Nancy threw the pieces of paper away. The room still hovered around her, the three statuesque T's leering at her. They seemed to shift their depth relative to her. Now the first one, on the left, was closest. Now, the first was farther away, and the middle and far right T's were about two feet from her. The book thumped onto the ground sloooowly. Nancy had dropped it from her hand three minutes ago.
The flash of light. Breathing returning to normal. The room returning to normal. There was an obtrusive pressure in her skull. It wasn't a headache, it was pressing in, not out. The compression was strangling her brain.
This was okay though. It meant everything was over. For now. The intensity of the pain in Nancy's head reminded her that it was getting worse. This was the third time. Three strikes. Her hand reached down, and, ignoring the sweeping vertigo, grasped the book by the back cover. The outside of the volume was slightly slimy with sweat.
What a joke to think Nancy could even understand this book. It was another of her extravagant expenses; not one of the more indulgent, but still...
Can't I just NOT spend money for one day? thought Nancy hopelessly as she was reminded of her financial situation.
Nancy Ackerman was not a shopper. She did not go to the mall to walk around, and exit with handfuls of plastic bags. Well, actually she did. But she didn't go somewhere, to a store, just to go there. It was while she was at the store that she realized she needed everything they had.
Since the car had hit her last spring, life seemed a downward spiral. Her right arm was permanently disfigured, she couldn't bend the elbow joint more than thirty degrees. She couldn't even grasp a fork. It wasn't as bad as one would think it would be. But it was worse than you could imagine.
She exited her bedroom, the shadows deepening in her field of vision. The light from her bedroom spilled at her feet, but beyond it she could see nothing. Her eyes hadn't adjusted.
It was probably one now, she thought. Work is gonna suck tomorrow. Nancy's blue eyes stared blankly ahead of her, the tiredness seeping into her brain. What was I doing?
Getting something to eat...
And then it had happened, as she had sat reading, on the edge of her messy bed. The postcard. The panic.
Nancy returned quickly to the bedroom, rubbing her throbbing forehead. Wonder what Bill's gonna say tomorrow. "You look like shit...not enough sleep?" Ha.
The lamp in Nancy's room went off. It was dark everywhere inside. Nancy wondered for a minute why she wasn't dead, why she hadn't killed herself yet. For a minute, and then she remembered it's best not to think too hard about stuff like that.
Sleep...
Nancy woke up sprawled violently on the floor. Her eyes were closed but her ears weren't. Something was making a HORRIBLE racket right next to her! Eyelids up. Nancy recoiled at the huge nose protruding in her face. The mouth was open and moving rapidly, screaming "WAKE UP!!". The reddish pallor of the skin was deepening, just imperceptibly for a second, then realizing she really was hearing, stopped and tried to return to normal. The face, attached to a head, attached to a rotund body, retreated.
"I told you this was your last chance, and you blew it!"
Nancy let some emotion show in her _expression. Whatever was going on might be important. All Nancy could think about was everything; she would focus on one thought for about two seconds and then something else would pop up. It was disconcerting not having control over her mind. And, no matter what, Nancy could not remember where she was.
"Get out! Now!" the fat man said loudly, so that everyone present could hear. And now Nancy's world opened abroad. She was in some sort of makeshift kitchen (makeshift because of the obvious sloppiness and lack of sanitation), surrounded by five people, including the fat man (perhaps six if you are an indifferent, cruel person). The sense of touch came unexpectedly, and Nancy realized she was grasping a knife in her right hand. She didn't turn her head.
The plastic sympathetic expressions gazed at Nancy as she rose uncertainly to her feet. Her left leg buckled under the new weight, but she only faltered slightly. The fat man held out his hand, which was almost as flushed as his face.
Automatically, Nancy handed him the knife, reluctantly turning the blade towards her and extending the handle. She looked quickly around, so as not to appear that she had no idea what was going on, and walked through the half-open door. The air of disturbance in the room previously containing her erupted into fevered and hushed whisper. She was glad she didn't hear. Nancy was now standing behind the counter of a beat-up but not unoccupied diner. There was some commotion at the sight of her. She took off her name-tag, not reading it and then wishing she had. She put it in the trash, and walked out the door into the outside world. She looked up at the front of the diner. DANNY'S DINER in big happy letters. The I in DINER was about to fall off. There were cars parked to Nancy's right, and she knew one of them was hers. Instinctively she walked over past the front of the diner, reached the cars, and saw hers. The sight of something familiar, in this case the car, brought it all back, at least most of it. She was Nancy Akerman. She had a horrid little apartment. She had worked, up until now, at the diner run by fat Danny. Once again, she dozed off on the clock and now paid for all the times she had done it. But what a dream! She would lose that dumb job all over again just to have that dream. Not dream it, but really live it. It would be amazing if you could live one of your dreams, even just one. But Bill would be furious (ha ha, Nancy laughed mentally).
She unlocked the car with the ease of doing the same thing every day. She started it, backed out, then turned right onto Keely Road, going home. Just like every day. Deja vu.
The patch of forest appeared on her left, growing ever larger as she passed it. Then there was Ocala, left on Ocala like every day! Well, not any more. What would Bill and Sherry and everyone else think now? Any little hope they had harbored would be gone now. Nancy was worthless.
But she could escape from this mental torture called blame, and accompanied by massive guilt, by remembering the car accident. It was always helpful to have a little accident to blame life on. That guy should've never been driving at eighty anyway! And, oh, the pain in her leg. No need to remember that. Some of the joints in her left knee would never heal, the doctors had foretold. It would be wise to skip any walk-a-thons from now on.
My bad knee! Nancy screamed to herself. What am I supposed to do? I can't!
Then something, not something but SOMETHING, appeared. Something ominous. Nancy didn't remember everything obviously, cause she had no idea what this feeling was connected to. Her spine tingled.
She slowed down to thirty (which was the speed limit on Ocala anyway). The forest enclosed the road, almost made it twilight. At night, forget about seeing anything without two flashlights or high beams. This part of town had never developed, which was good for all these trees. And for Nancy, since it made the apartment complex keep their prices slightly above reasonable. Just down the road about five more miles, and then home. But what is this feeling?
Nancy was in the middle of a patch of forest, no houses on either side for about half a mile around. The feeling darkened. No longer foreboding, but fear. Cold, uncaring fear. Nancy braked suddenly, her head twisted to the right. The blood burned in her thin veins. The air was thick with the night. Just out of complete sight, hidden in the trees and shrubbery, was something gleaming silver. It whispered in Nancy's ear, the feeling of cold death, of a body stretched out on a table, cold and staring at the ceiling. Everything was black, it was three A.M. Two eyes opened and connected with her two eyes. Nancy opened her mouth and screamed! She shrieked as if on her death-bed being confronted by death. The two eyes were totally different, but the proximity ensured they were on the same head. There was a sound, maybe an animalistic growl, and Nancy hit the gas pedal. It was day out. There was a car coming right at her! In her lane! Nancy saw she was on the wrong side of the road. Then the two cars collided.
The alarm screeched. A numb arm hit the black plastic, and succeeded only in knocking the clock off of the dresser. It still kept trying to wake her up. Nancy felt like she was dreaming, but knew she had to drag herself out of it. Work awaited. The pain in her head awaited.
As she got out of the lukewarm shower and threw her towel on the floor, Nancy wondered about her dream. She had had one dream, something she couldn't fully remember, but it never left her consciousness. Most of her dreams were like that since the car had hit her. Trauma does strange things to the mind.
The dreams weren't as elusive as they sounded, though. She could remember what physically happened (if anything in the dream state could be physical), if she was dreaming she was herself or someone else, where she went and what she did. But she could not remember any thoughts, emotions, that she experienced. She was always left with a nagging sense that while dreaming she knew something she didn't know when awake.
And last night's dream was horrible.
It had been the first time she had dreamed about a car wreck. The psychologist she had seen immediately following her recovery from the accident had told her it was inevitable to feel afraid of car accidents (or possibly anything to do with cars), and that she would most likely have many nightmares about them. Unless she could let go of her fear. Nancy never could, though. Holding onto irrational fears was something she had skillfully developed as a preteen girl. She remembered being afraid of the forest surrounding her parent's property; she had been reading some story about a company conducting genetic experiments next to a farm in some state bordering Canada. At that age, Nancy had developed a rather morbid interest in horror fiction. She didn't understand the story really, but what her eleven year old mind got out of it was, monsters are in the forests. Period.
One last look in the mirror. God, the mirror was dirty. That was the farthest she ever got to cleaning.
Off to work we go.
At times like these, Nancy wanted to not only strangle someone, but squeeze their neck so hard their eyes popped out. She always had wondered if it were possible. Even just one eye exploding into the air, the other one could just stay bulging in the socket...
Strange that this would happen. The car key breaking off in the keyhole. Leaving half for the car and half for Nancy to curse at. It's like fate protecting me from driving, after her bad luck with cars. If this had happened very soon after the accident, Nancy might have heeded her mind's advice. But her life was her own, she was free. Of course it was a foolish thought.
But again luck intervened in Nancy's mind, leaving a strange taste in her mouth. A sense that something was wrong. Perhaps just being fired five minutes ago had something to do with it. It was only five miles home, Nancy thought. What the fuck. Everything seemed like a dream, why not just pretend it is? What would happen? Nancy stared at the key in her hand. The broken key. She dropped it as she began to run home.
Twenty minutes later, Nancy was about to die. Her heart was periodically exploding, and the earth's gravity had suddenly gotten a lot stronger. Nancy had reached Ocala somehow, now it was just twenty more minutes. Probably two miles. The forest was thickening around Nancy, the blinding sunlight glaring elsewhere for the moment. Nancy looked around, hoping no one would recognize her. The dreaminess of her reality was catching up with her. Sweat was literally pouring out of her armpits and off her forehead, and for a moment Nancy knew she was in physical danger. Then she forgot it as she gave in to the overwhelming thoughts of water splashing everywhere, like the Hoover Dam bursting open and flooding the entire world. She would love to squeeze the ocean in the palm of her hand, until the world was covered in tremendous waves and earth's population was being strangled. Nancy licked her lips dryly, actually rubbing her tongue against her lips. She stuck her bottom lip out and sucked at the droplets of sweat that fell on it. And then the whole world died and the dream was real, frighteningly close and physical.
A silver gleam caught Nancy's right eye and just stayed there. Like time was put on pause. The end of the world, where it sees humanity flashing before it's eyes. A silver gleam, a shiny something. The blackness of the patch of road covered in tree branches overwhelmed Nancy. A look of reality scarring her face, she turned her head slightly, so she could still see the gleam in the bushes. She looked and saw where the shadows ended and the rest of the world began. It somewhat stabilized her thought process, so she turned back to where she had been. The fear again overwhelmed her. It was, specifically, deja vu combined with amnesia. What a cliché, Nancy thought. Everything but the side of the road disappeared, and now Nancy's temporary amnesia was nullified by the memory. The dream, the worst dream. Nancy realized she was dead and was looking at her own car buried in trees and shrubbery.
A hand reached out from the bushes, and there was a buzzing in the air. Perhaps like a bumble bee, maybe not. The hand was a clenched fist, and it slowly opened as the nowhere droning ascended in pitch. In the open hand was nothing. Nancy stood not comprehending. The hand was no more, it wasn't sticking out of the bushes anymore. Amnesiacally , Nancy had no memory of the hand withdrawing. But such are dream clichés.
And now Nancy dropped onto the floor of smoothly paved road and was fast unconscious. But she knew when she awoke, she still had the gift she had given herself.
Nancy opened the door. She stood alone in a hallway, any old hallway. It was the middle of the night. She couldn't see the door, but it was there. She had been here before, it seemed. The blackness was invaded by the interior's pale white. It looked like a padded cell in an asylum. The walls could be padded, it was hard to tell. All the white was blinding. Nancy must've been standing in the dark for a long time, her eyes were beginning to hurt. The brightness. And where the hell was she?
All she remembered was...nothing. No, that's not true. Her name was Nancy. Nancy something. That was the extent of her memory recovery.
The bright walls inside the room were beginning to adjust to Nancy's eyes. There was something on the floor, surrounded by a slopping pool of blood. Breathing became bad, the air acrid. Very rotten, but familiar. Everything seemed familiar, part of Nancy thought, as the other part stared at the floor. Sympathy should be coming any second for the poor animal slaughtered on the floor. But it never did. Instead, temporary blindness as Nancy's eyes were almost involuntarily shut. It was goddamn familiar; Nancy saw herself on the floor. But it wasn't her. Then, from behind, hands. Grabbing Nancy's arms, her legs. Click, click. Nancy was pulled backwards, losing her balance and falling to the floor. Clack, clack. The bright room was being left behind as Nancy was dragged backwards. She looked at herself. Chains, gray, were attached to her arms and legs. As the light faded and darkness assumed the place of air, Nancy saw her torn clothes, sticky with blood. A sharp scream gripped Nancy's mind, another memory cutting through the layer of protection. We're only protecting you, they said. They said this as they sank the needles in her skin, drenching her with mind-numbing fluid. It's better this way, were the last words she remembered as she tried to struggle. But even then the chains were locked around her mind.
I killed everyone, Nancy knew. She knew, and hated herself. True loathing was the only thing that existed. And if someone else had been in her place, they would've done the same thing. But that didn't change a thing.
Here come the doctors. Nancy was regaining consciousness. Painfully, she opened her real eyes. Everything was dead, and Nancy was going insane. It was all because she didn't do anything when she could've.
"Please," Nancy whispered, "make me forget..."
There was a far-away voice, sounding two octaves higher than it should.
".....regaining cons..more anesthetic.."
Nancy smiled in spite of herself.
Twilight was dispersed throughout the air. The sun was a faint nothing behind the horizon, as filtered light stretched up to the dark clouds. The atmosphere was growing cold, which might have been the catalyst to Nancy's regaining consciousness. But, as she woke and remembered where she was, something else came to her. The curtain that shields two world from each other was burning, it seemed. Nancy had no idea why she felt this way, but she knew somehow she would soon know.
The pavement sucked at her skin, and she lifted her head slightly. What was going on? The last thing Nancy remembered was being in a doctor's office. And now, she had just woken up laying in the middle of a road.
Light was becoming fast scarce. Groggy, Nancy stood up, feeling returning to her tired body. Now she was thoroughly confused. Her surroundings were these: the road on which she stood, stretching off in either direction endlessly; a forest of red clouds in the sky, each darkening as the world spun; a plain on either side of the road, spare trees planted sparingly; and among these scarce trees, small houses. Only two houses were in sight, one to Nancy's left and the other farther down the road. A dirt driveway with deep tire tracks led to the closer house, about thirty-five feet away. A faded blue truck was parked at the end of the driveway. A dark yellow light peered out from behind the curtains of a window, suggesting that the building was occupied. The drawn curtains in the sole window suggested strange fears to Nancy. A memory of a story, in which a cannibal lived in a lone shack such as this. But reality is not the same as a story, Nancy remembered. But the fear remained, signifying the end of Nancy's ignorance of the truth. The truth being more than she could see.
And then, in the still night and the partially abandoned countryside, a shriek stole all of Nancy's comfort and choked her mind. The scream came from behind the pale curtains in the little house. It was the voice of the dying. Nancy knew.
A tingling in Nancy's hand brought back some sense of self. She didn't look, she knew what it was. A bitter smile stained her face. Nancy took the first tentative step towards the cabin. Her foot touched the dirt surface. She stopped resisting herself and ran.
Ten seconds, and Nancy stood on the porch. No sound came from within. She turned her head and gazed at the countryside, now submersed in night. Somewhere, a dog barked. The tingling hand was now throbbing. All of Nancy's life, everyone's life, had been waiting for this. A single fear stood between Nancy and whatever was in the house. From behind the curtain, slight movement.
Nancy's gaze slowly rolled upwards, her head tilting unconsciously. Her pupils were almost invisible, for her eyes were rotating ever higher and higher. The sky, the sky! The dirt, it was the same color as the sky. The sky was...Nancy was laying on the sky. World was spinning upsidedown.
Her vision was distorted, the two worlds coalescing infinitely. One was the naked countryside, the other a familiar hot paved road. As Nancy slipped back into her body and was about to completely leave the mysterious countryside, she looked down from her lofty position in the sky. There were three crosses. No, three T's. They were on top of the middle-of-nowhere building. Wait.....the building was gone. What did..
And the darkness was gone. Nancy was engulfed in the world of today, only a part of a memory of where she had been. It began again.
The universe rebuilt itself around Nancy, for the fourth time in her time. Three monstrous crosses flashed before Nancy's mind's eye, then were gone. What have I become? Nancy wondered as she picked herself up off the deserted road. Where am I?
The moon shone down like a cold fire. Old sweat dripped off of Nancy's brow, making way for a fresh wave of fear to manifest itself physically. For Nancy stood alone before the trees that obscured her wrecked car. She was probably ten minutes from home, just down this street. It was a nice quiet residential section, but this part of the street was free from any sign of humanity (aside from a "Speed Limit 30" road sign, and, naturally, the road itself). Trees, almost black green in the blissful night, clung to either side of Nancy's field of vision. The road extended itself far into the distance, yet seemed to lead nowhere but where Nancy stood.
Nothing was left but apathy. Please, she mentally spat through clenched teeth, let me go. And not true apathy! One request, a joke...
Ten minutes away.....
Blood slipped out of her right nostril. It didn't so much as properly drip. The universal irony was grating. The bleeding, if it could be considered that, had started at no particular time. Nancy had noticed when she looked at herself in the dirty mirror in her little room. Somehow, twenty minutes later, she had made it home. The salty tears draining from her forehead, and practically her whole body (but mostly her forehead), set her eyes alight. Rubbing only initiated a series of similar physical maladies all over Nancy's weary physical being.
Slowly walking in circles, Nancy tried to think. She wiped a trickle of blood off her face. The bleeding wasn't going away, like one would suppose it should. But she knew why, unconsciously. Nancy knew why everything the past few weeks had been so strange. It was that book!
Car tires squealed in the distance, tempting Nancy to forget what she had just remembered.
Nancy got down on all fours, peering under her bed. It was a mess. Suddenly her eyes locked on the familiar maroon.
She reached out with her left hand and grasped it, pulling it towards her.
As she stood up, a postcard fell from the book's pages. It sat on the floor innocently.
Nancy looked down and saw the postcard was face down. She bent down and saw writing she had never noticed before. It was very faded, and part of it was covered by a brown spot. From what she could see, it said:
"For spa... (unreadable)
"For the exclusive (unreadable word) of E. Millen Roberts.
" Me"
Goslin! What a surprise! Nancy regained control of her thoughts. Goslin had written this, naturally. She smiled, bitterly. There was a tapping on the windowpane, to the left of Nancy. She turned her head to the right, looking nervously. Now was the time, now a few seconds ago. The universe seemed to be unnaturally cold. Nancy shivered, wishing she was back in her world spending too much money and hoping to meet a perfect guy. It was all so far away, as Nancy stood before herself. She had come such a long way. Nothing could stop her.
Violently, she threw the damned book to her left, hearing a shatter of pane and wire. A certain feeling of life returned, as it never had the past few years. Nancy was resurrected! She started to laugh and cry, collapsing on the floor thankfully. All the pain was gone, all the never-ness. Nancy could just walk away from it; how simple it had been. More accurately, she could just throw it out the window. Throw away everything she had been, throw away herself. Nancy stopped rejoicing, the cold gripping her for a moment's time. But it passed as dumbness overcame the wisdom she had wasted. Nancy was Nancy Ackerman again! It was all so...normal.
Nancy stood up on shaky legs, and wiped the tears from her eyes. But it felt like she had splashed water on her face....Nancy turned around and gazed at her reflection. Her face was a big red explosion, literally dripping with blood. Nancy had not even noticed her nosebleed increasing, and now she had wiped it all across her face. It...it.....
A roar came to Nancy's attention. Just like the blood, she had ignored it. It wasn't ignoring her. A gigantic force was here. Like a shotgun pointed at her head.
The car slammed into the front of Nancy's apartment, not decreasing speed. It tore down the wall separating the kitchen from the bedroom. Nancy couldn't even turn around as it connected with her fragile body. Her neck snapped back and death came in waves. First, her body below her neck. Then, Darkness destroyed everything else, there was no pain. And, mercifully, nothingness.
