He Follows ✔

Chapter 22

Michelle stared at Hank as he spoke to her.

"Michelle, I am sorry about everything. Your father was a good man. I know you miss him, but it is time to wake up now. You have been living in a fantasy, trying to find someone to blame."

Michelle was confused.

"What do you mean? You killed him. You killed all of the people I loved."

Michelle watched as Hank came over to the bed she was laying on and began to shake her.

"Michelle, wake up!"

"Wake up Michelle!"

***

Michelle opened her eyes.

Detective Bradley stood over her, shaking her shoulders.

Her mind was in a daze. She was so confused.

She looked around to find she was laying in her father's bed. Stuff was scattered all around the room and the jewelry box was laying at the foot of the bed.

"Where am I? What happened?"

Detective Bradley stared at her confused.

"Michelle, we have been trying to get in contact with you for days. You didn't pick up the phone for three days and you wouldn't answer your door. We thought you were dead."

Michelle looked frantic. How was Detective Bradley here? He was dead.

"Michelle, look at me. I know this is a hard time for you, but you can't drown away your sorrows by sleeping all of the time."

"No, no you are supposed to be dead. Hank, Hank he..."

Detective Hank walked in with a plate of food and a glass of water.

Michelle's eyes became huge.

"No! You murderer! You should be dead!"

Michelle lunged out of bed and came soaring towards Detective Hank.

He looked severely stunned. Michelle attacked him with ferocity.

Hank had dropped both the food and the glass of water.

Michelle was screaming and clawing at Hank's face.

Detective Bradley rushed over to detain Michelle. He grabbed her from behind and held her hands behind her back as she struggled.

"That woman has gone mad!" Hank exclaimed as he held his face in pain.

"Hank, I need you to help me get her into the back of the car. We need to bring her to the station. I can talk to her there."

***

"Michelle, it is going to be ok. Look at me."

Michelle sat detained to a chair in the interrogation room.

"Now, listen. You have been in a state of depression these past couple of days. I understand that. You were trying to sleep instead of face your sorrow. Whatever you were dreaming, whatever you think happened, it is not true. Hank is just a detective here, I am still alive, and your father is dead. You need to come to terms with that and stop living in the fantasy that he is still alive."

Michelle didn't know what to say. Her mind felt completely numb. She couldn't believe that she had been dreaming. She had felt the pain of the lash and the sorrow of the losses.

"Michelle, while you were sleeping, we caught the man who killed your father. He turned himself in at the station. His name is Benito Montgomery. He was an old friend of your father's. Apparently they had a falling out and Benito had gotten so mad that he killed your father hastily."

Michelle heard the words he spoke but said nothing. She remembered people telling her that the people you see in dreams are always someone you have seen before in real life. Michelle tried to comprehend all of this information as Detective Bradley slid a photo across the table. She stared into the eyes of the man that had seemed too real in her dreams.

The picture showed her father and Benito at the same place her and her friends had been in the photo they had found in her father's wallet.

She still couldn't wrap her head around any of it. How could she have forgotten her father and his friend being in the same bar as her that night?

"I know this is a lot to take in right now, but I am here if you have any questions or need to talk to anyone."

Michelle gave a quick nod and watched as Detective Bradley left her in solitude.

***

Detective Bradley walked into Hank's office.

"How are you doing bud?"

"Besides the claw marks down my face, I am fine."

"Yeah, I just got done telling her the news. She is definitely having a hard time handling all of it. Right now we just need to take it easy with her. She seems to be mentally unstable. Whatever she must have been dreaming must have been pretty messed up."

"Yeah well, I will leave the rest of the case to you bud. I don't care to be attacked again because I was the villian in her dreams."

"Fine by me. The case is pretty much closed anyway. We have the killer and the things she thought were strange about the evidence were easily explained by Benito. He said that that picture was during her birthday. Her father and him were asked to come along and he was the one that took the picture. He said that her father had a bad burn around the neck from something that happened at the bakery and he never told his daughter about the surgery. He didn't know why her father would have the number in his pocket, but that could have little or no relevance to the case. He also claimed he was the man in the window I saw at the crime scene, so all of my questions seem to have been answered."

"You better go back in there with the girl. She will probably have more questions soon."

Hope you guys liked the crazy twist. She was actually just dreaming all of that crazy stuff that happened! Let me know if you liked that idea and thanks for reading!