The Medium

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

The memory came again. He’d begun to forget she wasn’t real, but nothing else seemed real, either, so he could be excused for grabbing at one delusion among many. The ghost, though, was more real than anything else, and she didn’t react when the memory appeared, so it followed that the memory was probably not real.

“Rocky,” the memory said with a laugh. “You know, she’s going to keep calling you that if you don’t tell her your name.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and burrowed deeper beneath the blankets the wizard—Kim Reed—had left.

“Or perhaps you’ve decided you like it. Or…”

He imagined he felt a phantom hand through the blankets.

“Or have you forgotten that, as well? Lover? Can you even remember my name?”

He dared to peer out from beneath his cover, and found the memory had no face. She had the golden hair and a woman’s shape, but looking at her face was like looking through a scratched lens. He reached out to her, but she had no substance, and she faded away as he grasped at recollections that wouldn’t come. He knew he knew her, but he couldn’t remember.

The ghost looked at him with an expression of nervous contempt.

“Weirdo,” she said.

He turned away from her rejection and closed his eyes to try to sleep.

Someone else was there.

Or rather, he was somewhere else. Someone else. The sun wasn’t fully set, and the flames had died down to an orange smolder, belching a pillar of dense, black smoke that stood out against the purpling sky. He could see it clearly, and the red bodies of fire engines, surrounded by small yellow satellites bearing hoses. The sign still stood there, faded from years in the Texas sun: Rocky Heights Self Storage. He could feel the heat on his face, and under his hands the gritty stickiness of asphalt shingles.

I feel you there, medium. I know you didn’t burn.

Miles away, he struggled to open his eyes, but couldn’t. The voice was familiar, even if it wasn’t a real voice.

Can you hear me? Did someone steal you, poor baby? Don’t worry. I’ll find you.

The shingles fell away and he dropped lightly to the hot concrete below, landing with feline grace. He could feel his lips distended against elongated eyeteeth, and fought harder to disentangle his mind from Sebastian’s body. An old man watered his yard in the twilight, easily lured away…

The vision melted into a dream, which wasn’t any better.

His brain liquefied and seeped into his veins, and each time Sebastian gulped him down, he took a little more memory, a little more self. When there was nothing left, he rose and found himself huge, looking out at the world through someone else’s eyes. He thought he was Sebastian until he realized he was made of stone. His hands crumbled. Not stone, concrete. He was smooth, flat concrete, and he merged with the wall behind him and became part of it, part of the cellar. He could taste the rot leaching into his skin from the pile of composting corpses. The door opened, and Sebastian stood there in the dark.

Not so easy to run away now, is it? he asked. He held up a lighter and vomited yellow flame. It’ll hurt, but you’ll be clean after. No offense, but you kind of stink.

The bodies on the floor crackled and popped as they caught fire, and one of them screamed and reached out for help. He recognized the shaggy black hair, small frame, broad hips. The wizard’s bracelets jingled as she was engulfed, and he could do nothing because he was cement. Cracks appeared across the surface of the world, and he could feel thirst pulling at him like a whirlpool, drawing him back down into chaos and white noise. After so long submerged, it felt like home. He couldn’t remember how to be lucid.

A piece of chalk appeared in his hand, and he knew he was expected to do something with it, but he couldn’t remember what. He stepped back and his legs hit wood, the corner of a desk, and he realized he was naked.

I’ve had this dream before, he thought when he heard teenage voices laughing behind him. He turned around to find thirty-five high schoolers with Sebastian’s face. Their eyes widened, escaping their sockets, until they filled the room and he could see nothing else. Their laughter echoed inside his skull, making it so hard to stay awake…

The apartment was dark. The television was still on, but its screen was filled with snowy static, and its soft, electrical hum cut through the fug of interrupted sleep. Rain tapped gently on the window. It all felt soothingly familiar, but the feeling passed quickly. His chest ached like he’d been breathing hard or his heart had been racing. The dream was already fading, but the adrenaline it had released was still going strong.

He was alone. Alone in a strange place. He sat up quickly, half expecting he would be unable to move, though he couldn’t have said why. The digital clock on the microwave in the kitchen told him it was one in the morning. Alone.

But not entirely. Nearby, a pulse thudded in the slow rhythm of sleep.

*

Something cold and heavy curled up on top of Kim’s foot, and she damn near shot it. The only thing that stopped her was the half-asleep thought that it might be her mom’s cat, Bud, despite the fact that her mom lived in New England and Bud had been buried for more than twelve years.

Two points of white light shone at her from the other end of the bed, then winked out, and her fuzzy brain was momentarily convinced Bud had come back from the dead. Keeping her semiauto trained on her feet, Kim reached over and turned on the lamp. The vampire’s bony back was almost blinding in the sudden light.

“Son of a pig,” Kim growled. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

He wasn’t close enough to be overtly threatening, and she supposed that if murdering her in her sleep was his goal, he could’ve done that without waking her up, so she dropped her gun back onto the bedside table and silently vowed to have words with Vickie whenever the ghost should choose to show up again.

“You scared the crap out of me. Whatever happened to staying where I put you?”

The white back shook, and he croaked out a noise that might have been the start of a word, if only he’d been able to get in enough air.

Kim rolled up onto her knees and crawled closer.

“Hey? Something wrong?”

She put a hand on his shoulder. He flinched, and she took her hand away. He was bitterly cold.

She thought, then rolled out of bed and went to dig through the bottom of her closet. After a search, she came up with an old and stained electric blanket, plugged it in, and cranked it up to its highest setting. She draped it over the man who had invaded her bed. He was still too dry for tears, but his eyes were puffy. The heat seemed to make a difference, though; his lips relaxed, and his pupils dilated. She bit her lip and brushed the hair out of his face. He recoiled.

“Bad dreams?” she asked.

He nodded, and his limbs quaked, but he still didn’t breathe. He fumbled at the hem of the blanket and pulled it tighter.

Kim’s first instinct when confronted with a crying person, human or otherwise, was to offer a shoulder, but that required physical contact, which he obviously wouldn’t accept. She sat on the edge of the bed and hugged her knees to her chest, pursing her lips.

“You can stay in here tonight if you want. Just, I should probably mention that most girls don’t appreciate when guys sneak into bed with them uninvited. Just for future reference.” She felt like she should attach an appropriate threat to the end of that statement, but she was tired, and he was crying, and she didn’t need her wizard’s intuition to tell her all he wanted was to know someone else was close by.

“Hey,” she said again, softer. “Hey. Y’know… Not everyone who touches you is gonna leave marks.”

She scrunched up on her side on the opposite end of the bed and hoped she didn’t straighten out and kick him in her sleep. She also hoped he didn’t wig out and chomp on her, and that neither Zeb nor Coyote ever, ever found out about this. She’d almost drifted off when she heard the bed creak and felt the backs of cold fingers settle into the palm of her hand.