The Girl With the Bad Dreams

Chapter 16

Carlin gasps and shudders at the sensation of cold water drenching her face and hair. She blinks the liquid out of her eyes as she squirms, feeling for the first time discomfort in her arms and wrists as she emerges from unconsciousness.

She opens her eyes and squints against a bare lightbulb. Her arms are chained over her head to a low ceiling. She pulls at them ineffectively. And then another bucket of cold water splashes into the side of her face.

Carlin turns in the direction of the abuse. Mark is there, straddling a backwards chair, half his form cast in deep silhouette from the displaced lightbulb. But he doesn't appear to have been the source of the abuse. He doesn't even appear to have moved. Instead he seems to have sunk into this position some time ago, morosely staring at Carlin through vacant eyes. "Why didn't you tell me about the dreams," he asks her, moving nothing but his lips.

"How do you know about the dreams?" Carlin spits back, spinning slightly from her dangling arms.

"He told me."

"Who told you?"

"My uncle."

"Your uncle's dead."

Finally Mark moves more than his lips. He shakes his head. "No. He's not."

Carlin digests he revelation as Mark continues. "You should have told me. Things might have turned out different."

"No they wouldn't have."

"They might."

"Why?"

"Because I have dreams, too."

Carlin is shocked. She licks her lips and shifts, trying to take some of the uncomfortable weight off her shoulders and wrists. "What kind of dreams?"

"Horrible ones," Mark admits. "About hurting people. About hurting women."

"Hurting them how?"

Mark licks his lips in discomfort. "Cutting their faces. Cutting them so I can peel back their skin. The faces, they're masks, they're not real. I want to peel them off so I can see inside them, see the real beauty under the skin." 

"You're sick."

"The dreams are sick, not me."

"Is that what you're going to do to me? Peel off my face?"

Mark shakes his head. "Your face isn't a mask. It's real."

"Bullshit," Carlin challenges him. "It's what you've been fantasizing, what you've literally been dreaming of."

Mark doesn't rise to the challenge. He just responds in the same desolate tone. "No."

"It's what you did to Heather, isn't it you sick fuck?!"

Suddenly Mark perks up. He rises his chin off the back of the chair. "What do you know about Heather?"

"I know you killed her."

"No, no, I didn't..." Mark is suddenly animated, shaking his head vehemently.

"Where is she?"

"I don't know."

"Yes you do, where did you take her?!" Carlin screams.

"I didn't take her!"

"Then where the fuck is she?!"

"I don't know!" Mark's face is contorted with sorrow.

"Yes you do! You took her! You killed her!"