The Haunting of Secrets (3 page)

“Please, you need to be in the hospital,”
pleads Logan, concern apparent in his features.

I want to reach out and touch his face, wipe
away the stress I see so clearly in his features, but I don’t dare.
I actually like Logan. He’s funny, caring, and nice to everyone at
this school. He is one of the most popular boys, but he isn’t
conceited or egotistical about it. He is simply Logan: a guy who
happens to be really good at baseball and basketball, but doesn’t
feel the need to let everyone bask in his glory. For some reason,
he feels I am in need of his help. Someone he has to save. I wish
he would see the truth; no one can save me.

“I’m fine, Logan. Please, stop fretting,” I
admonish as a fresh wave of vertigo hits. I lie on the cool asphalt
of the parking lot, taking in deep breaths, willing my dizziness to
pass so I can get out of here. Having Logan near me, helps ease my
panic, but only just. Still, I really do appreciate the effort. So,
I decide to do what I can to ease his worry.

“For once, I bet you’re glad we don’t have
the same lunch,” I tease him, trying my best to buy time for my
vertigo to pass so I can get the hell out of here and away from
everyone.

Laughing, Logan drops his head and shakes it
in disbelief. “Please tell me you’re not trying to joke at a time
like this, Aim.” The effect of his admonition is completely lost
with the smile on his face.

“I’m not. You didn’t want to be in there.
Good thing you were in weightlifting and outside doing crawlers,
otherwise it might have been your pretty face that got all bloodied
and battered. Then who would all the popular girls in school fight
over?” I finish, laughing a bit myself.

“Are you ever serious?” asks Logan, smiling,
knowing full well that I’m not. I could drown in all the
seriousness my life brings me. I choose every day not to. And
believe me when I say, some days, I want to give in to it. I want
to drown in it and hope that I die, so I never have to experience
it again.

“Where’s the fun in that?” I say to Logan
before, for the umpteenth time today, I get off the ground and drag
my beaten body to a standing position using the bumper of the Honda
next to me. Logan helps me this time, but is careful only to touch
my covered arm and not to get too close. After experiencing all of
the horrific memories I downloaded a short while ago, it’s shocking
to see someone be so considerate.

I take a quick look around for my car and am
happy to see that I am close. I turn to Logan to thank him, but I’m
stopped in mid-sentence by his expression. He looks sad. I want to
comfort him; I want to hug him and show him exactly how much I
care, but I can’t. I don’t want to know what is in Logan’s past. I
want to remember the sweet, caring boy I see in front of me,
un-ruined by the harsh mistakes of his past. I would like to think
there’s nothing bad in his past, but given my extensive experience,
I know better. Some may call that jaded; I call it realistic.
Seeing the concern written all over Logan’s face touches me, but it
doesn’t change anything. I still need to leave.

“Look, I have to go home to Mary. She hates
technology and probably has no idea what happened here today. I’m
fine, I promise. I’ll go home and take care of myself, but I have
to get out of here. I’ve just been through hell. I can’t be around
all these people right now,” I plea, tears pooling in my eyes,
threatening to fall down my face. “Please understand.”

For a minute, Logan is silent as he carefully
searches my face for something. For exactly what, I’m not sure. But
Logan apparently finds what he’s looking for, because he smiles
that devastating smile that melts all the girls’ hearts and simply
says, “Ok, I’ll cover for you,” before turning and running back
toward the chaos.

My heart flutters a bit watching him run
away, but I ignore it and turn to get my ass as fast as I can into
my car. Fishing the keys out of my pocket, I climb in, shut the
door, and hold onto the steering wheel for dear life. Luckily, I
travel light, no purse, or effects that I can’t fit into my pocket.
While most young girls think only of fashion, I think of
practicality.

For the first time since the bomb went off, I
allow myself to feel. Sadly, the shock has worn off and I see again
the destruction and blood the bomb created. I feel the fear that
was masked by my need to survive. Silently, I sit and weep for
those who lost their lives, for the students that will never find
their friends. They were simply unlucky, guilty of nothing save
eating lunch at the wrong time and sitting in the wrong place.
Briefly, I wish I had touched the person that had planted the bomb,
but just as quickly, I reject the notion. I do
not
want that
kind of shit in my head.

Slowly, still afraid in the light of day, I
drive the five miles to our house in a cookie-cutter subdivision
filled with small ranch houses. I pull into the driveway of a white
one with red shutters, relieved to see Mary’s blue Saturn in the
driveway. I turn off the car and sit there for a minute, unable to
figure out my next move. So much has happened in such a short time;
I can’t decipher the horror of the bomb from the vileness of the
murderer. I know I need to go in and let Mary know I’m okay, but
reliving the horrors of the bomb today is the last thing I want to
do. She’ll be mad I didn’t go to the hospital, too. No matter which
way I look at it, Mary will worry about me. There’s no hiding this
horror from her. Besides, the truth is best when such big news
travels so fast.

I leave my car and head for the front door. I
put my key into the lock and let the door swing open in front of
me. Before I am able to step one foot into the house, another wave
of dizziness hits me. But this time is different. Images flood my
mind, but they aren’t from the bombing. These are the images of the
killer: images that have crept back up into my consciousness in an
effort to make sure I don’t ignore them.

What should be the foyer of my house decked
out with photos of me and Mary on deep crimson colored walls
instead is a dark, damp room covered with grime and sporting a
large four-poster bed smack dab in the middle of it. In the center
of the bed lays a light haired girl, hands and feet tied to each
post, blood covering the majority of her body. Her blue eyes are
hollow and clearly scared. Though I am aware this is a memory,
something that happened in the past that I can’t help or change, I
still scream at the girl to run. I move forward, hands
outstretched, my only thought and intention to save her. But
suddenly, I see my hands are not empty. In my right hand is a
knife. The girl clearly knows what I can do, because her movements
become more desperate as she tries to fling herself off the bed.
The knots are tight though and already her wrists and ankles are
red from the rope burning into her skin. There is no escape. I am
slow to realize I am
him
again: the killer. No matter how I
want to change the inevitable ending of this nightmare, I can’t.
This girl will die horribly and I can’t do one damn thing about
it.

My stomach heaves; I am desperate to leave
this memory before I see what he did to her. Not just see, but also
live what he did to her, through the bastard’s eyes. In my mind, I
struggle against the memory, desperate for release. I feel myself
tear free as the image darkens and know that soon I will free fall
into welcome oblivion. In the distance, I hear someone scream. I
have no idea if it is me or Mary before the darkness takes me.

Chapter
Four

~ Is This a Hospital or a Prison?
~

Some people say you don’t dream in a coma.
Others say they remember vivid images and dreams from people
talking around them while they were under. I say they are both
right. I know because I’m in one now. You feel heavy, like your
arms and legs are weighted down with bricks preventing you from
even scratching your nose if the need arises. I am conscious, aware
of those coming and going around me, yet I am still unable to open
my mouth and speak to them. Images bleed into my brain from all
sorts of places. All types of people I have touched. Some memories
are good ones, like the first time you fall in love or the
exhilaration of your first kiss. Those are the ones that I want to
grasp with both hands and never let go. Those memories make life
worthwhile. Yet, all too soon, the good are mixed with the evil
ones. I can’t decipher reality from memory; they all seem real to
me. So, whenever anyone says that being in a coma is a period of
time when they remember nothing, they’re lying to you. It is
complete bullshit. You remember too much, so much that you begin to
fear everything.

One truth about a coma is that time has no
meaning. The hours blend into days with no form of reference as to
their passing. Mary comes and visits me. She brings me my favorite
foods and clothes that cover, knowing that I will want something
comfortable and sane when I wake up. The nurses come and go. I can
hear them as they speculate as to how much longer I’ll be
unconscious. According to them, it’s been three days since the
bombing and though they can’t physically find much wrong with me, I
still show no signs of imminent awakening. They don’t realize it’s
my mind that is damaged, not my body. If a nurse touches me, I
thankfully do not feel it. The coma must prevent me from absorbing
memories since I see no others save the most recent ones I try my
best to suppress. They haunt me like no others have before. I know
I am young, but I carry the weight of the world in my head. I have
seen so much yet lived so little. Sometimes I wonder how much more
my mind can take. If this coma is any indication, I don’t think
much more.

It’s night when I emerge from my stint in
oblivion, groggy but alive. The doctor says it is a defense
mechanism of the mind to help us handle horrific tragedies. What
the doctor didn’t know was that I had two tragedies to deal with;
two horrors my mind was scrambling to process. So for once, I agree
with a doctor about my diagnosis. There is absolute truth in his
words. My time of unconsciousness was definitely my mind’s way of
dealing; to shut down and have a bit of peace as it tried to
understand what I needed to do next.

When I wake up, the room is dark. For the
first time, I get a good look at the stark hospital room I’ve
called home for the duration of my stay. It is small with only one
bed. I’m hooked up to three different machines to monitor the
activity of my mind and my heart rate. The walls are white, but
there are pretty pictures of landscapes to give the room color and
fresh flowers by my bed. I see there is a card and a big, goofy
smile hits my face when I see that it’s from Logan.

For the first time, I notice that I’m not in
a hospital gown. Mary must have showed them her stubborn side,
because I am in a long sleeved, white shirt and black pajama pants.
My hands aren’t covered, but I guess that was as far as the doctors
would go in regard to my state of dress. I’m glad that I was asleep
for that conversation. Mary becomes a drill sergeant when she is on
a mission. Nevertheless, if it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be taken
care of at all. She is a caring woman who took a chance on a freak
and I’ll forever be grateful for it.

Slowly, I sit up and plot my next move. Now
that I am awake, the urge to flee is intense. I want to be at home
in my room where no one can touch me. The memories I absorbed from
the killer are like a disease, slowly poisoning me from within. The
sheer horror of what he has done sickens my soul. I’ve already lost
so much time. The coma has revived my fragile brain, but I can’t
ignore the evil I experienced, as much as I may want to. In the
past, this is the point where I would have run away and never
looked back. But I can’t do that to Mary or Dejana. I can’t lose
what little bit of a life I have managed to create here. No matter
how dangerous it might be to stay, I can’t flee. I need to talk to
Dejana and figure out what to do. She is the only one who will
understand, the only one my age who knows the truth about me. But
first, I need to get the hell out of here.

Quickly, I unhook the monitors, aware that
alarms all over will be going off as soon as I’m done. Within
seconds, I’m on my feet and hiding in the closet, waiting for the
nurses to rush in. A few minutes later, an older lady with dark
brown hair and wearing a pink uniform enters the room. At first,
she is not in a hurry, possibly thinking that a wire must have come
loose from the girl in a coma. It doesn’t take long for her to stop
in her tracks when her eyes settle on the bed and see that it’s
empty. She turns on her heels and runs back toward the nurses’
station, alerting everyone to search for the black-haired girl from
room 204.

Wasting no time, I run to the window and open
it. I peer out hopeful, but am immediately disheartened when I see
such a large drop to the shrubs below. I was banking on it not
being so far down. Undeterred, I grab the slippers that Mary
thankfully left by the bed and head to door. Slowly, I crack it to
get a better look at what the nurses are doing outside of my room.
I see a bunch of them scrambling around, yelling my name, and
checking all the exits and other patients’ rooms. I must decide now
if I want to try to make a run for it while everyone is scrambling
around or if I should wait it out in the closet until the search is
done on this floor and then make a break for the stairway closest
to my room.

My window of opportunity is shrinking as I
see a nurse just outside turn back and head toward my room. Plan B
it is then. I turn as quietly as possible and wiggle myself into a
ball in the closet. Silently as possible, I sit there, afraid to
move. I hear the door of my hospital room creak as it’s flung open
and light pours into the room. I wonder for a second why the nurse
doesn’t turn on the light, but I am grateful for the extra darkness
that covers my position. I see the nurse look frantically around,
under the bed, and out the window before finally realizing there is
one last place in the room I could have hidden. Through the slit, I
see her coming toward me. Paralyzed with fear, my mind is unable to
figure out a plan. I decide to jump her the minute the door flings
open and make a run for it. I just wish there was another way, some
other option that doesn’t involve contact. If there is, I can’t
think of it.