Imaginary Friend (ARC)

by Stephen Chbosky

  There was something in her voice. Something wrong. If Mrs. Reese were working tonight, he knew he could trust her with the diary. But her son Christopher was in the hospital after he touched Mrs. Keizer and his nose bled…

  Just like David.

  Ambrose knew he needed to get to Kate Reese. He needed to get to the sheriff. Whatever was happening back then was happening right now. And his brother’s diary might be the only clue as to how to stop it.

  “You okay, Mr. Olson?” the nurse asked again suspiciously.

  The old man held the diary in his arms like his high school coach taught him to hold a football.

  As if your life depended on it, boy.

  The old man folded his brother’s diary in his lap and did his best to put on a casual voice.

  “I need you to take me to the hospital,” he said.

  “Why, sir?” she asked.

  “Because the clouds have taken my eyes.”

  Chapter 68

  The sheriff opened his eyes. He must have fallen asleep. He didn’t know where he was. He looked around the room, but he couldn’t find his sight. He had heard the term “blinding headache” before, but he never knew it could be literal. He had to blink for a full minute to get rid of the fog.

  He calmed his mind and tried to find his way with his other senses. He was fairly certain he was in the records room because of the dusty smell. He must have fallen asleep when he was going over records with Mrs. Russo. But he couldn’t hear anything.

  “Hello? Mrs. Russo? Are you there?” he said.

  Silence. The sheriff tried to remember how he got down here again. He remembered that he hadn’t left the office in days despite having that horrible fever. He knew that every time he tried to get to the hospital to be with Kate and her son, there would be another emergency. Another bad traffic accident. Another stabbing. Another bar fight.

  It was as if the world were conspiring to keep him away.

  The sheriff was the furthest thing from a conspiracy theorist, especially when the theory involved something as groundless as coincidence. But he also had an instinct when someone was fucking with him, and that instinct was flashing red. There were simply too many coincidences that kept him from getting to Kate Reese and her son. There were too many distractions that kept him from doing his work in the records room. There was too much noise that kept him from remembering that…

  that name…that little boy…what was his name?

  The sheriff couldn’t remember, but his instinct told him that was wrong. The voice kept telling him that he couldn’t remember, but the sheriff knew he had an exceptional memory. Not exactly photographic, but close enough when it counted. And this one counted…somehow this mattered to Kate Reese and Christopher and…

  that name…that little boy…his name was…

  The sheriff’s right hand began to itch again. God, it was itchy. He looked down at his hand, and his eyes started to find focus. In the dim light, he saw that his hand was scratched raw. The skin was red and broken. Blood had dried on his fingernails. But there was something else on his arm. Hidden under his sleeve. He vaguely remembered hiding something there.

  his name was…that little boy’s name was…

  The sheriff pulled back his sleeve and saw words written on his arm in black ink.

  David Olson

  The sheriff suddenly remembered what he had done. He had started writing clues on his arm. At first, he used regular marker, but the sweat from the fever washed away the trail like birds picking up bread crumbs. So, he switched to permanent ink. The sheriff pulled back more of his sleeve.

  David Olson is the name of the boy.

  Don’t fall asleep again. Call Carl about the tools NOW.

  The sheriff dialed the phone before he had time to think. After two rings, he recognized his friend’s voice on the other end.

  “Carl, it’s me,” the sheriff said.

  “What the hell,” Carl said in a groggy voice. “Do you know what time it is?”

  The sheriff looked at the clock. It was 3:17 a.m.

  “I know it’s late. I’m sorry. But this is really important,” the sheriff said.

  “That’s what you said last time.”

  “What?” the sheriff asked.

  “You called me an hour ago.”

  “I did?”

  “Jesus Christ. How sick are you? You called me an hour ago to ask about those tools. I can’t keep doing favors for you. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve for Christ’s sake!”

  “I know. I’m sorry. What about the tools?”

  “Are you kidding me? You don’t even remember.”

  “Just tell me!”

  The sheriff could hear Carl giving him the finger on the other end.

  “Okay, but this is the last time, so you better write it down. I gave the tools to my friend at the museum. The tools go back hundreds of years, but they aren’t typical for coal miners or farmers of those times.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The tools were more of what a child would use. And that old two-by-four grey stone you gave me was not stone. It was petrified wood.”

  The sheriff grabbed the pen and wrote furiously on his arm.

  Tools belonged to children.

  “So, that’s it. Last favor. I can’t keep doing this, especially now. My caseload doubled in a week.”

  The sheriff stopped writing for a moment.

  “What do you mean your caseload doubled?”

  “Jesus Christ. Are we going to have the exact same conversation we just had?”

  “I’m sorry, Carl. I’m just really sick.”

  “As I said before,” Carl said, doing his finest impersonation of a sarcastic asshole. “There must be a full moon or something in the water because the whole city is either getting sick or going crazy. I haven’t been home in two days. My wife says if I’m not home for her mum’s Christmas Eve dinner, she won’t give me my Christmas present this year. I can’t lose that. It’s my only blow job all year.”

  The sheriff smiled involuntarily.

  “Well, I appreciate your help, Carl. You’re a good man.”

  “Tell her that. Now, stop calling me. Merry Christmas,” Carl said.

  “Merry Christmas.”

  The two friends hung up. The sheriff picked up the pen again and started writing. The itch spread over his hand. Screaming for attention, but the sheriff wouldn’t let it win. Not this time.

  Stone was petrified wood.

  Whole city either has the flu or is going crazy.

  Just like…

  When the sheriff woke up, it took him a moment to realize where he was. He was in the records room. Mrs. Russo was gone. He must have fallen asleep again. It took his mind a while to fight through the headache, but eventually he remembered that he was trying to figure out a connection to what was going on in town and that little boy…Ambrose’s little brother…what his name again?

  that name…that little boy…his name was…

  The sheriff’s left hand was terribly itchy. He aimlessly scratched it and realized that his uniform was soaked with sweat. Somewhere in the night, his fever must have broken. He moved to peel back his uniform sleeve and found a bunch of notes written on his arm in permanent ink.

  David Olson is the name of the boy.

  Don’t fall asleep again. Call Carl about the tools NOW.

  Tools belonged to children.

  Stone was petrified wood.

  Whole city either has the flu or is going crazy.

  Just like…

  The sheriff moved his sleeve back and saw that the notes kept going and going and going.

  Just like the year David Olson went missing. The last flu epidemic ended the day after David disappeared. Did David Olson stop the flu somehow? What did he do to stop it? Did he save us?

  The sheriff got to the end of his arm. The writing stopped. Instinctively, he moved to the other arm. He loosened the wet uniform sleeve on his right arm. The writing was now left-handed, so it w
as sloppy. But it kept going.

  Call Ambrose Olson!

  The town is falling apart. You don’t have time for this shit.

  The sheriff nodded to himself. This was ridiculous. He had more emergencies than he knew what to do with. What the hell was he doing reading old case files and accident reports?

  You still haven’t seen Kate and her son in the hospital, and you’re going to call Ambrose Olson to tell him about his brother who’s been dead fifty years? That’s crazy.

  The sheriff peeled back more of his sleeve.

  Stop listening to the voice in your head. It is lying to you. It is making you forget.

  Okay. That’s crazy. You must be delirious to write something like that.

  “Who is that?” the sheriff said out loud.

  You know who it is. It’s you. And you look like an idiot talking to yourself.

  You are not an idiot. The voice is distracting you. It is making you sleep.

  “Who’s there?” he said again.

  The voice went silent. The temperature in the room plummeted. The sheriff thought he could hear breathing. He turned around. The room was empty. He was suddenly terrified. He rolled his sleeve up past the elbow.

  You know what the tools were for! Run to Kate now. What happened to David is happening to Christopher. Run now!

  The sheriff woke up in the records room. He didn’t know how he had fallen asleep again. But this time, he didn’t listen to the voice in his head. He was not distracted by any blinding headache. And it didn’t take him a minute to find the writing. He looked down at his arm. The sleeve rolled up past the elbow. And he knew there was one more message hidden under his shirt. The records room was freezing. The sheriff held his breath, then rolled the sleeve up to his shoulder.

  Too late, Sheriff. I just hit them with a car.

  The sheriff was running before his feet hit the ground. His heart pounded as he raced through the records room. He didn’t care if there were a hundred more bar fights to break up. He didn’t care if a hundred people needed to be put in the holding cells. There was only one emergency that mattered. He was going to get Kate and her son. They were going to find Ambrose. Because somehow, they were the only ones with the information about how to stop this madness or flu or whatever it was from destroying the town from the inside out. The sheriff ran up the stairs and raced into the main office past the poster of Emily Bertovich.

  That’s where he saw Mrs. Russo and four of his deputies.

  They were all shot and bleeding on the floor.

  The sheriff looked around. The office was empty. There was no one in the holding cells. All of the criminals were gone. Instinct and training took over his body. The sheriff rushed to his crew. Mrs. Russo was the first.

  He checked her pulse. Thank God she was alive. The sheriff made a field dressing out of Mrs. Russo’s blouse as he grabbed the radio.

  “Five officers down. I need backup!”

  The radio crackled with silence. The sheriff forgot all about rushing to Kate Reese and her son as he triaged the four deputies.

  “I need backup at HQ! Now! Somebody answer me!”

  There was no response. The static was unsettling. It sounded like a deranged Geiger counter announcing that the police force was completely gone. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the sheriff began to make contingency plans as to how he was going to deputize people. Track down those criminals. Get to Kate Reese. Find Ambrose Olson. The only good news in this whole tragedy was that all five of his officers including Mrs. Russo were still alive.

  “Hi, Sheriff,” a voice said behind him.

  The sheriff spun around. He saw Mrs. Henderson standing with one of his deputy’s pistols. Her clothes were soaked with blood. Her bare feet making little crimson footprints.

  “David Olson touched my arm a long time ago. He knew I would stab my husband,” Mrs. Henderson said.

  The sheriff took cover behind a desk.

  “Drop the gun!” he shouted.

  Mrs. Henderson took another step toward him.

  “The lady said I could get my husband to love me again. She said he was going to take me on a trip, and if he didn’t, I could stab him again. And again. And again.”

  The sheriff raised his gun.

  “Mrs. Henderson, put the gun down!”

  “Why should I put it down? Sheriff, it’ll never end. Don’t you understand what’s going on?”

  “Put the God damn gun down NOW!”

  Mrs. Henderson calmly put the gun on the desk.

  “Okay, Sheriff, but it won’t make any difference. She has him trapped now. And once he’s dead, it will never end.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Crime. We’ll just hurt each other forever until someone puts an end to it. And someone will. Do you know why?”

  The sheriff was silent. Mrs. Henderson smiled.

  “Because God is a murderer, Daddy.”

  With that, Mrs. Henderson grabbed the gun and ran at the sheriff, screaming. The sheriff raised his gun and fired.

  Chapter 69

  Christopher was strapped to the gurney in the operating room. The hissing lady smiled down at him as he writhed like a fish on a boat deck. Her trophy. Her prize. She went to David Olson, unconscious on the metal table next to him. She petted his forehead like she would a little dog.

  “We need the worm to catch the fish. Your tongue will be the squirming worm.”

  Christopher slammed his mouth shut.

  “Open your mouth, Christopher.”

  Christopher stared at her in terror. He saw the key around her neck, buried under her flesh like a ghoulish necklace. The key for all of them to escape.

  “Four ways in. Three ways out,” she hummed. “You know two. We know more. I have the key. But where is the door?”

  She took her scaly left hand and pressed down on his nose with her thumb and pointer. Cutting off his air.

  “Now let’s see that tongue. This is for your own good.”

  One minute became two and finally, his lungs gave out. Christopher took a massive breath of air. The hissing lady jammed her left hand inside his mouth and grabbed his tongue. Her right pulled out the scalpel.

  And Christopher bit down.

  “AHHHHHHHHH!” the hissing lady shrieked.

  Christopher’s teeth snapped her pointer like a breadstick. He could feel the rotten meat in his mouth. He spit her finger to the floor. The hissing lady looked at the stump of her finger shooting blood like a fountain. She turned to him. The look on her face bordering on amazement. Or was that fear? She bent down and grabbed her severed finger. She put the finger back in its place. Then, she brought both finger and hand to her forehead and used the heat to weld it back together. Good as new.

  “Okay, Christopher. You want to keep your tongue. That’s fine. You can keep it.”

  Then, she slammed tape over his mouth.

  “We’ll just get the answers where they’re really hiding,” she said, tapping on his forehead. “Nurse, may I have the bone saw, please?”

  Christopher screamed under the tape. He saw the nurse give the hissing lady a gleaming metal saw with jagged baby teeth. It turned on with a whir, screaming like a dentist’s drill. The blade rested inches from his scalp. He closed his eyes, preparing for death. Yet somehow, he didn’t feel scared. He felt almost soothed.

  My mother is…

  My mother is…with me on the real side.

  He could feel her in the room with him. Her hands on his skin. Trying to find the cool side of the pillow.

  My mother is…

  My mother is…saying she will get me out of here.

  Just then, the lights cut out, leaving the hospital in darkness. Christopher looked around, but he could see nothing. He just heard screams. And running footsteps. The sound of a body slamming against the hissing lady. The bone saw hitting her skin.

  And the nice man’s voice.

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got you,” the nice man said.

 
; Christopher felt the gurney move. Racing through the darkness.

  “GET HIM! HE’S OFF THE STREET!” the hissing lady screamed.

  “Say nothing. Don’t leave her a trail.”

  “STOP HELPING HIM!” the hissing lady screeched at the nice man from the darkness.

  The gurney took a sharp right and raced down the hallway. The children howled behind them. The nice man turned the gurney like a skateboard and raced toward a dim light at the end of the hallway. Christopher felt the nice man’s soothing hand rip the leather restraints from his wrists.

  “Sit up, son,” he said gently. “I need your eyes.”

  Christopher ripped the tape from his mouth and shook his hands loose. Then, he sat up and tore the straps away from his ankles. He was free.

  “Now what do you see?” the nice man said.

  Christopher squinted in the darkness, but somehow, he could make out shapes. Mailbox people and deer. Crouched low in the shadows. Waiting to ambush.

  “They’re blocking the exit,” Christopher said.

  “Good job, son.”

  The nice man turned the gurney. Running faster and faster down another hallway. His feet hitting the floor. Smack smack smack. Like a grandma’s kiss. The gurney slammed through two doors, which swung like shutters in a storm. The nice man stopped and wrapped his belt around the door handles. The mailbox people threw themselves against the door. The belt stretched like saltwater taffy.

  But it held.

  They entered the maternity ward, and suddenly the gurney slowed to a crawl.

  “Be quiet,” the nice man whispered. “We can’t wake them.”

  Christopher squinted in the darkness and realized where they were.

  The nursery.

  Row after row of babies. Some in incubators. Most in glass bassinets. All of them sleeping. The nice man pushed the gurney through the nursery like a boat through a swamp. Inch by painful inch. Christopher saw one baby stir as if having a nightmare. Then, another. They started to twitch like the first kernels of popcorn on a skillet. Pop. Pop. Pop. The nice man picked up his pace. More babies twitched. Christopher could feel the room waking up around them. The babies would begin crying soon. Sounding the alarm. As if left on a porch. One baby opened its eyes. It looked around in the darkness. It began to whimper. Another opened. Another. Christopher felt the gurney go faster. And faster. Racing to the other side. The first baby began to cry.