Paranormal Realities Box Set (25 page)

Crap
, I thought,
my dad was still awake
.

The door opening widened and the full
reality of the scene before me slowly registered in my conscious brain. At
first, I thought I’d come upon Dad having sex with one of his girlfriends since
a female figure was straddled on top of him above the sheets. Gradually, I
realized the woman had white blonde hair flowing down her back. Suddenly, I
knew Namia, the female ghoul, not a woman, was crouching over my dad.

The scream that met my ears could
probably be heard in seven surrounding counties and by all the ships at sea.
The scream came from me.

The ghoul started and sat up as she
turned toward me. A gaping bite wound on my father’s chest seeped blood. My
father’s blood coated the ghoul's row of jagged teeth and dripped down her chin
in heavy rivulets. In a macabre way she reminded me of the way Adam’s face
looked after he had eaten a particularly delicious ice cream sundae.

“Demon,” my father groaned out, his eyes
mere slits.

No, it's a ghoul
, I thought.

The ghoul hissed at me and she leaped off
my dad. At that moment, Rom appeared behind me and I saw him take in the
situation. He charged at Namia. Desperate, I scanned the room for a weapon. A
bottle of whiskey, a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches sat on the
dresser within a few steps. I grabbed for the whiskey and twisted off the cap.

Rom wrestled with Namia, one hand on her
neck keeping her teeth from him. The ghoul’s screams of fury echoed in the
room. He held her off but seemed to be weakening.

I took a gulping swig of the whiskey and
held it in my mouth. The liquid burned the innocent tissues and some trickled
down my throat leaving a fiery trail. Lighting a match, I angled myself around
in back of her. Rom saw me and tried to hold her further away from him. When I
drew close enough, I spewed the alcohol on the ghoul and it drenched the gauzy
material of one shoulder of her white dress and a bit of her upper back. I
tossed the match. The lit end landed on her shoulder and the fire sparked a
blue flame like the flambé we’d had last Christmas. The fabric burned away
first and then the skin. The smell of singed and burning rotted meat almost
made me vomit.

The ghoul screamed. Pulling away from Rom,
she ran around the room trying to see over her shoulder and beat at the flame.
Her hair caught fire and she dropped to the floor. In a few seconds I suspected
it would be too late to save her.

Billy might have been an ass, but I
didn't want him dead dead, so I snagged the blanket off the foot of Dad’s bed,
wrapped it around her thrashing form and dampened out the flames. Namia lay,
eyes closed and unmoving, beneath me. But her breathing seemed strong.

“Find rope to secure her,” Rom said.
“Allow me to guard.”

After searching the house, I returned
with a variety of objects including rope, extension cords, Christmas lights and
one more thing: a pair of silver cufflinks.

“Stuff these in her mouth,” I suggested.
“And gag her with this."

We knotted her in as best we could, with
the blanket covering her completely. I turned to Dad. He seemed to rouse a
little when I poured hydrogen peroxide in the wound before applying an
antiseptic. A futile gesture, but I couldn’t just leave him, doing nothing.

“Kizzy,” he said in a groggy voice. It
was as if the ghoul’s bite had drugged him. “What are you doing in my dream?”

“Go back to sleep," I whispered.

“Why are you crying?” Dad asked, before
his eyes drifted shut again.

“I’m not.” I scraped at the moisture on
my cheeks and crawled off the bed. After watching my dad’s even breathing for a
few minutes, I left the bedroom to join Rom and the mummified ghoul in the
hall.

“Time has run,” Rom said. “We must go.”

“Yes.” I couldn’t meet his eyes and I
could barely speak past the nausea clogging my throat. I held up the keys I’d
fished out of Dad’s pocket. “You drive.”

We put Namia in the trunk and drove the
short distance to the wormhole house. Fortunately, we were able to park
directly in front. After opening the trunk, Rom handed me the keys and I placed
them under the driver’s side mat. Rom hoisted the ghoul over his shoulder so
she hung half down his back. We made our way to the spiral staircase and then
to the veranda, before crawling into the window of the bedroom.

The ghoul began to struggle, almost
toppling Rom over. I struck the blanket with my fist as hard as I could, once,
twice, three times before the moving stopped. The violence of striking her did
nothing to vent my feelings.

When we opened the door of the bedroom to
the hall we found a beam had come loose. One end had fallen and rested on the
floor blocking the way while one end was still attached to the roof joist
above.

Rom dropped the ghoul to the floor. He
crawled under the beam. Once he was on the other side, I pushed the ghoul
through to him and ducked under the beam myself. The floor’s sway and swing
made it impossible for Rom to pick the ghoul up again. He tried, but a pitch to
the right sent him to his knees and Namia’s blanket bundle crashed down. The
already rickety floorboards cracked under her and for a moment a spike of fear
shot through me. What would happen to the wormhole if the floor broke open
completely?

After that we were more careful. By tacit
agreement, Rom pulled on one end of her while I pushed at the other.

The walls appeared to be expanding and
shrinking at a more rapid rate than when we’d passed through the wormhole four
hours earlier. Hunks of ceiling rained down on us regularly this time and the
groan of the wormhole had heightened in pitch to a constant whine.

Rom reached the midpoint of the hall when
I saw a massive crack expand in length and it started to open just ahead of
him.

“Hurry,” I urged, pushing the blanket
bundle with all my strength.

Rom glanced over his shoulder at the ceiling.
His face was almost purple with exertion, twisted.

If he freaked out on ghoul bite right now
we would never make it out of here.

We’d been able to push the blanket around
or through the chunks on the floor until we came upon a pile near the end of
the hall. The height and width of the rubble pile blocked our way completely.

“Lifting is required,” Rom shouted.

Stopping, we each hoisted an end. Rom
placed his part of the bundle on top of the rubble pile while keeping the
ghoul's midsection supported on one hand. I walked my end of her forward to
feed her over the pile. As I placed my right foot down, the plank of floorboard
beneath me broke and my ankle twisted violently, sending me toppling into the
undulating sidewall. Rom grabbed for me and I clutched at his hand but missed
as I hit the wall and it disintegrated around me.

I found myself with my right side hanging
through the broken wall. On the other side, I didn't see a room or even the
outside cityscape. Instead, I glimpsed a black airless void and I knew that to
fall into it meant my death.

A strong hand seized my arm in a vise
grip. Rom dragged me back from the void and into the hall.

After helping me stand, we hobbled to the
rubble pile and crawled over to the other side where the ghoul lay. The blanket
had been pulled off her head but the gag remained in place. Namia’s eyes were
tightly shut and with the movement around us I couldn’t tell if she was
breathing. But whether she was alive was the least of my worries.

Zen became visible standing at the head
of the stairs with his hand outstretched to us. Rising, I began to inch forward
as Rom followed pulling the ghoul’s bundle. The distance to Zen expanded and
what had seemed like a few steps away turned into ten then twenty. Finally, Zen
grasped my hand and tugged me out of the hall and into his arms. Twisting, he
set me on the step below before helping Rom drag the ghoul out.

I moved down a few steps to make room.
Panting to catch my breath, I plopped down to sit. Rom also seemed to need time
to recover.

“How long were we gone?” I asked.

“An hour,” Zen replied. “How long did you
stay there?”

“About four hours. We arrived on May 17th
at about 8 a.m.”

Zen lifted the ghoul and propped her
against the wall.

“I’m sorry this one got by me.” Zen gave
Namia a shot with his elbow. “I wasn’t expecting her.”

“What?” My breath caught in my throat.
“Are you saying Namia followed us through the wormhole? That’s how she got
there?”

“Yeah,” Zen said. “You two had just
disappeared down the hall when she showed up here and rushed past Senji and
me.”

“No.” I shook my head. Soon all of me
shook. “No, no, no, no…” I couldn’t stop myself from repeating the word.

“Kizzy! I’m sorry,” Zen pleaded. “We
didn’t have any weapons and I didn’t want Senji to get bitten.”

Rom said something I didn’t understand.
His voice became an angry buzzing in my ears. I wondered when I had begun
rocking back and forth. And that was the last thought before my brain wound
down like an old tired clock.

“Kizzy.” Rom’s deep baritone in my ear
roused me but I couldn’t respond. “Entreaties,” he murmured. “Return to us.”

His touch on my cheek, over my shoulders,
down my arm, and along my back enraged me. Gentleness was the last thing I
wanted. Even realizing I lay on the soft surface of a bed angered me. Soft bed?
I deserved nails.

"You're safe at Zen's house now,
Kizzy." Petra's fingers stroked the hair back off my face. “It's going to
be all right.”

Really? I wanted to ask. How did you come
to that conclusion? How could anything be all right ever again?

“Why is she just lying there?” Chase
asked. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Maybe the depth of your stupidity put
her into a coma,” Senji drawled.

“You’re the stupid one,” Chase countered.

“At least my IQ isn’t the equivalent of
pi,” Senji responded.

“Are you saying I’m as stupid as a pie?”

“The mathematical pi, not the baked
goods,” Senji said. “You know, 3.1415—”

“Jupiter’s eyes,” Rom screamed. “Halt
that prattle else I shall—”

“Calm down, Rom,” Zen shouted.

“Chase, sweetums,” Petra said. “Why don’t
you go make me some tea?” I heard the door open and close. “That’ll keep him
busy for awhile.” Petra’s hand returned to my forehead. “Now, Kizzy—” she
began.

“Leave me alone, can’t you?” I didn't
open my eyes. My voice was faint even to my own ears.

“Out everyone,” Rom ordered.

The sounds of them filing out soothed me.
Thank heavens. They’d finally given up on me. I could return to my cocoon.

“Kizzy, you must rouse.” Rom lay down
next to me and I felt his arms embrace my body.

With reluctance I raised my lids and
stared over his shoulder at the faded floral wallpaper of what appeared to be
Zen's guest bedroom.

“If we are to journey to Dorcha immediate
departure is required.” Rom's breath was warm against my cheek.

 
“I’m not going to Dorcha. Wasn’t it you who said I’d led you
on repeated fool’s errands.”

“The effects of the ghoul bite spoke and
not I.”

“The ghoul bite was right. Everything
I’ve done has made things worse."

“We must go,” Rom insisted.

“That’s a change from your original
position,” I said. “You tried everything short of killing me to keep me from
opening the vortex. The ghoul bite wasn’t influencing you then. I’m doing what
you wanted so just leave me alone.”

“Going to Dorcha is a violation of my vow
to family and empire. Yet there is truth to your reasoning of earlier. We must
enter Dorcha.”

“No.” I closed my eyes again. “No more.”

“We go.” He shook me until my eyes opened
again.

“Don’t you understand what I’ve done?” I
asked, tears coming to my eyes and trickling down my cheeks. “I’ve destroyed my
father and killed Adam.”

“No.”

“Yes. I killed Adam and now there’s
nothing left.”

“No,” Rom insisted.

“I led that ghoul Namia into the past.” Turning
my head into the pillow, my next words were muffled. “I led her to my father.”

“You could not know.” Rom pulled me into
a sitting position and, grasping my chin, forced me to face him.

“I blundered into it but that doesn’t
make it less my fault,” I said. “If it weren’t for me, the ghoul wouldn’t have
bitten my father and he wouldn’t have gone crazy. He never would have shot Adam
and me. We never would have even been on that bridge.”

“Truth. Yet, for these things you are not
at fault.” Rom's thumb caressed my trembling lips. “The ghoul and her prince
have the blame. Do you wish to allow them to destroy Juliette and Billy the
douchebag?”