Dead by Morning (Rituals of the Night Book 1) (15 page)

“Who’s ‘the Creator’?” Luna questioned.

“The Creator is the person responsible for the dream. In this case the ‘he’ that we can’t seem to figure out,” Max explained.

“Okay. Maybe in the next dream we’ll find out who ‘he’ is.”

Max shrugged again. “Maybe. Even though it’s his dream and you’re stuck in it, you can still do whatever you want to do inside of it. Have you tried breaking your shackles and escaping?”

“Yeah. I gave it my all, but they held strong.”

“I think I can explain the reason for that too,” Max said.

“Then say it!” she urged.

“Well, in DreamWorld your biggest fear is your biggest weakness and it can be used against you fairly easily,” Max explained. “You’re scared of dogs, right?”

“Yeah,” Luna replied feeling a twinge in her stomach as she guessed what he might say.

“That’s why you can’t break them, they’re dog chains,” Max said. “Whoever kidnapped you knows you well enough that they can keep you there for a while.”

“There has to be some way to get out.”

Max shook his head. “Unless he undoes the shackles or you find the key, you’re stuck.”

Luna frowned as she stared at the path ahead.

“Another thing you should know is that if you die in a dream you die in reality,” he said ignoring her reaction. “That’s not a rumor, that’s the truth.”

“Really?” she asked. “Violet died in the dream, but she’s still alive.”

“That’s weird,” Max said.

“Maybe it’s because she didn’t sleep the night the dreams started.”

Max frowned. “That just might be it. He must’ve pulled me and you into it and only Violet’s dream form.”

“So…she’ll be fine?”

“Yeah, she should be,” he said, “and I wouldn’t worry about him too much. I don’t think ‘he’ plans on killing you anyways.”

“If he was going to kill me then he would’ve done it when he killed Violet.”

“There ya go,” Max said.

They reached Luna’s house. She waved goodbye to Max and watched him walk away before she went inside. She wandered around absently and sat down at the table. She stared ahead at the white wall blankly.

The information in her head made her positive that the dream (or whatever it was) wasn’t just a harmless piece of fantasy. She could really die whenever her abductor chose to be done with her. She knew she needed to get away before that. By the feeling in her gut, she knew that whatever was going to happen to her next wasn’t going to be anything good.

                                                                      Chapter Twenty-Six

Susan walked through the door of her house, and directly into her room without pausing once to get a snack out the fridge like she usually did. She tossed her backpack onto the floor instead of putting it away in her closet and sat down on the edge of her bed feeling withdrawn. She could barely hear Sarah from the other room as she talked to Maddie on the phone.

Susan had gone the entire day without saying a word to anyone. She doubted anyone had noticed that she was in a different state of mind. She had carefully covered her neck wound with layers of cover up and hoped silently that it wouldn’t crack open and bleed. She had been lucky that it hadn’t…if lucky was the right word for it. It took her hours of preparation to build herself up to go to school, and even then she had stared at the ground.

“Okay, I’ll talk to you later,” Sarah said into the phone as she came into Susan’s room.

Then there was silence as Sarah sat down in the bean bag chair. Susan looked down at her hands, picking at the skin, not at all in the mood to talk. Sarah looked up at her sister carefully. She narrowed her piercing blue eyes wonderingly as she noticed the absence of emotion.

“Susan, are you okay?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just not in the mood to talk.” Her voice was nearly inaudible.

“You look upset.”

“I’m just tired.”

Sarah frowned knowing her sister wasn’t telling the whole truth. She sat down on the bed beside her. “You’re withdrawn obviously, what’s the matter?”

“It’s-it’s nothing,” Susan said feigning a laugh; she wouldn’t crack what she knew about Chance.

“I’m worried, tell me what’s wrong.”

Susan stayed silent, staring down at her hands.

“Is it because of what happened to Kate?” Sarah asked.

Susan brightened a bit as she realized she had an excuse for her sudden mood change. She was, of course, sad over her friend’s death, but she just didn’t want Sarah to know what else was wrong with her.

Sarah wrapped her arm around Susan’s shoulders comfortingly and offered her a small smile. “This whole situation is hard on all of us. Maddie was really upset today too, and so were a bunch of other girls. It’s hard knowing something so horrible happened to someone that we knew so well.”

Susan nodded barely noticing her sister’s kind gestures. A tear ran down her face as she remembered Chance’s words once again. If she decided to tell then she wouldn’t only be risking her life, but her kind-hearted sister’s life as well.

                                                        ~~~~~~~~~~~

Luna turned over again. She had been lying down for a half an hour, but her anxiety had prevented her from falling asleep. She clamped her eyes shut as she tried to force herself; she wanted to dream again. With the new information that Max had told her, she felt like she could find a way out of the cabin.

Finally, she began to drift into sleep. When she finally opened her eyes again, she noticed that she was already chained to the wall with the silver dog chains. Luna glanced around desperate to see something that could break them; a hammer, a nail, a piece of wood, or anything sharp and sturdy. After a minute, she had to give up her search. There was no way for her to get out.

The only thing different in the cabin was that the dagger was gone along with her abductor. She let out a sigh of relief. Maybe, she wouldn’t have to deal with him. That was a thought she could definitely live with.

Just then the door rattled as it was pushed open. Bright light filtered in from outside. Luna narrowed her eyes as her abductor shambled slowly through the opening. She looked at him hoping to catch a glimpse of his face, but the hood was up casting dark shadows over his face like usual. She gasped in horror when she realized he dragged a body behind him. He dragged it to the corner of the room and dropped it before he stood up straight and moved to close the door.

Suddenly Max’s words played through her head. “If you die in a dream, you die in reality.”

She stared at the body horrified.

The boy in the corner looked her age. He had spiky blond hair and shining ivory skin. His eyes were closed. He didn’t appear to be breathing. Whoever he was, he would never wake from the dream.

As she continued to stare at the most recent victim of the dream, she remembered more of Max’s words. “Not everyone looks the same in DreamWorld as they do in reality.” She hoped the body that lay sprawled a couple feet away wasn’t the dream version of someone that she knew.

She thought she saw one of the hands twitch, and then wave at her for a second. She blinked and narrowed her eyes. The hand wasn’t moving. She forced herself to look away from the body. She was positive he was dead and was horrified to look at what her abductor was capable of.

When she finally dragged her eyes away, she noticed that ‘he’ was sitting in a chair a few feet away from her. He sat there in total silence, just staring at her. When she finally looked at him, he stood up and stepped over to her.

“Are you going to kill me too?” Luna asked quietly.

She heard him laugh, and he crouched down so that he was at the same level that she was.

“No, that’s not in my interest. I have other plans for you,” he said.

Then his hands moved up to his hood, and with a single movement he pulled it down. Luna gasped when she recognized the face that had been hidden for so long.

“You…it’s been you the whole time,” she murmured and felt her insides seem to twist in an uncomfortable feeling that she couldn’t identify.

Before her crouched Chance. As she stared at him and he stared back, the moment seemed interminable. As she stared into his dark eyes she couldn’t believe that for a moment she had doubted Susan.

He was a hunter and if he killed animals like he had done to that bird, killing people wouldn’t bother him either. She frowned as she thought back to all her conversations with him. He had never actually said
what
he hunted; only that he enjoyed it. She shuddered at the thought.

Chance smirked at her. “Of course it’s been me. Why do you think I didn’t want you to sleep during class?”

Luna stared at him speechless for a moment as she stared at him.

“Well, what’re you going to do?” she asked him and her voice was pitiful.

Chance stepped closer to her. He was only an inch from her face as he looked at her. She pulled back as much as she could, but the walls made sure that that wasn’t far.

“Right now, I’m gonna fix this,” he said as he pulled two pieces of white cloth out of his pocket.

She was horrified to see that one of them was splattered with fresh red blood.

She pulled her wrists against her chains again, and he looked up at her. In his free hand he grabbed her right wrist and tucked one of the cloths between her and the cuff. Then he did the same to the other one.

As she watched him she realized why he had been speechless at the original sight of the marks on her wrists. He hadn’t thought that the marks would follow her out of the dreams, but they had.

“What is the point of me being here?” she asked him quietly.

“You’ll find out soon enough, Sweetie, but not quite yet. Until then these cloths should lessen the marks you seem so eager to show everyone.” He touched her chin affectionately and she pulled away from him in disgust.

“Don’t touch me,” she said to him.

Chance smiled at her showing his teeth. “You’re cold even in my dreams.” He stood up to move back over to the body that lay slumped in the corner.

“Why?” she asked him suddenly as she watched him through tired eyes.

Chance stopped in mid-movement and turned to look at her, confusion on his face. “Why what?”

“Why did you kill that person?” she asked gesturing to the body that lay in a pile at his feet.

He snorted and after a minute he didn’t answer her as he stared down at the body.

“Fine, if you won’t answer that question then answer this one for me,” she said.

He looked up at her and sighed clearly agitated with her questions. “Fine, what is it this time?”

“Tell me why you killed Kate,” she said bitterly. “She was your friend.”

Chance tensed. “I was
not
responsible for what happened to her.”

Luna stared at him in disbelief. Even though they were the only ones in the cabin she still couldn’t get him to open up to her.

“But you were, weren’t you? Her body was covered in satanic marks, wasn’t it? That’s a dead giveaway, Chance,” Luna pointed out.

Chance smiled at her and she could tell he was trying to hide his panic behind it. He stepped around the body and closer to her. She looked up at him through narrowed eyes. He was so full of depravity, such a malevolent monster that it was almost amazing that only Max, Susan, and she knew about it.

“Just stop with that okay, Luna? I’m gonna make David ground you if you keep saying this stuff about me,” he threatened.

She looked back at him. She was getting tired of him threatening her.

“You’re threats are starting to not become very poignant.”

He frowned. “Fine, then how’s this? I tell the whole school that we’re in love first thing Monday morning.”

Luna stared at him in horror. “Okay, fine, you win.”  

Chance opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again, unable to respond. He didn’t like how she was still so unwelcoming to him. How would he ever get her to like him?  Without saying another word he grasped the collar of the shirt of the boy on the floor and began to drag it away down a hallway. He disappeared from sight and a trail of blood followed. She heard him open a door, and then a thump as he threw the body inside it like it was nothing but a bag of dirty laundry. Then he closed the door and locked it.

When he reappeared in the room, he turned to her. He had something on his mind, but he didn’t know how he could express it to her. He turned away and walked towards the door. He cast a quick glance at her once before he opened the cabin door and left closing it behind him.

Luna closed her eyes. Now, she wasn’t so curious about what her dreams could bring her. All she wanted was to not be a part of it anymore. She wanted out of the crazy dream. If she didn’t find a permanent way out soon then she could end up just like the body he had thrown into the closet.

                                                        Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chance’s eyes fluttered open as sunlight flowed over his face. That dream had been taxing on him. But he had found something vital within. Luna knew he had killed Kate, and he knew that she could only know if Susan told her. Obviously she hadn’t stood by her word. She was a blabbermouth, keeping her alive had been a bad choice.

He had to figure out what he was going to do with Violet as well. He sighed and got up. He had a lot to do today and little time to do it in. He smoothed back his messy blond hair and put on clean clothes. He picked up his trusty dagger and tucked it into his pocket.

First things first, he would have to pay Susan a visit. He sighed and found his way through the broken house and went outside. He found his way to his waiting truck. Yawning, he started the engine and began to drive towards Susan’s. Fifteen minutes later he was there and he parked the car in front of her house.

He went to the front door and tested the doorknob. It was unlocked. He went inside, and heard a bit of shuffling from the next room. He froze as Sarah came into the room.

“Good morning, Chance,” she said to him politely.

He smiled to himself; at least Susan hadn’t leaked a word to her sister.

“Morning, Sarah, I’m here to see Susan.”

Sarah nodded. “Good, she could use a friend. She’s up in her room. But I don’t know if she’s awake yet.”

“I’ll check, thanks, Sarah.”

She nodded and went back into the kitchen. Chance went upstairs to Susan’s room. The door was shut so he pushed it open as quietly as he could. She was sleeping, a white nightgown covered her frame. Her face was peaceful with sleep.

He smiled and stepped over to her. “Rise and shine, Sunshine.”

She opened her eyes and her face instantly clouded with fear. She cringed back away from him until her back hit the wall. “What are you doing here?”

“Someone didn’t keep her mouth shut, that’s why I’m here.”

“Yeah, I-I did.” Susan lied.

He grabbed her arm. “Come on.”

“No!” she said. “Please…”

He paid her no attention as he pulled her off of her bed and downstairs. He herded her out the door and into his truck. He pulled his bundle of rope out of the back of the truck, and climbed into the driver’s side. He locked the doors and Susan began sobbing hysterically knowing perfectly well what was coming to her. The sound reminded him too much of Kate.

“Please don’t kill me,” she begged as he began to tie her up.

“I gave you a chance. All you had to do was keep your big mouth shut, and you could have lived. But you disobeyed me. Just be glad I’m not killing your sister as well,” he said as he bound her wrists together behind her back.

Another sob escaped her lips, and she couldn’t think of a thing to say. All that she was thinking about was how soon she was going to die. Chance secured the ropes and started the engine to start driving back to his house. Susan sobbed harder and bashed her shoulder into the door as she tried her best to escape.

The sounds of her panic and pain seemed to make his mind shift from the one he could control to the one that he couldn’t. The more she cried, the faster he felt himself sliding into That mind.

“Save your strength. You die today. No avoiding that.”

“No!!!!” she screeched at the top of her lungs.

He sighed, annoyed and stopped the car for a minute as he reached into the backseat to grab a cloth. He tore off a strip and crammed it into her mouth. He began to drive again, and her cries still sounded, only muffled this time. He drove faster; he couldn’t wait to end this already.

When the trees came into view he stopped the truck. He turned off the engine and pulled out his dagger. More tears poured from her eyes and he went to work cutting symbols into her skin. Her death would be both long and painful. He would stick carefully to his rituals this time, and he wouldn’t regret any of it.

                                                        ~~~~~~~~~~

When Luna opened her eyes again, she was in her own room. She lay in bed as she thought. She remembered every detail about her most recent dream. The most prominent thing was that her abductor had turned out to be Chance. The person that had shadowed her for months and threatened her and she hadn’t given him a second thought.

She shivered; it was obvious to her that Chance did have more problems than he let people know. When he had killed that bird and not shown a split second of remorse for the life he had taken, she should’ve known there was something really wrong with him. Luna looked at her wrists. The bind marks were deeper looking as if they had bled during the night. The white cloths he had stuffed into the shackles had done nothing. DreamWorld was close enough to hurt her, but far enough away that it couldn’t be stopped.

She thought about the body that Chance had drug into the cabin. Who had that been? She rubbed her eyes to remove the last few remaining traces of sleep, and noticed sunlight streaming through her only window at the foot of her bed. She stretched and sat up. Instantly she remembered that it was Saturday.

She didn’t know how she would’ve handled seeing Chance. She frowned as she stared absently at the sunlight for a moment before she pulled off the covers and stood up. She stumbled over to her closet to get dressed. When she was finished she padded into the kitchen and stood quietly in the middle of the floor. She noticed that David wasn’t awake yet. She was admittedly relieved as she crept quietly across the linoleum floor to where the phone sat on the wall. She thought about calling Max.

She had a lot of information and she wanted to tell him to see what he thought. Maybe he had had a new dream as well. Max seemed to know a lot about DreamWorld, and that was a good thing. Luna picked up the phone and held it to her ear as she clumsily began to dial Max’s number. The phone rang a few times. Just when she was about to hang up, she heard a click from the other line.

“Hello?” Max’s voice cracked as he spoke. Luna realized that she must’ve just woke him up.

“Hi, Max, it’s me,” she said hoping he wasn’t too tired to hear her out.

“Oh, hey. How are you?” he asked and his voice still sounded groggy. “You’re up pretty early.”

“I’m good. But forget the small talk I have some news.”

“What is it?” Max asked yawning loudly. “It better be good.”

“I had another dream, and I finally found out who ‘he’ is,” she explained.

“Really?” Max asked, his interest pricked and sounding mildly impatient. “Who is it?”

“It’s Chance,” she replied almost choking on the name. 

“Of course it’s him,” Max snorted and for a minute he was silent. “Man, why didn’t we see that in that the first place?”
              “I don’t know, all the pieces were there,” Luna said. “But he killed someone last night.”

“How do you know he’s killed a person?” Max asked.

“It was in my dream. I thought you said if someone died in a dream then they really did die.”

“That’s the truth, tell me what happened,” Max said.

“Okay, well once again I’m shackled to the wall, but this time the dream started out that way. The cabin was bright, and I could see everything around. Chance came in with the body of his most recent victim and then he pulled down his hood,” Luna explained.

“And that’s it?” Max asked.

“No, there was more. He threatened me to stay quiet about Kate. Then he took the body away.”

“And that’s it?” Max repeated.

“Didn’t you hear me? He
killed
someone!” she said. “You told me yourself that if you die in a dream you die in reality.”

“What did the kid look like?” Max asked still not sounding fazed.

She snorted in exasperation. Why did it matter now? “He looked our age or maybe a bit older. He had spiky blond hair. I didn’t really look at him. Death freaks me out, you know.”

“He’s not dead,” Max said calmly. “So, don’t worry about it.”

“What?” she exclaimed thinking back to the body that had lain completely motionless in the cabin. “He was bleeding a lot…how do you know he wasn’t dead?”

“I know because that’s my dream character,” Max snapped.

Luna stood silent in disbelief. The mysterious victim had been someone she knew after all. Had Chance found him
because
he was someone she knew? She shuddered again at the thought of Chance’s name.

This dream was unraveling to something awful. Her abductor had really been her worst enemy. He had managed to find a way to torture her even while she slept. In a way, her dream was a twisted reality of the things that she already knew. She wondered if Chance was purposefully targeting her friends so that she wouldn’t have any of them left to tell his secret to.

She wondered how Violet was still alive.

“I was trying to get your attention so you’d know I was okay. Didn’t you see me wave?” Max asked.

“I thought I saw you wave. When Chance dragged you in did you know it was him doing it?”

“No, I didn’t,” Max replied. “I had my eyes closed.”

“Why didn’t you open them?” she asked.

“If I had opened my eyes then Chance would know I was still alive, though I think he already does,” Max sighed.

“Why’s that?”

“You saw him put me in that room. The inside is as big as a closet and he keeps the door locked,” Max explained.

“So, he’s keeping you hostage too,” Luna said quietly in realization, “but why?”

“I don’t know,” she heard Max reply quickly, “but before he put me in there I heard him say something to you. He was talking too soft to hear him.”

“Yeah, he talked to me,” she replied biting her lip as she remembered what he said.

“Well, what did he say?” Max asked.

“He told me he wasn’t going to kill me, and I’d find out why I was there,” Luna answered.

Max was silent on the other line. “I’m coming over your house. We need to talk about this in person. I’ll be over in a few minutes.”

“All right,” Luna agreed as part of her wondered why he couldn’t just say whatever it was over the phone. “Bye.”

“See you in a minute,” Max promised as she hung up the phone.