Chapter 25
twenty-five
Ash
I can tell at once that I’m dreaming from the subtle press I’ve learned to recognize on the back of my mind. Sitting up in bed and peering about my darkened room, I also realize it’s not solely my dream I’ve entered.
Regret thrums in my chest like a discordant heartbeat. It’s like that night after Emily’s party. Once again, I’d forgotten to take my sleeping pills and ended up sucked into Dylan’s dream, accidentally putting him at risk.
Someone shifts under the covers beside me. I turn toward them, muffling a frustrated sigh. “Sorry about this, Dylan. I didn’t mean to drag us into a shared dream.” I pause, considering. “Though I suppose now that we’re here, we might as well enjoy it. How about a trip to the moon?”
No reply.
Frowning, I reach over and grasp the covers. “Dylan? What’re you—?”
Shock freezes me in place as the covers fall aside to reveal wavy blond hair and a familiar freckled face I last saw staring at me with the same hollow expression he wears now.
“This is all your fault!” Harvey accuses. He scrambles away from me and tumbles out of the bed, his face wild with terror. “You’re a freak! A monster!”
“I…” My tongue is tied in my mouth, my words escaping me as I stare after his retreating form. He reaches the far corner of the room and huddles in the shadows beside my desk.
This isn’t real, I remind myself, my heart pounding. It’s only a dream.
I take a deep breath and try to will Harvey away. The dream refuses to cooperate, the only sign of change a brief shimmer in the air.
Harvey’s accusatory finger pierces the space between us. “I knew you were bad news. All my friends warned me to stay away from you, but I didn’t listen. And now look what happened. Look!”
He twists his arm around to reveal his wrist, and I recoil at the angry red lines crisscrossing it.
“I didn’t do that!” I protest weakly. “T-that’s not my fault!”
“Of course, it is,” Harvey sneers. “Because that’s what you do, isn’t it? You hurt people. People you pretend to care about. I was an idiot to think it would be any different with me.”
I try to ignore his taunts even as they slice into me like well-placed knives. He knows just what to say to hurt you because he is you. The real Harvey is alive and well back in Maine.
Carefully, I climb out of bed, keeping my distance from the imagined Harvey as I steal a glance toward my closed bedroom door.
When I look back, I find that Harvey’s taken a step toward me. “You’re like a walking plague. Corrupting every good and decent thing you touch.” He takes another halting step. “Your parents, me, Greta, Dylan—we’re nothing but a procession of victims waiting for you to ruin us.”
A tremor racks me. I shake my head, backing slowly toward the door. “No. That’s not true.”
“Oh, but it is!” Step. “Even if you’re too cowardly to face it. But don’t worry.” Fear prickles my skin as Harvey’s face contorts, becoming ghoulish. His eyes gleam with mad fervor. “I’ll make sure you never hurt anyone again.”
He lunges forward with inhuman speed, the shadows distorting his form and elongating his fingers into grasping claws. I hurl myself at the door, scrambling to yank it open.
For a terrifying moment, I think it’s stuck tight, that the dream won’t let me escape. Then, I tumble through the opening, landing hard on a slick floor.
Scrabbling on my butt and hands, I scuttle away, twisting to regard the doorway. It’s gone. Around me stretches the main hallway of Banton High. No sign of Harvey or my room at all.
My heart pounds as I shakily stand, taking a moment to catch my breath. When I’ve shaken off the worst of my adrenaline, I close my eyes and try again to influence the dream. Again, it rebuffs me, slipping right through my metaphorical fingers the same way Greta’s dream had.
I curse under my breath, shoving down the lingering guilt and failure that thoughts of Greta conjure. Dylan must be far gone right now, trapped in the throes of his own nightmare. Our negative energy is feeding off each other, amplifying the effects. Just like with Mom and Harvey.
The only way to snap us out of it is for me to regain enough control to reach him. And for that, I need to focus. No more distractions.
“Hi, Ash.”
I whirl, my heart leaping to my throat. Greta stands in the middle of the previously empty hall. She looks just as I remember from her final dream, down to the same flower-patterned dress. Her wide grin, however, is frigid, lacking all its characteristic warmth. Goosebumps prickle my arms.
“Greta. What’re you doing here?”
She tilts her head quizzically. “What do you mean? Where else would I be? It’s not like I can go anywhere or do anything since you failed to save me.”
I clench my jaw, resisting the instant flicker of guilt. “That’s not fair. I did everything I could to help you.”
“Did you?” Her mocking laugh grates at my ears.
“Just like you did everything you could to return my friendship?” She shakes her head, her smile widening.
“Sorry, Ash, but we both know the truth. You never really cared about me. You’ve never really cared about anyone.
The only person you truly care about is yourself.
Why else would you keep letting everyone else down? ”
With an enormous effort of will, I wrench my gaze away. Turning my back on her, I start down the hall in the opposite direction, my footsteps echoing off the linoleum. “I’m not going to stand here and debate a figment of my imagination.”
“Because you know I’m right!” she calls after me. “Just like Harvey was right. You’re an emotional vampire, Ash, sucking the life out of everyone who cares about you while giving them nothing in return except empty misery!”
I ignore her, my shoulders tightening at her taunts as I keep walking.
“But don’t take our word for it! We’re not the first ones you let down, not by a long shot. Why don’t we ask her what she thinks?”
Her?
“Aaash.” My steps falter as the elongated call echoes down the corridor in front of me, raising the hairs along my arms and the back of my neck. “Oh, Aaash. Where are youuu?”
A horrible wet, slurping noise comes from around a bend in the hall twenty or so feet ahead. I stare at it, bile rising in my throat as the blood curdles in my veins. I will my feet to run, but they remain locked to the linoleum floor.
“My beautiful baby boy,” the gurgling voice croons, growing ever closer. “Oh, how I’ve missed you.”
A monstrous shadow flickers along the wall near the bend. The sight finally snaps me out of my stasis, and I turn and bolt in the opposite direction. Greta is gone as if she’d never been there to begin with.
She hadn’t. Because this is a dream. Remember that. This is only a dream.
I cling to the notion for all the good it’s doing me as I flee from one twisting corridor into another. The real Banton High is relatively small with only a few hundred students, but this version seems unending.
The imploring calls continue behind me unabated, driving me ever onward. Whatever monstrous thing is wearing my Mom’s face in this place, I don’t think I could bear the sight of it.
Gradually, the school halls shift around me, linoleum bleeding into stone while harsh fluorescent lighting fades to torchlight. Soon enough, the school is gone, replaced by an actual labyrinth of cracked stone and flickering torches—the perfect backdrop for a demon to hunt me.
I dash around a corner, my breaths coming in ragged gasps, and skid to a halt. The corridor dead ends ahead of me in a solid wall of stone. Frantically, my pulse pounding in my temples, I spin to try and bolt back to another crossing, but the shadow of my pursuer already looms. I’m trapped.
“No more running, Ash,” Mom purrs. “No more hiding. It’s time you finally faced the truth.”
“T-the truth?” I ask, trying to buy time as I desperately search the passage for another way out, my attempts to will one into existence in vain.
“That you’re a failure, Ash. Me, Harvey, Greta, Dylan…the list goes on and on.”
A shape appears in the mouth of the tunnel, and I avert my eyes, staring at the stone floor as squelching footsteps herald its plodding approach.
“I love you, baby, but let’s be real: everyone around you winds up miserable or dead.” She giggles, the sound scraping at my sanity. “Or both. That’s why I did what I did, Ash. I had to get away from you. Spending another second in that house with you was more torture than I could bear.”
“S-stop,” I whisper, my hands shaking as I clutch my arms to my chest, bowing my back. Tears stand out in my eyes. “P-please, s-stop.”
“I wish I could, baby. But you need to hear this. To really let it sink in so that you understand.”
The wet footsteps halt right in front of me. A hand, blackened with rot, cups my cheek. I gag at the sickly-sweet stench of decay permeating the air.
“You are my greatest regret,” Mom says gently. “You are cursed. Greta may be your most recent casualty, but she won’t be the last. You killed her. Just like you killed me. Just like you’re going to kill Dylan.”
Her poisonous words sink into me like barbs, ripping me open and leaving me numb. The flickering torchlight dims, the darkness around me growing. I can feel its ravenous hunger, a beast eager to devour me. I close my eyes, grateful for the promise of an end to the pain.
“Yesss,” Mom hisses, her squishy fingers caressing my cheek. “That’s it, baby. Just let it all go. It’s what’s best for you. What’s best for Dylan.”
Dylan…
I picture him trapped somewhere in this nightmare, all alone and suffering like I am. He doesn’t deserve that. If I give up now, I’ll be resigning him to the same fate as Harvey, at least until he wakes up in the morning.
Giving up is how I become a real failure.
“No,” I whisper. My hands tighten at my sides, the muscles in my neck and back tensing. “No!”
I straighten my back. The hand on my face falls away as resolve floods me.