Post 23

And so it went for Peter and Laura for the next several days. Laura got the call after a day of waiting to find out that the repairs on her car would cost around $1,100. Her father paid for the repairs, but the car wouldn’t be ready for a couple days. Their parents checked on them frequently, so in order to be alone, they had to take a walk or maybe get Dan to give them a ride somewhere. With Laura’s car in the shop, it put a damper on their mobility. Peter resumed his lawn mowing, trying to save up some money to maybe get a car of his own. He cut the Sinclair’s lawn again, paying special attention to where the leash was this time. Nobody had heard from Gerald in all that time. Things were starting to quiet down again.

Laura got the call on Saturday that her car was ready to be picked up, and she immediately called Peter to let him know. “My dad is going to take me over there now, so I can come by and pick you up when we’re done.”

“That sounds great, Laura!” said Peter. He hadn’t seen her yet that day, and was looking forward to it.

While she was picking up her car, Peter took a shower. After his shower, he got dressed and went downstairs. Laura wasn’t there yet. His mother just brought in the mail, and in it was a package for him. She called him into the kitchen to get it. It was an express box that was supposed to be delivered overnight, and it was somewhat heavy. He didn’t recognize the handwriting, and there was no return address on it. There was something in the box that crinkled, and weighed several pounds. Peter was about to open it when Laura rang the doorbell. Peter set the box down and opened the door for her, giving her a welcoming kiss. It was nothing too passionate – his mother was standing right there. She looked so much better after a couple days of healing. There was no swelling in her face, and her bruises had faded. She looked summery in her white shorts and t-shirt. It actually looked like she was starting to get a tan. They both went into the kitchen.

“I got a package,” Peter said, and picked the box up. He tore away the strip and opened the box. He couldn’t quite tell what was inside. It was encased in layers of plastic. Flicking the box forward, he slid the contents out onto the counter and was immediately aghast. Laura, who was watching, was horrified. Though the details were obscured by the layers of plastic, there was no mistaking the contents: there on the counter lay a dead gray cat, wrapped in plastic. Its fur was matted with blood, and its eyes were still open. On the plastic was a sticky note that read: a snack

Laura screamed, her hands in front of her mouth. Peter exclaimed, “Holy shit!” not remembering that his mother was standing nearby.

“Peter!” scolded Heather as she wandered into the kitchen to see what the fuss was about. When she saw the dead cat on the counter, she didn’t immediately know what it was. “What is it, Peter?”

“Don’t look, mom.” This, of course, made Heather look that much closer. When recognition dawned on her, she was disgusted. “Don’t touch it!” she yelled. Peter was about to pick the contents of the package up and take it out to the trash. “We need to call the police now.”

Peter listened while Heather dialed the police and explained to them what just happened. He and Laura were waiting in the living room, away from the dead animal. They assumed it was Gerald who sent the package to them. They were trying to figure out why he sent it. What message was he trying to send to Peter? Was it because Peter accidentally gave him the spirit of a squirrel? Was he trying to prove how sadistic he could be by returning the favor in a gruesome fashion? Or maybe he was just trying to show that he could still get to Peter and his family, that he was roaming free in the world and there was nothing that Peter could do about it. Either way, Peter was afraid not only for himself, but for his family, for Laura and for Laura’s family. He had a terrible thought. “You don’t think he sent one of these packages to your house, do you?” he asked Laura.

“I don’t know. He knows where I live, so he might have, just trying to scare both of us. Can I use your phone?” asked Laura. “I haven’t been able to find mine since the fight at the parking garage.”

“Do you think Gerald still has it?”

“I’m pretty sure of it. Either that or it’s somewhere in the rubble in that garage, and it can stay there as far as I’m concerned.”

Heather hung up the phone, and Peter picked up the extension in the living room. He handed it to Laura who called her dad. “Is there a package there for me?” She listened, and breathed a sigh of relief. She held her hand over the phone and told Peter, “No package.” She went on to tell her dad that the car was working fine and that she was going to be with Peter for a while, and then she hung up.

Dan arrived at the house along with a squad car of two uniformed officers. They looked at the cat and the package, and took them for tests at the lab. When asked, Peter told the officers that he had no idea why this could have been sent to him, but he was pretty sure who sent the package. With the ongoing investigation, it wasn’t hard to convince the police of it. The police carried the package out to their squad car, but Dan lagged behind. Standing at the door, he asked Peter, “Are you sure you’ve been feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I’ve been great.”

“Well, don’t let your guard down. This isn’t over yet with that freak still out there doing this type of stuff. He obviously still has it in for you, and we’ve seen what he’s capable of. I’m thinking we might want to get you guys to visit Uncle Jeff for a while until we find the guy.”

Peter thought about it, but didn’t want to make any decisions yet. “I’ll think about it,” he assured Dan.

Finally alone together, Peter and Laura were quiet for a time. Their enthusiasm was dampened. Just this morning, they felt like things were starting to get normal again, and then they were confronted again with the reality that there was a psychopath who had it in for them.

Laura started talking first. “Pete, this is going to sound strange, but can you get in touch with the redhead?”

“Leanne? I don’t know. I only seem to be able to reach her when I’m totally stressed out over something.”

“Have you thought about trying while you’re relaxed, to see what you can learn about her?”

“All I really get are strong emotions, or powerful images that are pulled from her memory and her life.”

“You don’t think you can get under the surface? You were able to get her name,” said Laura.

“Yes, but her name is really a big part of who she was, right? I figure that’s why I was able to get her name. And Gerald’s name. It’s always there. It’s readable.”

“Can you read my mind, Peter?”

Peter looked at Laura intently. “You know, I’m pretty sure this only works if you’re dead.”

“Very funny. But I’m serious. Give it a try. See if you can reach out to me.” Laura sat facing Peter, her hands in her lap, trying to open up to Peter’s attempt at making psychic contact with her.

Peter looked at her quizzically, then gave in. He tried to clear his mind and focus on Laura’s eyes. Looking into Gerald’s eyes was the key to his memory, so it was worth a try. Peter closed his eyes, trying to relax and reach out with his mind into Laura. He turned his head slightly as he thought he heard something ethereally speak to him, but when he listened harder, he heard nothing but his own breathing. He then heard a sharp intake of breath. When he opened his eyes again, Laura was staring at him bewildered.

“What? What did you see?” asked Peter.

“Peter, your...” Her words faded away as she brought her hand to his face and stroked his cheek. “Your face is so warm, and... Look in the mirror!”

Peter stood up and walked into the bathroom, turning the light on as he entered. He looked at the mirror and saw that his face was dark red, almost purple, like a bad sunburn. His veins weaved a network of blue across his cheeks. He called out in alarm. He put his hands to his face, and felt the heat radiating from his cheeks. Then as quickly as it rose, it retracted. Peter suddenly felt cold. This was not the same type of cold that he felt in the parking garage, where all the heat seemed to collect in his core and leave his arms and legs. This was like a fever that spread through his head quickly. The skin on the back of his neck began to stand up, and he looked down at his arms, holding them up in the bathroom light. What he saw there made him shiver. His skin took on the double-vision appearance that he saw on Gerald that day at the airport. Peter had an aura!

“Do you see this?” he asked Laura.

“See what, Peter?”

Apparently not, he thought, because this is pretty obvious to me. “Remember how I described Gerald at the airport?”

“You mean the aura?”

“Yes. I have one. Can you see it?” He held his hand out to Laura, who impulsively retreated from him. That moment recorded itself indelibly in Peter’s memory, not just because Laura seemed to pull away from him in fear, but because his own reaction caused the aura to retreat back inside his skin at the same instant. “It’s gone now,” he said, but Laura couldn’t tell the difference. She kept looking at his arms as though they may bite her.

“Are you sure?”

“Laura, I’m perfectly safe. It’s okay to touch me.”

Whether she felt more relaxed or she did it to reassure Peter, Laura did reach out and take Peter’s hand in her own. “See?” asked Peter. Laura nodded. “Nothing to be afraid of,” he said, and embraced her. She accepted his hug and even returned it. Peter felt a little self-conscious hugging her in the bathroom.

“I’m sorry, Pete. I just wasn’t sure what would happen. I remember you talking about running into Gerald at the airport and bad things happened to you. I just didn’t want... I didn’t want the same thing to happen to me, too, okay?”

“That’s okay. I wouldn’t want that to happen to you, either. Only one of us is allowed to be all weirded out at a time.”

Peter felt as though a barrier was broken now, that he could more freely interact with Leanne as he carried her inside him. That worried him in a way, but it also made him insanely curious what he could find out about her simply by asking.

“If you were going to ask Leanne a question, what would it be?” Peter asked as they returned to the living room.

“How did you die?” she answered, offhandedly.

“I think we know the answer to that, and given the way she’s answered questions thus far, I don’t think I want to ‘see’ the answer right now.” Peter reflexively thought back to the bloody wall at the hotel.

His outsider’s perspective on the hotel room triggered a memory from Leanne that he couldn’t suppress. “Why’d you have to hit me?” Leanne’s voice asked Peter. He didn’t fall into a vision as he had in the past. Instead, it was like a memory, filling his mind’s eye with a series of scenes of the hotel room.

Gerald hit her. Peter felt detached, like he was near them, watching from the side. Gerald hit her again and again, each impact of his fist accentuated, each draw back of his hand unseen. The bottle she held flew from her hand and landed on the floor next to the bed. The thin hotel carpeting did nothing to cushion the glass bottle from the concrete beneath. All Peter saw was that it shattered on the carpet. Then Gerald had a hold of Leanne’s hair and was yanking her violently forward off the bed. There was no transition to her kneeling on the carpet over the broken bottle. Suddenly she was there, and Gerald shoved her down, the shards of glass piercing her skin. Peter saw Gerald’s face, twisted in rage. He was yelling, but the sound of his voice was not reaching Peter’s ears in this strange vantage point. He continued to beat her while Peter watched. The brutality transfixed Peter as the scenes played in fast forward. He saw every impact, and watched as Leanne was reduced to nothing beneath him. In the end, she breathed her last, one eye sealed shut, the other eye staring off to a better world. Then the room was empty, save for Leanne’s broken body. Peter realized he was watching through the mirror the whole time. Now that mirror was tinged in red, painting the scene before him. In the next instant, the door was open again, with Dan standing at the entrance to the room. His weapon was drawn, but being knocked from his grasp by Gerald, who was crushing Dan against the door frame. Finally, Peter saw Gerald standing next to the dresser, his hand on a small video cartridge that was sitting there the whole time. Finally, the gruesome slide show was over.

“Scraps of memory,” intoned Leanne, “for you to better know me.”

Peter didn’t know what to say. The entire episode took maybe ten seconds. The impact of everything he saw during those ten seconds was slow to penetrate his mind, which was, of course, a blessing to him. He shook his head in disgust. “Show me something else!” he exclaimed.

“What did you see, Peter?” asked Laura.

Another memory was starting for him.

It was Leanne, playing in a field overgrown with grass and wildflowers. She was just a child here, maybe four or five. The bright sun shone down on her as she laughed the enchanting laugh of a happy child.

Something insidious wormed its way into this vision, though.

The grass and the flowers all faded. The child disappeared, replaced with a desolate nothingness. The sun shone overhead still, but in an oppressive way. Peter saw a house before him, a child at play in the dirty streets – a young boy. Before he could take in the details of the scene, the house was replaced by a blinding flash of light that engulfed the child.

Peter winced at the sight of so much light in his eyes. This was more like the visions he had in the past, immersive and uncontrollable.

The final scene showed a boy laying in the street, bleeding from many cuts caused by flying debris.

“Iss-me Wassim.” A man’s voice spoke to him. “Anna min l-shark l-owsat.” Peter could barely hear the voice speaking to him. The flash of light pulled him out of this vision and back to the living room next to Laura. He only heard the man speaking because he tried to stay in the vision, but his own mind wouldn’t let him stay there.

“There was a man. I think his name is Wassim. He’s the one I shot and killed in the vision I had in Dan’s hospital room.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because he is here with me, too.”

“You have two people inside you?”

“Yes. I think this is who Gerald was looking for when he tried to have me trade for you.”

“Why do you think he’s so important to Gerald?” asked Laura.

“I don’t know, but I have no intention of just giving him up. I’ve seen some of what Gerald is capable of, and he doesn’t deserve to be alive.”

Peter thought of the cat that was delivered to his house, and about how he heard that people who are cruel to animals will also go on to be cruel to other humans, even their own kids. He wasn’t sure if Gerald went through that progression or if he only recently started hurting animals, but someone had to have seen the warning signs before. What could possibly have driven him to start killing people and animals? Peter got a sudden urge to get them both out of the house.