(Un)wise (2 page)

His pupils dilated as he continued to watch me.  A smile tugged at his lips.

A small sound escaped me somewhere between a whimper and a throat clearing.  Dani moved beside me.  I knew she was trying to figure out my reaction, but I couldn’t spare her more than a passing thought.

He caught the noise.  Awareness crept into his eyes almost as if he’d emerged from a trance.  His smile faded and he began to look troubled.  It didn’t matter.  I’d witnessed that concentrated look before and knew what he meant, what he was.

I didn’t want to die, but all those dreams had prepared me for what would come next.  Dani and Cadence needed to get out of range.  Now.  Memories of blood and carnage, of the gory ending of past lives, flitted around in my mind.  My heart tripled its rhythm at the remembered pain.

“I need a minute,” I said to Dani and Cadence.  My voice remained calm and steady.  Weary acceptance filled my lungs and radiated throughout.

They nodded and moved a few feet away.  I glanced at the rent-a-cop.  Her attention once again rested on me.  I knew better than to try calling for her help but still felt a small glimmer of hope.  Maybe I was safe.  Maybe the crowd was enough.

He watched me expectantly, his eyes causing my stomach to do erratic flips of joy.  One of their kind always called to me like that.  Messing with my insides, my emotions, pulling me to them like a moth to a flame.  Just like the poor winged creature, it never ended well for me.

“I do
not
smell amazing,” I said softly, trying to keep anyone from overhearing.  “I smell like I need a shower.  Badly.”

He frowned, held up his hands in a placating manner, and said, “No offense, luv.  I’m just looking for the loo.”

I stared at him for a moment, the wild beat of my heart pounding in my ears as I tried to decide what game he played.  Barely lifting my hand, I pointed to the right near the rent-a-cop wondering how long he’d keep up the pretense.

He nodded his thanks, but didn’t move.  He hesitated.  His eyes swept my face.  He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say more.  Instead, he jammed his hands into his pockets and walked away.

Stunned, I watched him leave.  My mind tried to keep up with what my eyes processed.  One of them was walking away from me.  What did it mean?  It meant I wasn’t dead.  Yet.  I knew what I needed to do.  Wait...wait for it.  He kept walking away.  I felt Dani join me as my eyes remained riveted on the man.  He didn’t glance back, not once, before rounding the corner to the bathrooms.

“Don’t come back here,” I whispered to Dani.

Then, I ran.

*    *    *    *

The overgrown, low border hedges lining the sidewalk of my house loomed ahead.  I hurtled them neatly, not knowing I had it in me.  Palming the key from my pocket, I slid it into the lock of the front door entering the house only seconds after leaping into the yard.  I slammed the door behind me and didn’t bother looking out the window to see if I had been followed.  Either he would break down the door or not.  Looking wouldn’t change the outcome, and I couldn’t waste time.  Not a second.

My bedroom slowed me down a bit as I waded through the ankle-deep clothes swamp.  Snatching the grey duffle from under the bed, I crammed in whatever lay nearby until I couldn’t fit more.  I struggled with the zipper, and the harsh panting of my breath filled the room.

Could he follow my scent even though I had taken the bus most of the way home?  Would it slow him down?

I grabbed the dwindling supply of money I’d stashed away for a car and stuffed it in my bra.

Was I taking too long?

Hands shaking, I hefted the duffle.  Its heavy weight settled on my shoulder anchoring me to the reality of here and now as I left my room.  I needed to catch another bus.  This time it would need to take me much further.

Mom’s note on the refrigerator caught my eye.  I stopped moving and stared at it. My throat tightened.  She wouldn’t understand why I left, and I would never be able to come home.  The grief turned into fear when I thought of what she would do after she realized I was gone.  She would do
everything
she could to find me again.  Police.  Newspapers.  Radio.  If she called too much attention to herself, to me...I shuddered at the possibilities.

I hastily searched for paper and pen.  I had to give her a reason for disappearing.  The message hurt to write.  My hand shook as I signed it.  Then, I pulled out my cell phone and set it on the kitchen table along with the note.

Mom,

School’s not for me.  I want to see the world.  I’m sorry for leaving like this, but hope you’ll understand someday.

Bethony

The words screamed at me from the paper.  Lies.  She’d be hurt and confused, but what else could I say?  Tell her about the monsters who would come and threaten her for information?  No, she’d go to the police with whatever I wrote.  They’d think I just needed a padded room for a while.

But the people looking for me?  When they came—and they
would
come—she would probably show them the note hoping they might help find me.  If they thought she knew something more, they would hurt her to get it.  Keeping her in the dark might help keep her safe.  I didn’t even want to tell her that I loved her, fearing they’d see it as leverage.

I left my house, jogging toward the bus stop I knew had pickups heading out of town.  I didn’t turn to look at my house one last time, though I wanted to.  I kept focused on what I needed to do.

Several people stood waiting when I got there.  After asking, I found the next bus wouldn’t arrive for at least another fifteen minutes.  Time enough for the adrenaline, which had been keeping me going, to ease out of my system.  Time enough for the man with an accent to catch up to me.  Time enough for me to give in to the ever-present urge to sleep.

I eyed the people around me. An older crowd, geriatric types.  Generally safe.  But with that man, that thing, chasing me, I couldn’t risk sleeping.

Easing into a squat and leaning back against the pole of the bus stop sign, I struck up a polite conversation with an elderly lady.  She introduced herself as Willa Delson and didn’t seem to mind when my attention wandered or I slurred a few words between yawns.  By the time the bus rolled up, I’d looked at all of the pictures of her grandkids and great grandkids.  Very cute, happy kids.  I hoped they never learned the truth: monsters were real.  If they did, they would never smile at a camera again.

I paid the driver for the farthest stop on his run, a three-hour drive that would take me north.  Having found a friend in Willa, I asked to sit next to her.  Her ticket took her to the same town, so we settled in for a long ride.  She shared the snacks she’d stashed in her handbag and chatted about seeing her newest great grandchild.  Six pounds and seven ounces, Joy Marie Delson wailed her way into the world only a week ago.  My desperation to stay awake had me absorbing Willa’s every word.  At the end of three hours, I could have pretended to be a member of the extensive Delson clan.  My legs twitched with pre-sleep spasms several times, but I didn’t succumb.

The bus dropped us in front of Chris’s Cooking Café.  A sign in the window advertised CCC’s specials at very low prices.  My stomach rumbled.  I couldn’t remember if I had anything for dinner.  My days blurred.

Willa waved goodbye as she spotted her daughter-in-law, the new grandmother, waiting for her.  My stomach growled as I smiled farewell.  Tired was bad enough.  Tired
and
hungry wouldn’t work.  I couldn’t run—not far anyway—if I didn’t eat.  I strode to the restaurant.  The smell of fryer oil greeted me.  Their prices were low, as advertised, but not fast food low.  Who knew how long I would need to keep moving.  My money wouldn’t last.  I settled on a plain burger from the kids menu.  The waitress gave me a look but let it go.

After devouring my baby burger, I walked to the only motel in town where the waitress said I could find a bus schedule.  The posted schedule showed that the same run that had dropped me here would take me back at the same time the following day. 
No thanks.
  Other than packing before running, I hadn’t thought very far ahead.  Too tired to concentrate, I decided to sleep a few hours and then think of a plan.

The man behind the desk eyed me when I asked for a room.  The need to sleep coated me in a thick film giving the world a surreal quality. I knew I’d fall hard and worried what would happen if I started screaming.  I decided to tell him that I suffered from night terrors.  The clerk stared at me and took a second look at my fake ID while I tried not to fidget.  Finally, he gave me a bill along with the key.

I needed to plan where to go from here, but the bed swallowed me whole as soon as I closed the door.  My exhaustion didn’t give me a chance to enjoy the feeling.  Immediately, images of a dark haired girl surfaced behind my closed eyes.  Crap.  I didn’t want to die again.

She stood panting at the edge of a cliff, staring straight ahead at nothing.  The craggy face of the rock dropped steeply to the tree-filled valley below.  Moonlight highlighted each rock and scrub brush.

The details soaked into me, and the perspective shifted as usual.  I slipped further into the dream, becoming her.

Clutching my hands together, I could imagine each scratch and break my body would suffer.  I looked down at a large rip in the forearm of my leather tunic.  Dark clotting blood from a vicious bite glistened in the silvery light.

An eerie cry echoed behind me.  My panicked heart slowed as I made a decision.  I turned from the cliff to watch my pursuers silently emerge from the trees and close the distance.  Sleek, furred heads rose to howl together in triumph.

The leader slowly loped forward, shifting forms as he approached. His paws widened and fingers emerged where pads once existed.  Black claws shrank and flattened into human nails.  Fur receded into skin as bones popped and reshaped giving the forelimbs a human appearance.  As soon as his feet developed, he reared back to stand on his morphing legs.

Snuffling through his shrinking snout, he spoke before his tongue fully changed.  It garbled his words, but I still understood him.

“Amusing chase, but it is time to choose.  We will keep you safe as they couldn’t.”

Safe?  Rage boiled in my heart.  One of them had bit me during their attack on my village, a poor example of their care for me.  Did he honestly think he could persuade me to go with them?  They were unnatural.  Evil.  The dark glint in his eyes showed it.  I saw only one outcome.

“I choose death,” I said savagely as I pushed off with my feet doing a backward dive off the cliff’s edge.  Inside I screamed with fear.

I felt each bounce against the rocky surface until my neck broke bringing dark respite.

Warmth blanketed me, weighing me down comfortably.  Something gentle pressed briefly against my forehead.  I felt comforted as the dream shifted.  I didn’t want to witness another death.  I tried to surface, but I was in too deep.

Tall stalks of grass and wild flowers swayed in the gentle breeze.  To the west, the sun’s dying rays painted the sky.  A single furrowed dirt track, perhaps made by game, followed the edge of the woods to the east. The air smelled fresh and crisp with no hint of pollution.

In this dream, I drifted as a bodiless bystander without someone else’s thoughts or feelings pushing into me as if my own.  I observed the area, curious about the change in perspective.

A circle of stones crowned a patch of barren earth in the middle of the wind-ruffled grasses.  Seven women stood within.  I could see them clearly.  One of them had a round, distended stomach, very large with child, and she was dressed better than the rest.  Her taupe gown, a thin flowing material, molded itself to her belly in the breeze.  The rest knelt in a half circle before her, dressed in rough skins and furs.  Dirt dusted their skin and matted hair.

The pregnant one spoke in a guttural tongue.  It took a moment for her words to make any sense.

“These I give onto you for your protection.”

The speaker motioned for the woman to her right to come to her.  The woman stood and approached the one in the taupe gown, her steps hesitant.  The woman in taupe gave a small encouraging smile.  Her eyes held so many emotions: concern, sadness, hope...

Placing a hand on her swollen belly and the other on the coarse woman’s flat stomach, she spoke a single word, “Strength.”  Immediately, her roundness decreased while a bump formed on the other woman’s previously flat stomach.

The woman gave a startled yelp and quickly moved back to her kneeling position, her hand protectively cradling her newly rounded middle.  The woman in the gown motioned to the next primitive and repeated the process.  It continued until the stomachs of those kneeling were all rounded with child and hers showed no sign of inflation.

“Go,” she said softly to her group.  They stood and parted, each heading in separate directions.

I woke feeling rested, but cranky.  I wanted just one night without dreams, not that I wasn’t grateful for that last dream.  At least no one had died.  Struggling out of the bowl my body had created in the mattress, I checked the clock and flew into panic mode.  Fourteen hours had passed! Too much time in one spot.

Scrambling to the window, I peeked around the curtain.  The sun barely rimmed the horizon.  Silence still claimed the morning—but not my thundering heart.  My eyes darted around the street, searching for anything out of place.  Nothing.  I moved away from the window and slid my feet into my shoes.

Grabbing my bag, I eased out the door.  The motel office waited a few feet away.  Down the road, several trucks stood in front of the restaurant.

I hurried to return the room key.  I needed a ride.  I needed to move.  The man from the night before took the key from me and returned the small cash deposit he’d required since I didn’t have a credit card.  With a fake smile, I stepped back outside.  The bus would bring me back to where I started, and I couldn’t go back home.  I paused looking for options on the very dead street.

An early riser stepped out of the CCC.  A dirty green knit cap covered his head and a brown scarf insulated his neck.  Grey whiskers protected his cheeks.  This far south winter rarely had a bite, but today would be one of those days.

He strode to a late model Chevy truck.  Rust and mud speckled the back fender, but I didn’t care about that.  He was just the option I was looking for. Waving to catch his attention, I hurried over to ask if he’d give me a ride out of town.  He looked me over, eyeing my thin long sleeved shirt and asked me a few questions about where I was headed.  Satisfied with my answer a better paying job in a bigger town, he agreed to give me a lift.

“In the bed, ‘course.  Can’t be too careful.  Sorry,” he said, getting into the truck cab.

I didn’t mind the conditions.  A ride was a ride, and I needed it desperately.

Using the bumper, I vaulted into the bed and hunkered down near the cab.  As I’d expected, the cold pierced my skin as soon as we started moving.  At least, the cold would help keep me awake.

I dug in my bag looking for something warmer.  My hand brushed against a zipper.  Carefully, I pulled a hooded sweatshirt out of the grey duffle.  I frowned at it, puzzled.  It didn’t look familiar.  I turned it in my hands for a moment before deciding I didn’t care.  Nothing seemed familiar anymore.  I pulled it on and zipped it up. It smelled good, clean, unlike most of what I’d crammed into the bag, and it helped a bit against the wind.

The panic and need to move calmed as the driver kept a steady speed heading northwest out of town.  It gave me time to think.  Fourteen hours was crazy long for only one death dream.  Since they had started, they had varied little.  Discovery, then death.  Like an alarm clock, they woke me to the truth: the beasts were coming, and I needed to run to save those I loved.  Unfortunately, like those past lives, I hadn’t truly believed the dreams until one of those
things
actually arrived.

I rubbed my nose trying to warm it.  At least I’d gotten away...this time.

The second dream about the women puzzled me.  It was nothing like the other dreams.  What did it mean, and why did I dream it right after that man found me?  With a sigh, I leaned my head back and stared at the sky unable to answer my own questions.

I wasn’t sure if it was pity or his true destination, but the man drove an hour to the next big town with a bus stop.  Discreetly digging in my stash of cash, I offered him a twenty for gas, but he waved it away with a gruff, “take care.”

Looking at the schedule, I studied my options.  There were several buses departing within the next hour.  Only two general directions, however.  North and west.  Though I’d tolerated the cold, I didn’t want to push any further north in November without a decent jacket.  West seemed like a good enough choice.

*    *    *    *

The dark circles under my eyes, a constant presence for the last few weeks, stood out vibrantly as I stepped off a bus in Springfield, Illinois twenty-four hours later. Wearily, I shuffled away from the drop-off location.  The layovers and transfers helped keep me awake and prevented a screaming fit while traveling, but I knew I needed to crash soon.

A fellow passenger pointed me in the direction of the nearest motel.  Just a few blocks.  No problem.  Money would be an issue, though.  This would be the last room I could afford.  I wasn’t even sure if the fake ID I’d gotten online would work here.  Most kids my age got one for drinking.  Not me.  As soon as I started dying in my dreams, I’d planned to run on some level and bought one just for this purpose.  Running and hiding.  If only I’d had a destination in mind.  But, how could I when I didn’t even know where these things came from?  For all I knew, I was heading right to them.  Hard to plan when you didn’t know which direction was safe.  Well, I knew home wasn’t safe.  One found me there.  I thought briefly of my mom and felt a pang.
  Please let this keep her safe.

Checking into the cheapest room I could manage, I headed to my room.  I wanted sleep.  Bad.  My stomach cramped.  I wanted food, too. However, both food and sleep would need to wait because I just couldn’t stand my own smell anymore.  I walked to the bathroom as I peeled off my clothes. The money I had stuffed in my bra fell to the floor.  The thin fold of bills worried me. I counted my remaining cash.  Less than fifty.  Enough to buy a few meals, but it wouldn’t get me much further, which meant I needed to earn some more.  I set the money next to the sink with a sigh.  I was tired, hungry, and poor.  Could anything else knock me down?

I looked in the mirror, cringed, and added looking like crap to my list.  A poster child for runaway teens stared back at me.  I didn’t even look seventeen.  Most of the makeup I’d worn to the mall had rubbed off.  The dark circles, sallow complexion, and weight loss just made me look very young and very sick.  Shaking my head at the thought, I picked a few items out of the duffle bag to wash.  Since most of the clothes on the floor of my bedroom had been dirty, they needed it.  The longer I’d traveled, the more strange looks I’d gotten on the bus.  I didn’t need to call additional attention to myself by looking like a vagrant.

Back home it’d been part of my act to hide the fact I wasn’t sleeping.  I didn’t need to hide that anymore.  There wasn’t anyone around who’d care. Besides, staying awake seemed stupid now, anyway.  I still didn’t want to see or feel myself dying in my dreams, but I didn’t like the idea of dying in real life because of tired mistakes, either.  And if I kept avoiding sleep, that was going to happen.

The high-pressure showerhead made washing quick and easy for my underthings and shirt.  The bar soap smelled okay, too.  I rinsed until the water ran clear.  The jeans were a pain.  Waterlogged, they weighed too much to easily maneuver under the spray of water.  Giving up, I stepped in and pulled the curtain closed.  Standing under the steamy stream and alternating between rinsing the jeans and washing myself kept me awake until I finished.

Thankfully, towels abounded in the bathroom.  After drying off and wrapping my hair, I used another towel for my jeans.  I rolled them inside the towel and stomped on the roll.  The towel came away soaked.  I grabbed a new towel and did it again.  The second time the jeans no longer dripped water.  I hung them on the rod and trudged to bed.

The pillows called to me.  I tossed back the bedspread.  Again, a dream wrapped around me as I climbed under the covers.

Glowing embers floated in the air, red stars against the night sky.

A dark haired girl stood before the blazing huts, facing the fire.  The heat curled her hair and burned her skin, but she didn’t back away.  She screamed a name, searching fruitlessly in the shifting orange flames.

Her desperation crowded into me.  My heart stuttered as we merged, her every thought and feeling becoming my own.

Turning I ran into the darkness only to return a second later with a crude clay container filled with water.  I tossed the contents toward the flames, but it fell short.  Frustration and terror tore at me.  I raced away to try again, this time stepping closer.  Water hit the burning grass walls but didn’t slow the consuming progress.  With a hiss and sputter, the moisture evaporated.

Deep, mocking laughter echoed behind me.

“Child!  You are not meant for this.  Step away.”

I spun toward my tormentors.  “Help me!  If you care as you claimed when you set the fires, help me put them out.”

Auburn-hued from the reflection of the flames, a group of men stood watching.  Several wore taunting grins.

The leader tilted his head as he studied me.

“Why?  They are all dead,” he assured me. “There is not one heart left beating, save yours.”

A well of guilt hit me.  My family, gone.  I screamed my anguish and fell to my knees.  The soles of my feet, still so close to the flame started to blister.  My hair curled back from the heat and started to smoke.  I fell silent and looked up with dull eyes.

I knew her choice as it settled in her mind.  I fought her, wanting to wake up.  Falling had been bad; this would be worse.

“You win.  I will choose.”  I stood, embracing the pain in my feet.  It’s what my family had all felt while trying to protect me.  Searing pain.

“You are indeed wise.  Who will it be?” the leader asked.  Several men stood back from the flames waiting eagerly for our choice.

“Not who.  What.”  I smiled as his triumphant grin fell.  “Death.”  I turned and ran into the flames.

At first, I felt nothing.  Then the pain of every blister and crack as I turned into a human candle consumed me.  I opened my mouth to scream but nothing came out.  There was only pain, everywhere.

I struggled to escape the pain.  My heart thumped heavily as I shifted in my sleep, crying out.  A hand soothed a tear from my cheek.  Lips pressed against my forehead.  A voice whispered, “I’m here.”  I tried to open my eyes, tried to breathe air that wasn’t smoke-filled.  My fight was in vain.  I sank deeper as the dream shifted.

Hidden in the trees, a mother cradled her child in her arms.  Sweat still shone on the woman’s skin from her recent labor.  Birds sang, and sunlit spots danced on the forest floor.

Still matted and slick from birth, the child suddenly squalled loudly.

The mother smiled at her child.  “I call you Jin, for Strength, as she promised us.  I will keep you as safe as I am able and love you always.  Protect us with your strength.  Keep them at bay.”

She put the child to her breast and lay her head back against the trunk of the tree.

Before her, the taupe gowned woman appeared.  “There can be no rest.  You must run.”

The startled woman opened her eyes and looked down in concern at the infant.  “She’s so fragile,” she murmured.

“If she dies, she will be reborn as often as necessary each cycle.  She will know pain and hardship.”  The gowned woman knelt to stroke the smooth cheek.  She felt compassion and sorrow seeing the fates of the child.  “Balance must be maintained.  The world will burn if they find her.”

*    *    *    *

I lingered on the edge of sleep for several minutes before opening my eyes.  My stomach churned as I remembered the newest death.  I curled into a ball under the covers.

Why wouldn’t the dreams just stop already?  I’d run like the visions showed me.  Maybe too late, though.  The face of the man from the mall surfaced in my mind. His warm eyes looked gentle and amused, not malicious like the others.  But I knew better than to trust them.  I wrapped my arms around my knees.  There was nothing gentle about the
things
chasing me.  Every memory followed the same pattern. I ran from something that terrified me, the “something” exposed itself as a dog, turned man. The dogs—always a group of them—possessed large sleek heads, intelligent eyes, vicious teeth, and claws, which they put to use.  After changing forms, they always talked about choosing.  Choosing what?  The way they acted and spoke, I guessed they wanted me to choose one of them.  But to what purpose?

If I didn’t kill myself, they tried forcing me to choose.  The methods they used...I shuddered.  I wasn’t sure whose method was worse.  Theirs or mine.  In all my past lives I died horribly.  I thought I understood the messages of the dreams—run.  But if that was it, the dreams should have stopped.  Instead, they’d changed.  Two now had felt like a memory even though I hadn’t merged with anyone.  The two about babies.

Last night’s second dream made my need to run sound like there was more at stake than just my death.  Not that my death wasn’t important enough to keep my feet moving.  That woman made it sound like I didn’t really have a choice.

If I hadn’t connected with any of the women, why would it feel like a memory?  My brows rose as I realized whom I overlooked. The infants in the first unique dream.  Of course.  Six of them just like the six variations of past lives I kept dreaming about.  In the first unique dream, they hadn’t been born; and in the second, the newborn hadn’t yet experienced her gift, the things chasing her, or much of anything, really.  Perhaps that’s why I hadn’t connected.

So, if those two dreams were still memories, then what that woman said scared me. Would the world truly burn if those dog-men caught me?  I shuddered remembering the feeling of the flames consuming my flesh.  Thankfully, the searing pain had been cut short.