I Hope You Find Me (30 page)

I felt the blood drain from my face at his
implication. He pursed his lips into a crooked smile and laughed
hollowly.

“See, now you get it.”

***

A shrill scream startled me awake. I sat
upright, my heart thudding and my head still heavy with sleep.
Was it Kris?
I listened, waiting for a sound to come from
her room at the other end of the hallway. Connor was still asleep
next to me. When nothing but the sounds of his relaxed breathing
filled the room, I lowered my shoulders and rubbed the back of my
neck.
Perhaps I was dreaming?
I slowly leaned back into my
pillow and stared up at the ceiling at the lightly stained oak
beams that ran lengthwise across the room. It hurt to blink. My dry
eyes hurt so I held the heel of my palms to them, hoping to push
the brewing headache away.

The scream pierced the night again, from
somewhere distant, and Zoey barked from the stair way. I sat up and
pulled a shirt over my head and a loose fitting pair of sweats
before I pushed my door open and stood quietly in the hallway. The
scream couldn't have come from inside the cabin but I checked
Kris's room anyway. When I opened her door, she was sitting with
her knee's bent up under her chin, the covers pulled up high.

“
Did you hear that too?
” She
whispered. Her brown eyes looked like empty caves in the dark.

“
It wasn't you, then?
” I whispered
back. She didn't answer, only shook her head vigorously side to
side. Zoey barked again, but this time from the lower level of the
cabin.

Whoever screamed was outside.

***

Connor was dressing by the time I rushed back
into the room. He already had his jeans on and was pulling a
sweat-shirt over his head when he saw me.

“Thank God! I thought something happened to
you.” He rushed forward with his arms still caught in his sleeves,
and reached out to touch my face with his fingers.

“Someone's screaming.” I said to him, my
heart thumping.

“What? You mean that was real?” He stiffened
and looked past me, through the doorway.

I shook my head and said, “Kris is fine. It's
someone outside.”

“Shit.” He murmured.

We stumbled around the room, kicking aside
pieces of the clothing we wore from the day before and the extra
comforter that had slid off the bed sometime during the night,
until we found our shoes. Neither of us bothered to put socks on
before shoving our feet inside them.

On our way out of the room I saw that Kris
was standing in her doorway, a blanket wrapped tightly around her
shoulders, her fuzzy hair sticking out like a helmet around her
head.

“You aren't both leaving are you?” Her voice
was shaky. She didn't seem surprised at all to see Connor coming
out of my room in the middle of the night.

“Kris, it's okay. We have to see who that
was.” I whistled for Zoey and heard her nails clacking rhythmically
across the wood floor below us and then padding up the stairs. She
greeted all three of us with sniffs.

“Can she stay here?” Kris pleaded.

I looked at Zoey before nodding at Kris.
“Okay. Stay inside and lock the door. We'll be right back.”

She followed us down the stairs and I heard
the click of the lock sliding into place as we ran down the porch
steps. The front light flickered on at Skip's place and we met him
on the path and stood still for a moment. The screams had stopped
but we still weren't sure exactly where they had come from. Jacks
stumbled out of his cabin, half-dressed and obviously half-asleep
as well. Winchester was the last outside and the sight of him made
me want to laugh. His hair was uncombed and tousled wildly on top
of his head and his normally baby-smooth face sprouted dark
stubble, which surprisingly made him look more attractive than his
usual clean and put together countenance.

“It wasn't from down here.” I jumped when
Fin's husky voice drifted towards us on the cool midnight
breeze.

“The lodge.” I said, and Skip nodded at
me.

“Let's go.” Connor said quietly, walking
briskly ahead, closing the gap between us and Fin's dark
silhouette.

***

We found Ana standing on the back porch in
her pajamas, leaning into Alan. She was visibly shaking and choking
down sobs. Her black hair was tangled from sleep, her face clean of
makeup. I had never seen her not done up.

“I said,
shut up!
” A voice hissed from
inside the open doorway. Matt stepped out of the dark into the glow
of the porch light. “Get a damn grip, Ana!”

Fin and Connor were ahead of the rest of us
by only a handful of paces and approached the trio warily, leaving
a wide berth between them and Matt, who was unshaven, and had dark
circles under his eyes.

Ana hiccupped and said something in Spanish
to Matt. “Speak English, woman.” He growled.

Connor and Fin spoke at the same time.

“What's going on?”

“What's wrong?”

Ana seem to finally realize she was in Alan's
embrace and pushed him away, rubbing her arms as if she was cold.
Alan looked hurt for a second, but ran his hand through his greasy
hair and smirked at her.

“Chick is crazy.”

She spat out a rapid slur of Spanish words
again, while moving further away from him. She had on a short
Victoria's Secret number and sandals. She crossed her arms over the
sheer top and hugged herself.

Jacks stepped forward and tugged his shirt
off. He handed it to Ana, who quickly put it on.

“Gracias.” She said quietly.

“What happened, Ana? Are you alright?” I
asked her. Rubbing at my eyes where the headache was in full
form...throbbing behind the bridge of my nose.

She nodded and began in Spanish before
stopping to glare at Matt. When she started talking again, she
spoke to us only in English.

“There was a man in the room. I swear it! He
grabbed my leg and tried to pull me from the bed.”

Matt stood with his arms crossed over his
bare chest, a look of either disgust or extreme irritation on his
face. His pectoral muscles were shiny with sweat; something I found
curious for a guy who supposedly was just woken up.

“The only
man
in our room was me.”
Everyone stared at him.

“What did you do?” I said just above a
whisper.

Ana's eyes got wide as Matt's chest muscles
twitched from my implication. “No, no, no...not Matt. Another man.
He grabbed me. I swear.” She inhaled sharply before continuing, “He
was there one minute, then just gone.” She gestured to Matt. “He
doesn't believe me.”

“Of course not! You're saying some damn ghost
was in our room. What the hell is wrong with you, bitch?” His words
seemed to cut Ana like a knife.

Fin turned his back away from them and looked
in my direction. “Now you know why I said those rooms ain't empty.”
He walked away from the group, toward the cabins without saying
anything else.

Ana started arguing with Matt about how she
wasn't going back up to their room. He stomped inside and slammed
the door shut behind him. Alan stood awkwardly by the door, unsure
what to do. He finally followed Matt, closing the door behind him
as well.

“I'm not going back in there. And I'm
not
crazy.” She sniffled.

“You don't have to.” Jacks put his arm around
her and gestured toward the cabins. “We've got another room at our
place or you can have your own cabin if you want.”

“And sleep alone?” She looked at him, her
eyes wide, on the brink of panic but then she inhaled deeply and
calmly smoothed her hair back from her face. “Maybe just for
tonight, I'll stay at your place.” She started walking down the
trail, with Jacks next to her, but sent a curious look over her
shoulder at me. I tried to smile, but the pressure behind my eyes
threatened to split my head in half. Something unpleasant twitched
inside my stomach as I watched them walk away together, so I turned
away from them and rubbed my temples.

“Ghosts, huh?” Skip murmured.

Winchester shifted and looked down at his
feet. I didn't have to look at Connor to feel his penetrating
stare.

***

“I’m just saying, it’s worth
discussing…don’t’ you think?” I looked around the Rec room at the
group, hoping they didn’t all think I was crazy. Clouds blocked out
most of the morning sun which cast a dark glow throughout the
room.

Connor cleared his throat and when he spoke,
Kris finally looked up. “I think we should at least talk about it.
Maybe it would help us understand what’s happening.” He leaned back
into the couch and crossed his arms loosely around his chest.

“I already told you what happened.” Ana said.
She looked down at her hands, and fiddled with the hem of her denim
skirt. She was sitting on the second couch, opposite of Connor and
Kris, next to Winchester and Skip.

“That’s the only experience you’ve had?” I
asked her, doubt creeping into my voice. She shot me an ugly look
but didn’t respond.

Skip sighed and patted his thigh a few times,
startling Ana. “Well, shoot. I guess I’ll go first.” He stopped to
look around the room, seeming uneasy with the fact that Matt was
huddled in the far corner leaning against the wall, sipping from
his tumbler. Antisocial and uninterested as usual.

“On one of my solo trips to the grocery store
I saw a man in the parking lot, walking by the front of the
building. Well, I thought he was a man anyway. But when I got close
enough to the poor bastard, I saw he was covered in blood.” He
paused to glance at Kris, who was watching him intently. “Should I
even be saying this in front of the kid?” He smiled awkwardly.

“I’m not a kid.” She said defiantly, and
tilted her chin up an inch or so. I smiled at her and nodded at
Skip to continue.

“Well, it was like he was sick, you know,
with the bug. But he came at me, and I sort of freaked out, took
off running, and when I looked back, the guy was gone. Just…poof.”
He sighed heavily.

“That’s it?” Connor asked, before glancing at
me nervously.

“I guess I’ve heard things too, voices, stuff
like that.” Skip looked around the room sharply. “I don’t mean in
my head or nothing, I mean…you know, like on the wind.”

Everyone in the room seemed to be nodding.
Winchester leaned forward and hung his head in between his knees
and for a second I thought he was getting ready to puke right
there, on his feet.

“It’s not in your head.” He said softly,
before lifting his face up at Skip and propping his elbows onto his
legs. “There was this girl, I don’t know…like fifteen or so, and I
saw her twice, wandering around outside my office.” He ran his hand
across his forehead, wiping at his brow. “She was…naked…and covered
with all these bloody spots. I swear, I thought her skin was coming
off. I know she wasn’t real. But at the time, I don’t know, I guess
I thought I made the whole thing up.”

“Why would you make something like that up,
son?” Skip asked him gently.

“Because, it couldn’t have been real…I mean,
was it?” Winchester stood up and walked past me, closer to the open
doorway and gulped in the fresh air.

“Well, I won’t stay up here at the lodge
because I kept hearing shit. I made it three nights before I
thought I might lose my damn mind. And then, in the middle of that
last night, I saw something standing in the corner of the room.
When I turned the light on, dude was gone. That was it for me. I
moved down to the cabins the next day.” Fin said.

“So, all y’all had something like that
happen?” Bobby spoke for the first time.

He sat on a dining chair pulled close to one
of the couches, with his legs opened up in front of him. His belly
stuck out above his dirty pants, threatening to pop the top button
of his fly off with the slightest change in pressure. With his
beady eyes, he scanned the faces in the room quickly.

“We did. In the City. Seeing things, hearing
shit.” Alan said it quietly and shrugged at Bobby’s glare.

“They haven’t said anything.” Ana looked
between me and Connor suspiciously.

“Well, we did have a sort of…incident
downtown.” I said it carefully; unsure of how to tell the story
when I still wasn’t certain what had happened myself. Connor was
watching me thoughtfully.

“Truth is…I don’t remember all of it.” I
shifted on my feet and jammed my hands into my pockets.

“What do you mean?” Winchester asked.

I looked up at Connor for help and exhaled
deeply when he gently cleared his throat and began sharing our
story of what happened the day before we left the City. I watched
as everyone listened, engrossed, as he told about the girl in the
street, the mob of dead, and how they all disappeared. Kris seemed
visibly upset and held tightly onto Zoey as if the dog was going to
dissolve if she took her hand off her.

“That’s truly amazing.” Skip said
quietly.

“Now you understand why I, why we, had to
leave the City. Why we wanted to come here.” I said.

“If you’re talking about ghosts I don’t think
it matters where we are.” Fin said.

“Well, no, but less people lived up here…that
also means that less people died up here.”

I let my words sink in while the group sent
confused and fearful glances at each other as they shifted
uncomfortably in their seats.

“Do you think that’s why it hasn’t happened
again?” Kris’s voice was tiny, but her eyes were large and clear as
she looked between me and Connor.

“You mean the mob?” Connor asked and she
nodded.

“The City’s full of thousands of people, so
it makes sense that up here, that won’t happen. When you think
about it, millions of people died together…something’s keeping them
here. We just don’t know what it is.”