One (24 page)

The camera panned from left to right. Slowly it stabilized and I could see it was footage of the hotel’s lobby. A young woman’s voice called out and the camera turned toward her. I did not recognize the woman on the tape. She was smiling, eyes bright, focused on the camera as if she was giving a report.

“
Hey everyone back home in Miami its Kim and David live from the fabulous Drake Hotel!”

She pointed to her left and the camera panned right at her command showing the front desk.

“
You know, Kim; we should let everyone know we aren’t acutely staying here, just visiting.”

“
David! You’re ruining the video. Just be quiet.”

The video continued and though there was nothing of substance I could not turn away. Perhaps it was seeing other people and knowing they were not really there. This was not a dream or an illusion, but a video. It was something I could accept as real and it brought me comfort. The couple seemed happy filming their tour of the hotel.

“
Make sure you get a good shot of me in front of the Channel Store. I want everyone to see this.”

“
Could we go now, Kim? I’m starving.”

Kim’s smile faded, she looked to be listening to something. I turned up the volume on the camera. I could hear it as well the sound was air sirens. The camera panned up and down the hallway at various people startled by the sound of the siren.

“
Where is that coming from, David?”

“
I don’t know, it sounds like those old air raid sirens they used during the war.”

Kim walked briskly down the hallway with David in tow. The camera bounced up and down between the floor and knee height. The sirens grew louder. I could see the sidewalk and realized they were in front of the hotel.

“
I don’t see anything David? What’s going on?”

“
It’s a test. I’m sure of it. We should just…”

The camera panned up. There were people rushing to their cars and to shelter. A woman screamed in the distance.

“
My God, David, what is that?”

The camera scans up to the sky. A single dark cloud sat in the center of the sky amongst white clouds.

“
We should go inside honey.”

The camera turned toward the revolving doors. Kim screamed out. A flash of light covered everything. The video went white. I could hear the camera hit the concrete and then silence. The light faded showing nothing but a shot of the revolving door. After several minutes of the same video I fast forwarded until it cut out. I rewound the tape. A text message appeared just before the video ended indicating the camera was going into battery conservation mode.

I now had evidence in what I knew as the real word that showed…something. I watched the video over and over again pausing at every second. I was only able to discover that the flash of light occurred at twelve-forty eight PM. If I was to believe what I saw then whatever caused this event happened just before one PM. There was an answer, but could I believe it? I asked myself if this changed anything and the answer was no.

It was well past midnight but I could not sleep I had to search for more information. I left the camera on the bed and pulled my mother’s laptop from the case. She always had her laptop with her, if there was information about my father and the man who killed him it would be on there. I attempted to turn it on, but the battery had died. I searched her bag but only found part of the charger. Without the plug it was useless.

During my search I found a small yellow envelope. Inside were pictures of my father’s funeral. I was not in any of them. Accompanying them were articles on drunk driving and a headline that read Drunk driving accident claims more than a life. It was dated the day after my father died, but the article was cut out.

A series of white papers were stapled together. They were documents from the Cook County court and several from a lawyers firm. They were clearly documenting the accident, but much of the text was blacked out. Reading over what I could there was no information that I had not known until I reached the last page. It talked about a discrepancy and that due to an error the defendant was released. There were names of the lawyers representing the defendant; one of them was Jacqueline Pierce, my mother’s sister.

I dropped the papers scattering them across the floor. It was not just the revelation that the man who killed my father was released. It was not just the fact that my own aunt helped them do it. It was not even just the fact that my mother kept this from me. It was that this information was with me from the beginning. I could have learned this day’s earlier. I was certain this information would lead me to him. I believed that was why I was there. I had to learn why he was released and why my aunt played a role in it.

As I gathered the papers from the ground, I discovered two burnt pieces of paper. Only the very tops of the pages remained. They were from a diary, but it was not clear who it belonged to. Then I thought about Christine and her e-mail. She was trying to tell me about a secret my mother was keeping. The pages must have come from her diary. I walked over to the balcony and looked out toward old town. If the pages were from Christine’s diary then it must be in her house. The question now was if he house still remained. There was a good chance that my only means of escape from this world had gone up in flames.

Trailing a Nightmare

Why would someone who has been plagued by nightmares since their childhood desperately want to continue to experience them? For me it was to unravel a mystery. My nightmares started soon after my sixth birthday. Everyone in my family was concerned by them. It was my Aunt Jackie who helped me the best that she could, but her techniques were about escape not solving the mystery within them. When the nightmares stopped my parents were more relieved than I was. Though only a child, my temporary escape from my nightmares did not bring me peace.

You do not run from your dreams, you confront them and solve the mystery; it is the only true means of escape. My nightmares returned soon after I turned ten. These were based more on reality than before. Images of my family turning their backs on me, isolated, cast out, that was how I felt in my dreams and because of that I often felt like that in the waking world. I kept those nightmares from my parents, from Aunt Jackie as well. There was only one person who could save me and that was me. There was a shadowed figure in my dreams, I remember the first time I caught a glimpse of its face. It looked like me.

I awakened the next morning freezing. Ever since I awoke in the empty world it slowly grew colder and colder as if it were dying and the heat was slowly fading from within. That morning was the coldest. There was little light coming from the balcony, I believed I had slept till dusk until I heard the sound. Still wrapped in the bed sheets I stood before the balcony doors parting the curtain. It was raining and it looked as if it had rained all night. Mother Nature had given me hope; if its rain had doused the fires then perhaps Christine’s home was saved.

As I quickly gathered my belongings, I noticed the power had gone out in my room. If logic still existed then it would have been only a matter of time until power would be lost to the entire city. The world can exist without people, but its technology could not. Thankfully what I needed to find was written down, as long as I had a light source I could continue on. I paused at the door and did consider the lack of animals, even insects. I wanted to question how the world could continue without them, however, my plan was to leave before I would have to experience the answer first hand.

On the adjacent block to the Drake Hotel, I found a Dodge Ram pick-up truck. The keys were in the ignition and it had nearly a full tank of gas. I assumed the driver must have been waiting from someone and turned off the engine. It was a slow drive back to old town, but using the size and power of the truck I was able to push smaller cars from the road. I listened to music for the first time since everything began. Don't Dream It's Over by Crowded House was the first song to play. It was one of Christine’s favorites. She first heard it while watching the movie version of The Stand by Stephen King.

As I turned onto Sedgwick Street, I stopped the truck and looked out over the neighborhood. I had always kept up with world events, hearing about wars in countries far from my own. Devastated cities, homes, lives burned to the ground, but I had never seen it firsthand. Though I watched the buildings burn when I left Walgreen’s, to see the charred remains of my neighborhood did something to me. I knew even if I did free myself and everything I had seen was reversed, I would never forget the sight that I saw that morning.

I arrived on Orleans Street, my hopes of finding Christine’s home untouched faded. Many of the buildings were gutted by fire; it had even spread to the elevated train tracks. I could see her house in the distance; it was clearly blackened by fire. I was prepared to find it in a similar state as the other buildings, but what I found I had not anticipated. Her home had been touched by the flames, but that was all it had received, a touch. The side of the building must have been the last to catch on fire before the rain.

I left the truck in the center of the street and ran up the steps bursting into the house. The stench of smoke was strong, but the inside was intact. I did not hesitate, quickly entering her room I began my search when remembered I had done this before. After finding the e-mail I had searched her room for any clue to what she had meant in her letter to me and I found nothing. I stood there in the center of the room and pondered where she would keep such a diary.

After the death of her grandmother Christine and her mother took on more of a sisterly relationship. Christine was always mature and I believed her mother needed someone to lean on and that could only be done in such a relationship. Christine told me she would share everything with her mother, which made the comment about her mother wanting her to stay away from me even more puzzling. The best way to keep a secret from someone is to tell them everything. What better place to hide her inner most thoughts than with her mother.

Christine’s mother’s room was down the hall and unlocked. She collected figurines of horses; the room was filled with them. I had never been in the room until that day which made me wonder, if the world was nothing but a dream or spanning from my mind how could I create something I had never seen before. It was irrelevant, my purpose was clear.

My first search of the room turned up nothing. A small heating vent sat near the foot of the bed. Shinning my light into it I could see a small metal strong box inside. I pried it open and recovered the box, but found it locked. The keyhole was extremely small which meant the key would be tiny. I rushed to Christine’s room. I remembered she often wore a bracelet, she told me it was given to her by her grandmother. After almost losing it she swore she would only wear it on special occasions. As I entered her room I hoped that the day she was to meet me was not one of them.

On her dresser Christine kept a small jewelry box. I opened it and sighed in relief finding the bracelet there. I pulled the curtains off the window to her room letting in the sunlight and sat on her bed. I opened the strong box and found only a small book inside, but it was what I was looking for. As I scanned through the pages, I discovered that she began writing in it when she was thirteen, the first entry talked about how the diary was a gift for her birthday. While part of me wanted to read everything if nothing else to better understand her I began flipping past the pages until a date caught my eye.

September 4th. Timothy pushed me to the side once again to go hang with those loser friends of his. They think they are hot shit, untouchable, riding around in the cars their daddies bought. They may be rich, but they are also stupid. Timothy was never like this when he was friends with Jonathan. I wish there was a way they could be friends again. I just fear something is going to happen with Timothy drinking and smoking so much. That Kyle guy is crazy. Last week he went racing downtown drunk. I don't care if Kyle kills himself, but I don't want him taking Timothy down with him.

I had not thought about Kyle since… it was not clear when I last thought about Kyle. We had met not long after my final conversation with Jonathan. It was at a party; he was the son of an international banker. Normally I would not have spoken a word to him, but Kyle was different. While he was richer than my family fifty times over his attitude did not match his wealth. Logic was not his companion, that was for sure, but he did not care about what others thought of him. He did not care about his status or the status of others. For him his wealth was a means for him to enjoy himself and achieve happiness. It was something I grew to admire.

October 5th. Timothy and I had another fight today because I criticized his friends. He just doesn't get it. Those guys are not his friends. They are a bunch of spoiled rich kids with too much time on their hands. I've heard them talk about him. Make fun of him because his family is not rich enough. Jonathan would never have treated him like that. I don't understand how Timothy can defend them. I know I was the cause of Jonathan and Timothy no longer speaking. I didn't want to get in the way of his new friends, but I had to let him know how I felt. But I think I may have pushed him even farther away. Lola told me she saw Timothy and Kyle at some party downtown. She said they were completely smashed. I want to go to his parents about this, but I know that if I do it would be the end of us. I don't know what to do. I'm just afraid if I don't do something Timothy could end up in serious trouble, or worse.