Sleep No More
Page 41

A choice? I didn’t get a choice in the morgue.
Maybe there was no choice to make. There is no future for Eddie.
I stare at the two scenes in front of me. In one, we’re obviously fighting, so I step into the other. For the next several minutes, I walk forward, a smile on my lips as I veer into one framed scene, then another, creating a pretend future for Linden and me. Sometimes when the two frames appear, just for fun, I don’t always choose the best one. But if I see kissing ahead, I’m generally swayed.
I see numberless scenes of kisses and caresses or long talks on the phone. Of introducing him to my mom, of getting to see his college apartment for the first time. I want to cry at how much better this is than following a murderer through his victims.
But that thought worms its way through my blissful state and I think about how my entire dome filled with Linden when I concentrated hard enough.
Could I do the same thing with the killer?
I look wistfully at the next choice I have with Linden. If I handle things right, though, I won’t need stolen moments on the supernatural plane—I’ll have Linden for real. I turn and focus on the domed room and the circle that will lead me there appears instantly.
When I reach the glassy floor, I ground myself again and think of the killer. I don’t have anything specifically to focus on, but I concentrate on what I do have. The terrible faces and mangled bodies of his victims, the figure Smith and I saw in my vision of Nicole.
And that scream. That terrible, terrible scream.
Somehow I can feel when I’ve succeeded. There’s a nearly tangible evil surrounding me. A raw sickness. Cringing, I open my eyes.
Everything is dark. The dome is covered with an array of shadowy faces. Sometimes running, sometimes rubbing a cloth up and down a knife, sometimes just standing and watching. But every scene is dark.
Too dark for me to see.
I focus on a slightly brighter scene and move it close, then step into it before I can lose my nerve.
I’m safe here, I remind myself, but it’s doesn’t stop my whole body from shaking. He’s sitting in a corner, watching a television screen. But his face is in full shadow and no matter how I move around his chair, I can’t make out his features. After a few minutes, I give up and go back out the bright circle and try another scene. He’s walking this time, and regardless of how fast I run, how hard I push myself, I can’t catch up. And even if I could . . . he’s wearing the mask.
I turn back to the bright circle and try again. And again. But each time he’s too fast, or the shadows won’t move from his face, or he’s masked, or the vision simply blacks out and ends. None of the scenes offer me a choice the way they did with Linden. It’s like someone, something is blocking me.
Is this an Oracle rule I don’t know about? Or is it simply that knowing who he is would change the future so vastly that I can’t do it in a dream? I stare up at all the images of the monster, wishing I could do something. But even here, on the supernatural plane, his identity remains a mystery.
I feel an almost imperceptible ripple go through the dome world and distantly I realize I’m starting to wake up. I’m ready, I suppose. I found out about Eddie. And I guess I “practiced” in the Linden scenes; Smith said everything helps. But I can’t help but feel like I’m missing something. Some way I could help if I only knew better. I focus back on the Linden moments—so that at least I don’t wake directly from the dark presence of the killer—when a flash of color catches my eye. It glints and disappears for a moment, but then it’s back. It’s a door. A door in the wall of the dome.
The longer I stare at it, the more solid it grows until it almost appears that the entire dome is sloping toward it. It looks far away, but I start walking in that direction. As I do, the door seems to retreat. I’m catching up, but not as quickly as I should be. I’m twenty feet away, and after speed-walking about fifty feet, I’ve gained another ten. I’m almost there when the weird ripple happens again. A few seconds later, my physical eyes flutter open and I’m back in my bedroom.
The clock tells me I was asleep for a mere hour—but it felt like much longer. Smith was right though: I don’t feel tired.
I think about the door I couldn’t reach and a strange sense of foreboding wells within me. Maybe I’ll be able to get to it tonight, now that I know it’s there.
But first, I have to send a message. I turn on my phone and press Linden’s number. I send him a single line of text.
It’s Eddie Franklin.
I shove the phone into my pocket and wonder how long my mom will let me hole up inside my room. I should probably at least unlock my door, let it sit open a crack so she doesn’t worry about me. More.
I’m just starting to stand up when the tingling in my temples erupts. As the pressure in my head grows, turning into a tornado inside my skull, I know it’s got to be another murder vision. Gritting my teeth, I sit back down on the bed and let it come, hating it already.
As the vision clarifies and I find myself standing in a shadowy tunnel, I’m taken off guard by just how badly I wish I wasn’t here. How much I wish I wasn’t me—wasn’t an Oracle. That someone else had been chosen for this job.
Because whoever the victim is in this vision, I’m not going to save them. I’m going to put them right in the path of danger in order to get closer to the killer. The vision pulls me forward, forcing me to take step after step toward a mound lying on the ground at the mouth of the rounded tunnel entrance.