Through the Windshield Glass (25 page)

I looked back
at the sleeping forms of Maria and Leigh before turning my back, closing the
door and proceeding up the stairs.

At the top was
the trapdoor and when I stepped through it I was standing under more stars and
a bigger moon than I had ever seen on the clearest of desert nights back in
Nevada.

I dropped my
bag and lay down on the grass so I could stare up at the moon more easily.

Before I knew
it I had fallen asleep. I entered a dream in which I was still laying on the
grass; the only difference was the sun was up and high in the sky. I stood up
and looked around suddenly very aware of just how alone I was.

I turned around
to face the forest and realized the trees had moved closer, they were barely
five feet from the trapdoor now. Panic danced into my heart.

To some degree
I knew it was a dream, but it was so real I couldn't ignore it and I didn't
want to pull myself out of it. I was too curious to see what would happen if
the trees touched the door.

Just as the
trees were creeping their roots over the door, someone opened it and stepped
through.

"Jamie?"
I whispered.

James opened
his arms. I ran into them and began to sob just like the first time I saw him
after I died. There was something wrong though, he was too tall and too muscled
to be the James I knew, and he smelled rotten.

"Ja--"
I began as I pulled my head up to look at James' face.

The face of
love and the face that haunts

Despite all,
the heart wants what it wants.

"What's
wrong Alice?" Daman asked tauntingly, "Aren't you happy to see
me?"

I started to
run, I could already feel the wind pushing my hair back as I flew away, but
Daman caught my hand and brought my palm up to inspect it. He traced the circle
there gently, lovingly.

"That's
where you are," Daman whispered to himself. Then he looked at me and I
cringed away from his demon eyes. The circle on my palm flamed red hot and I
staggered with the pain, I was only kept standing by my own fear of being
incapacitated in front of Daman.

"I'll be
there soon, love," Daman said. He kissed my palm and gently placed it back
by my side. I was paralyzed with terror; Daman realized this and took advantage
of it. He stepped closer to me and bent down so our noses were level,
"Don't run, pet." Daman threatened. Then he attempted to kiss me as
he had done before I escaped him in the hall, except this time I couldn't fight
him.

Daman was
hurting me, one hand was gripping my arm like a vice, and the other had a
handful of my hair. Finally, something clicked and I began to scream against
his mouth and push him away. I could taste the poison on his breath and I was
determined not to let him win again.

I screamed and
screamed for all I was worth, but no one came. Daman's grip tightened and he
pulled harder on my hair so my head was bent back, making it difficult to make
any sound. He kissed my neck and bit my throat.

With every
ounce of air I could suck in I screamed. It startled Daman and he stopped to
look furiously in my eyes. I screamed again and he spat poison down my throat.

"Do not
stop me," Daman warned. I could already feel the poison taking its effect
on my faculties. I wanted to succumb just so Daman would leave.

"No,"
I protested weakly. Daman laughed violently at my refusal.

"I'm
sorry, I don't think I know what that means."

Daman came at
me again. I closed my eyes and tried to go somewhere else, but just as Daman's
lips touched me again; another stronger arm pulled me out of the nightmare.

I sat upright
so quickly I almost ended up face down. I realized I was sobbing and at the
same time realized I was sick. I vomited furiously on the ground for endless
minutes. Each time the black coming up became
　
thinner
and thinner until I finally was just vomiting up dinner. Even after my stomach
was empty I wanted to keep retching to
　
make
sure there was nothing left of
　
Daman
inside of me. Thankfully, when I was about to start shoving
　
fingers down my throat, someone
touched my back and I relented.

My eyes
followed the hand on my back up an arm and to a face and realized it was
Michael.

"Daman."
Michael said. It wasn't a question,
　
Michael
simply knew, but I nodded my head anyway. Eventually, I regained myself enough
to tell the story of the dream.

"He's
knows where we are," I said again after I finished, "We need to leave
now!"

"Alice, we
can't leave now, you are in no sta--"

I cut him off,
"I'll be in a worse state
　
if
Daman finds me here. Find everyone else, we'll leave a tip for Kinga to let her
know to beware of him showing up and--"

My words
stopped in my throat, "And we need to take Leigh and Maria." I
finished.

I couldn't see
Michael's face but I knew he was stunned, "We can't take them," he
protested, "it's dangerous enough as it is."

"But if we
leave them here and Daman comes they'll be the first
　
he goes after. He knows who Maria is and if Leigh
is with her he won't hesitate to hurt her too because he'll know it will hurt
　
me. We have to take them!"

Michael wanted
to argue, I could feel him tense against me, but there was no valid argument to
what I had said. He knew it was true just as much as I
　
did.

"Okay,"
Michael said, "Kinga's already moved Maria to the infirmary again and
Leigh will be
　
either there
or in her room. We'll have to be careful, Kinga isn't too impressed with you
and she's been looking for you since you left dinner."

I nodded,
"I know, she got mad because I was spending time with you. It's
like--" I stopped again.

"Like
what?" Michael inquired. We were standing now and he was already at the
trapdoor pulling it up so I could step through.

"Nothing,
never mind," I said and hurried down the steps. I was still a little
shaky, but I used the wall and somehow made
　
it
all the way to the door at the bottom of the stairs.

"Infirmary
please," I said to the door and pushed my way through with Michael hot on
my heels.
　

Chapter Thirty-four

The infirmary
was darker than outside had been; the only light was at the end of the room
directly over Rebecca's bed. She was still belted down and sleeping like death,
as were the rest of the patients. They looked like peaceful corpses lying there
and it gave the whole room the eerie feel of being a morgue, I would know.

I followed
Michael down the aisle between the beds somewhat hesitantly, I was afraid that
just my presence might set Rebecca off again and we wouldn’t be able to come
anywhere close to rescuing Maria. If Rebecca started screaming we’d be the ones
that needed saving.

We looked at
each bed as we passed, but they were either empty or occupied by the same five
people I’d seen the first time I visited. Then I saw her, she was directly
across from Rebecca’s bed, also belted down and hooked up to a bag of the same
sedative I’d seen Katelyn use on Rebecca when she had come unglued.

Maria already
looked worse than she had when I had found her. Her hair was a tangled mess,
the hospital smock she was wearing was stained and ripped, and there were small
cuts on her hands as though someone had scratched her. I realized she must have
fought hard against being taken away from Leigh.

“How do we get
her out?” I asked Michael. It was a stupid question; Michael was already
working the belts off Maria and removing the IV from her arm as I asked it. As
he undid the last buckle I half expected sirens to go off but nothing happened.

Michael wrapped
Maria in the blanket she’d been lying on top of and picked her up as though she
were a child.

“Let’s go,”
Michael breathed. Rebecca stirred in her slumber as we started walking, but
other than that the room remained morbidly silent.

When we exited
the infirmary I realized how little I had been breathing. Spots danced in front
of my eyes as I tried to get my oxygen levels back to normal. For the first
time I missed not needing to breathe.

I followed as
Michael went through door after door.

“Why are you
using so many doors?” I asked finally, “Wouldn’t it be easier to just use one?”

“Easier yes,
sneakier no,” Michael said as he shifted Maria’s weight and opened another
door, “Remember how I told you that you can’t use a door if someone else is
already using it?”

“Yes,” I
replied slowly.

“The more doors
I use the more others can’t, if someone were following us it would be easy for
them to know where we were going if we only used one door. But when we use more
doors it becomes exponentially harder to follow a definite path.” Michael
explained. He opened one more door and we stepped through into my room.

“That kind of
makes my head hurt,” I admitted.

Michael
laughed, “Don’t think about it too hard, it only makes it worse.” He set Maria
down on my bed. She continued to imitate a dead body while Michael turned his
back and I changed her in to more travel appropriate clothing.

When I was
finished with Maria I turned to Michael and asked how he planned to get Leigh.

“That could be
a little bit harder since we don’t know where she is,” Michael said, “We’ll try
her room first, but knowing her she’ll be out even if Kinga locked her in.”

I didn’t even
want to know how one might go about locking the doors in this place; my head
was still reeling from trying to comprehend everything else Michael had told
me.

“Will Maria be
okay here? Should I stay with her to make sure no one finds her?” I asked.

Michael shook
his head, “No, the room doesn’t belong to her, so as long as we leave her in
here no one but you can get in.”

I nodded like I
understood completely even though I didn’t.

I led the way
through the doors this time with a little help from Michael on choosing which
ones to use. Eventually, we ended up outside a door that Michael said was
Leigh’s. It looked different than any other door I had seen so far. It was
brown wood like the ones that used to be in my house, but it was decorated with
hand painted flowers and carved with the name ‘Aida’.

I turned the
knob on the door and stepped inside. The room was dark of course, but there was
the soft glow of moonlight about the room. I made a mental note to ask Leigh
how to do that later. Michael went to the bed to see if Leigh was there while I
looked around the room.

It was
decorated much like my own room; the furniture was nearly identical except for
the hand painted flowers on each of the pieces. Unlike my room though, the room
seemed to breathe life. The walls were decorated with drawings obviously done
by Leigh. The majority of the pictures depicted someone, who could only be
Michael, doing various things like playing tag with Leigh, teaching Leigh how
to dance, and one even showed him singing.

There were
pictures of Kinga too, but they were not nearly as flattering as Michael’s.
Something told me Leigh had only drawn them to keep Kinga happy.

“She loves
drawing,” Michael said from right behind me. I jumped and whirled around
expecting to see Daman. Michael’s voice had sounded so similar to his brother’s
it had almost caused me to faint.

“I—I can see
that,” I said.

“I didn’t mean
to scare you,” Michael said, “Leigh isn’t here. She stuffed pillows under her
blankets and left a note telling Kinga that she decided to run away with
Maria.”

“She’s going
back to the infirmary,” I whispered. I groaned aloud, I had hoped I’d never
have to enter that place at night again, and here I was already crushing those
hopes less than an hour later.

Michael nodded,
“We should go quickly, it seemed like we got in and out of there too easily. I
can’t believe that Kinga won’t have some kind of guard around there.”

I took a deep
breath and turned to the door again, I was halfway there when the knob rattled.
Without thinking, Michael and I both darted under the bed. I pulled my right
foot under with me just as the door opened.

Light spilled
in from the hall outside and illuminated Michael’s face. He looked astonished
and I couldn’t comprehend why until I saw the feet that were approaching the
bed. They were much too large to be Leigh’s, which meant that someone had been
able to open the door even though we were inside.

I didn’t
breathe as the feet came to a stop near my feet were at the head of the bed. I
didn’t have a clear view so I couldn’t tell who it was, at least not until she
screamed, “Aida!”

Michael and I
looked at each other in alarm, “Kinga,” we both mouthed.

Kinga’s feet
sprinted from the room; she didn’t even bother to close the door behind her.

Simultaneously,
Michael and I scrambled out from under the bed. We stood and stared at each
other in horror; then, without a word we raced from the room following Kinga's
path.

Michael
wrenched open the first door he came to. We nearly ran into Kinga who was
staring uncomprehendingly at the infirmary. It was pure chaos.

Rebecca was
running around screaming for James and begging for her child. The other four
like her were pulling on their hair, ripping sheets from the beds and taking
turns tackling the frantic Danny and Katelyn who were attempting, but failing,
to keep order.

I looked around
but there was no sign of Leigh. I hoped she had already come and gone when she
realized Maria wasn't here, but something told me she was still hanging around
just in case.