Unreal City (15 page)

“So, what
did
happen?” she broached at last.

My eyes were fixed on the churning line of the ocean horizon. The water was silver, as were the clouds veiling the sky, which peeked through in smoky yellow patches.

“I don’t know. A boy was killed. He drowned, and I saw his body. It was how Lea died. I just—
lost
it, I guess,” I mumbled. I picked up a stick lying nearby and dug around in the sand. The beach was filthy compared to the ones in Unreal City. “I’m just feeling weird lately. I miss my sister. I’m scared of what might happen—if there’s other people dying like her—”

“I can definitely see why,” Joy mused, sounding as if she really did understand. “A few of my friends knew the boy that was killed. His name was Tyler Ferguson. The whole school is shocked and horrified, and the police are definitely looking into it.” Joy hesitated a moment, then gently put her hand over mine. I shivered under her touch, but it was still nice. “If it is the same person that—that took your sister’s life, they’re bound to find him, Sarah. They’re going to bring him to justice.”

“I hope so. I have a weird feeling about all this,” I confessed. “I just wish I would’ve spent more time with Lea before she died. Maybe then I’d know a little more about what happened. Right after she graduated, she spent almost every waking moment with her boyfriend, Stephen. We hardly saw her, and I can’t help but feel that there was something she wasn’t telling me.”

Joy remained silent and let the melancholy moment pass, then scooped up a mound of sand and began building a misshapen castle. After watching her for a moment, I decided to join in.

Our work ethic was impressive. We decorated it with little shells and by the time the sun had sunken away and drenched us in the gloom of night, our kingdom was complete. We talked about past relationships, various friendships that had gone wrong and right, and all the girls that irked us most in our separate high school adventures. Joy joked that nothing really cements a friendship like hating the same things, as dismal as that sounds, and I couldn’t help but agree. On our way back, we walked along the shoreline and dug into the sand to find little glowing creatures nestled below the surface. I found them beautiful, but the thought of them buried and packed under the ground like I had been sent a chill running down my spine.

We took the rented car back to campus, making plans to hang out again soon. As I made the journey to the bus stop along a long road lined with wispy, cat-tailed plants, I thought of Felix trapped in the wardrobe.

I should have expected what happened next, given Felix’s warning, but it surprised me nonetheless. As I walked along the misty, dim trail, I saw the ground suddenly full of holes. Instead of empty, dark tunnels, they were filled with a pus-like substance, somewhere between mold and swamp water. I could blink or rub my eyes and they would be gone, but then they would gradually return. I tried without success to will them away, and even attempted to run past, but my foot got stuck in the sludge. I wrenched it free and scurried my way to the bus stop, keeping my eyes shut for long stretches of time and forcing my mind to focus on school.

I hurried onto the bus and took a seat in the back. It wasn’t long before the bleed-throughs began again. This time it was as if I could hear all the thoughts of the people on the bus. They were echoing off the metallic ceiling, getting louder and louder with every reverberation. I heard worries about money, love, and exams. I heard replayed memories and felt the dismal resonance of someone dreaming of a life they could never have. I covered my ears, but it didn’t help. It was inside my head.

The only thing I could do after that was run to my dorm room and leap into bed with the hope of falling asleep quickly. I was wrong. The silence hummed too loudly. My heart would not relent from its quickened tempo.

Hours went by without rest, my body taut, anticipating some horror to visit me in the darkness. My exhaustion, both mental and physical, tormented me. At some point, I think I fell asleep, though I’m not sure. If I had been sleeping, then I dreamt of a human shape with antlers standing outside my window, waiting for me. If I had been awake, then it really was there.

I rose in the morning, my limbs shaking and my head swimming. I crawled down from my bunk and went to the wardrobe to grab a hoodie, screaming when I saw Felix sitting in there.

“Good morning, Sarah. May I come out now? Have you got something for me?”

“N-no. Not right now. Stay in there,” I said, shutting him back inside the dark of the closet. I deliberated for a moment, wondering what I was doing by keeping him trapped in there, but chose to turn away.

The week that followed was one of the worst of my life. I tried to get to class as much as I could, but the bleed-throughs plagued me and no matter how I tried I couldn’t sleep. On Wednesday morning as I sat in a lecture, the roar of a lion exploded out from the walls. I covered my head and shrieked, and soon realized I had stunned the whole class. I bolted from the classroom, ignoring the stares and questions from the teacher and students. Mortified, I snarled,
“What the fuck are you looking at?”
to two girls shamelessly gaping my way.

I DIDN’T GO
to class after that day. I stayed trapped in my room or wandered without direction around the campus. Voices—snippets of pointless conversations from years ago, perhaps, were trapped in certain places and repeated like broken records. Occasionally, my vision would warp, like the world was melting or shifting, and I couldn’t do anything but ride it out.

The third night after I’d locked Felix away, I saw the antler-man again. He stalked up to my window sometime after two in the morning. I sat upright in bed and clung to the covers, and Felix began to mewl from inside the wardrobe.

“Felix what’s there? What’s out there?” I whispered, unable to remove my eyes from the outline of the visitor.

“I don’t know! It feels awful though. Sarah, let me out.
Sarah
,
please,
” Felix whined, scratching at the sides of the wood.

I climbed slowly down from the top bunk, my body shaking as I watched the antler-man watching me. Though his shape was human, with long, shaggy hair, he was too thin, too stretched, his limbs too long. I didn’t want to get closer to the window, but I’d have to if I wanted to let Felix out.

“Felix, I can’t,” I whispered. “I’m scared, Felix.”

His meows grew to a screeching, primal wail, and the scratching became frantic. The antler-man took a few steps backward and I thought he would go away, but he stopped and looked over his shoulder toward the window again.

Come back. Come find me. Come back to Unreal City.

The words echoed in my head in a voice that sounded as if it had been spoken by a pair of wet, dripping lips. I shrieked. Felix had gone quiet. A few moments of acute terror passed by and then the antler-man left.

My courage returned too late, and I rushed to the window, needing to know what he looked like. But it was too late—whatever he was, he’d evaporated like mist.

I went to the wardrobe and opened the doors a crack. The inside had been shredded, and Felix’s hackles were raised, his eyes wild.

“Did you hear what it said to me?” I whispered to the familiar.

“No,” Felix growled.

“If I let you out, what will you do?”

“Feed me.”

“Will you run away?” I pressed and Felix bared his pearly teeth.

“
Feed me
,” he insisted, wrath simmering in his voice. I was so frustrated that I ripped out some strands of my hair and tossed them to him. My scalp stung as he gobbled them down like spaghetti, then looked up at me with brighter eyes. “More.”

“No, not right now,” I told him, then shut the door again. I wandered around the room, anxiety clenching within my chest. I paced until my legs grew shaky and my head dizzy, then collapsed in front of the window. I waited there all night. I was too scared to get back into bed. Too scared to do anything but watch for
him
again. My ears rang periodically with bleed-throughs, and by the time the sun came up, I was hardly conscious. I think I fell asleep on the carpet a few hours after dawn, but it was a restless sleep and my dreams seemed too close to reality to be sure.

The next few days passed as if in a dream, and the only thing that brought me out of my daze was a call from Joy that came late one night—I couldn’t be sure how long it had been since I’d seen her. The shock of my phone’s ringtone sent my heart pumping madly, but I answered it.

“Sarah, you didn’t come to class tonight,” Joy said, sounding both annoyed and concerned.

The realization that I’d completely blown off our project hit me like a stone in the bottom of my stomach.

“Oh, my God, Joy, I’m—I’m
so sorry—
” I gasped, my hand to my forehead and my chest tightening with guilt. “I can’t even—I have no excuse, I just—”

“Sarah, are you okay? You sound—”

“No,” my voice quivered, and I gripped the side of my desk as I put my head down.

“Can I come over?” she asked, and though my pride told me to reject her offer, the mixture of sleep deprivation, prolonged endurance of fear, and isolation had made me weak.

“Please. Please come over, Joy,” I begged, my voice warbling. Joy went silent for a moment, and I heard her phone shift.

“I’ll be right there. Let me into the dorm when I get there,” she said before she hung up.

I waited for her with my head buzzing. For ten minutes I watched my phone’s clock, then I put my head down on the desk. Ten more minutes passed.

Where is she?

The ringing in my ears exploded and I cowered, covering my ears with my hands and screaming. My head rolled back as the effort of trying to keep myself together finally snapped. I was unable to even hear my own screams against the ringing in my ears, but the feeling of making such a sound eased some of my angst. As I looked up at the lights on the ceiling, though, suddenly it was like shards of razor blades were piercing my eyes. I toppled backward, covering them, and scrambled blindly to the wall to turn off the switch. I had to stop the pain.

I fell onto Lea’s bed, my head throbbing with the echoes of pain assaulting me. Even in the almost complete darkness, it felt like I was staring at a bright cluster of fluorescent bulbs. I crawled under the covers and pulled them over my head, aching for somewhere darker to hide. I stayed there like a caterpillar squirming in the protective shell of its cocoon, until the ringing faded and I realized someone was pounding at my door.

It’s him
, a terrorized part of my brain whispered
. It’s the man with antlers. Don’t let him in.

I quieted this voice and got up from the bed on unsure legs. My hand lay on the doorknob for a while, feeling the knocks pounding on the other side of it.

“Sarah!” Joy’s voice came from the other side, and I undid the lock and ripped open the door to see her standing there with a pale face and wide eyes. The stream of light from the hall made my eyes sting, but whatever had happened to make that symptom occur was already fading. The light hurt less now.

Joy looked me over, her expression horrified. “What happened to you?! You wouldn’t let me in! I had to wait until other people came along.”

I wanted to tell her so badly, but I couldn’t. I knew she’d think I was insane—

You are insane.

I burst into tears and started to double over, but felt her hand on my back. Without losing her calm, Joy led me over to Lea’s bed. I lay down with trembling limbs until the brief spout of tears ebbed away and my breathing began to stabilize. Joy took a water bottle out of her purse and handed it to me. I drank from it greedily, feeling the water dribble down my chin. It was only then I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a drink of water or eaten.

“Tell me what’s going on, please. The other kids in the hall said you were screaming. You look like you need a doctor,” Joy said gently.

“No, please. No doctors. I’m fine. I’m just—things are hard right now. Please. No doctors,” I begged.

“I can’t just sit here while you’re sick and not call a doctor. You know that, right?” Joy argued, and for the first time since I’d met her I saw anger cross her face.