Sweat inevitably percolates along my forehead as I sit up in my bed, my heart pounding in my chest.
Jesus.
That one felt more real than any of the others have before.
I wonder if the cause for this one tonight was due to the constant call back of all the memories that I subjected myself to yesterday. I thought for sure after popping one of the anxiety pills, my overwhelming mind would have settled to a calm. But alas, I feel more anxious than I did before going to sleep.
The nightmares didn’t start until the year after the murders and I don’t really know what they mean or why it’s the same scenario every single time. But soon, they started to dwindle down and even then, some of them ended a little differently . . . I was saved in the end. But not in this one, and not in a lot of them. Most of the time, I end up dead. Or dying. But I usually wake up right before the brutal end. I would say that it’s just my mind trying to remind me of the terror from the horrific night but none of what takes place in my dreams had actually happened to me; not the night of the murders or any other night. So I can’t be sure what my lethargic brain is trying to tell me behind closed eyes.
And if it’s not an imagination of death I’m tangled up in during sleep, then other times my dreams—or nightmares—end with something or someone coming to my rescue and releasing me from the trap. Those dreams are also usually filled with something more . . .erotic. And despite being something that can elicit arousal from me while I’m deep asleep, they’re still filled with darkness and fear. I haven't had one of those in weeks though.
I don’t know which dreams are worse. The ones in which I’m trapped and bound to death with the torment of screams and something haunting me or the ones in which I’m terrified but turned on but ultimately saved at the end? While my life remains a permanent nightmare that I must face everyday, that doesn’t mean that I always like to fall asleep. There’s something dark in my mind and I think my brain likes to torture me with it when it knows I’m most vulnerable.
My sleep-driven imagination seems to take on either morbid realities or unnatural desires. And that’s a problem. Because both morbid reality and unnatural desires are in fact my truth but in real life I can pretend to disassociate with that truth, whereas my dreams and nightmares make me face it. So all that to say, I’m fucked either way; asleep or awake.
Dead or alive.
I shake the thoughts of dreams and nightmares altogether and push the blankets off of my body before swinging my legs over the side of the bed. I suck in a much needed deep breath through my nose as I reach for the water bottle I keep at my bedside and empty it. My body cools as I drink the liquid down and I lookover at my phone to see that it's three in the morning. I can smell the lingering scent of the green tea and bamboo scented candle I had lit before bed—the wick is completely used up, telling me it burned out a little bit ago.
I decide to think about what I want to do in regard to Thriller Nights Weekend as I sit awake for the time being.
I could skip town and put the whole weekend out of sight and out of mind. That way I won’t even be tempted to go up to the Pines. Or I could just do what everyone expects me to do and go. But what would I be going for? Would I be going to try and find something that could help indicate who killed my brother and best friend four years ago? Would I be going because someone sent me an invitation to go and I’m partly curious as to who it was and why? Or would I be going for reasons I don’t even know myself?
Or so that I can seehim?
Regardless of my whole body being pulled into the harsh but appealing tide of wanting to go, I don’t mind the idea of skipping town. But I don’t know how I’d make that happen. Surely, the snow will prevent me from making it anywhere after too long and I wouldn’t even know where to go.
I huff, throwing myself back into my bed. I think I’ve known all along, despite what I’ve been telling everyone else, that going to the Pines could be the closure I need and that this might be my last chance for that. Even if it doesn’t bring me to the memories I do and don’t want. But I can't shake the bad feeling I'm getting just by thinking about it even if my gut isscreaming at me, urging me to be in the forest this weekend.
Suddenly, I hear a twig snap outside my window and I freeze for a beat before I shoot up to sitting position again. Part of me waves it off as a silent echo from the dream I'd just had or maybe it’s the wind kicking up outside. But then I hear another, so I decide to stand from my bed and head toward my window. Looking out, I can't see much in the dark. But I do feel the cold air pressed against the glass as I stand closely, and I can see the little snowflakes fluttering down over the autumn-colored trees as the wind whistles between the branches.
I scan my eyes around the area outside. My apartment is on the third floor so I have a pretty decent view of my surroundings, but everything is cloaked in the darkness of night, the moon’s silvery luster having disappeared beyond the trees.
I train my ears to listen carefully for another branch or indication of movement, but after a few moments, I come up short. I sigh, for some reason disappointed. I don’t know what I hope for or why I want to actually find someone watching me. Maybe because of the legit hallucination I experienced at the bar earlier; that was true paranoia. But finding nothing to assuage my unprincipled interest, I decide to turn away but my heart races as I hear the sound again and this time as I face the window, I squint into the distance and that's when I see a faint radiation of light.
I allow a moment to let my eyes adjust to the darkness and when they do, I recognize the emanating glow of teal barely present beyond the trees.
My heart slams against my chest, hammering as I stand motionless, the realization that my suspicions have been valid all along. Someoneiswatching me. Though I can’t be too sure how long. All I know is as I stare out the glass and into the night, there is someone beyond the trees and I am pretty sure I know who it is.
It takes a second for me to snap out of it and to drop down to my knees below the windowsill in a ridiculous attempt to not be seen by whatever is out there.But I do want to be seen. My heartbeat is racing at a deliciously dangerous speed, indicating the licentious but impractical thrill my body is reacting to.
But it’s not real, is it? And even if it is, I should be scared. I close my eyes tight, squeezing them shut as I start to count to ten, hoping that when I open them, the blurred outline of the lights will be gonebecause wanting them to be there is a ludicrous idea. I take a deep breath after I finish my count, bracing myself by tightening my grip on the window ledge as I pull myself up. But when I open my eyes and slowly peer back out, I'm knocked on my ass when I'm proven wrong.
Just beyond the trees. But closer than before.
He's out there.
And as I squint my eyes to reveal that the neon glow is in fact coming from the very mask I had assumed to be his, I know that that can only mean one thing…
He really is back.
And he’s watching me.
4
OLIVIA
“Because you were home.” — Pin-Up Girl, The Strangers (2008)
