Dead by Morning (Rituals of the Night Book 1) (21 page)

                                                        Chapter Thirty-Seven

Two days had passed since the voice on the other end of the line had disconnected Max from Luna. He had called every hour hoping that Luna would answer, but she didn’t. Something was wrong, he knew. The past few days he had watched the news for signs of a missing girl, a very familiar girl. But to his relief there was nothing new. The Susan girl was still missing, but that was to be expected. Max picked up the phone again. He didn’t dial Luna’s number but rather stared at the phone.

Am I really doing this again?
he thought to himself. Then almost hesitantly he decided.
Yes.

He dialed her number and held the phone to his ear. It rang and rang, six times at least, and he hung it up. She obviously wasn’t going to answer again. He had a thought. For a minute he considered calling Violet but shot it down for two blaringly obvious problems. He didn’t know Violet’s number, and she hadn’t been involved in this stuff.

That left him with only one option, if he wanted to see if Luna was truly alright then he’d have to go see for himself. He hadn’t gone outside since he had been at Luna’s when Chance had showed up. He needed to face his fears, his demons, which in this case was the Rottweiler he had pulled from DreamWorld.

He shuddered at the thought of it but headed towards the door despite himself. He had to know if Luna was okay, he just had to. He knew that if the situation was reversed, Luna wouldn’t be too scared to seek him out. He would do the same for her, they had to stick together.

He opened the front door and peered out nervously up and down the street. Then he kicked himself, dream version or not, all dogs could smell fear. He knew he must be emitting it like the old comic strips drew green lines from something that stunk. Max “manned himself up” (as Luna would’ve called it), and headed outside. The heavy door closing behind him seemed to reassure that there was no going back. He walked as calmly as he could towards Luna’s. It was a long walk (he knew that from experience), but not impossible. He tucked his hands in his pocket and kept walking.

When he was about a mile from his house, he heard it. The death sounding howl of the dream dog. It sounded far away but that didn’t matter. It knew that he wasn’t safe, tucked away in his house. Max clenched his hands into fists in his pockets to try and calm himself.

The howl sounded again, was it closer? Clench, unclench, clench, and unclench. Max found himself walking faster anyways, but there were no stores that he could run into to hide. There weren’t even houses, only one long road with seemingly no cars, and only woods to surround it. Cold, unwelcoming woods.

The eerie howl sounded again accompanied by a bush rustling nearby. Max knew it was close, and the “calming techniques” couldn’t keep the fear at bay anymore. He began to trot –hell, full out run- away from the sound though he knew that it would do him no good. As soon as he began to run, the bushes on the edge of the trees across the road exploded as the large mangy dog jumped through them. Max didn’t have to look at it to know it was there, to know that it had wanted nothing more than to tear his flesh right off of his bones from the moment it had seen him in DreamWorld.

Max tried speeding up, but the dog was already on his heels. It lunged, clamping onto the back of his thigh. Max winced in pain. He was angry at himself that he had allowed the dog to bite him twice. The weight of the unrelenting hound was enough to knock him off of his feet.

He rolled onto his side in the grass as the dog let go of his thigh. Max could see it now as it sniffed at him. It was the dream dog alright. The freshly made scars and missing hair from the shards of his window glass impaling it made him sure of that. And now it was looking for his throat to deliver the death-bite.

As the dog neared him, Max swung out. His hand was close enough to strike the dog’s nose. What should have felt like warm furry flesh beneath his hand turned out to be nothing. As he stared at it horrified, his hand swung
through
the nose, and the dog’s whole face shifted like it was made of mist.

Max stared at it horrified, in all of his knowledge of DreamWorld he had never seen something like
that
happen before. Once the dog’s face re-adjusted, and the mangy black fur was lined back properly, Max was horrified to see the murderous gleam in its eyes so like its owner (because pets
were
like their owners it seemed).

The dog lunged at his throat and he had no way to protect himself from its razor sharp teeth.

                                                        ~~~~~~~~~~

Luna sat on her bed untangling her wet hair with her fingers as she decided what she would wear. It was Saturday morning once again, and a whole week had passed of being grounded. It had been the hardest week of her life. After it she felt like she could survive
anything.

She had heard the front door close ten minutes ago when she had been in the shower, and she knew Chance was already present. She frowned; she’d have to deal with him all day since there was no school to keep them apart. Luna was staying in her room until David made her confront him. She didn’t know how she’d handle an entire day of Chance.

She got up and moved over to her closet with the fluffy towel clutched around her. She decided to throw something on before Chance decided to come and check on her. She pawed through the clothes that hung in her closet and eventually settled on a blue t-shirt and light gray pants. She pulled them on quickly, and dropped the towel to the floor.

“Luna!” she recognized David’s voice call from the other room suddenly.

She sighed and hopped off of her bed to cross the room. Had Chance made up another story about her being bad? Luna opened the door and stepped into the kitchen. Just like before David was standing there with Chance sitting in a chair beside him. Déjà vu hit her like a truck, and she didn’t care for it.

“Yeah, Dad?” she asked glaring at Chance.

He smiled at her sweetly in response, and she rolled her eyes. She forgot that when he was around David he was a ‘good boy’.

“I was talking to Chance, and I’ve decided you’ve been grounded long enough,” he said.

Momentarily, her face brightened. She really hoped he wasn’t lying.  “Really?” she asked him hopefully.

“Don’t look so eager,” Luna heard Chance mutter.

She looked at him to notice that he was staring down at the table.

David nodded. “But if I ever catch you with alcohol again, you’re grounded until you graduate, and trust me Chance will oversee that every step of the way.”

She gritted her teeth in annoyance but flashed him a fake grin anyways. She didn’t want to say something that would end up making him change his mind.             

“Of course, Dad.”

He nodded at her, and Chance looked at her through narrowed eyes. She knew that he was worried without having the ability to monitor her every movement. She was sure that he was worried that she would try to get in contact with Max again, and that was exactly what she planned to do.

Luna looked at David and noticed he was looking at Chance as well. She turned to leave the room so she wouldn’t have to look into Chance’s chaotic eyes anymore.

“Luna, don’t you have something to say to Chance?” David asked her before she made it out of the room.

She winced at the question. She felt like it didn’t matter what David would think of her answer because it was her that had to deal with Chance. Not him. She turned to look at Chance, and his blue eyes stared back at her. Obviously, he thought she was going to thank him for looking after her. As she gazed at him, she felt no gratitude. Only one thought came to mind. She had wanted to say it ever since he had shown up “drunk”.

“You can go home now,” she said happily and turned to leave the room.

                                                                      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hours had passed since Luna had been ungrounded, but she still didn’t feel quite free. Not yet anyways. She sat in her room staring out the window as the sun sank lower and lower in the sky. To her annoyance, Chance hadn’t left. He was still in the living room talking to David, and she guessed he was stalling.

She wanted to call Max, and all though she was allowed, she was sure Chance would find a way to make her hang up again. So, she had to bide her time and wait for him to leave. It was like she was a prisoner with one shackle still stuck to the wall. She was so close…but so far away.

Chance knew very well what she was going to do, and she guessed he planned to stall time as long as he could. She knew that he had to go home some time, even if he didn’t want to. She tapped her fingers on the desk as her patience began to wear thin, and in the other room, she could hear the springs in the armchair as Chance stood up.

“See you later, Chance,” she heard David say and then the sound of the front door was heard.

Luna smiled; the coast was clear. She stood up and crossed the room to the door and peered into the living room. David was still sitting on the couch, watching TV (no surprise there), and Chance was nowhere in sight. She walked through the kitchen to where the phone sat a forlornly shape on the wall. She picked it up and quickly dialed Max’s number.

The last thing that Chance had said to him still rang in her head, and she felt horrible that she hadn’t been able to apologize for it. What did Max think? Did he think that was how Luna really felt about him or did he know better?

The phone rang twice before she recognized Max’s mother’s voice on the other end of the line.

“Hello?” she said sounding tired and defeated.

“Hi, it’s Luna. Is Max home? I need to talk to him.”

“No, he’s not,” she replied slowly.

“Well, when he gets back can you tell him that I called?” Luna asked. “It’s kind of important that I talk to him as soon as I can.”

“He won’t be home for a while, Luna.”

“Wh...Why?” she asked as part of her instantly worried that something had happened.

“He’s in the hospital,” she replied confirming Luna’s worst fears.

                                                        Chapter Thirty-Eight

“W…why?” Luna stammered as panic shot through her. “Is he okay?”

“He got his neck torn open by a dog the other day. It didn’t break his windpipe, thankfully. He’s conscious, but he won’t be home for another week at least. The doctors need to keep an eye on the wound to make sure it doesn’t get infected,” she replied. “If you want to talk to him, I can give you the number to his hospital room. I’m sure he’d be happy to hear from you.”

For a minute, Luna was silent as her words ran a blazing trail of fear through her mind. The dream dog
had
been trying to kill Max and by the sounds of it, it had come very,
very
close to succeeding.

“Luna?” she asked uncertainly.             

She realized that she hadn’t answered her. “Of course, ma’am, just let me get a pad of paper, and a pen first.”

“Okay,” she replied and fell silent as she waited.

In a flash, Luna picked up a pad of paper that had been sitting on the table beside her and pulled a pen out of her pocket.

“Okay, what’s the number?” she asked as she held the phone to her ear with her shoulder.

She repeated the number to Luna twice, and she wrote it down making sure each number was right. Max needed to tell her what had happened to him in the week’s time they had been separated. She was sure there was more to the story than he had told the doctors.

“Thanks,” Luna said to her.

“It’s no problem. He could use a friend to lighten his mood,” she said and hung up the phone.

Luna did the same and looked at the pad of paper in her hand. It was almost hard to believe that Chance could be so calculating that he had managed to almost rip the life out of her friend while being nowhere near him. She typed Max’s number into the phone and listened while it rang.

“Hello,” Max said and his voice sounded weak.

“Max, are you all right?” Luna asked him immediately.

“Luna? Is that you?” he asked.

“Yeah, it’s me. I’m so sorry for everything that Chance said to you.”

“That was Chance that said that to me?”

Luna was hesitant to answer, but Max spoke up to fill the silence.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Max,” she assured him.

“Why the hell was that idiot at your house?” Max asked. “Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for him.”

“No, no, no. It’s nothing like that, I promise. Long story short, Chance got me grounded,” she explained.

“Is that why you didn’t answer my calls?”

“Chance didn’t let me. I didn’t even know that you called, he forbid me from talking to you!”

“And you listened to him?” Max asked.

“Yeah, I had to, David assigned him as my ‘supervisor’.” Luna snorted.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

“It means that I had to be babysat by Chance and do anything he told me to do,” she replied.

Max scoffed. “That’s stupid. Your
Dad
did that to you?”

Luna nodded and remembered that he couldn’t see her. “Yeah, he did.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “And I thought I had it bad.”

“What happened to you, Max?” she asked as she suddenly remembered that he was in the hospital. “Your mom told me you nearly got your throat ripped out.”

“Yeah, I sure did,” Max replied. “And I thought I could escape from them.”

“Were they real dogs or Chance’s dream dogs?” she asked him almost not wanting to know the answer.

“It was the dream dog,” he replied. “The same ones that tore open my calf. The worst part is that it’s still out there somewhere.”

She shivered at the thought. With Max in the hospital where would it possibly go? Was it hiding out, waiting for him to recover so it could try to claim his life again?

“Have you had any new dreams this past week?” Max asked.

Realization dawned on her that she had actually slept a week without having a nightmare.

“No, I haven’t,” she responded finally.

“Neither did I,” Max said thoughtfully. “I thought it was just the morphine, but I guess not.”

“I didn’t even realize it, I guess because my nightmare was waking up to Chance.” Luna scoffed.

“That would be pretty horrifying,” Max agreed.

“So, does this mean Chance wasn’t thinking up any new dreams?”

“Yeah, he must’ve been so occupied with watching you that he forgot about them,” Max said.

She frowned as she thought it. Was there something about her that she wasn’t aware of that made Chance so attached to her?

                                                        ~~~~~~~~~~

When Luna opened her eyes, she was immediately aware she was dreaming with the dreaded dream cabin surrounding her. Right away, she noticed the body slumped in the corner where Max had been lying before. She stared at it. It barely showed any signs of life in its moribund state. The slight rise and fall of its chest every few minutes told her that it wasn’t dead…yet. Each breath was more and more spread out. Luna guessed that in ten minutes they would stop altogether.

She was sure it wasn’t Max this time…from her spot in the room, she could tell it was a girl, but she didn’t recognize her. Her dark hair was splayed across the dirty floor, and her eyes were closed. Luna was sure she had a bullet wound somewhere that she couldn’t see. She wondered where Chance was and why he had left the girl. It was then that she spotted him standing over the body as if he was just waiting for the body to move. She noticed that he clutched the small handle of a long sword between both of his hands as he set the tip of it to the air that hung just above her chest.

Luna watched in quiet horror as he brought the sword up over his head, and then swung it back down into the girl. The cabin echoed with the horrible ripping sound of flesh. Fear pierced through her -she had just witnessed a murder.

Chance still clutched the sword like he wasn’t sure if she was truly dead or not. The tip was now red in the girl’s blood, and it ran down the silver blade to drip to the floor. Luna pulled her eyes off of the body to look at Chance. She was horrified to see that he was smiling. He looked at her, nearly beaming in excitement.

“Did you see what I did?” he asked her curiously. “You’ll be doing the same thing soon enough, and you’ll get stronger just like me.”

“I will never kill!” she spat. “I hate you. I’ll
never
help you, you freak!”

Chance stepped up to her and set the tip of the bloody sword to her chest. She felt her heart start to flutter with panic, and the blood dripped onto her shirt. Even though her words had been brave, she felt nowhere close. He could kill her, and she knew that he was more than capable of it. There was nothing she could do except accept her fate with dignity.

“Say you’ll help me or I’ll dispose of you. You know too much to leave you alive. I could kill you, and then do the same to Max,” he said locking her in his gaze. Luna couldn’t seem to look away as his sharp blue eyes penetrated into her soul.

“I…I…” she began. She didn’t know how to respond. 

She didn’t want to help Chance, but she certainly didn’t want to die at his cruel hands either. She couldn’t stop him if she died in a dream. She found herself wishing she would’ve let Max help her escape the cabin when he did. Luna felt the tip of the sword dig a little into her chest. Pain shot through her entire body. If she let him kill her, it wouldn’t be an easy death.

“Okay, okay,” she squeaked as more pain flooded through her. She couldn’t take it anymore. “I’ll help you…just stop, please.”

Chance smiled, looking pleased, and he pulled the sword away from her. He set the tip of the blade to the ground and leaned against the handle like it was a cane.

“I’m so glad that you agreed. It would have been such a pity to kill you when you have such a marvelous ability.”

“Ability?” she asked as she looked up at him wide-eyed.

“Oh, it’s nothing really,” he said shrugging, and then looked away towards the opposite side of the cabin.

Luna frowned, was he just playing with her?

“Why am I here?” she asked softly.

Chance dropped the sword suddenly, and it landed next to her with a loud metallic clang that immediately earned her attention.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she said through gritted teeth.

“All right, you want to know, then I’ll get straight to the point,” Chance said crouching down so that he was at her level. He rested his bloody hand on her shoulder and looked her in the eyes. “I need a queen to help me with what I plan to do.”

She smacked his hand away and screamed as loud as she could. She wanted out. She sat up suddenly, and the cabin vanished.

What a nightmare,
she thought blankly.

Then it all came back to her- it wasn’t just a nightmare, it was a real threat to her life. She had watched Chance sacrifice someone right before her eyes, and it made it worse knowing that she had really witnessed a murder. Whoever that had been, their soul would never return from DreamWorld.

Suddenly, Luna understood the line he had said to her before he drove off into the night of their dinner date. Thoughts of it flooded through her mind. “Sometimes killing is necessary,” he had said. Sacrifices….he had been talking about sacrifices. He had been giving her hints about what he really was all along.

Luna sighed and glanced at her alarm clock, 12:05, time to get up. She drew in a deep gasp of air and felt a sharp pain in her chest. She coughed at the feeling and looked down. She instantly noticed a deep puncture that glowed purple where Chance’s sword had been. As she stared at it, she realized that there was no way to doubt that DreamWorld was real anymore.