Night Terrors (18 page)

“What if he came back for me that night?” Tara said and she could barely get the rest of the words out. She could feel emotions choking her up. “What if he killed my mom and dad to get to me?”

Tara imagined Jeremy knocking on the front door. She imagined her father answering it and seeing his son there. Maybe her father had been shocked or even repulsed by the sight of Jeremy, but maybe he would’ve opened the door for him. That’s why there was no forced entry. No warning.

Aunt Katie was crying now. She got up and hugged Tara fiercely. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”

Tara got up and tore herself away from her aunt’s embrace. She shook her head. “Somebody should’ve warned my parents,” she said. “If Jeremy was released from the mental hospital, then somebody should’ve let my parents know.”

Katie nodded as more tears spilled from her eyes. “Yes, baby. But they don’t do that. And your dad wasn’t even considered family anymore.”

But I had been warned,
Tara thought. She had felt the fear in her nightmares. She had felt the panic in her night terrors as she ran out of the house that night, away from the evil that was coming to kill her parents.

Tara burst out crying, a gut-wrenching sob as the guilt racked her mind. Why had she run away that night? How come she couldn’t have warned her parents? Why did this half-brother she never even knew she had want to kill her so badly?

Tara fell to her knees and hugged herself as she sobbed. Aunt Katie sank to her knees beside Tara and held her. She wasn’t going to let Tara push her away this time.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Aunt Katie whispered to her. “And don’t you dare blame yourself. You were just a child. That’s all. And you had a night terror; you were still asleep when you ran away. Even if you had woken up and stayed, you couldn’t have done anything about it.”

Tara shook her head back and forth, her mouth open, a breath caught in her throat. For a moment it felt like she couldn’t breathe. The loss of her parents ached her heart all over again like she was suddenly reliving that terrible night.

Oh God, I miss them so much! Why did he take them from me?

A little while later Tara washed her face in the bathroom. She came out and drank another glass of wine, chugging this one down in a few gulps.

Aunt Katie had apologized again about keeping the secret all of these years, but she had made a promise to Tara’s parents. And she told Tara that she wasn’t certain that Jeremy killed her parents; for all she knew, he could still be in a mental institution somewhere in Indiana. Or he could’ve died. Who knew?

But Tara
knew
. It was like she’d discovered a missing piece of the puzzle that she’d been looking for all these years, and now she saw the whole picture clearly and everything fit together perfectly. Her half-brother, Jeremy, had gotten out of the mental institution and he’d gone right to Ohio looking for her. And she knew that he had the same metal powers that she had, something passed down in her family that had skipped a generation, skipping over her father. But she and her half-brother shared some kind of psychic link and he had used that link to home in on her signal. He had come looking for her, and he killed her parents when he didn’t find her.

After her parents’ death, Tara moved in with her aunt and they moved from place to place, like they were on the run. Tara had never really questioned the constant moving, but it all made sense now. Her aunt believed that Jeremy had been the killer all along. She believed that he would find Tara again, that’s why she kept them on the run. She had sacrificed her life and loves for Tara, to keep her safe, to protect her.

Tara couldn’t be angry at her aunt for too long.

What do I do now?

Tara paced back and forth in front of the two hotel beds and dialed Agent Woods’ number again.

And this time he finally answered his phone.

She assured him that she was okay, and she told him about her aunt’s sudden visit and that she was staying with her in a hotel room by the airport. She gave him the name of the hotel and the room number and waited while he jotted it down.

Just the fact that Tara wasn’t staying in her apartment seemed to make Agent Woods feel better – she swore she could hear it in his voice.

But Tara didn’t tell him about the secret her aunt had just told her. She would wait until she saw him tomorrow. She wasn’t sure if he could get any information out of the mental institutions in Indiana without a warrant. She didn’t have a description of Jeremy and Aunt Katie didn’t have any photos of him when he was little – Aunt Katie hadn’t been a picture-taking kind of aunt when Tara was a child.

After Tara got off the phone, she and Aunt Katie ate dinner in the hotel restaurant. It was a little pricey, but the food was better than they expected. They each drank another glass of wine and then they went back up to their room.

They talked into the night and Aunt Katie finally fell asleep on one of the double beds.

Tara stretched out on the other bed, lying on her stomach and staring at something on the TV but not really watching it. The drapes were pulled tight and the room was dark except for the flickering light of the TV. The TV’s light didn’t bother Aunt Katie at all, her aunt knew about Tara’s fear of the dark.

Tara had taken out her drawing pad, figuring she might doodle for a bit, but she got frustrated after a little while and gave up. She sort of wished she’d brought along the sketches she’d done in her sleep. Maybe she could see some kind of pattern in them or something. The random words and numbers had to mean something.

After ten more minutes she fell asleep on her stomach with her head laid down on her arms.

Two hours later Tara sat at the foot of the bed with the drawing tablet in her lap, a pencil clenched in one hand, her eyes wide open and staring at the TV – but she was still asleep.

In Tara’s dream she saw herself on the bed with the TV in front of her, but everything else was shrouded in darkness. She couldn’t see the other bed with her aunt on it. She couldn’t see the drapes over the sliding glass door or the door that led out to the hallway.

She watched herself sitting there with the drawing pad on her lap and she was scribbling fiercely with the pencil, sketching something without looking down at the paper, drawing something over and over again.

From the darkness behind her, from beyond the head of the bed where the wall should have been, someone approached – a man draped in dark robes, his hands and arms sheathed in shiny black latex like a second skin. His head was covered with a mask made from a patchwork of human skin, pieces layered over each other and sewn together. Several sets of ears hung off the sides of his head and rows of human teeth were glued around where the mouth would be, making the mouth look like some kind of monstrous meat grinder. Clumps of hair were attached to the top of the head in various places and a set of what looked like bull horns were attached to each side of the mask.

Hanging around his neck was a necklace adorned with more body parts: fingers, toes, ears, bones, a dried-out tongue.

The Shadow Man pushed his way through the darkness, wading through the bed like it wasn’t there anymore, like it was dematerializing as he walked through it.

And Tara never stopped drawing on the tablet as the killer crept up behind her.

Aunt Katie woke up to the sound of a pencil scribbling on paper.

She sat up and saw Tara sitting at the foot of her bed, her feet flat on the floor, her drawing tablet in her lap, a pencil clutched in her right hand. Tara was staring at the TV with wide eyes that were still asleep.

Tara scribbled on her paper, tracing a drawing over and over again.

Aunt Katie just watched her for a moment. She had seen Tara’s night terrors many times before. Usually she woke her up, but Tara wasn’t screaming right now and she wasn’t running away.

Katie got up and crept over to Tara. When she saw what Tara was drawing, she felt that it was important to let her continue with her night terror – she was getting a message that she needed, Katie was sure of it.

Aunt Katie stayed up the rest of the night after Tara’s night terror had ended. She watched until Tara simply stopped drawing, dropped the tablet and pencil to the floor, closed her eyes and crawled into bed and lay down on her side. Soon, she was sleeping deeply.

Katie picked up the drawing tablet and pencil from the floor and she took them over to the small writing table. She turned on the tiny lamp and studied the drawing more closely. It was a quick sketch and some of the lines were drawn so heavy that they almost went through the paper. Even though it was a rough sketch, Katie could tell exactly what it was.

She left the light on over the writing table – it wasn’t very bright. She got up and covered Tara up with a blanket. It was only a few hours until dawn, but Katie was certain that she wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep now.

At six in the morning Katie went down to the restaurant in the lobby. It was already open and serving breakfast. Katie wasn’t sure if Tara would be hungry, but she ordered two French toast breakfasts with sides of bacon. She also ordered a thermos of coffee and two cartons of milk and two bottles of orange juice.

She brought the food and drinks back up to the hotel room.

Tara still hadn’t woken up yet.

And Katie wasn’t going to wake her up. She remembered how much the night terrors drained Tara when she was younger, and she knew that the thing she needed the most right now was sleep, a deep sleep with no dreams.

Tara woke up around eight-thirty.

Aunt Katie warmed up her breakfast for her in the microwave. Tara picked at her food, barely eating, but she drank the juice, milk, and a cup of coffee.

After Tara took a shower and changed her clothes, Aunt Katie showed her the drawing she’d created in the middle of the night. She had considered keeping it from her, keeping her away from whatever Jeremy was pointing her towards, but she had decided that after today there would never be any more secrets between them again. Tara was the only family she had left, and she didn’t want to drive her away.

Tara stared at the drawing. It was a quick sketch of an old house that looked like it might be in the middle of the brush or woods. And in one corner of the paper was a number – an eight. She had traced over the number again and again, nearly etching it into the paper. And there was one word at the bottom of the page, and again she had rewritten it so many times that it was practically carved into the paper. The word was Woods.

Woods. What did that mean? The woods? Was the house located in the woods? Did it have something to do with Agent Woods?

She didn’t know.

“You drew that in your sleep,” Aunt Katie told her. “I watched you do it.”

“Yeah,” Tara said. “I’ve been doing that a lot lately.”

“I stayed awake to make sure you didn’t get up and leave.”

Tara nodded. This was a familiar and nostalgic feeling for her – Aunt Katie watching over her through the night. She missed that feeling of security more than she had realized.

“Thanks,” Tara told her.

“Tara, listen to me.” Aunt Katie sat down right in front of Tara at the small table. She grabbed one of Tara’s hands in both of hers and locked eyes with her. “This is serious business. There’s a killer in this city, and I think he’s looking for you. And I think it’s Jeremy.”

Tara didn’t say anything.

“You can’t fight him,” Aunt Katie continued. “Why don’t you come back with me to Boston? I already bought a ticket for you.”

For a moment the idea of getting on a plane and escaping appealed to her. But she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t let one more person die because Jeremy was looking for her. She couldn’t let one more person become a sacrifice.

Tara sighed and squeezed her aunt’s hand. “I love you. I wish I could come back with you, but I can’t.”

Aunt Katie was about to argue but she could see it was no use.

Tara got up and grabbed her drawing tablet and cell phone. She dialed Agent Woods’ number and listened to the ringing on the other end. He finally answered after five rings. “I’ve got something to show you,” she said. “Meet me at my apartment in an hour and a half.”

She hung up the phone and looked at her aunt who was already shaking her head no, already begging Tara with her eyes not to go back out there in that world with a monster looking for her. Stay here in this hotel room with me where it’s safe, her eyes said.

But Tara had to go.

“Please, Aunt Katie,” Tara said as she went to the door, “just stay here in the hotel room. Don’t go anywhere. And don’t open the door for anyone. I’ll call you later.”

They hugged and Tara left.

Tara pulled into her parking space and shut off her rumbling Jeep. She glanced over at Steve’s apartment and saw that his blue pickup was parked a few spaces down from hers.

She got out of her Jeep with her drawing tablet tucked under her arm and hurried to the front door where Agent Woods was already waiting for her. Again, she could imagine Steve watching out his window and wondering about her relationship with Agent Woods. She was going to have to come clean with Steve, tell him the truth about what was going on, tell him the truth about her night terrors, and tell him the truth about a half-brother she never knew she had, a half-brother who was searching for her to finish the job he had started with her parents. If Steve couldn’t accept all of that, then he just wasn’t the right guy for her, and it would be better to know that now than later.

“I found this under your door mat,” Agent Woods said.

He handed Tara a white envelope with some writing on it. “I didn’t open it,” he added quickly.

Tara smiled and looked down at the envelope. True to his word, the envelope was still sealed. Printed on the front in careful, neat letters were the words: From Steve. To Tara.

“Someone’s got a crush on you?” Agent Woods asked. He sounded like an adult teasing a child.