Before the Dawn

by Kristal Lim

"Look at you," his mom fussed when he showed up for breakfast at his stepdad’s house the morning after he arrived back in town. "You look so skinny." She placed a huge plate of bacon, pancakes, and eggs before him. "Isn’t he too skinny, George?" she asked her husband. "He’s practically drowning in that sweater." She focused her attention on Trevor again. "You haven’t been taking good care of yourself since Vera left, have you?"

  His stepfather looked embarrassed for him. "Oh, I’m sure he’s doing well enough, Annie," he admonished his wife. Then he gave Trevor a sympathetic little smile. "I bet you’re having second thoughts about moving back in town about now, right?" he teased.

  Trevor rolled his eyes. "God, yes," he agreed, smothering a grin. Having his mother fuss over him like he was a boy again was actually quite comforting. "Honestly, George, how do you stand her?" he joked.

  His mother smacked him on the head playfully. "Don’t be a little smartie," she scolded. "We’re both just very worried about you. And I can’t say enough how happy I am that you got that old Torres house. It’s a very lovely place and it’s been empty for ages since Tony and Gina moved away."

  Trevor frowned. "Tony and Gina who?"

  "Oh, you know. Tony and Gina Torres," his mother said. "That poor couple whose daughter slipped into this strange coma and the doctors could never figure out what was wrong with her. They moved away when they placed her in this special care facility so they could be close to her." Trevor still looked confused, and she huffed in exasperation. "Their daughter was in your school, remember? I think you were both even in the same year."

  He seemed to vaguely remember something about a girl who went into a coma. He wasn’t really sure though because he mostly kept to himself during high school, preferring to sit somewhere alone where he could scribble and sketch in peace. Though there was this one girl he sort of remembered. He tried to rack his brain for more details, but he could just come up with a faint impression of dark hair and a pretty smile.

  George changed the subject then by asking him if he was all settled in his new house.

  "I still have some stuff to do," he said. "I’ll be going to get some groceries after breakfast, actually, since I don’t have anything in the kitchen. Then I’ll fix up some things I haven’t unpacked yet."

  "Do you need any help with that?" his stepfather asked.

  "No," Trevor shook his head. "I’ve got it."

  "Oh, honey," his mother interjected, "don’t make dinner tonight, okay? George and I are going to take you out. Remember that Ballroom place where you used to work back in school? It’s a restaurant now, and it’s actually quite nice."

  "All right," he nodded after thinking about it for less than a second. "Sure. Dinner tonight with you guys would be great." And he meant it. The thought of eating alone in an empty house again after his first lonely night was depressing. "Should I drop by here first or meet you there?"

  His mother told him that they’d pick him up at seven. He agreed, finished up his breakfast, then went out to run his errands. He discovered to his surprise that almost everyone he encountered in the grocery store and on the streets seemed to remember him or they knew that he was George’s stepson. The people were actually quite nice and they all tried to make it a point to welcome him back. He was genuinely touched yet a bit uncomfortable with all the warm attention because God knew he had gotten too used to living in a big city where no one cared anything about strangers. All this niceness and cheeriness were therefore quite unsettling.

  After his little trip to the store, he spent the rest of the day making sure he was completely settled in the house. He unpacked the stuff he had instructed the movers not to touch, such as his computer and audio equipment. Then he wandered through each room, checking and rechecking everything until he was satisfied that he didn't have to call anyone for some repair work. The house had certainly been kept in good condition. However, while he was doing his inspection of the house, he was quite surprised to find there was one room that sort of made him feel uneasy. The room was not overly large, but it had an airy, spacious feel that was made welcoming by the warm yellow paint on the walls. There was nothing inside it that gave a hint as to who had once been its occupant, but he knew with an odd certainty that it had been a young girl's bedroom, most likely the Torres girl who had slipped into the weird coma. There was just something about the room that made it easy for him to imagine that memories of that unfortunate girl haunted the place. Of course he told himself that he was just being fanciful, but he really couldn't shake the feeling. It was weird.

  After a long day of getting the house into the order that he liked, he got ready for dinner and waited for his mom and George to get him. He was really grateful that they were both being very nice about not asking him uncomfortable questions that he wasn’t ready to answer yet. Not that he wanted to talk about Vera and the death of that relationship with them, or anyone else for that matter. Some things were just too raw that using words to describe them would be the equivalent of rubbing salt on the wounds.

  Once they drove up and he got in the car, he allowed their good-natured bickering to distract him from his thoughts. He had to smile as he listened to his mother scold George for forgetting to buy candies for Halloween, again. "I swear," she looked at Trevor’s reflection in the rear view mirror and rolled her eyes, "he forgets to buy them every year. Then we end up rushing to the store at the last minute and getting the worst candy of the bunch". George, however, only laughed and teased her about being the Halloween Nazi.

  When they finally arrived at the restaurant, Trevor found that the old Ballroom building had retained its general shape, but everything else about it had changed. Instead of the dark colors that used to make both the exteriors and the interiors appear vaguely mysterious and menacing, the place was now painted in bright hues. It had a sort of 1950s nostalgia atmosphere going on and even the food was classic in its salty, fatty goodness. The only thing that was really striking about this new incarnation of the Ballroom was how much the forest near it had grown through the years. It was like the woods had slowly but surely crept up to the building until the trees were practically growing outside its back door.

  "Oh, yeah. The woods," their waiter, who said his name was Stan, just shrugged when Trevor asked him why the management didn't clear up the space where the trees were already encroaching on the restaurant's territory. "Too much work," he said. "They tried for the first few years, but it was like the trees grew abnormally fast every time they got cut down. Finally, the bosses just gave up. Now a couple of guys just make sure that at least the leaves and other stuff don't make a lot of mess."

  Trevor stared out through a nearby window at the dark outlines of the trees as they ate their meal. It was kind of creepy to be sitting here in what was more or less a modern establishment while something ancient waited patiently to overrun and reclaim the space they were in now. He felt an almost superstitious fear that the woods were hiding something dark and terrible that was only biding its time before it could be unleashed. Then he laughed quietly at himself. He was thinking all sorts of odd things these days, probably as a result of all the stress he had recently gone through, and was still going through in some ways. He had moved away so he wouldn't have to be reminded of the past, but all he could think about when he wasn't distracting himself with work was Vera and what had happened between them. It wasn't fair.

  Finally, after a lengthy and enjoyable dinner with this mother and stepfather, the three of them were ready to go home. They piled back into George’s car again with Trevor in the backseat while his stepfather carefully drove along the dark stretch of road that led back to Trevor’s street. His full stomach was making him feel sleepy and he actually had to struggle to keep his eyes open. He idly noticed that the woods had also come marching right up to the very edges of the road. For a moment, he was concerned that some animal might wander into the path of the car, but he knew George was a conscientious driver so he wasn’t too worried as his eyes grew heavier and heavier.


  The light doze he had fallen into was abruptly ended when he heard his mother scream, "Look out!" George cursed furiously and Trevor got jolted around as his stepfather stomped on the brakes and turned the wheel in a panic to avoid a dark figure that was standing still in the middle of the road. There was a screech of tires, then Trevor let out a scared yell himself as the now out-of-control car ran off the road and smashed hard against a nearby tree.

  For a sick moment, he thought they had all died. Then he blinked and realized he was still very much alive, though a bit banged up. He heard someone moan in pain and, instantly, he remembered his mother. Oh, God, what if she was–he couldn’t finish the thought. As quickly as he could, he forced himself to move and get out of the car. He went to check on his mother and his heart almost stopped when he saw that she was unconscious and there was a cut on her forehead. He felt for her pulse and, thankfully, it was still beating away. He then went around to the other side of the car to see how George was. His stepfather was groaning and clutching his head.

  "George? George, are you okay?" Trevor’s fingers were clumsy as he unbuckled the other man’s seat belt.

  "Annie," his stepfather tried to reach for Trevor’s mom, but the effort proved to be too much for him. He leaned back against his seat, his breathing harsh and labored.

  "It’s gonna be all right, George," Trevor promised. "You’re gonna be all right. I’ve got Mom. I’ll take care of this." He went back to his mother’s side, pulling out the cellphone from his jeans pocket as he did so. He had to force himself to focus before he could successfully dial the number for emergency services and he almost sobbed in relief when the operator answered immediately. He told the man about the accident and was assured that help was heading their way. He checked on his mother again and suffered from a moment of pure terror when he couldn’t manage to release the clasp on her seat belt for several seconds. He had just accomplished this task when a strangled whimper reached his ears and made him whip his head around, searching for the source of the sound.

  The person George had barely managed to avoid was still standing, staring with shocked eyes at the moon in the sky, then at the dark trees by the side of the road. Trevor was still shaking quite badly from the swift rush of adrenaline through his body, but he tried to steady himself, and then he approached the stranger warily.

  It was a young girl–she couldn’t have been more than sixteen or so–and she looked like hell. She was wearing some sort of costume, a kind of princess outfit, that was torn and dirty at the ends. Her dark hair was a wild tangle with bits of leaves and flowers in it. Her feet, however, were bare. And as he frowned down at them, because there seemed to be something strange about her feet, he came to realize that they were bleeding.

  "Oh, my God," he exhaled. "Hey, are you okay?" He reached out towards her hesitantly because he didn't want to spook her. She looked like she would bolt at any second. "Hey," he repeated, "you okay? What happened? What were you doing out here in the middle of the road?"

  She just stared at him with wide, confused eyes. He then had the thought that she seemed like she was high on some kind of drug. There was this expression on her face that made her look like she wasn’t completely aware of what was happening around her.

  "I'm going to call for help, okay?" he told her, speaking slowly and clearly. His first impulse was actually to lead her to the car and make her sit down. But he wasn't sure how she was going to react if he did that, and he strongly suspected that she would probably freak out. So he resolved to try to make her comfortable at least.

  "Hey, are you cold?" he asked. "I've got a jacket in the car. Hang on a second and I'll get it." She looked like she never even heard him, so he walked over to the car and grabbed his jacket from the backseat. He went back to where she was still standing and looking around in some kind of daze. "Here you go." Moving very carefully and trying to look as non-threatening as he could, Trevor approached her and gently laid the jacket over her shoulders. She stared at it in bewilderment for a moment then, suddenly shivering like she finally realized how cold she had been, she grabbed its edges and wrapped herself tightly with the warm fabric. Her confused expression seemed to clear up a little and she looked up to meet his eyes.

  "Is this–real?" Her voice sounded creaky, as if she had not talked in a long time. "I'm not dancing anymore." She looked down at her wounded feet and, suddenly, she started to cry. "I'm not dancing anymore," she repeated and began to sob in earnest. Then she collapsed into an exhausted heap.

  The cops and the paramedics fortunately arrived in time before Trevor could start to let panic take over him. The EMTs were able to revive the girl and tend to his mom and stepfather swiftly and efficiently. All four of them who were in the accident were quickly packed up into two vans and rushed to the hospital. Trevor was judged to be the one who had suffered the least amount of trauma, so the cops who had responded to the emergency call asked him to answer some of their questions about what had happened. He wasn't much help though because all he could tell them was how he had been sort of sleeping before the crash and he hadn’t seen everything clearly. Then, after some probing and bandaging by a doctor and a nurse, he was told that he was fine enough to go home on his own. However, he insisted on seeing his mother and stepdad first.

  They had been placed in the same room. George’s face looked horribly bruised but, otherwise, he was okay according to the doctor who had also looked after Trevor. His mom, though, had a broken wrist along with the cut on her forehead. The doctor wanted to observe them for a day or two, so they would both be staying in the hospital for a while. Trevor took the news gratefully, but with a strange sense of impending doom. He was extremely reluctant to leave and he lingered by their bedsides for as long as he could until one of the police officers who had talked to him earlier offered to take him home.

  He chose to spend the night in the house his mom shared with George. They had given him a spare key and he intended to visit them in the hospital as soon as he could the next morning and bring them some of their things. He felt very tired and drowsy by the time he locked up the front door and made his way to the guest room. It had been a long day and a very strange night. He fell flat on top of the sheets without even bothering to change his clothes. His eyes just refused to stay open anymore and, in what seemed like seconds, he closed them and he was asleep.

  But he must have woken up later because he could hear soft music playing. The sound seemed to be coming from outside at first, then he thought that it sounded like it was suddenly playing from one of the rooms in the house. He got out of bed and tried to search for its source, moving like he was underwater. Each step forward took some effort, like something was trying to bar his way, but he had to find out where that music was coming from.

  He saw an open door ahead of him in the hallway, a door that he was sure had been closed earlier. He knew that it led to the room of George’s daughter from his first marriage, the dead daughter his stepfather never talked about, not even to Trevor’s mom. The music sounded stronger as he approached it, and now he could hear other sounds as well. Soft footsteps muffled by the carpet, the rustle of clothes against the floor, the rhythm of someone's breathing. The certainty that there was someone in the room suddenly filled him, along with terror at what he might see if he continued on.

  Finally, he was just a step away from the door. If he took one more, he would be able to turn and look into the room at whatever was waiting for him inside. His heart stopped beating for a moment, warning him to turn back and forget about the music. He could still do it. He wouldn't have to see anything he really didn't want to see. But his curiosity was too strong by now. And it felt like something inevitable was pulling at him, wanting him to witness something important.

  So he took that last step and peered in through the open door.

  Someone was in the room. Someone strangely familiar. She was standing with her back to Trevor at first, but when he gave a little gasp of surprise at seeing her, she looke
d over her shoulder and saw him.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but before he heard what she had to say, a loud knock sounded out and he opened his eyes.

  ~~~

  Chapter 18