Alive at Sunset (Rituals of the Night Series Book 2) (4 page)

W
hen Luna finally got control over her body again, she stood up and realized that twenty minutes had passed. To her, it had felt like eternity. She tentatively set a hand on her stomach, (wary of igniting the pain again) to the spot where the eruption of hell had been. It didn’t hurt anymore. She felt back to her old health -the only thing out of the norm were her rattled nerves. Luna found herself instantly confused, part of her vaguely wondered if she was dreaming something bizarre.

The thought of the word ‘dream’ made her shudder in worry. What had happened? Did she have some medical problem? She thought of the intense otherworldly pain and instantly decided no. She knew better than that. She had felt intense pain before. Both emotional and physical and nothing had come even close to what she had felt. The only time that came close was in the cabin in the woods all those years ago when she had felt a severe pain that rivaled with the surly pain she had overcome.

Max had said something about feeling things that were familiar to him. Yet, he never explained the feeling itself. Did the pains hurt him? Was that why he decided to call her? Did Max feel the same tremors that she had felt a minute ago? Did he really think the pains were caused by problems in DreamWorld?

It was then that she remembered about their phone call. She rushed to pick up the cellphone and held it to her ear. She found that the line was already dead. She lowered the phone, wondering if he had heard her writhing in pain or had hung up when she dropped the phone. She hoped he hadn’t heard that. If he had -well he would do his usual Max thing and assume that he was right.

Luna was in no mood for that. She wanted nothing more than to turn off her phone and pretend the last few minutes hadn’t happened. The manners she had been taught urged her to call him back and find out exactly when the phone call had ended. She sighed and licked her teeth nervously as she prepared herself to dial his number against the feeling in her gut. She stopped as the dead phone in her hand suddenly rang again. She pressed the green send button instantly and held it once again to her ear.

“Hello?” she said into it.

“Luna! What the hell happened?” he asked. “I could hear you screaming, are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. She didn’t know how to explain what had happened to her.

“Tell me what happened!” he demanded.

“It was my-my stomach. I felt like I was being stabbed,” Luna said incredulously, instinctively reaching up a hand to protect her stomach as she thought about the blaze of the pain once again. She still couldn’t believe that something so deeply painful had actually been real.

Max was quiet. Luna waited for him to reply, but so much time passed she began to think he had hung up. A whirlwind of emotions hit her with that thought. Disbelief, anger, sadness. But she found that the majority of her felt relief; she was hoping that he
had
hung up. If he had, then she wouldn’t have to explain herself- explain what she didn’t even know.

“Max?” she asked. “Are you still there?”

“Do you think that pain could’ve been from your Teardrop of Knowledge acting up?” he asked suddenly as if he hadn’t stopped talking. By his tone, she’d never guess the thoughts running through his mind. He sounded so cool, calm, and collected yet Luna knew he was panicking inside.

She wished almost desperately that she could do that too. Her life wasn’t normal -it never had been. Especially not when she had been so exposed to the paranormal that she almost lost her life to it. She wasn’t surprised that she had lost a hold of her emotions a long time ago. At least Max’s words still inspired her to think -think no matter what panic her mind was coping with.

She had almost forgotten about her Teardrop of Knowledge; it had been a long time since she had been forced to think about it. The Teardrop of Knowledge was a rare ability that connected her to DreamWorld. It made her sensitive to the changes in it; changes that could be potentially hazardous. It had been because of her ability that Chance had targeted her in the first place. With her ability, she could blend dreams with their dimension. With her ability, she could change the face of the world if she wanted to do so.

Chance had been close to doing that.

“No, Max, I’m not doing this again,” Luna said in the phone. Her voice was oddly emotionless. “I can’t handle the stress. To me, everything is fine, and I want it to stay that way. I see no reason to raise our anxiety levels over just a gut feeling. Get something more solid, and maybe I’ll be inclined to believe you.”

“What you just felt wasn’t a gut feeling!” Max said in disbelief. “Don’t pretend like that didn’t just happen. Get over yourself, Luna. Like it or not, you need to face facts that we have another situation on our hands!”

“Goodbye, Max,” Luna said unceremoniously to her old friend and hung up without waiting for a response.

The ordeal with Chance had been the most frightening thing that had ever happened to her. She hated the feeling that death was waiting around every corner to end her life. Max seemed to keep a level head when facing that kind of situation, but she knew even he was scared of the thought of Chance coming back. Both of them knew that they could die in the fraction of a second; the shot of a gun. They could die in their dreams if that was what Chance wished.

The worst part was that Chance had gotten away with all of his murders, every single one, starting with the twin murders of his parents and ending with her old friend, Violet. He hadn’t gone to jail, and the police barely even suspected him of his gruesome crimes.

She realized she never did ask Max how he had explained himself to the cops all those years ago when they had come onto the scene of a burning corpse, a ritualistic temple, and an unconscious boy. There was no way he could’ve told the police the truth. They would’ve sent Max to the mental hospital instead of the regular one. Luna knew that however Max had explained himself, Chance hadn’t been targeted by the police for questioning; unless of course that had been because he had been in the deepest coma possible.

Luna shook her head to get rid of those thoughts. The past didn’t matter, things were fine. There was no way Chance was going to come back. Even if he did stir from his coma, his mind was a blank sleet; a rebooted hard drive. He wouldn’t have any past to work from. Her nightmare was over, and she wouldn’t let anything change her mind. Despite her thoughts, there was always a voice in the back of her mind that worried that maybe things weren’t finished yet.

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

It had taken her a while to calm down from her episode. She realized that it had done a lot more damage to her than she would’ve thought. A little over an hour had passed since the pain had left, and she still felt like her nerves were fried. She knew the thoughts of Max’s words that ruminated in her mind didn’t help. Her anxiety had faded to the point where she could hide that the event had happened if she needed to. After all, Amanda didn’t know about Luna’s past. Her own family didn’t have any idea.

The only people that knew about it were the ones that had survived it; Luna, Max, Sarah, and Luna’s quiet high school friend, Amy. Luna always wondered how much of the puzzle Amy was aware of. No matter, the story of their shared tragedy had never hit the news; the murders were all unsolved cases. The police had no leads to go on.

Max and Luna wouldn’t tell Sarah or Amy what they knew because their situation was beyond bizarre. No one would believe them if they tried. Amy might, but Sarah hadn’t been involved until her sister went missing. She wasn’t aware that the paranormal played a part in her sister’s death. Even if the other two survivors did happen to believe them, it didn’t matter. Chance was in a coma. There was nothing anyone could do to bring justice to those that he had slaughtered; they had to be glad that his memory had been erased when fusion had backfired.

Luna gathered the last ounce of courage that she had kept deep in reserve and braced herself as she left her room. She headed down the hall to the living room, trying to seem as normal as she could. She didn’t know if Amanda had heard her crying in agony a few minutes before or not. Amanda was lying lazily on the couch, a pillow propped up her chest. The remote was in her hand as she flicked through the channels. She looked up at the sound of Luna’s footsteps.

“Hey,” both girls said at the same time.

“So, where are you off to?” Amanda asked. She sat up, and the pillow rolled onto the floor.

“I’m gonna go visit my Dad for a little bit,” Luna said and then looked at her friend wonderingly. “Didn’t you have a bunch of stuff to do today?”

“Yeah, I really want to, but I’m feeling lazy,” she admitted. “You’re coming back today, right?”

“Yeah, of course. It won’t be until later though,” Luna informed her. “It’s a long drive there and back.”

“Okay, as long as it’s not too much later, I hope. I still feel like going clothes shopping, and I expect you to come along,” Amanda said abruptly.

“I’ll be back in a few hours, okay?” Luna said to her. The last thing she wanted to do was go clothes shopping. She didn’t want to argue with her friend. She wanted to get away. She yearned for the long drive to have the time to herself to sort out her thoughts.

Amanda nodded and yawned before she tucked the pillow back into place and went back to channel surfing. Luna nodded back at her. She was glad that at least Amanda hadn’t noticed anything odd about her attitude. Luna backed out of the living room and grabbed Amanda’s keys before her friend could say another word. She got in Amanda’s purple Ford Taurus Sedan where it sat in the driveway and began to drive towards her old home in Lima, Ohio. She knew it was a long drive -about an hour without heavy traffic on the freeway. She tried focusing on her driving, but she found that the more she focused, the more her mind was likely to slip away from her.

She was worried about what Max had said to her. Believe him or not, his words had been enough to leave nagging flies of anxiety that buzzed around her head relentlessly. She couldn’t help anything that ran through her mind. She wished desperately that her flyswatter of disbelief could be found.

She clicked on the radio and tried to find a familiar song to listen to and turned it up. She hoped that the music would push away her thoughts for a little while and leave her some time for peace. The pulsing music drowned out her thoughts for only a few minutes.

Then the song ended, and the next one came on a minute later. The next one was
very
familiar. The flies had found food to swarm around. Every single thought carried a hint of malice.

“Every breath you take….Every move you make…” the radio played as it hit the chorus of the song.

Luna couldn’t take it anymore. She rushed to turn off the radio, regretting that she had decided to turn it on in the first place. No matter what she did, she couldn’t escape her memories. All she wanted was for her past to finally be behind her. She wanted to move on, but that seemed impossible. She was stuck with one question, the biggest fly in the swarm. Why did everything remind her of the skeleton in her closet?  

W
hen Luna got to her father’s house, she rushed to get inside, trying hard not to see the world around her. If she had so many memories in a town that was unrelated to her past, then the place responsible would prove difficult. The memories would encase her and threaten to suffocate her in the dread of her past. She ran into the house, not even bothering to look at the grass in her path. She knew perfectly well that it wouldn’t be good for her to catch a glimpse of anything.

She managed to calm herself before she went inside the small house. Like old times, David was sitting on the couch watching television; the remote was tucked away beneath his hand on the couch next to him. He appeared to be deeply into his show, but he turned to look at her at the sound of the door opening.

“Hello, Luna,” he said, flicking off the TV.

He seemed slightly surprised to see his daughter, and Luna knew that was because she didn’t take the time to visit much. Part of her felt bad about it, but there had been a time in the past when her father had made her upset as well.

“Hey, Dad,” Luna replied, moving to sit down in the armchair in the corner. She started working on her shoelaces to hide her face, hide the haunted horror that loomed in her eyes. Hopefully she’d be able to compose herself in time to be able to have a normal conversation with her own kin.

“How’ve you been?” he asked.

“Great! I just finished my semester of college today, and I’m really looking forward to the summer,” Luna said, shrugging.

She was trying her best to sound like herself, to sound like nothing was wrong. She came off sounding anxious and tired no matter how hard she tried. She wondered how her father would respond.

“Well, that’s good, seems to me like you don’t take enough time off. How’s Amanda and the apartment doing?” he asked.

“The apartment’s alright, Dad, I’m getting used to it now. As for Amanda, well, she’s relieved it’s summer,” Luna replied, chuckling.

“I can imagine,” David replied. “Having such serious majors mean both of you have to work so hard.”

Luna nodded.

“So, you’ve been doing good in school?” he asked, already knowing the answer to that question.

“Of course,” Luna said, feeling her confidence in her abilities. If there was one thing she could do right, it was get good grades. She was sure that even her own parents knew that; it was who she was.

The door popped open suddenly, and Luna turned to look, surprised. She didn’t think anyone else ever came to visit her television addicted father beside herself, and she only stopped by every once in a while.

A small woman with deep green eyes (a striking resemblance to Luna) and dark hair pulled into a tight bun came in. She was shuffling through the door with a bag of groceries clipped between her arm and her small framed body. Luna recognized her instantly. It was her mother, Rose.

“Look who decided to visit,” David said to her.

“Mom!” Luna said, surprised. She hadn’t seen her mother in maybe a year or two. The last time she had seen her was when she had acquired Lucky. She noted the deep half circles under her mother’s eyes and knew that she had been working hard.

“Hi, Luna,” Rose replied, closing the door. She set her grocery bag on the floor and stretched her arms out to hug her daughter.

“When did you get home?” Luna asked, returning the hug as she looked up at her mother.

Rose was a hardworking business woman that spent most of her time at meetings in other countries. Luna had gotten used to having a full time, and a part time parent. She knew that she got her hard work and determination skills from her work passionate mother.

“A few months ago. We won the account in Taiwan sooner than we thought so we got to come home until our trip to Korea,” she replied. “It was either come home or spend a few months in an unfamiliar country.”

“You should’ve told me you came home the moment you did,” Luna said as she took a step back. Part of her felt a little disappointed that her own mother had neglected to tell her that. It was almost like she hadn’t wanted her to know.

“Well, when I got home, David said you had just started a new semester of college; I figured you’d want to focus on your work for the moment,” Rose said as she picked up the grocery bag and moved into the kitchen. “I knew I’d still be here after the semester was over anyways.”

Luna was thoughtful, her mother was half-right. She still wished that her parents would’ve kept in better contact with her. “That’s alright, Mom,” she said as she followed her into the kitchen.

“How’s school been?” Rose asked.

“It’s great. My grades were the same as usual,” Luna replied. “I get the summer to myself.”

“If you’ve got free time now then you should visit us more often, Luna,” Rose said, sounding like she was thinking of something else. She seemed slightly distracted, but Luna wasn’t sure why.

Luna chuckled nervously at her mother’s words. It was such a long drive to Lima from Bowling Green that she honestly didn’t like visiting as much as she would if she was closer. “I meant to visit more often, really.”

“We understand you’re busy during school time. You always take a handful of those complicated classes and knowing you, you dedicate your life to them. Probably don’t even sleep right you study so hard. You take after me a lot, I bet, but it’s alright by me, because at least you’re here to see us now,” Rose said as she carefully unpacked the grocery bag. “Do you think you can stay for dinner?”

“Yeah, of course, Mom,” Luna replied. “It’s a long drive back home, and I did come here to visit, not for anything else.”

Rose nodded. “Good, glad to have you home. Now that I went shopping, I need some room to cook.”

Luna knew that was her cue to leave the kitchen. Her mother wouldn’t say it directly, but of course, Luna knew how to read her mother’s body language. She was glad that her mother was too busy to talk at the moment.

Luna left the kitchen feeling a bit relieved to have some alone time once again. She backed out of the kitchen and into the living room. She looked at David wondering if he wanted to talk to her or not. She quickly noticed that he was once again engrossed into the television.

Luna slipped out of the living room as well and quickly wandered down the lonely hall that led to her room. Memories gripped her from all sides. She hadn’t been in her old room in over a year. She wondered if they had changed anything in the time she hadn’t visited. Especially since Rose had been back for a few months.

When Luna got to the door that used to belong to her old room, she opened it slowly. Part of her wondered what it would look like. She peered inside warily to find that her room looked exactly the same as it had years ago. Her old belongings were in all their splendor. Her room obviously hadn’t been touched, which meant the things she had hidden were still in place as well.

She pushed the door open the rest of the way to take her first step inside. Stepping into her room made the memories that had held her heart in a vice grip hit her with the force of a truck. Every inch of the room made her think of something in her past.  She had spent so many of her teenage years studying or hiding away from the rest of the world.

It had been her fortress, her sanctuary. Standing in the center of it again, she could nearly feel the emotions of her old teenage self; the anger, grief, frustration, hope, and sometimes, the overwhelming urge to give up. No matter what emotion it was, the strongest of all of them were tied to Chance.

She crept across the room to her dresser. Her feet made no sound on the soft white carpet. It was odd to her since she had grown used to the loud echoing sounds of the hardwood floor in her apartment.

Luna knelt down carefully next to the pinewood dresser and set her hands on the knobs of the bottom drawer. For a moment, she hesitated opening it, worrying that she wouldn’t find what she was looking for. Finally, she pulled it open. On the surface, it looked like a typical drawer filled to the brim with clothes. Luna knew better.

She pulled out a pile of shirts that had lined the left side of the drawer revealing the beige wood of the bottom of the drawer. The dark grain lines swirled and danced out patterns that intensified the feeling of the drawer.

She set her hand to the wood and let her fingers creep to the two other stacks of clothes that remained in the drawer. She could’ve pulled the stacks out along with the first one but part of her was scared to see that what she wanted wouldn’t still be there after all. She moved closer to the clothes and the soft fabrics encased her hand as she slid it beneath the first pile.

She still didn’t find what she was looking for -what she knew should be there. The precious treasure that she had hidden. If someone else found the treasure, then she didn’t know what she would do. She put her hand a bit deeper into the drawer (growing more desperate to find it), and finally, she stumbled across something that felt hard and small. Her face lit up with relief.

Instantly, she pulled it out. She stayed on her knees beside the open drawer as she stared at the small black leather bound notebook in her hands. It was there, the true reason for her visit to her parents’ house. Her documented past written detail to detail held in her hands. She needed to read it, and she needed to read it quickly. She tucked it under her arm and rushed to put the stack of clothes back into the empty place in the drawer.

She closed it as fast as she could and went to sit on her old bed; the notebook was still held out in front of her. She merely stared at it for a long time, her mind was too much of a mess to process any thoughts.

Part of her knew that she should read it, though honestly, she didn’t know why. The only thing she could think of was that Max’s words had managed to bother her more than she was willing to admit. Or maybe her Teardrop of Knowledge had secretly been at work on her subconscious. Her hand was shaking as she finally decided to flip the cover open. On the first page she had scrawled years ago:

The contents of this book are of true events.

I’ve written them down as proof -if only to myself- that they really did happen.

If anyone else finds this notebook,

then you hold in your hands

an eyewitness account of a serial killer on the rise.