55. Messed Up

I’m walking in the freezing woods over dead leaves and past bare trees. It’s night, and I can barely see anything and the wind feels like it’s blowing right through me. I glance down to look at my feet, but I don’t see anything. Then I reach to touch my arms and don’t feel anything either.

I’m a ghost.

No, you’re not. You’re dreaming.

But this doesn’t feel like a dream.

This feels different somehow.

I see the outline of a small house. Some kind of glow flickering in the window. I check the door and it’s locked, but that doesn’t matter because doors don’t hold back wandering, dreaming visitors.

I see that it’s a cabin much like the one behind our house. Except this one isn’t abandoned with a gaping hole in the middle.

This one has a set of candles in a couple of places that eerily light up the room. The small, rustic kitchen looks like it’s been in use. There’s a table with bowls and plates on it. An old rocking chair. A bed in the corner.

With someone lying on it shaking and screaming and jerking to get out.

It’s a woman.

No, it’s a girl.

And one of her arms and legs are shackled to the wall.

You remember seeing those shackles, don’t you, Chris?

I want to close my eyes, but I can’t.

I want to get away from here, but I don’t.

The screams are suddenly louder and her jerking is suddenly more crazy.

Then I see why.

There’s a round hole in the center of the room.

Sticking out of the hole is someone’s head.

A smiling, sick man who slips up out of the hole and moves toward the girl.

I try to scream. I try to do something. I try to do anything.

Please don’t please let her be please let me get out of here.

I tighten up every muscle I have in my body, and I force this picture and nightmare to go away.

I awaken in my own bed with my heart pounding and my face and neck sweaty as if I’ve been running.

I think about the scene that just unfolded in my mind.

That really happened.

I don’t know why, or when, or who that girl was. She was young, a lot younger than me.

The underground passages. The old mansion that belonged to the Solitaire family.

And what about that nightmarish boxcar full of dead people?

I feel sick to my stomach. I sit up and then put a hand on the window. It’s so cold outside. The room is chilled, but nothing like outside.

The more I seem to discover about this town, whether it’s from being told or from being shown or from whatever these visions seem to be, the more I realize the evil that’s been going on for some time around here.

And Kinner wants that evil to move on into other places.

It makes me sick to think I come from this.

It makes me want—no, it makes me vow to put an end to this messed-up bloodline.

Either I’ll do something about it or I’ll die trying.