Either way, the entire situation is really messed up. I can’t imagine the different experiences he has had being around for so long. It makes me feel insignificant.
In the middle of reading the note for the two hundredth time, a soft knock on my bedroom door startles me, making me jump. The muffled voice that comes next is my dad’s.
“You okay, sweetie?” he queries.
His voice is low and full of worry. I can barely hear him with the door shut.
“Yeah, come on in, dad,” I answer, trying to sit up a little.
I quickly hide the note under my blanket, next to my leg, before he has the chance to come in. The door opens, and he comes in to sit on my bedside, near the foot of the bed. Near where Degory had been mere hours before.
However, dad isn’t sitting as close to me as Degory had been, and I’m grateful. That would be more weirdness than I can handle right now.
“How are you feeling?” he questions.
Concern creases his brow.
“Not that great still,” I sigh, honestly. “I still don’t really have any energy.”
“Yeah, you still look pretty pale…”
He pauses, examining my face before he continues talking.
“Are you hungry? I made some soup for dinner, hoping it might help you.”
“Sure dad, that’s really nice of you.” I smile.
I can’t remember the last time he made soup for dinner.
Wow, he must be really worried about me. Do I look that bad?
His soup was always my comfort food when I was young, but he hasn’t made it in a long time. Either he’s thrilled I left the house, or he’s really worried about me. I’m not sure which is which yet. I’m leaning towards the worry side of things, though. His face is too clouded with concern for him to be excited I had gotten out of the house.
“Good, I’ll have Lana bring some up to you in a bit, okay?”
He pats my head awkwardly with his hand. He’s anxious about how I’ll react since he hasn’t shown compassion like this since I was really little. When mom was around.
“Okay, dad, thanks!”
I can’t help but cheer up a little. Yeah, my situation really sucks right now, but I have special dad soup now! Everything is better with that. I don’t have my energy back, but I still feel like a kid again. It’s really nice having dad’s affection, even for a little bit while I’m sick. I’m just glad he doesn’t seem to notice the bruising.
“You are welcome,” he says, smiling for the first since I got home. “Stay in bed and rest for as long as you need, honey. I don’t like it when you’re sick, we don’t get to have our father-daughter dish washing time.”
I giggle a little before commenting.
“I know, sorry dad.”
He smirks down at me.
“It’s okay, just get better. We’ll be doing the dishes again in no time.”
He stands up and goes back downstairs, leaving the door ajar for when Lana comes up with my soup. It’s nice that dad cares so much, but it doesn’t fill me with joy the way Degory’s care does. The thought makes me feel a little like a bad daughter, but I can’t help myself when it comes to that mysterious Reaper boy.
In such a short amount of time, he has stolen my heart and I can’t get it back. Even if I could, I don’t want it back. I love what we have together.
Plus, dad and I have had a strained relationship for a while. There’s no denying it. I just hope this is the start of fixing it. It would be nice to have him as a supportive and attentive parent again, with something more between us than washing the dishes.
It isn’t long before Lana announces herself and bounces into the room with a steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup. She sets it on my desk near the head of my bed, and runs out as if nothing is amiss. As if she’s simply dropping food off for a guest.
She’s so cute in her naivety. I will have to make time to get to know my sister again sometime soon. She deserves a better older sister. Especially since Ian hasn’t been the best older brother in recent years. Someone has to make up for him, and that will be me. Once I’m not as helpless as a baby, anyway.
I drape my legs over the side of the bed, so I can lean over the edge of my small desk and eat my soup. I sip it, letting the warm liquid relax my insides. It even tastes like my childhood, as strange as that sounds. Dad always makes the best soup. Always has. It’s my favorite recipe of his – hands down. He’s a great cook overall, but nothing compares to his homemade chicken noodle soup from scratch.
Within minutes, the whole bowl is empty and I stare at the bottom. It reminds me of how empty my room is without Degory. It seems a little pathetic, but everything reminds me of him now. If I didn’t love him so much, I would be annoyed. I almost have room for more soup in my belly, but I don’t want to waste my strength trying to get someone up here to help me.
Even so, one question keeps popping into the forefront of my mind while I sit here alone: what am I going to do with myself while I wait for him to visit again? I suppose I can just keep doing what I have been and living life the way I used to before he was introduced into it, but nothing feels right anymore without him.
I don’t even know if I will be waiting days, weeks, months, or even years before he returns. Nothing will ever fill the void created from not having him with me. Even going to school seems like a complete waste of time now.
Deciding not to think about it, I just take everything one day at a time. I don’t need anyone in my life to feel complete – just myself. Yes, I’m lonely, but I can deal. Plus, there’s no use dwindling away waiting for him, I have to keep myself whole.
Pushing the soup bowl away from the edge of the desk, I lay back down in bed. I have spent all the energy I got from sleeping most of the day on sitting up and eating. I have nothing left to do but sleep until I can stay awake for longer than a few minutes. I just hope that I will dream of him so that it’ll help me from missing him while I’m awake.
Pulling my purple down comforter back on top of me, my eyes begin to droop. Almost the same instant my head hits the pillow, I’m fading. Within seconds I drift off to dreamland with my heart whispering his name all night long. Calling out to him like some lost lover’s cry.
Chapter 9
I wake up the next morning feeling almost completely reenergized. It’s one of the stranger things that has happened in the last couple days. I feel as if I didn’t suffer at all, and can stand on my own without any problems. Maybe I did just have one of those twenty-four-hour colds or something. Not an attack from a Malighost.
Getting out of bed, I decide to take my dishes downstairs to see what the rest of my family is up to. I walk down to the first floor and see Lana, and dad dancing hand in hand, and singing “Sunglasses at Night” by Corey Hart, which is playing on the same radio I saw on the table yesterday morning when I got home.
I laugh, which catches dad’s attention. He stops dancing, so it’s Lana dances and skips alone before coming to greet me with a grin.
“Sunny!” he cries, giving me a tight hug. “It’s so good to see you up and about! Feeling better, then?”
“Much,” I reply, squeezing him back. “What’s for breakfast?”
“You have your appetite back,” he observes, backing out of the hug. “Good! Lana and I are making a big breakfast with eggs, Canadian bacon, pancakes, and sausage!”
I’m suddenly famished. I can feel the saliva gathering around my tongue in anticipation of the delicious food. My stomach growls and dad chuckles. He winks and goes back into the kitchen to finish with the cooking.
I sit at the table, waiting as patiently as I can – utensils in hand. It only takes about ten minutes for the table to be set and all the food prepared. Dad calls in Ian from the living room and we dig in.
I eat twice as much as I usually do, which makes dad watch me, completely amused, while he slowly eats his breakfast. I even eat more than Ian, which is pretty unusual for me, but I can’t get enough of the meat. I feel myse
lf getting stronger and can feel energy flowing through me the more sausage and Canadian bacon I have.
Which is completely ridiculous because I’m just a normal human, nothing out of the ordinary would happen to me. I’m too invisible in this town for anything strange to ever change my life.
I push the feelings aside with the excuse that I’m imagining it, and continue to eat. It’s like I haven’t been allowed to eat in a week. I’m super grateful that no one else is staring at me, too. Everyone else is pretty focused on their own food. I pretend to ignore dad.
When I finish, I excuse myself without helping dad with the dishes. I’m really thankful that he isn’t bothered when I say I want to go for a walk rather than help him, especially when he said he missed it so much last night.
I’m in a rush to get some fresh air into my lungs and test how far I can go before getting tired again. I’m curious if I can go for a few minutes or a few miles before stopping. He’s genuinely happy I’m healthy and not closing myself off in my room, so I know he truly isn’t bothered. I don’t need that eating at my conscious.
Running upstairs, I take a shower, then get dressed to go out. I want to stretch my legs a bit after being bedridden for so long. I think about taking a hike to the chocolate shop to thank Ms. Kingsley again for her hospitality.
I’m not sure where else I want to go, so that seems like the perfect idea right now to test myself. It gets me out of the house and gives me a destination. That way I won’t be tempted to go back to Becky’s alley again. It was good the first time I went back after she turned, but I can’t see my luck continuing. She did say I can stop by whenever I want…
I make sure to give dad a hug for being so understanding before almost running out the front door. I definitely have a pep in my step, and leave the house faster than I ever have. I have so much energy that I’m almost literally bouncing off the walls from the buildings around me as I walk through the streets.
I’m almost jogging down the sidewalk, and it feels great. It’s so nice to not rely on someone else to do anything again. It may have only been a day and a half of having issues with my energy, but that is enough. I have to focus on walking down the street rather than running the whole way to the chocolate shop. I feel like I could run a marathon.
When I’m only a block away, I hear something messing with a dumpster in an alley. I can’t tell if it’s human or animal, but the rustling continues. I walk towards the noise – probably a stupid idea since I know how well that works in horror movies, but it’s possible that someone might be hurt.
I can’t walk away from the noise when someone might need help. I’ve always wanted to help others, but now I’m inspired knowing that Degory spends his afterlife saving as many people as he can. I’m not about to wait until I’m dead to start doing the same when I have the opportunity.
What if someone gets mugged, or dies, because I didn’t take the time to help? I don’t think I could live with myself if that were to happen. At least if I try, I can say that I lived a life that I can be proud of.
I walk down the alley but can’t see anything – nothing that could have caused the noise I heard. Moving closer to the dumpster, I don’t see any movement whatsoever. No sounds are coming from it either. I make my way to it, and open the top quickly and back away several feet to avoid anything jumping out at me.
I figure I will be able to scare whatever made the sound earlier, so it won’t scare me. It probably won’t work, but it’s worth a shot. To my frustration and surprise, there’s nothing inside the stupid dumpster. I shut the top and it closes with a loud thud against the top. I make sure to scold myself.
That’s what I get for trying to be a hero, I suppose.
I sigh, mentally kicking myself for the millionth time in the last few days.
“Well, look what we have here,” an ominous, deep voice says from behind me.
I freeze, recognizing a similar muffle and darkness in the voice that the old man had after he transformed.
“You look human, but you don’t smell human,” it says to me. “What are you?”
I turn around slowly to face whoever – or whatever – is behind me, completely freaked out now. The voice belongs to one of those monsters, a Malighost. I turn in time to see it crawl down the wall and land carefully within the alley.
Right between me and the exit.
It has a face that’s completely covered in black ooze, similar to the one the old man had after he transformed into one, but this creature’s body is shaped differently than the old man’s. It is light green, and sort of looks like a giant caterpillar body. I can’t help but stare up at the grotesque monster that is watching me carefully from above me.
“Didn’t you hear what I said?” the monster taunts. “I’m talking at you. What are you?”
I can’t find the words. I can’t speak. This is not what I was expecting when I decided to check out the noise in the alleyway. A bum maybe, but not another freakin’ Malighost. I’m probably the only living being that could hear the noise this creature had made.
Was it trying to bait me, or did I startle it?
Either way, I want to talk but I’m so scared that no words come out of my mouth. Even if I could speak, I have absolutely no idea what to say anyway. As far as I know, I’m an average and simple human, so I have no idea what it’s talking about.
Beside the fact I have the ability to see ghosts, but that doesn’t really count. In all other aspects I’m completely normal – average. How can I explain to this thing that I believe I’m just a human? It knows more about what I am than I do, apparently.
“Fine, don’t talk,” it spits, a smug grin adorning the thin slits in place of lips.
I want to scream, but I know it won’t do any good. No one will be able to see what I see anyway. What is there left for me to do in this situation? All I can do is be eaten with dignity, I guess.
“You don’t need to talk,” it taunts. “It really doesn’t matter what you are. You may not smell like a Reaper or a human, but you sure as hell smell tasty. And I’ve always been open to trying new things.”
One of its legs lifts up from the ground and reaches towards me. Its feet are shaped like hands, too, making them interchangeable. My feet almost work, but not the way I need them to. I try to take a step back, but fall flat on my ass, crawling backwards to try and get away from this monster edging closer to me.
There is no Degory to help me this time. I’m completely on my own with no way to defend myself. I’m as good as dead. At least I stand a chance of being with him if I die.
Still, I watch the monster get closer to me and my fear grows like a weed. I reach the back of the alley without realizing it, and slam my head against the back wall with a loud thud that I’m sure anyone passing the alley would be able to hear. But no one comes to my rescue.
My head spins as the Malighost steps within grabbing range again. It lowers its hand agonizingly slow, laughing maniacally the whole time. I accept the fact that I’m more than likely going to die, but I still instinctively raise my arms in front of me to guard my face when it grabs me.
I wait for it to wrap its giant hand around my body but it doesn’t. Instead, I hear pained screaming from its giant maw, which is mere feet away from me. There’s no pressure around my waist from its hand or mouth, but there’s a sudden heat closing in on me.
Opening my eyes, I see the monster engulfed in flames. Its hand somehow caught fire and quickly rose to its face, burning it alive. It tries to pat out the flames with all twenty of its feet while rolling on its back, but the flames keeps relentlessly eating away at its skin.
The Malighost is completely frantic. It’s trying to back out of the alleyway with its hind-most feet but keeps bumping into the walls while trying to extinguish the fire, to no avail. I can feel the heat on my face, even with it backing away from me. The flames feel as hot as the sun from where I sit and yet I feel extremely comfortable.
I don’t want to know what it is feeling.
From its loud shrills, it’s in some sort of agony which is somewhat gratifying. Either way, the heat doesn’t bother me. Even though it’s what I imagine the sun feels like, I’m not feeling uncomfortable. I’m not even sweating.
Soon the entire creature is aflame. It has gotten itself stuck between the walls trying to turn around and flee. I almost feel bad for it. Watching it squirm and lash about is really disturbing. The screaming continues, too. I’m amazed that no other humans are able to see the monster burning up, or hear its blood curdling howls. To me, they feel like they will never quit as they reverberate between the walls.
Finally, enough of the Malighost has burned to extinguish its life. It explodes in a cloud of dust-like particles. That’s not how I expected a monster to die, but it is extremely satisfying seeing it disappear. It doesn’t even bother me that I’m covered in whatever the gray cloud is that made up the creature.
Once the dirt clears, I can see Ms. Kingsley standing at the entrance to the alley with no one else in sight. She’s staring at me wide-eyed as if she’s just seen a ghost. I have no doubt that she witnessed the destruction of the huge caterpillar-like being.
I can’t help wondering how she can see ghosts, though, if she’s human. I know she’s an ally of Eden, but does that mean she’s a form of Reaper?
Either way, I’m glad she is a witness. I want to ask her how the monster managed to catch fire, as well as why she’s able to see ghosts. I guess an ally of Eden probably would need to have that ability, but it still seems strange. I definitely need to ask her what’s up. I’m happy I decided to make this trip today, even if I did get attacked again.
The fact of the matter is that if the monster hadn’t miraculously burst into flames, I would be dead. I like the idea of being with Degory without the distance, but I don’t want my family to suffer for it. I would by lying to myself if I said I’m ready to leave them, because I’m not.
I’m not ready for death, either, even if I had accepted it in the moment. Now, my legs feel like jelly and my body is shaking from the near-death experience.
Waiting a Lifetime (The Waiting Series Book 1) Page 8