Sleep Stalker (Ghosts Beyond the Grove Book 1) (13 page)

     I set the cookies down on the kitchen counter, popped the cinnamon roll into the microwave for a quick reheat, and then dug my phone out of my purse.  I fired off a quick text to let him know that I was home in hopes that he would respond with his own whereabouts.  But less than sixty seconds later, I heard his muffled ringtone coming from the bedroom.  I re-sent the text, tracked the sound, and then discovered his phone lying under his pillow.

     This is when I went into detective mode.  Okay, that’s not exactly the mode I was in.  Jealous, suspicious girlfriend mode was a more accurate description.  I never once considered checking his phone to see if there were any other girls’ numbers in there—but that’s precisely the thought I was having now.  Just in case he came home in the meantime, I closed the bedroom door and locked it behind me. 

     Then like a secret agent hiding behind enemy lines, I started scrolling through his contact list.  Every name and number there were ones I recognized—his parents, Rachel, Boone, Andy, the animal shelter.  That was it.  Nothing weird at all.  No strange names, no unknown numbers.  I even checked his phone log and found no trace of infidelity.  While this should have made me feel better, it did the exact opposite.  Now, I was
convinced
that he was losing his mind.

     I had barely replaced the phone and returned to the living room when I heard the lock click on the front door.  My heart began to beat harder inside my chest.  I was living a new kind of nightmare unlike any I’d experienced before.  My life felt like scenes from a psychological thriller.  One where nothing was what it once was, nothing was as it seemed.  There were so many possible twists and turns this plot could take.  The microwave timer chimed like some sort of ominous warning about what was coming my way.  My boyfriend was on the other side of that door but which one of his disturbing new personalities was going to step inside? 

23.  Turning it Up a Notch

     After Ruby left for work, I got back into bed.  Living with her wasn’t like I thought it was going to be.  I never would have guessed that she was an irresponsible slob who would break a mug and not clean up the glass immediately.  Was I going to have to do everything around here myself?  Yes, she had a job and I didn’t, but I wasn’t about to become anyone’s house husband—not even hers.  As I lay there bitterly mapping out a chore chart in my head that would be fair to both of us, I fell asleep.

     Once again, I found myself by the side of the lake.  It was usually so warm here but not this time.  Briskly, I rubbed my forearms with my hands to create some extra body heat.  Ruby was seated on a log, warming herself by a small campfire near the tree line.  She knew I was there; she knew I was freezing.  For a brief moment, we made eye contact then she turned her gaze back to the fire.  She was trying to pretend that she didn’t see me.  Here I was shivering in the cold and she was unwilling to share the fire with me.  It was like she enjoyed torturing me.

     The closer I got to the fire, the stronger the scent of vanilla cinnamon grew.  Her scent seemed to be merging with the flames and exploding into an intoxicating brew that saturated every breath I took.  She looked up at me once more, her eyes penetrating me deeply. 

     “I’ll be on the bridge,” she said as she stood up and straightened her dress.  “Get warm then meet me on the other side.”

     “Wait!” I shouted as I slid close to the fire.  “Stay here with me!  Keep me warm.”

     “No!  You need to learn patience!  Self-restraint.” 

     Her eyes glistened with a wild, primal quality like that of a frightened animal.  She was unpredictable.  She was unstable.  She was a bomb poised for detonation.  Dangerous or not, I wanted her to explode on
me
.

     Ignoring her command, I took one step closer to her.  With whiplash speed, she shoved the tip of a branch into the flame then pulled it out back out of the fire.  She pointed the blazing torch in my direction, forcing me to retreat.

     “I. Said.  NO!”  Shaking with either anger, fear, or a combination of both; she slowly began to back away from the fire.  “You’ll get what you’ve earned when I say so.  You’ll get what you’ve earned when I tell you that you’ve earned it.  Until then, do what I tell you to do.”

     The passion in her voice, the depth of her emotion—they made me want to do anything I could to please her.  I was a dog obeying his master’s every command.  When she told me to sit, I sat.  When she ordered me to be silent, I uttered not a sound.  When she harshly forbade me to move, I became a granite statue.

     Motionless, I sat still as she approached me.  When she leaned in close to me, my body ached with the desire to touch her but I refrained. 

     The sweet heat of her breath tickled my ear as she whispered, “When you get to the other side of the bridge, I will reward you for your behavior.”  She extinguished the torch in the sand then dragged the tip along the ground, creating an infinity symbol at my feet.  “Soon and for the rest of eternity.”

     I remained there long after she was gone, staring into the fire and fantasizing about what would happen when I got to the other side of the bridge.  Every shred of my heart and soul belonged to her.  And just as she promised, we would be together forever.

     When I woke up, I was burning hot and drenched in sweat.  My body wanted to stay in bed but my mind raced with the thought of getting to the other side of the bridge.  My mind won that battle.  Hurriedly, I grabbed my keys and left the apartment.  I was weak and had no idea where I was going but that didn’t stop me. 

     I walked around town aimlessly, street after street, looking for the right bridge.  After hours of wandering through Liberty, I finally found it—the bridge at the end of Forest Avenue.  This had to be the right bridge.  This
had
to be the place she was leading me to.  At the other end, she would be waiting for me.  She would reward me for solving the riddle.  She would stop playing these evil little games with me.  She would finally give in and let me have her.

     My whole body was aching but once I set foot on the bridge, adrenalin kicked in and I took off running.  The sooner I got to the other side, the sooner I would get my reward.  The bridge was only about half a mile long—a distance that I should have been able to traverse fairly quickly.  But the longer I ran, the more it felt like I was traveling through quicksand. 

     About halfway across, I sat down to catch my breath.  This was nuts.  Why was she making me jump through all of these hoops to be with her?  Didn’t she love me anymore?  Maybe she never really loved me.  Maybe she just loved torturing me instead.  Maybe when I jokingly referred to her as a dominatrix, I was closer to the truth than I ever would have guessed.  I loved her so much that I hated her. 

     When I felt able to run again, I got up determined to get to the far side of the bridge.  But just like before, I grew tired long before I should have.  I got close enough to the end that I could see the small park that sat on the other side.  This had to be it.  This had to be the right place.  As I rested, I stared into that park hoping to catch sight of her.  Where was she hiding?  Once I felt stronger, I was going to scour that park until I found her.  This game of hide and seek was going to end today. 

     Fifteen minutes later, I finally made it to the finish line.  Then promptly collapsed onto a bench where I fell into a deep sleep.  I dreamed not of her but of searching for her endlessly but coming up short-handed.  She was all I wanted.  Why couldn’t I have her? 

     When I woke up, I saw that several hours had passed yet I still felt like death.  My legs were wobbly as I made my way off of the bench.  Every muscle in my body felt like it was about to slide off of my skeleton.  And it was all her fault.  If she would just stop messing with my head—my heart—I wouldn’t feel like I was falling apart. 

     Slowly, I searched the park for any sign that she’d been there recently.  No white scarves, no bright orange dresses.  I stood there sniffing the air like a wild dog trying to catch her scent.  No cinnamon, no vanilla.  This was another mean trick she played on me.  The next time I saw her, she was going to pay for this. 

     I made my way back to the apartment, contemplating how to confront her about her behavior.  Why was she being so callous with my emotions?  Why couldn’t she be consistent in the way she treated me?  I deserved better than this.  Way better.  I was done with her.  But when I opened the door, my feelings changed.  That was
exactly
how a man should be greeted when he got home.

24.  Standing My Ground

     Zach burst through the door in an obvious state of rage, the veins in his neck raised and pulsating.  He looked like he had every intention of ripping me to pieces yet two seconds later, he was nothing but smiles.  Disheveled and still wearing the clothes he had slept in the night before, he looked homeless.  My once perfect Norse god now seemed only a step or two away from sleeping on a park bench with a bottle of whiskey wrapped in a paper bag clutched in his dirty hands.

     “Oh my God, Ruby!” he said, pulling me into a slightly too tight embrace.  “I’ve been looking for you all day!  Where have you been?  You weren’t at the bridge where I thought you’d be.”

     His voice was tinged with crazy desperation.  There was no doubt in my mind that he really
had
been looking for me.  But what bridge was he referring to?  While he had never actually been to Poe’s Corner to see me, he knew precisely where it was.  He knew precisely where
I
was for the last six hours.  A tear formed in my eye as I realized that he was losing touch with the real world more and more with each passing day.

     “I was at work, Zach.  Where were you again?”  Other than stuck inside his own badly twisted mind, that is.

     He let go of me, lost his balance, and nearly fell to the floor before steadying himself.  He was gripping the back of the kitchen chair so tightly that I could hear the wood start to crack. 

     “Are you okay?  You look like you’re ready to pass out!”  I grabbed another chair and swung it behind him so that he could sit down.  The seat was barely in position beneath him when he collapsed and exhaled deeply.

     “I’m fine.  I’m just tired, that’s all.”  He leaned over to untie his shoes yet fumbled with the task as though he were attempting to deadlift a thousand pounds.

     “Here, let me get that for you,” I said, kneeling down to relieve him of what must have been a physically challenging task.  I undid the laces and pulled off his shoes only to find that his sock was drenched in fresh blood.  The cut he suffered this morning was bad but it shouldn’t have still been bleeding that much.  What
had
he been doing all day?

     “Zach, what did you say you did today?  Your foot’s still bleeding and it probably shouldn’t be.” 

     I snatched the roll of gauze and bottle of rubbing alcohol from the counter where I’d left it this morning.  As I cleaned and re-bandaged his foot, I waited for an answer from him.  What I got, was nothing but a soft snore.  He had fallen asleep sitting upright in the world’s most uncomfortable chair.  What was I going to do with him?   

     For the moment anyway, I decided to let him sleep while I pondered our situation yet again.  Thankful that I’d brought home some comfort food, I reset the microwave to warm up my cinnamon roll one more time.  I leaned against the counter and watched it rotate, intent on stopping it before the chime went off so as not to wake him.  But with ten seconds still left on the clock, I heard the sound of chair legs scraping against the linoleum floor.

     “Your perfume drives me absolutely insane, do you know that?”

     I hadn’t worn perfume since he broke my last bottle of Midnight Kiss over a month ago.  Now I
knew
he was crazy.  All he was smelling on me was the dim reminder of body wash and the hair products I’d used after my shower this morning. 

     “Midnight Kiss?” I asked, though certain that it wasn’t the scent he was referring to.

     “No!” he replied sharply.  “I’m talking about that new stuff you’ve been wearing.  What’s it called?  And why don’t you wear it every day?”

     He might as well have asked me what color the number nine was.  There was no way to correctly answer a question that made no sense.  I’d told him before that I hadn’t switched perfumes.  He’d torn our bathroom upside down searching for something that didn’t exist.  I was beyond the point of arguing with him about it so I changed the subject instead.

     I slid the box of cookies across the table to him as a distraction from our conversation.  If his mouth was full, the absurd line of questioning would come to a halt.  Hopefully.  “Here Zach, I picked these up for you.  Chocolate chip—your favorite.”

     He dug into the box eagerly as I pulled out a chair and sat down to devour my cinnamon roll.  That’s when it struck me that this would be the perfect time to offer him a cup of tea.  Without even taking a bite first, I reached for my purse and the bag of clay teapots inside.

     “How about a cup of tea to go with those cookies?  Addie from work gave me some exotic tea samples to try out.  I’ve had a couple of them and they were both good.” 

     Total outright lie.  Lies weren’t really my thing anymore but this one was small and for an extremely good cause.  I needed him to drink a cup so that Addie could provide me with a tea leaf reading.  Telling him ahead of time that at least one of them tasted worse than dirt wasn’t going to help either of us one bit.  If tricking him into drinking something gross was going to help me figure out what was wrong with him, I was
not
going to hesitate.

     “Tea sounds perfect.  And I’ll even share my cookies with you if I can have a bite or two of what’s on
your
plate.”

     For those few seconds, he sounded more like his old self.  He sounded normal; he sounded sane and rational.  I nodded in agreement while simultaneously exhaling a sigh of relief.  Finally, it felt like I was starting to make progress again.

     I presented the pots and enthusiastically asked him to pick one at random.  Unlike me who spent a moment or two analyzing my choices before finally settling on one of them, Zach immediately pointed to the one bearing the red symbol on its lid.  Mentally, I began taking notes so that I could relay every detail to Addie tomorrow.  I was counting on this reading to lead me in the right direction—I couldn’t forget a single thing that happened in the next few minutes.

     Zach waited quietly and patiently while I brewed the tea for him.  All the while, my brain was hard at work spinning a tale to explain what I needed him to do with that cup when he was done drinking it.  Since I’d started telling everyone the truth, my internal lie factory wasn’t working as well as it used to.  In the grand scheme of things, that was good, I suppose. But it sure picked a rotten time to fail me.  Unable to think of any way to get out of telling the truth, I gave up and gave him the facts.  Most of them anyway.

     “So when you’re done with your tea, will you do me a huge favor?”

     “I’ll do anything you ask me to, Ruby.  Anything.”

     While most girls would have been ecstatic to hear those words coming from their boyfriends’ mouths, I recoiled internally at the sound of them.  He may not have meant it to sound menacing, but that’s how they came across.  Creepy.  A total Norman Bates in “Psycho” kind of overtone.  A Jack Torrance in “The Shining” type of response. 

     Thinking back to both movies, I tried to decide which fate would be worse.  Would I rather have Zach stab me in the shower or carve me up with an axe?  Dear God.  My vivid imagination was more of a curse than a blessing.  I tried to push all thoughts of murder and mayhem out of my mind as I placed his tea cup in front of him. 

     Channeling the same vibe I did the night of my one-time performance on the stage at the Bantam Theater, I casually acted my way through the next few minutes until my mind was more at ease. 

     “Addie is practicing doing tea leaf readings.  Eventually, she would like to start doing them for customers at Poe’s Corner.  But she needs to get a little more experience doing them.  I told her that I would help her out and I was sure that you would do the same.”

     “Oh,” Zach replied with obvious disappointment.  “Yeah, sure.  What do you need me to do?”

     “First, I need you to relax and drink your tea—
and
help me eat this ginormous cinnamon roll.” 

     After slicing it into six smaller wedges, I placed three pieces each onto plates for both of us.  I was about to pop the first one into my mouth when he barked out a stern command.

     “STOP!”

     Both confused and terrified, I released my hold on it and allowed it to drop back onto my plate.  What did I do wrong?  Or more importantly, what did
he
think I’d done wrong?  I was well past the point of trying to find actual logic behind any of his actions.  So as I sat there panicky and waiting for him to criticize me in some way, I was taken aback to look over and see the huge smile on his face.

     “Geez, Ruby—if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were afraid of me or something!  All I wanted to do is suggest that we eat these in a different way.”

     “Or something,” I repeated back to myself in thought only.  Eat differently?  Everything about him was different these days, why should the simple act of eating be an exception?  Politely, I asked him to explain what he meant by that remark.

     “No,” he said, picking up a piece from his plate.  “I’d rather show you instead.”

     He reached out toward me, grazing my lips with the warm pastry.  When he pulled back, I licked the vanilla icing he’d left behind.  He was trying to be romantic—seductive even—something he hadn’t seemed interested in for some time.  But it felt so foreign to me—
he
felt foreign to me.  But I played along while he teased my mouth open so that I could take a bite.  A year ago, this would have been fun.  Today, it was just more weird icing—literally—on top of an already extremely weird cake.

     “That’s
so
hot!” he exclaimed as I devoured his offering.  “Now it’s your turn to feed me.”

     “Okay.  I’m going to wash that bite down with a drink of tea.  Have you tried yours yet?”

     “No, but I’m about to,” he said, raising his cup to his lips.  His face changed as the first wave of warm liquid rolled over his tongue.  He held a look of pure ecstasy—a look far beyond what even the world’s best tea should produce.

     Curious, I took a sip myself.  Cinnamon with a hint of vanilla.  I hadn’t noticed a scent while brewing it, probably because of the already heavy odor of cinnamon in the air.  While I had to admit it tasted good, it didn’t produce nearly the same euphoria in me that it did in Zach.  It seemed to have a calming effect on him.  Was it mere coincidence or was cinnamon nothing short of a drug to him now?

     Anxious to find out, I promptly began to feed him bits of cinnamon roll.  With each bite, with each sip of tea; he fell deeply under its spell.  By the time we were done eating, he looked drunk—or at least drunk in love.  As weird as it all was, I much preferred this version of Zach to the one I’d been dealing with for the past few months.

     I was so caught up in trying to analyze his behavior that I almost forgot to have him prepare his cup for a reading.  Catching him just in time before he took that final sip, I walked him through the ritual that Addie had taught me.  For curiosity’s sake, I did the same with my cup even though I already knew what I would find. 

     Afraid of what symbols may be lurking inside his, I waited until he went to the restroom to flip the cup upright.  Unlike the neat and clearly visible patterns I was used to seeing in my own leaves, his was a jumbled up mess.  I pulled out my phone and took a picture of it just in case the leaves settled as they dried then carefully tucked his cup inside a plastic baggy until tomorrow.  There was no need to wrap up mine—inside it were the same things I found every other time.  A foot and a feather.  What did it all mean?

     When Zach mentioned being hungry for pizza about an hour later, I gladly offered to order us one and pick it up.  I had a theory that I wanted to test.  The pizza place was only a five minute drive from the apartment but I left fifteen minutes before it was to be ready.  I used that extra time to stop off at the nearest discount store for two plug-in air fresheners—one cinnamon scented and the other vanilla.

     As soon as he was finished eating, Zach went to bed.  Although I was exhausted myself, I gave wanting to write as my excuse for not joining him right away.  Once I knew that he was sound asleep, I plugged both air fresheners into the power strip under my desk then placed the garbage can strategically in front of it.  I wanted to see if they produced the same euphoria I’d seen in him earlier but I didn’t want him to know about my experiment.

     Once that was done, I crawled into bed beside him.  Most every other night, he would stay curled up on his side of the bed and facing the wall.  But as the oil heated up and the scents began to permeate the room, Zach began drifting toward the center of the bed.  Within minutes, his head was resting on my shoulder and he was cuddling me like I was his favorite teddy bear. 

     Obviously, my theory was proven correct.  There was something about those two scents mingled together that put him at ease.  That’s when I remembered what Shelly had said the last time I was home—Diane’s cinnamon roll recipe was Zach’s childhood favorite.  Was his brain so psychologically traumatized that he was reverting back to a much simpler time in his life?  Dad seemed certain that Zach didn’t suffer brain damage after the shooting this past spring.  So what was causing this sudden deterioration in his thought processes?