Even in my terrified state, I knew my options were limited.
I stood outside the building in the early morning sun, pacing through the dewey grass and fighting to choke down the panic that continuously threatened to send me, running and screaming, down the street.
There was something happening in the apartment, and the truth was that something had been happening for some time. I'd denied it, covered it up or assured myself that I was the problem. It'd been much easier to write everything off as paranoia caused by a move, but I was too far past that point to try and color the morning's events in such a way.
I'd never been a sleepwalker, and couldn't understand how I'd ended up in that accursed room without my even knowing it. And then there were the dreams I'd had while laying across the floor of that empty studio; so vivid, so gut-churningly awful and dark that even in the daylight, fully possessed of my senses, I couldn't purge them from my thoughts.
It was time to go. To end this silly experiment in independence. Someday, certainly, I'd move out on my own. My tenancy at the Lamplight had been a mistake, however. A huge one. I idled outside the main entrance to building 3 for several minutes, hoping to catch sight of another person. The other buildings were as still as five-story mausoleums though, and the people living in the houses across the street had either gone to work already or were still asleep.
I was alone.
I needed to go back into the apartment and pack some things. I needed my phone, to change my clothes, to gather up all of my valuables and essentials. But I didn't want to.
When I'd recovered my things, I could wait outside for a few hours till my dad—or Julia or Annie—came to get me. If necessary I'd just head straight for campus and wait there till a ride materialized.
Going back inside was one of the hardest things I'd ever done. Entering the commons area and eyeing the stairway door, I hesitated for a long time before soldiering up the flights. I paused at the second-floor landing, considered speaking to Ike, though as I approached his door I thought better of it. That man, kind though he was, couldn't help me. The only way to stop this would be for me to leave. Permanently.
I wandered into my apartment like a stranger. My eyes darted about the studio as though it were my first time inside, but as seconds passed I recognized that nothing had changed. My futon was still there, an unmade mess. The television and dresser were still there. In the kitchen, next to the sink, was a glass I'd used the day before, still half-full of water.
Don't freak out, OK? Just take your things and go. You can call dad when you're outside.
I rifled through my things and sourced a large bag, into which I dumped most of my clothing and anything I deemed valuable. There was no way I could bring the television with me, though perhaps my dad would be willing to come in for it later on. I unearthed my phone, liberating it from the mess of sheets on the futon, and then started backing out of the apartment. Opening the door, I stepped out onto the landing, locked up, and dashed down the stairs to the commons area, where I finally allowed myself a moment to breathe.
I thumbed my phone on, getting ready to call my dad. I hoped he wasn't busy, that he'd be able to come and get me, and that I'd be able to give some reasonable excuse for my sudden change of heart. This entire apartment thing had been my idea, and I'd constantly reassured him that I liked living here. What the hell could I tell him? The truth, in this case, was simply off-limits. I wasn't even sure that I could articulate the truth myself, if we're being honest. There was simply so much going on in that apartment that a weak excuse would be easier to offer up.
I was about to dial my father when I noticed I had a deluge of missed calls and texts. Standing just inside the main door, the warm morning wind threatening of another miserably hot day, I scrolled through them all and listened to some voicemails.
The calls and texts came from Annie and Julia, save for one, whose number was unlisted.
The two of them, in numerous messages over the course of the night, had said more or less the same thing.
Cat was no longer in a coma. She'd come around despite all odds and was now conscious. It was great news, though I wasn't in any state of mind to rejoice over it. What struck me as odd was the other tidbit they shared.
Not only was Cat awake, but she was demanding to see me. To hear Annie tell it, Cat's first words, her first request upon fully regaining consciousness, was to demand to see me.
And then I listened to the last voicemail, from the private number. Before a single word was spoken on the recording, I heard the din of medical equipment and the beeping of a telemetry monitor. There was some hushed talk in the background, possibly a nurse or visitor, followed by a rattling noise, as of the receiver being brought up to the caller's lips.
The voice that spoke shortly thereafter was so weak that I nearly didn't recognize it as Cat's. “Tori,” she rasped, “Tori, this is Cat Meyers. I've been trying to reach you. We need to talk. It's about the other night. You know what I'm talking about.” She took a shaky breath. “Please, if you get this, come straight over to the hospital. They might be transferring me, but I've given my parents instructions, and the staff, too, not to turn you away. Please, it's important.” I heard someone muttering in the background. The sound worsened, and Cat's goodbye sounded faint. “Please, Tori. We have to talk.”
The message ended and I hurriedly deleted it. Keeping it in my voicemail felt somehow dirty to me, and the very sound of Cat's voice, ringing in my ear, gave me the shivers.
Not a day out of her coma, Cat had wanted to talk to me.
It's about the séance.
I stuffed the phone into my pocket and looked up at building 3, at the column of windows above me. “What does she want to tell me?” I thought aloud, taking a step out onto the grounds.
Whatever it was, she claimed it was of the utmost importance. Probably it was related to the things I'd been seeing throughout the complex, to the dark energies that had so suffused the place since we'd messed around with her Ouija board.
She wants to talk about what she saw, I thought, recalling the utter terror on her face as she'd collapsed on that rainy night.
She wants to talk about Evelyn.
I tightened the strap on my bag and decided to set out for the hospital. It wasn't far by foot, and even though I knew Cat had nothing pleasant to share, my instinct was that this was something I needed to hear. A much-needed piece of the puzzle. No matter what she told me, I assured myself I was through with the Lamplight complex, with apartment 10. I wasn't going to live there anymore and subject myself to torment. When I'd seen Cat and she'd said her piece, I'd call up my dad and leave the complex for good.
What have you got for me, Cat? I wondered as I walked along. The morning was warm, but it was still cool enough out for me to make the trek without much difficulty. I beat pavement, crossed Main and Wooster and was approaching the glass front doors of the Moorlake Health Center in just under an hour.
I don't think I'll ever get used to the smell of hospitals. The smell is a weird combination of antiseptic spray and human suffering, and it seeps into everything. You can smell it the minute you walk in the door, even in places as picturesque as the lobby. It's just a different kind of air.
The elevator spit me out on the ninth floor, and I followed the signs to the Neuro ICU, where Annie had told me to meet Cat. I wasn't sure what bed she was in or if the staff would let me visit her, but I walked down the well-lit hall all the same, pausing in front of two imposing doors. There was a sign on the wall instructing visitors to hit a button to be buzzed inside, and up above an ancient-looking security camera blinked at me. I tapped the white button and waited. A few moments later, there was a loud click and the door opened outward, giving me a stronger dose of that off-putting hospital smell.
There must have been about fifteen patient rooms within the Neuro ICU, all of them fronted by large, glass doors. The nurse's station was positioned in the middle, making the whole place look more like a maximum security prison than a hospital ward. The lights were kept low and windows were all shuttered, making it hard to tell whether it was day or night. I walked through the doorway nervously and approached the desk, greeting the attendant. “Hi,” I said, “I'm here to visit someone.”
The woman was courting the latter half of middle age and wore a semi-permanent frown. Her hair was dyed blonde and cut short, and her ruby red lipstick stood out in the gloom. The perfume she wore, a sweet, flowery thing, clashed awfully with the surrounding smells and made my stomach roil.
That wasn't the only reason my stomach chose to act up, though. I was nervous. I'd been called to the hospital by Cat herself and didn't know what to expect. With everything that'd happened to her, was Cat even of sound mind? My morning had been packed with stress that I hadn't fully recovered from, and walking into this place was only freaking me out further. There wasn't much choice, though; if Cat had something for me, some information that would help me piece together the nightmarish goings-on at the Lamplight complex, then I needed to listen up.
The clerk scrolled through a list of names on her screen. “Who is it you're here to visit?” she asked softly.
“Cat Meyers,” I replied, looking around at the glass-fronted rooms. I tried not to shudder as I saw people with tubes protruding from their mouths and throats; people with messes of wires affixed to their heads; patients strapped down to their beds by their wrists and ankles. The ICU wasn't a pretty place. What state would Cat be in?
“She's in bed 12,” replied the woman at the desk. She rotated in her chair and pointed towards the rear of the nursing unit.
I thanked her and got moving, minding the numbers posted on the outside of every door until I reached the twelfth. Sucking in a deep breath, I gripped the strap of my bag and took a step inside. The glass door to this room had been blocked partially by a curtain so that I couldn't look in. I rapped on the glass gingerly and called out. “Hi, C-cat? It's me. It's Tori.”
There was silence.
Pushing through my hesitation, I stepped past the curtain and into the room.
Cat was sitting on the edge of her bed, staring right at me.
I doubled back, spooked. “Jesus, Cat...” I fought to grin. “You scared me.”
Though she'd been through a great deal, Cat looked surprisingly good. She had a large, white dressing on her head where she'd evidently been operated on, and some of her hair had been shaved away, too. Her skinny frame was draped in a white hospital gown and she sat near the foot of the bed, feet dangling over the floor. Her eyes were as big and sharp as ever, and as I entered she hit me at once with what I took to be sternness. “I've been waiting for you, Tori.”
“Yes, I'm sorry I couldn't make it over sooner,” I replied. “I, uh... I didn't get all of the messages till this morning.”
Cat looked behind me, over my shoulder. I followed her gaze, but saw nothing of note. “Close the door,” she uttered. “We need to have a talk, in private.”
I did as I was told and slid the glass door closed. I pulled the curtain completely closed as well, for added privacy. “So, what's this about?” I asked, making my way over to one of the guest chairs in the corner. I dropped my bag onto the floor and had a seat.
“You know what it's about,” she replied.
And she was right.
“Listen,” I began, “after that séance, I've been having a hell of a time back at the apartment. I've been seeing things, hearing things... losing track of time. And then last night, I--”
Cat raised one hand to hush me. “You need to listen to me, Tori. Listen very closely.” She tugged on the collar of her gown and leaned forward. “That night, when we were playing with the board, we made contact with something.”
I nodded. “Y-yeah, I remember.”
She licked her lips, eyes narrowing. “It wasn't your mother, Tori.”
“I know.”
“I saw what it was,” continued Cat. She began wringing her hands in her lap, her thin white fingers reddening. “I saw it. Or, rather, it revealed itself to me.”
“You saw Evelyn,” I squeaked. “I've seen her, too.”
Cat looked at me like I was dumb, cocking her head to the side. “Who's Evelyn?”
“The woman. The woman in black, with... with the...” I cleared my throat. The air in the room was painfully dry. I felt like I needed a drink of water. “You didn't see Evelyn?”
Cat shook her head. “What I saw,” she replied, “wasn't even human.”
I tensed in my chair, the plastic seat groaning as I leaned to one side. “W-well, what did you see, then?”
Cat reached out and smoothed the covers on her bed with a shaky hand. It took her a minute to get started, and more than once she could be seen to wince in her retelling. “It was raining, and the lights were out. There was some point, before everything came to a halt, that I sensed something in the room with us. But it wasn't a good feeling. Quite the opposite. I... I felt something dark. Something unkind.” She bit her lip. “That's not accurate. It was more than all of that. It was like... like the devil himself had walked into the room with us.”
I nodded.
“And I think that this thing, whatever it is, has been there for a while now. It isn't the sort of presence that exists in this world by accident. An energy of this kind has to be brought here. It has to be invited into our sphere, do you understand what I mean? And once it crosses over, it tends to stick around in this world of ours. It won't go away, because in this world, it has a chance at living. It clings to people, crawls into them like an insect, latches onto their spirit.”
“It possesses them?” I asked.
Cat shrugged. “Something like that. Anyway, that night, I turned and saw it coming in through your window. Right through the glass. It tried to climb inside of me, but I wouldn't let it. I fought it with everything I had. And I guess that was what did it.” She motioned to the dressing on her head. “But Tori, whatever that thing is, it's been in the building for a while. Maybe someone who lived there before you did messed around with a Ouija board, or else invited it into the world through other means. They probably didn't know what they were getting themselves into, but now that it's here, sending it back is going to be very difficult.”
I'd had my fists balled while Cat spoke, and without realizing it I'd buried my nails in my palms, leaving them sore and red. Evelyn, I thought. Evelyn invited this thing into the apartment building. I remembered the dreams I'd had, where I'd watched Evelyn standing in her bathroom, conversing with something in the mirror. I recalled, too, what she'd whispered in my ear as I slept. “I thought it would stop. That I could take it with me in death. But I couldn't. It never stops. Never stops. Because death is not the end.” Evelyn had tampered with forces she couldn't control, had probably tapped into something with one of those books of hers.
“What is it?” asked Cat. “What did you see?”
Struggling to keep my voice from breaking, I explained myself. “There was a woman who lived in the apartment above mine. She committed suicide months ago, and her body was only recovered about a month before I moved in. Her name was Evelyn. I've been seeing her... hearing her. Both in my dreams and in waking life. I've dreamt of her reading from strange, old books, of her speaking to something in her bathroom mirror. In my dreams, she's spoken to me, too. She's told me things like, 'I tried to stop it...' She was the one who invited this presence into the building, and I think she killed herself because she wanted to set it right. She wanted to end it. But she told me another thing. 'Death didn't work, because death is not the end.' I... I wasn't sure what to make of it at the time.”
Cat sighed, bringing one leg up onto her bed. “This woman, whoever she was... she was trying to warn you.”
“Warn me?”
She nodded solemnly. “She came to you in dreams. When the dead want to communicate with us, they often choose dreams as the medium.”
“I don't understand...” I gulped. For the longest time, I'd been terrified of Evelyn. She'd been barging into my dreams, showing up in my periphery, scaring me half to death. I had trouble grasping this idea that she was somehow looking out for me.
“She showed you everything because she wanted you to avoid her fate. She probably wanted you out of the building so that the presence wouldn't be able to latch onto you.” Cat massaged her brow. “She probably killed herself because this entity tried to take her over. It wanted to claim her. Rather than let it win, she killed herself. That was probably what she meant. She thought she could stop it if she died, but the dark spirit remained in the apartment even after her passing. And due to the nature of her death, so did Evelyn's soul.”
“So... so Evelyn was trying to warn me all this time? She was trying to... to protect me?” I combed a hand through my hair, gave my ponytail a tug. “What am I supposed to do now?” I asked. “She warned me, but... but what can I possibly do?”
“You need to sever the dark spirit's tie to this world,” replied Cat. “It reached out to us when we used the Ouija board. Up until that moment, it'd probably been in a kind of hibernation, waiting for someone to connect with it. You have to destroy the board, Tori. As long as it survives, there may be a link between us and this presence.”
Leaning back in my chair, I tittered. “T-the board? Cat, I... I pitched that thing. A while ago now. It's... It's gone. I have no idea where it is now.”
“You threw it away?” Cat grit her teeth. “Damn it.” She took to nibbling her thumbnail, then said, “All right, then what you must do is get out of there. Get out of the apartment.”
I nodded. “I'm way ahead of you. I won't stay there another night, not after everything I've seen. But... but what about the next person who lives there?”
Cat frowned. “It won't stop. It'll never stop until it has what it wants. The next person to move in there will likely fall prey to it unless we send the spirit back to whatever pit it crawled out of.”
“How can we do that without the board?” I asked.
“Something is tethering it. How did Evelyn conjure it up to begin with?”
I thought back to my dreams and explained the process to Cat as best I could. “I dreamt that Evelyn was standing at her bathroom sink. She had a book... a big book covered in metal, and she was... she was talking to something in the mirror. I didn't get a great look at it, but I know that it wasn't just her reflection. Later on though, I guess when she realized what it really was, she freaked out. I saw her screaming at the thing, crying.”
“OK,” said Cat. “It sounds like she called out to it in the mirror. Maybe if we destroy that mirror we can get rid of it for good.”
“The mirror?” I thought back to apartment 11, to the bathroom mirror whose cabinet had been thoroughly gouged by Evelyn's nails. “Are you sure that breaking the mirror would work?”
“Aside from torching the entire building, there's no other choice,” replied Cat. If you want to make sure that this thing goes away—for good—then you have to sever its ties to the world.” She laid back in her bed. “They won't let me out of here. It's going to be a while. It's up to you, Tori. Whatever you do, I urge you to move out of that building.”
Cat looked tired now, and I took that as my sign to beat it. I stood up and thanked her for the intel, but as I left the ICU I had more questions than answers.