Into Dreams: A Gina Harwood Novel (Gina Harwood Series Book 3) Page 2

  “Then I die,” she snapped, and she set her jaw and glared up at him. There was a silent plea in her eyes, but for what, he couldn’t be sure. For help? For someone else to take up this task? For me to prevent her from attempting such a mission? Or just to make it quick? He reached down and touched her hand softly, and she did not wince from it this time. She grabbed hold of it, and closed her eyes, nodding at him to proceed.

  “Do try not to,” he crooned, rolling his chair forward and sinking into it beside her. He imagined an arrow slit in his mental wall, and began his work. “I would be most upset.”

  He didn’t have to try terribly hard, she was clearly already exhausted. The adrenaline flushed out quickly, and within a few moments she was deeply asleep, her breaths long and slow. Victor leaned back, touching his fingers to his temple in a vain attempt to quiet the pain. Gina Harwood looked comfortable, lost amidst the blankets, her red hair spilling over the flat chaise pillow. Victor watched her eyes move under her eyelids, first quickly, and then slowing before stopping altogether. He nodded to himself grimly. The dreaming may start in the mind, but he knew she was no longer present. REM sleep was no longer necessary, which made the induced coma a feasible solution, making it far easier for him to care for her until her return. If she returns, the thought rising unbidden, and he pinched his lips together. Victor stood, walking over to the light switch and clicking it off, sighing with relief as the white light surrendered to the more comfortable darkness. He had a lot to do.

  3

  Nathan Jones stared out the window, mindlessly crunching on a bag of stale corn chips. He was vaguely aware of the scenery passing by outside, but it was a blur to his fixed eyes, a green and grey abstract of a world in which he no longer felt he belonged. No, his thoughts were on old friends he would never see again, for one reason or another. Some were far away, and some - he shuddered - were dead.

  Many times over this extended and, to his mind, useless road-trip had his mind pondered the seemingly-arbitrary path he had taken to get to this point. So many tiny decisions could have been made differently, a right turn instead of a left, leaving a week earlier, a different gas station stop, a billion infinitesimal things that would have changed the equation just enough. Just enough to still have a life. Just enough to have avoided so much death.

  In fact, the odds of him being here, now, after having experienced the inexplicable events at that rickety old house, seemed astronomical. Thus, Nathan Jones had come to the conclusion that they were destined to be here, in this clunky old panel van, driving away from - and probably toward - blood. Nothing else made sense to him.

  He glanced over at his last companion in the driver’s seat, wistfully allowing himself the fantasy of believing the drummer was just driving them to their next gig. Chris seemed to have lost even more weight from his already lanky body, and his normally-bright eyes seemed glazed. His big, red beard looked scragglier than usual, and its girth made his thin frame seem even more skeletal against it. His eyes were glued to the road, his hands making tiny automatic adjustments on the wheel. Nathan considered talking to him, making sure he was still fully present while operating such a heavy vehicle, but thought better of it and turned back to stare out of his own window.

  Just because he felt they were meant to be here, didn’t mean he wanted to be.

  Nathan had scoured his memories for reasons he might be being punished and had largely come up empty. He’d lived a pretty benign life. Of course, the very question of being punished was a strange one - he’d only had a passing, family-pleasing belief in a deity to begin with, and though the events he’d seen had gone a long way toward proving that things weren’t always as they seemed, he still didn’t know what to think. If there was some benevolent god up in the sky, then Nathan dearly wanted to have a long, stern conversation with it about the things he’d seen. Luke’s face flashed in front of his eyes, as it used to be in summer days while they tinkered with guitars in his garage, and Nathan winced as it transformed into the ghoulish death mask he’d last seen. Splattered with crimson and surrounded by fur.

  All Nathan had wanted was to make a music video. He was painfully aware that all of this led back to that insignificant but seminal decision, his decision, and he wondered if maybe something had implanted the idea in his head. Nothing seemed unimportant now. Everything seemed connected. But at the time, it had just sounded like fun, harmless fun, and maybe even a good promotional tool. He’d studied videos that he liked and made notes on the angles, the cinematography, had researched filters and lighting and special effects. It had been a fun side project and he loved researching things. The band had come around pretty quickly to the idea, although Nathan doubted that they truly believed the video would turn out any good. Except for Luke. Luke had been on board immediately, and seemed certain that it would be fantastic.

  Of course, Luke Glassman had proven to be the last person that Nathan would want as an ally. Even now, it was easier for Nathan to accept that a house could feel hatred and dead people could walk than for him to accept the things his old friend had done. The Luke he’d known was an amiable pacifist, not a scrapper, and certainly not a rapist or a killer. Nathan shook his head, causing the roadside brush to blur even further. Nothing seemed right, and everything seemed connected.

  “You okay?”

  Nathan jumped, startled by his friend’s voice disrupting the even flow of the highway beneath them and the humming rattle of the engine. Chris was looking at him, his light blue eyes squinting in concern.

  “Ish,” replied Nathan, taking a deep breath to slow his heartbeat. “Just thinking.”

  Chris grunted in response and nodded, turning his attention back to the highway. Nathan knew he didn’t need to ask what he was thinking about; he doubted either of them had thought about anything else. The old house in the woods had seemed perfect, a suitably spooky location to shoot. The first few days had gone pretty smoothly, minus a minor freakout over some dead rabbits around the side of the house. And electricity. Nathan remembered being very freaked out by electricity for some reason, but everything seemed so fuzzy. Trying to recollect the exact events in the house was like peering through glass covered in vaseline.

  Luke had brought along a blonde girl, Melissa, pretty enough to be a distraction for the rest of the band. Immediately dismissing her, Nathan had figured she wouldn’t be of much use in the video. He had been wrong; she was extremely professional and was pretty much the only one who was prepared for every scene. He felt a pang of guilt at his initial knee-jerk reaction to her, especially considering how she met her end. She was great. She was dead now, but she had been great. Nate frowned at his translucent reflection in the glass. He could barely remember her face now, and it had only been a few days since they’d left. Or had it been a week? It seemed longer. Two weeks? Nathan shook his head again, trying to bring his thoughts into focus. They started out crystal clear, but once they navigated through his neurons, they prismed out into clouds of color and fog.

  “Have you…” started Nathan, but he struggled to phrase the question correctly, clutching tight the thought lest he lose it. “Have you had trouble thinking straight? Lately, I mean? Since…?”

  “Not any more than usual,” answered Chris guardedly after a beat. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Well, no,” Nathan snapped. “And neither are you. Nothing is okay.” He took a deep breath before continuing. Chris didn’t move to interrupt. “No, I mean it’s like… it’s like I’m in a fog. I can’t, I can’t get my thoughts to work right.” Nate turned away from the window and looked, pleadingly, at Chris. He needed his friend to understand. He needed him to tell him he wasn’t the only crazy one.

  Chris glanced over, scratching at his beard in thought. “Maybe it’s trauma?” offered Chris. “That hits people differently, I think.”

  “How long have we been driving? How many days?” asked Nathan, ignoring the suggestion. Of course he was traumatized, and though he didn’t have any previous firs
thand experience with this sort of trauma (Does anyone? he wondered), it didn’t feel right. It had gone on for too long, and was too heavy. He felt wrong.

  “Four days,” came the measured response.

  “How can you be sure?” asked Nathan, unfolding his arms and grabbing on to the seatbelt. “How can you be sure of anything? Four days? It’s been at least a week.”

  “No,” answered Chris slowly. “It’s been four days.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Um, last sign I saw was Bluegate or Bluefield or something.”

  “What state?”

  “Virginia.”

  Nathan harrumphed. “You mean to tell me we’ve been driving for four days and we’re still in Virginia? How does that make any sense? I don’t think you know either.”

  Worry creased Chris’ face. “You said you didn’t want to be on the Interstate anymore back when we were in New York. Before we started heading south. You know, after… the fire.”

  “Fire?”

  “Seriously?” Chris reached over and pressed a hand to Nathan’s forehead. “The man on fire, Nathan. The guy who set himself on fire.”

  Nathan had forgotten the man in New York, running into the street screaming, his leaping and twitching body aflame. The memory flooded in with a momentary clarity, and his nostrils flared at the bright and awful smell, as fresh today as it was then. Nathan touched a finger to his temple, aghast that he could have forgotten something so awful.

  “After that we decided we needed to head south, but you didn’t want to go the way we came, and you wanted to stay away from people. So we’re taking backroads south. Is any of this ringing a bell?”

  Nathan considered this. It was indeed, and like the man on fire, it washed back clear as soon as Chris said the words. But before, it was just gone. Inaccessible. Nathan concentrated hard on their conversation, straining with effort to clear the fog away. It was obvious to him that Chris was having no such trouble. “Yeah,” he managed. “I’m sorry. It’s… different for me. I can’t remember anything right. I can’t… hold on to now,” he finished, shaking his head in frustration.

  “It was like this at the house, too, do you remember? You guys all just walked back in after Melissa had her huge freakout. Like nothing had happened. Remember? Remember me yelling at you?”

  And Nathan did. He remembered Melissa seeing something in the mirror during filming, something that freaked her out. She screamed. It was right after the dollhead scene, he thought, gritting his teeth in concentration as he peeled back the layers. Right after, she screamed. She screamed and ran like the devil were after her. Then, after they’d all decided to leave, there and then, something. There was something there. Something cloudy and dark, something terrible and menacing, in the fog. There was no fog that night, he clarified to himself, grasping at the moment, rewinding and replaying it over and over in his head. He tried to peer into that moment, that form, but couldn’t make it get clearer. Then, he remembered Chris grabbing at his arm and he was yelling, and nothing made sense.

  “Yes,” answered Nate wonderingly. “Yeah. You were yelling, and you had my arm.”

  “Right.”

  “Something was there.”

  “Where?” Chris asked quizzically.

  “There, at the van. With us. With us and Melissa.”

  “Luke and Danny were there.”

  “No, something else,” struggled Nate, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to visualize the moment.

  “No, there wasn’t. There was just a few beats of silence and you guys all got up and starting walking back to the house like zombies.”

  “There was,” hissed Nathan, frustrated at his inability to remember. “There was something there! It was…” But he couldn’t finish the sentence. No adjective seemed correct, and his mind slid over the moment.

  “It’s just trauma,” murmured Chris. “We’re safe. We’re away from the house now.”

  “Then why did that guy set himself on fire? Why did those people go crazy at lunch? Why did that motel guy hang himself? It’s still the house.”

  “Maybe we brought something with us…” considered Chris, clicking on the blinker and pulling the van over into the gravel. “Did we grab anything from the house? Anything at all?” He craned his neck to look in the back.

  “Maybe,” replied Nathan doubtfully. Chris scrambled out of the driver’s door and jogged around to the panel door.

  “You gonna help?” he asked, sliding open the van’s door and glancing up at Nathan.

  “Sure,” shrugged Nathan, feeling the fog beginning to descend again.

  “That’s the answer, Nate,” exclaimed Chris excitedly, slapping Nathan on the shoulder. “There’s something in here that doesn’t belong. We just gotta find it, and we can finally escape.”

  “Okay,” answered Nathan, half-heartedly piling band gear in the dust. Chris was excited about something, and apparently they were unloading the van now. Nathan blinked and shook his head. He remembered talking, were we talking? And now they were unloading gear. Do we have a show? he wondered, feeling light and strange. Nothing seemed right. Nothing seemed connected.

  4

  The world was fuzzy and bright, and everything sounded like it was coming through a length of PVC pipe. Charlie Parker opened one hazel eye experimentally and shut it again with a groan.

  “Charlie?”

  Charlie sighed. Chaz’s voice was hopeful and anxious, which told her all she needed to know. “I’d better not be in a hospital bed, Chaz,” she said, but her throat was dry and her voice croaked out the words without any of the disapproving tone she’d tried for.

  “Ambulance was already on its way for Morgan. Then you fainted,” explained Chaz defensively, apparently assuming the disapproval without need for her to vocalize it properly. “The EMTs scooped you both up. I was just along for the ride.”

  “I know,” she creaked, feeling something being thrust into her hands. She winced against the light as she opened her eye as minimally as she could. “Thanks,” she whispered, taking the proffered cup of water from Chaz’s fingers. “How’s Morgan?”

  Chaz sat back down in the uncomfortable-looking chair and slid it closer to the bed. “All they’ve been able to tell me so far is that they’ve stabilized his vital signs but is still unresponsive. I haven’t been allowed to see him since they took him out of the ambulance.”

  “Mm,” acknowledged Charlie.

  “I haven’t heard from Gina either. But I did get another car delivered. It’s outside. I wasn’t sure how long we’d be here, or how quickly you’d want to leave.”

  Charlie sat up, slowly, walking her hands backwards until she was upright. The world spun slightly and she felt pleasantly warm. There was no trace of the excruciating pain that had marked her last conscious moments before waking here. Swiveling her head around to inspect her IV, she frowned. “This is just saline,” she said, keeping her voice to a hoarse whisper. “Why am I so fuzzy?”

  “Ah,” stammered Chaz, biting his lip. “I told the medics you were complaining of pain before you passed out. They gave you a doze of dilaudid or diloxin, something like that, I think.”

  “So, morphine.” Charlie frowned, convincing her fuzzy mind to calculate the half-life of the drug. “How long ago?”

  “It’s only been about an hour,” replied Chaz.

  Charlie nodded. “I should be good in another hour or two then. You’ll have to drive until I’m sober.”

  Resignation crossed his face, and she was thankful he wasn’t going to make her spend energy defending her decision to leave immediately. “Yes, ma’am.” He slid his chair back against the wall and gathered their things, slinging her purse across his shoulder alongside his black messenger bag.

  Finding the button on the bed railing took longer than it should have, but Charlie eventually managed to slide the rail flat and swing her legs over to the floor. “Get the kit out of my purse,” she commanded, as much as a whisper could command. Chaz obediently fis
hed around in her bag and opened the small medical kit, withdrawing a cotton ball and tearing off a piece of medical tape without being asked. Charlie began to tear at the tape covering her IV, but her fingers weren’t steady. She looked up at Chaz and sighed. “Can you do this?”

  “Probably,” he answered, setting their bags down again. He crossed to her side and smoothly removed the tape without pulling on the needle. “Are you sure? I’d rather wait for the nurse.”

  “No, it’s easier this way. Less questions,” she said. She watched, impressed, as his nimble, freckled fingers withdrew the needle and replaced it with the cotton and tape as smoothly as a trained professional. “Is my jacket over there?”

  “Yeah.” Chaz held out her jacket, waiting as she rolled down her shirt sleeve over the bandage and ripped the hospital bracelet off of her wrist. “What’s our plan?”

  Charlie leaned over and snatched her purse from Chaz’s side. Rummaging through it quickly, she withdrew the small plastic case and cracked it open, sighing with relief when she spied the small bone shard inside. “Plan hasn’t changed,” she answered. “We take down Harold Locke before he can do any more damage.” She reached for the bone, but her fingers were shaking, so she snapped the case closed again and let the purse fall back against the young man’s hip. “I’ll show you how to put the compass together in the car. Let’s go.”

  Chaz looked unhappy with the decision, but he stood and offered her his freckled arm for support. She clambered out of the hospital bed, displaying none of her usual grace. Her legs threatened to buckle and she stepped sharply into him; he held her upright until she could steady herself. “Thanks,” she whispered, the word souring in her mouth. Charlie Parker hated weakness, most of all when it arose within her own traitorous body. Together, they made it to the elevators, and she shrugged away from his grip, leaning against the cold metal. It felt good against her cheek. The ding as they reached the ground floor was unwelcome, and she felt Chaz’s hand slip around her arm again.