The Ghost Files

Chapter Fifteen

The cold is what wakes me. It's dark so I don't immediately recognize where I am, but the antiseptic smell reminds me that I'm in the hospital. No lights glimmer. It's completely and utterly black. This can't be good.

I try to sit up, but I can't. It feels like there is some terrible weight pressing down on me and I remember Oliver. I open my mouth to shout for help, but no sounds come out. I struggle but soon wear myself out. Whatever holds me down is too strong. Panic sets in. I feel helpless and it's not a feeling I'm used to nor is it one I enjoy.

There's a light. I squint and can just make out the outline of the door. The light is a soft hazy blue. Instead of feeling relief, I'm scared. There is no brightness in that light. It feels like death, like a dark blanket covering everything, draining the life out the things around it. A dark and depressing weight seems to be in that light and I want to hide from it, pull the covers up over my head and pretend I don't see it. I can't though. I'm frozen.

The cold intensifies and the glow gets brighter and stronger the longer it pulses outside my door. It's not going away and I can't move, but I try. I am shouting even though the words don't pass through my lips.

"Be quiet," someone hisses. "It'll see us."

My head whips around, but I can't see anyone. I try to speak again, but I can't. What will see us?

"The reaper."

Reaper? As in the Grim Reaper? The Angel of Death kind of reaper? Wait. I didn't speak aloud. I was thinking. Who could hear my thoughts?

My door slowly opens and that light floods my room. I blink at the harshness of it. When I can see I look up. Standing in the doorway to my room is a figure wearing a black hooded robe. It points to me and whispers. I shake my head. I can't understand a single word. Is that the Reaper?

The cold creeps toward me, wraps me in its icy clutches. I struggle harder, but my limbs refuse to move. I'm trapped. Good and truly trapped.

Oh, no, it's moving toward me.

Hands shake me and I slowly claw my way awake, screaming. I can barely breathe and the hands holding me feel like the restraints that held me in that awful place. I fight to get away and distantly hear someone calling my name. The panic is too much. I can't stand it. Something sharp stabs me in the arm and then I am drowning in blackness again.

When I come awake again, the soft glow of the light above the bed is on. My eyes hurt a little, but I can see. I remember feeling trapped, unable to move, so I test my limbs almost at once. Good. I'm not strapped down, but still in the hospital, though. My eyes study the room and come to rest on Dan. He's sitting asleep in the chair beside the bed. He looks tired and his clothes are rumpled. Why is he here? Did he stay with me?

The dream... or whatever. I remember it and shiver. I'm so exhausted. No wonder I'm having such awful nightmares. Between ghosts everywhere, worrying about finding Mary before she dies if she's not dead already, and all the crazy stuff I'm seeing, it's a miracle I'm still semi-sane. I should have just left it all alone. Sally was dead, there wasn't anything I could really do anyway, so why? Why subject myself to all this?

Because it's not just about you, the nagging voice within answers. Because Sally was one of us. I sigh. It always comes back to that. Sally doesn't have anyone else. No matter how much I'm complaining right now, I still wouldn't change anything I've done. Well, maybe the snake. I should have ignored that old lady. That said, if I hadn't talked to the ghosts, I wouldn't have met Dan. I'm glad I met him. He's turning out to be a really good friend. I'm so sure Jake would never have committed a crime for me. But, Dan was right there with me when I broke into the old lady's house. He complained, but he never ran away. That's important to me. He didn't leave me. I'm so used to having to fend for myself it's unusual to know someone who cares enough to stay.