Dream Haunter (12 page)

“
Sam, we’re here,” Melody
gently whispers.

 
He moans, slowly
rolling his head over to look at her. “How long have I been a
sleep?” he asks, his voice groggy from sleep.

 
She opens the car
door, reaching in the back seat for her bag. “A good ten hours,
come on.”

Sam slides out of the car, dragging his
feet behind him as the two of them make their way up the steps to
the front door. Melody’s dad comes to answer the door, his peppered
hair pointing every which way.

“
Melody? Sam? What are you
two doing here?” Melody’s dad asks.

 “
Just a friendly
visit, sir,” Sam explains as he shakes Mr. Vernon’s hand.
 

Her father nods, letting the two of
them in. Her mother jumps up from the couch where she has been
reading a self help book about losing weight.

“
Oh! What a nice surprise,”
Mrs. Vernon practically sings as she brings the both of the in for
a hug, sending Melody’s father down stairs to set up a cot in the
basement for Sam and fix up Melody’s old room for her.

“
What brings you two doing
this far west?” Mrs. Vernon asks, grinning ear to ear as she guides
Melody into the kitchen with her.

Sam sits down at the kitchen table,
stretching and trying to wake himself up some more. “Oh we just
figured it’s been awhile since we’re seen you guys,” Sam
lies.

“
Well I’m glad for this
wonderful surprise!” Mrs. Vernon exclaims.

Melody helps her mother make a late
dinner; Sam and she have an unspoken agreement not to say anything
about Jet, or his split personality Adam, to them. So she sprinkles
spices over buttered bread in complete silence.

Later, the four of them sit around the
table, passing bowls of noodles and pasta sauce to one another.
Melody sits strait up, pushing noodles around her plate, the house
thick with the smell of garlic and tomatoes. Sam sits next to her;
the hairs at the back of his head are sticking up in random places,
but it’s only noticeable because of the bright dining room light
above them. He takes her hand under the table, drawing small
circles in her palm with his thumb.

“
Mr. Vernon, um, I’ve
thought about this for such a long time that it just feels right
and well…” he glances at Melody, reassuring himself of what he is
about to ask, “I would like to ask you for Melody’s hand in
marriage, if you’ll allow me.”

Mr. Vernon’s eyes widen as they bounce
in-between Sam and Melody, not taken by too much of a surprise.
“Have you two talked about this or something?” Mr. Vernon
asks.

 
Sam’s face lifts in to
a smile. “Yes, sir, we have.”

Mr. Vernon sits back,
crossing his arms. “So, what you’re saying is that you
really
love
her?”

Sam’s smile widens as he holds Melody’s
hand tighter, his palms sweating. “Yes Sir, with all my
heart.”

Mr. Vernon smirks, glancing over at
Melody’s mom for a brief moment. “Then I guess I won’t stand in
between you two.”

Sam laughs in relief, bringing Melody’s
hand up to his lips to kiss it.

……………………………………………
.

The rest of the night is spent around
the table, talking about the plans Melody and Sam have made with
each other and their hopes for the future. When their voices
finally grow horse and get tired of speaking, Melody walks down to
her room after saying a goodnight to her parents.

She flicks the light on, old memories
flooding back as she looks at all the paintings and pictures that
she had hung on the walls during her youth. She shivers, noticing
the open window on the other side of the room, blowing her curtains
around. She pulls the window shut, locking it.

“
You look so beautiful,” a
sickeningly familiar voice whispers.

Melody freezes, her heart pounding, as
Adam comes up behind her, wrapping his arms around her, kissing her
seductively on the cheek; she becomes liquefied by his touch. He
sways with her in his arms, spinning her around as though she is a
delicate porcelain doll. He clasps her hand in his, the air around
them growing cold and minty.

“
I love you. I want to make
you mine forever,” he whispers.

She stares up at his flawless mouth,
the words falling from his soft lips like rain falls from big,
puffy clouds. His intense sapphire eyes holds her gaze on him, she
can’t look at anything but his beauty. He traces her thin lips with
his soft index finger as he says, “Marry me.”

She bites her lip, her eyes gloss over
before slowly flicking shut. She leans in, her breathe rolling
across his skin.

“
I would do anything for
you,” she says, breathily, before kissing him intensely, her mind
fogs over until she loses all sense of what she is
doing.

Sam walks up to her bedroom door,
originally planning on saying good night to Melody, but instead
finds her and Adam sucking at each other’s faces. He storms into
the room; his blood burns as it moves through his veins. He grips
the back of Adam’s shirt with one arm while the other one yanks his
hands off of Melody,

“
Get away from her!” Sam
shouts.

Melody falls from Adam’s grasp to the
floor, shaking. She looks up at the two of them; her eyes struggle
to focus on who’s hitting who while her ears pound with her heart
beat. Her gaze drifts over to her bedroom door as her parents rush
into the room, her dad franticly trying to pull Sam and Adam apart
while her mom leans over her, saying something that Melody can’t
discern over her heartbeat. She looks up just in time to see Adam
run out of the room.

Sam drops down to his knees next to her
as she curls herself into a ball, slowly passing out.

“
What
was
that? Why is Melody on the floor?”
Mr. Vernon yells, his eyes burning holes into Sam.

Sam pulls Melody into his arms, his
cheek throbs at where Jet had assaulted him.

“
His name is Jet, but goes
by Adam. He’s been trying to take Melody away from me. He thinks
I'm the reason his mother died so many years ago, but I'm not. And
now he’s dragging Melody through all of this…” Sam looks up at Mr.
Vernon, the bottom of his eyes turn red, “I
promise
I'm giving my all to protect
her, Sir.”

Mrs. Vernon pulls Sam into a hug. “Sam,
we’ve known you for almost three years now, and I’ve seen how you
care for her, we have always trusted that if something horrible
happened, you would risk everything for her.”

She kisses the top of his head before
standing up. They leave Sam alone with Melody, so that when she
wakes up he’ll know if she’s alright.

He looks down at her apprehensively,
her eyelids sliding up, her bright blue eyes looking up at him for
a concise moment before closing her eyes again.

“
I can’t control myself
around him,” Melody says.

 
Images of Adam’s
perfect eyes, smooth lips, soft cheeks, and icy breathe paint
themselves on the inside of her eyelids. Her skin jumps and the
pictures fade away as Sam kisses her throbbing forehead. She lets
her eyelids flick back open as she grabs his face, bringing it as
close to her as she can.

“
Don’t leave me alone.
Whenever you’re gone he comes to me, I can’t trust myself to stay
away,” Melody confesses.

She breaks into a sob as Sam
cradles her head in his arms, whispering, “I will
never
leave
you.”

……………………………………
.

 
Now, dear reader, this
would be a perfect time to end the story, but doing that wouldn't
be good enough for my satisfaction, knowing that you would add to
the story in your own mind and not stick to the path I want your
subconscious to travel down. Also, it would not be fitting for Adam
to leave Sam and Melody alone to live “haply ever
after”.

Chapter
Twenty

Sam and Melody leave her parents house
at the break of dawn after agreeing that staying in one place for
too long isn’t safe with Adam on their tail. Sam turns down the
radio as the tires of the little station wagon hit the
freeway.

“
I want to stop by the
police station before we head back… just in case,” Sam
suggests.

 
Melody nods; she can’t
get passed what happened last night; she’s never felt so scared of
herself in years.

…………………………………………………

Sam speaks with the police officer, a
short stubby man.

“
But we have no current
records of a Jet Kit,” the officer says.

Sam pulls a manila folder out of his
back pack, handing it over to the officer behind the coffee colored
table. Thick fingers grab the folder.

“
Do you have a description
of this man?” the officer asks.

Sam looks over at Melody, urging her to
say something. She takes a deep breath; the image of Adam is always
close enough to her eyes that if she isn’t paying attention to
where her mind drifts off to she can swear that he’s standing in
front of her.

“
He has dark black hair, mid
length, is about six three with lightly tanned skin, a narrow nose,
large lips and bright sapphire eyes,” Melody describes.

The officer’s tope flops back and forth
just slightly as he nods. “And he sometimes goes by the name Adam,
you say?” the round officer asks.

 
Sam nods, rubbing his
chin. “Yeah, that’s what he called himself when Melody met him,” he
answers.

 
The officer has a
receptionist make a copy of the news documents and information Sam
had given him. “We’ll do a search for him and let you know,” the
officer says as he hands Sam his card, “Call me if you two run into
any trouble.”

They thank him and make their way back
to the car. Melody’s legs stick to the hot leather of the car, but
she doesn’t notice or even care, she’s far off in her mind. Sam
slides across the bench seat, wrapping his arm around her
shoulder.

“
They’ll find him. They’ll
keep him from you, and if they won’t I will,” Sam assures
her.

 
He presses his lips
against her cheek, before he slides across the seat to the steering
wheel.

…………………………………………
.

Sam’s eyes squint as he stares out the
out the window at the blackening night sky, watching for exit
signs. In the distance there’s a flickering motel vacancy light
comes into view.

“
Melody, wake up,” Sam says
as he grabs her foot that’s stretched out next to him.

“
Mmmm, are we there?” she
moans.

Sam pulls up to the run down motel,
checking the surroundings to make sure they wouldn't get killed in
their sleep by some hillbilly with a chain saw.

“
No, I'm taking the scenic
route. I don’t want to leave a trail for Jet,” Sam
answers.

She nods, stretching her arms out in
front of herself; her fingers sprawl out across the dashboard.
Taking this alternative route will make their drive to Melody’s
apartment a half a day longer.

Sam double checks for suspicion vans
that could house serial killers one last time before getting out of
the car, throwing their belongings over his shoulder and holding
Melody tight against his side as they walk up to motel office. A
bell above the door rings when they walk in to the cramped room
that consists of wall to wall faded orange carpet accompanied by
walls yellowed from years of cigarette smoke, along with a ringed
brown vinyl desk across from the door. 

A middle aged woman sits behind the
desk, filing her nails, which are yellowed from years of smoking;
her voice proves it.

“
What can I do for you two
love birds?” her raspy voice croaks.

Melody is taken aback by the hoarse
voice that comes out of the thin woman. Sam stands a few inches
away from the counter that she sits behind, noticing the little bit
of orange lipstick that has rubbed off on to her crooked front
teeth from her thin, chapped lips.

“
Um, we’d like a room for
the night,” Sam says as he looks at the laminated badge on the
woman’s black knit t-shirt that reads “Maude”.

She winks at Sam, making his skin
crawl, as she reaches a flabby arm up to pull a pen out of her
bleached perm. “Now,” Maude says as she takes down their names on a
yellow note pad, “I hope you two don’t trash my room up too much in
one night.”

She pulls a key off of the wall behind
her, holding it by the brown leather strap that has their room
number on it. Sam takes it from her liver spotted hand.

“
We only intend on catching
some sleep before having to drive some more.” Sam assures her. He
pays for the night before pulling Melody out of the
room.

“
Did she freak you too?”
Melody asks, strangling the life out of Sam’s arm.