Sleep No More

TWENTY

I push myself to my feet and take a tentative step forward. It seems like I was right about the napping and the concentration thing, because I’m definitely here. The floor is like a mirror, and it’s surrounded by a huge dome filled with rows upon rows of images—all playing at a low volume that sounds like a buzz when they blend together.

Squinting, I focus on one for a few seconds and the dome moves and spins, bringing that image closer.

Which completely disorients me and makes me fall to my knees, my hands spreading on the smooth surface of the floor to remind myself which direction is up, and which is down. I feel lost and dizzy.

I don’t like this.

But I’m here now. What do I do?

I start by grounding myself. I sit, push my feet out in front of me, and splay my fingers wide on the glassy floor. “Down,” I say to myself. “This is down, and now I won’t lose it.”

I remember the focus stone and when I tip my head, there it is, hanging around my neck. Probably because that’s where it was when I fell asleep. I grip it in my fist, holding on to the only familiar thing in this weird world. Then I look back up into the endless sphere of images above me and pick one at random. I focus as the dome rotates and brings it to a stop in front of me.

It’s a girl from school, at home fighting with her parents. I watch for about a minute, but unless this girl is the person who ended up dead yesterday, I’m not interested.

Smith told me I should be able to manipulate things in my dreaming more easily than in visions. Since I’ve finally managed to retain some kind of focus, I decide to try that. Can I get the answers I need here? Smith said this is every possible future, but what about the past? Can I see the past too?

I think about the news report I watched earlier today. I picture the scene in my mind and try to grasp on to every detail I can remember. The tufty grass sticking up through the snow, the reporter standing in a field of slush filled with dozens of footprints. When I open my eyes the dome is rolling and the crime scene is coming toward me.

I tamp down a feeling of success and focus on the square. It’s not quite the same as watching it on the news—it’s unedited. The reporter is blotting her eyes with a tissue as an assistant stands by with a powder brush. The reporter nods after a moment and the assistant covers up her slightly reddened nose with makeup. Then she takes a steadying breath and turns back to the camera.

Is this the past? The scene looks different.

It hits me like a punch in the gut.

The body is gone.

This isn’t the past. It might be the present.

So where is the body? As though answering my question, the dome rolls and I have to brace myself on my arms to keep from losing perspective again. A brightly lit room appears before me and I realize it’s the morgue.

I search around the room for a clock and it reads 6:20. Probably p.m.

I get it. Only the future. Near future, sure, but only the future. Not the past. Damn it! I can’t follow this victim’s trail backward to the killer. Not unless I have a vision. I want to howl at the unfairness of it all.

But maybe I can find out who the victim is. The scene is bustling with so many people in lab coats, everyone bending over the body; I can’t get a close enough look and even when I rise up onto my knees and crane my neck, I can’t see past them.

Smith said Shelby went into scenes. Maybe I can do that too.

But what if I get stuck? Smith talks about this place like it’s a playground for practicing, but it must be more than that for it to feature so heavily in Sierra’s book.

For her to keep it a secret.

I know so little about it—what if I screw everything up?

But then I remember talking with my mom. “No risk, no reward,” I whisper to myself.

I push my nerves away and rise from the glass floor slowly, pressing my fingertips on the ground until the last second to make sure I can keep my balance when I straighten. I stare at the scene in front of me, using it to help me stay upright.

One step, two. I wobble, but remain standing. The noise gets louder as I draw closer and when I actually step over the short frame and into the scene it feels like a warm, tingling rush of water cascades over me.

And then I’m simply there, in the morgue. When I look back I can still see the odd, rainbow brightness of wherever it is I started, but it’s a small circle that I’m too big to fit through. I wrinkle my brows at it in worry and take a step backward, but as I do, the circle grows and I realize I’m not trapped. It’s waiting there for me.

Confident I can get back, I turn around and take a few more steps into the morgue. I like the feeling of being in one of the scenes. The ground here is solid and opaque and feels so much more real than the plane behind me.

I focus on the table a mere eight feet away. On the person lying there. I figure I’m not really here since nothing I do can affect anything in the physical world. But it’s still a little creepy when the men and women take oddly veering steps to avoid me. Like I am there. Like they can see me.

Still no one speaks to me or tries to stop me from approaching the body, so I’m pretty sure I’m not actually visible. When I reach the table, I’m disappointed to see the face is draped. But this isn’t a vision. Maybe . . .

I reach out and touch the edge of the thick, white cloth with my finger.

My fingertips caress the rough threads, sliding along until I reach the edge. I lift it away from the lifeless face and look down.

Eddie Franklin.

My heart sinks. He’s a senior. He was in science with me. He was really quiet and one day at the beginning of the semester we were assigned to exchange quizzes.

He got every single answer wrong.

I got every single one right.

I caught him after class and told him we could work together if he wanted. He called me a nosy bitch and told me to mind my own business. But two weeks later, after a big exam, he came to me and apologized.

And asked if the offer still stood.

We studied during lunch, hidden in his car with the heater on. He told me a bit about his home life with an alcoholic dad, how much he wanted to move out. But if he failed this class, he wouldn’t graduate.

I wouldn’t say we were friends, exactly—he never talked to me other than at lunch, and our study sessions stopped after Bethany was killed—but we had this tentative respect.

I wonder if he passed his final. Then realize it doesn’t matter.

He was kind of a loner without very many friends. Maybe that’s why no one knows it was him who got killed.

I clamp my trembling jaw and look down at his pale body. The left side of his face is a mass of bruises as is his throat. It looks like Eddie was strangled.

Like Jesse was supposed to be.

But with Jesse, the bruises were centralized around the throat and the body was tossed aside once the life was gone.

The killer wasn’t satisfied with just killing Eddie. His head is oddly shaped on one side, making my stomach churn. I bet his skull is broken underneath. Both arms and legs are bent at sickening angles and one side of his chest is caved in. I have to look away before I throw up.

If only, if only I could have done something.

I turn away, anxious to be anywhere—even the nausea-inducing dome—other than here. I trip over my own feet as I stagger out of the circle that leads me back to the mirror floor, but I don’t care. I just lay there, wishing everything around me would fade away.

Because even though that scene at the morgue is somewhere in the near future, Eddie’s death isn’t. He’s gone, and the abilities of an Oracle are powerless against the past.

I have to think of something good before I drown in despair. I close my eyes and picture Linden to center myself. For several long minutes, I let myself focus on nothing but him until I’m ready to open my eyes. When I do, I am surrounded by visions of Linden. Him with me, him alone, him with someone else, his parents, teachers, friends, other girls.

“Every possible future,” I whisper. I catch a glimpse of myself far above my head on my right, and focus on it. I know what to do this time, and as the scene comes closer, I rise quickly and step into it, needing something comforting after the morgue.

There we are, sitting together on his couch, laughing. I walk forward and as I approach, he says something I don’t hear and the scene blurs, then splits and offers me two new scenarios.

A choice? I didn’t get a choice in the morgue.

Maybe there was no choice to make. There is no future for Eddie.

I stare at the two scenes in front of me. In one, we’re obviously fighting, so I step into the other. For the next several minutes, I walk forward, a smile on my lips as I veer into one framed scene, then another, creating a pretend future for Linden and me. Sometimes when the two frames appear, just for fun, I don’t always choose the best one. But if I see kissing ahead, I’m generally swayed.

I see numberless scenes of kisses and caresses or long talks on the phone. Of introducing him to my mom, of getting to see his college apartment for the first time. I want to cry at how much better this is than following a murderer through his victims.

But that thought worms its way through my blissful state and I think about how my entire dome filled with Linden when I concentrated hard enough.

Could I do the same thing with the killer?

I look wistfully at the next choice I have with Linden. If I handle things right, though, I won’t need stolen moments on the supernatural plane—I’ll have Linden for real. I turn and focus on the domed room and the circle that will lead me there appears instantly.

When I reach the glassy floor, I ground myself again and think of the killer. I don’t have anything specifically to focus on, but I concentrate on what I do have. The terrible faces and mangled bodies of his victims, the figure Smith and I saw in my vision of Nicole.

And that scream. That terrible, terrible scream.

Somehow I can feel when I’ve succeeded. There’s a nearly tangible evil surrounding me. A raw sickness. Cringing, I open my eyes.

Everything is dark. The dome is covered with an array of shadowy faces. Sometimes running, sometimes rubbing a cloth up and down a knife, sometimes just standing and watching. But every scene is dark.

Too dark for me to see.

I focus on a slightly brighter scene and move it close, then step into it before I can lose my nerve.

I’m safe here, I remind myself, but it’s doesn’t stop my whole body from shaking. He’s sitting in a corner, watching a television screen. But his face is in full shadow and no matter how I move around his chair, I can’t make out his features. After a few minutes, I give up and go back out the bright circle and try another scene. He’s walking this time, and regardless of how fast I run, how hard I push myself, I can’t catch up. And even if I could . . . he’s wearing the mask.

I turn back to the bright circle and try again. And again. But each time he’s too fast, or the shadows won’t move from his face, or he’s masked, or the vision simply blacks out and ends. None of the scenes offer me a choice the way they did with Linden. It’s like someone, something is blocking me.

Is this an Oracle rule I don’t know about? Or is it simply that knowing who he is would change the future so vastly that I can’t do it in a dream? I stare up at all the images of the monster, wishing I could do something. But even here, on the supernatural plane, his identity remains a mystery.

I feel an almost imperceptible ripple go through the dome world and distantly I realize I’m starting to wake up. I’m ready, I suppose. I found out about Eddie. And I guess I “practiced” in the Linden scenes; Smith said everything helps. But I can’t help but feel like I’m missing something. Some way I could help if I only knew better. I focus back on the Linden moments—so that at least I don’t wake directly from the dark presence of the killer—when a flash of color catches my eye. It glints and disappears for a moment, but then it’s back. It’s a door. A door in the wall of the dome.

The longer I stare at it, the more solid it grows until it almost appears that the entire dome is sloping toward it. It looks far away, but I start walking in that direction. As I do, the door seems to retreat. I’m catching up, but not as quickly as I should be. I’m twenty feet away, and after speed-walking about fifty feet, I’ve gained another ten. I’m almost there when the weird ripple happens again. A few seconds later, my physical eyes flutter open and I’m back in my bedroom.

The clock tells me I was asleep for a mere hour—but it felt like much longer. Smith was right though: I don’t feel tired.

I think about the door I couldn’t reach and a strange sense of foreboding wells within me. Maybe I’ll be able to get to it tonight, now that I know it’s there.

But first, I have to send a message. I turn on my phone and press Linden’s number. I send him a single line of text.

It’s Eddie Franklin.

I shove the phone into my pocket and wonder how long my mom will let me hole up inside my room. I should probably at least unlock my door, let it sit open a crack so she doesn’t worry about me. More.

I’m just starting to stand up when the tingling in my temples erupts. As the pressure in my head grows, turning into a tornado inside my skull, I know it’s got to be another murder vision. Gritting my teeth, I sit back down on the bed and let it come, hating it already.

As the vision clarifies and I find myself standing in a shadowy tunnel, I’m taken off guard by just how badly I wish I wasn’t here. How much I wish I wasn’t me—wasn’t an Oracle. That someone else had been chosen for this job.

Because whoever the victim is in this vision, I’m not going to save them. I’m going to put them right in the path of danger in order to get closer to the killer. The vision pulls me forward, forcing me to take step after step toward a mound lying on the ground at the mouth of the rounded tunnel entrance.

I’m about to find out whose life I’m going to risk to catch a monster.