“You’re not real.” My voice rose at the end like a question. I had been considering the possibility that she was real just a few hours ago, but faced with her now, I didn’t want to believe it could be true. I wasn’t sure if I believed in Heaven or Hell, but I wanted to think Amy was someplace better than here. “You’re just some twisted product of my subconscious,” I insisted, trying to squash my doubts.
She raised an eyebrow. A splash of blood appeared on her cheek, but she waved it away with one hand. “Why do I have to be one or the other? Why does everything have to be black or white?”
“It just does.”
She tossed the bear back to the ground. As it hit the concrete, the alley changed. The white snow and dark shadows swirled together and pulled apart until there was another alley, one where sprays of blood covered brick walls and puddles were tinged pink. One where Amy lay sprawled on the ground, her arms and legs at angles that were all wrong, a gaping hole where her torso should be.
I stumbled back, tripping and landing flat on my back in my desperation to get away.
I squeezed my eyes shut. I wanted answers, but I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to wake up. “Please . . .”
“Shhh. Mac . . . Shhh . . .”
My eyes flew open as cold hands touched my face. Amy was leaning over me, her hands cupping my cheeks. “It’s all right,” she whispered. Her breath smelled like cherry licorice and rotting leaves. The alley was gone and I could see the choir loft over her shoulder.
I turned my head; next to me, Kyle slept soundly and deeply.
Amy stepped back and then smoothed the skirt of her dress over her legs as she knelt on the floor beside him. She reached out and brushed a lock of hair back from his forehead. He shivered and frowned, but didn’t wake.
“He sees me sometimes, you know. Ever since he became infected. Out of the corner of his eye or as a shadow behind his reflection in the mirror. Once, I think he heard me. He was leaving flowers on my grave—pink carnations from the grocery store, but I told myself it was the thought that counts—and I yelled at him as loudly as I could. He looked up and turned, but shrugged it off as the sound of the wind through the trees. Maybe that’s all I am: gusts of wind and patches of shadow.”
She blurred around the edges as I drifted closer to waking.
“Amy . . .”
“Come and see me,” she said softly, pushing herself to her feet.
“You’re not real,” I said again.
Her hair fell forward as she shook her head. “If you really believed that, you would have worked harder at keeping me out.”
Before I could reply, she faded away.
I woke slowly and reluctantly, clinging to Amy’s words as I opened my eyes.
Dawn filtered through the stained-glass windows below. It filled the loft with patches of soft, color-tinged light and fell on Kyle’s sleeping form. I had edged away from him sometime during the night. I felt an almost overpowering desire to wake him, to have him wrap his arms around me and hold me close.
My dreams of Amy were usually so bad that I couldn’t wait to escape back into reality. This had started out that way, but the ending had been different. It had left a hollow in my chest, like the loss of her was as fresh and raw as it had been in those first few days after her death.
I remembered the weight of Kyle’s arm around my shoulders at Amy’s funeral, how his touch had been the only thing that kept me from running. It had always been like that, like his presence anchored me.
I started to reach for him but pulled back. As much as I wanted comfort, there were other things that were more important.
I slipped out from under the sleeping bag and swung my legs to the floor.
Kyle shifted in his sleep, but didn’t wake.
He had left his cell on the floor. I picked it up and scrolled through the options until I found a memo app.
Something I have to do. Be back soon. M
Guilt brought a lump to my throat. I swallowed it down.
I knew Kyle would freak if he woke to find me gone with only a vaguer-than-vague note, but there was something I had to do. Alone.
Setting the phone on the bench, I pushed myself to my feet.
Hopefully, I’d be back before he woke. Back and with answers.
The chill in the air stole my breath and I burrowed deeper into Kyle’s jacket as I carefully made my way to the stairs and down to the first floor.
I paused outside the pastor’s office. The candles had all been extinguished, but enough light slipped through the room’s one window to let me see the rise and fall of Serena’s chest. She looked like she was sleeping peacefully.
Trey was sitting on the floor next to her. His eyes were closed and his head lolled back against the arm of the sofa.
“Where are you going?” he asked as I stepped away.
Startled, I turned back. Trey’s eyes were still closed. “Outside to use the bathroom,” I lied. “I won’t be long.”
He nodded and mumbled, “Be careful.”
“I will,” I promised, hoping he would fall back asleep without realizing I hadn’t returned.
Without another word, I made my way to the heavy wooden door at the end of the hall. Kyle and Trey had broken the chains last night. It sure beat climbing in and out through the basement windows.
Outside, my breath fogged the air. I tugged the cuffs of Kyle’s jacket over my hands as I walked around the church and headed down the lane. The morning was cold, but the sky was a crisp, cloudless blue. It felt surreally peaceful, given everything that had happened yesterday.
I reached the road and turned left, heading for the entrance to the subdivision.
There was something sad about all of the empty and half-finished houses. It was like they were sleeping, waiting for people to come and wake them up. I wondered what would happen if the market never recovered. Would the houses be left standing or be razed to the ground?
Trees backed the lots on my left, and through their branches, I caught glimpses of a tall brick wall—the wall that encircled Fern Ridge. I wasn’t superstitious, but I couldn’t understand why anyone would think building a subdivision practically on top of a graveyard was a good idea. Didn’t anyone watch horror movies?
My steps slowed as I reached the edge of the development: I could hear engines in the distance. Paranoid after yesterday, I quickly stepped into the shadows behind a billboard as the noise drew closer.
Both the subdivision and the cemetery were located just off a winding road that led up to the interstate. Most of the cars you saw out here were either heading into or out of town.