way Beth – surprised as she is to hear something like that coming from me – understands completely, and off we go.

  It’s later, and we did something happy and life affirming. We did something happy and life-affirming twice, in fact. And then for a while we didn’t do anything except lie there next to each other, and that wasn’t bad either.

  But I can’t put off the unpleasant business forever. I call back to my room to check on Beth. I really don’t want to have this conversation twice, and I definitely want to hear from her and Brian both, so we’ll all get together and analyze my nightmares. She’s there, so we go back to meet her.

  “Sara, honey, you’re not supposed to be the one making me jealous. It’s supposed to work the other way,” is how Beth greets me when we walk into the room. Brian goes beet red, but – from Beth at least – I’m used to those little jokes and it doesn’t bother me at all.

  “I told you it was love at first sight, and you didn’t believe me. Maybe now you’ll give me a little credit.” I sit down on my bed, with Brian right next to me.

  “You better watch yourself with her,” she says to him. “She’s dangerous when she gets this way. Trust me.”
>
  He almost laughs. Almost. “But she told me she was harmless. She wouldn’t lie about something like that,” he says. Ha! It’s a very good sign that he feels confident enough to tease me like that – and also that he thinks I’m doing well enough that I can take it.

  “She would say that,” Beth laughs. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you everything you need to know about her. She’s got lots of secrets. Has she done her chipmunk thing? When she gets really excited, she makes these weird little chipmunk noises. I can tell you all kinds of things like that.”

  Brian stares at her; he’s not sure if she’s completely joking, or if there’s a tiny little bit of truth there. Just for the record, I don’t now nor have I ever made chipmunk noises. I hope Brian realizes that if I were prone to such a thing, he’d have heard it by now.

  I honestly don’t mind that it’s two against one and they’re both picking on me; I’m just glad that both of them feel comfortable enough with each other to joke around like that. That absolutely has to be a good thing.

  Unfortunately, we can’t just keep joking around. I have to talk about the nightmares, as much as I really don’t want to. There are two things I need to figure out, as far as I can tell. First, are they “real,” and second, if they are, what the hell do I do about them? After my little breakdown reading the newspaper earlier, I have no doubt at all that they’re real. Call it psychic, call it supernatural, call it whatever you want, I definitely saw what that man – that murderer – did to the girl.

  Brian agrees completely. He should, after I saw into his dream about me. He knows it’s not just my imagination. And Beth believes me, because it’s me telling her, but I know if it was anybody else at all saying it, she’d laugh in their face. And honestly? So would I.

  So we’re all agreed that I’m officially psychic, or whatever the right word is, if there even is one for this. I know it doesn’t matter right this second, but I would like to know, why is it me who’s psychic – or whatever – and not Beth, or Brian, or my brother, or whoever? There’s something different about me, something real, something physical, right?