Experiment in Terror 04 Lying Season (28 page)

And then I did see someone.

Standing at the other end of the alley, where the people were passing by. It was just a silhouette, but one that I had seen far too often these past two days.

She wasn’t moving, but against the grainy streetlights I could see the blood slowly falling off of her.

Splat. Splat. Splat.

Then she turned, her broken neck at that unnatural angle, and was gone.

I walked over to Dex. He looked up at me. I stared down at him. We both saw it. And now I knew the problem.

I held out my hand for him and told him to get up. After a moment of hesitation he did so, and I steadied him with my hands as he got used to his feet.

“
You saw her too,” I told him.

He breathed in deeply but didn’t exhale. I stepped closer to him, close enough so that he had to back into the damp alley wall. I ran my hands through his thick hair and held them there, holding his head steady.

“
You saw her,” I pressed. “You saw her, you saw what I’ve been seeing this whole time.”

“
Yeah. I saw her.”

He exhaled and tried to look at the ground but I held his head tightly. Headache be damned. He was going to look at me.

“
What is the problem? She’s a dead girl. She’s a ghost. This is what we do, Dex. We see ghosts. We see things others can’t. Why is this any different?”

“
Because I shouldn’t be seeing her!” he said through gritted teeth.

“
Why not?” I asked. “Why not? Why not for you? Why do I have to?!”

“
You don’t understand,” he said, trying to move his head out of my grasp. I grabbed his hair tighter and held him in place.

“
Tell me then!”

His eyes darted around, trying desperately to not meet with mine. He was going to lie, I knew it.

“
I…I know her.”

I wasn’t expecting that. I let my hands drop off of his head.

“
What?”

“
This is not a good sign, Perry. This is not a good sign,” he said. His eyes were watering. His low voice quavered. He looked so lost, so small, so helpless and afraid.

I stepped closer again and brought my hands around his shoulders and brought his head down into the nook of my neck. I held him for a few moments, feeling his cold skin against mine, his breath as he exhaled slowly. Eventually he took his arms and wrapped them around me, holding me so tight it almost took my own breath away. My insides felt like they were mourning, for him and for whatever pain he was going through. And if I had anything to do with it.

“
It’s Abby,” he said after a few minutes, speaking the words into my neck in wet bursts.

“
Your…ex…your old girlfriend Abby?”

He nodded.

Oh boy. That was a fucking doozey. It explained so much. His ex had died in college after a fight with Dex. She had been cheating on him, Dex went over and they fought. Then she locked herself in the bathroom with a bottle of gin, escaped through the window and drove away. And then ended up being another victim of drunk driving.

And here she was, suddenly haunting Dex. But why now? Why now that I was in the picture?

“
Dex…why do you think this is happening now? Has it happened before?”

He relaxed a bit in his grip but still held me in an embrace. I wasn’t about to let him go, so this was fine with me.

“
No. I mean…” He brought his head away from my neck so he could talk properly. Our mouths were still only a few inches apart. He rested his forehead against me and kept his eyes closed. “Last time I saw her…was after she had died. She…well, she was everywhere I was. And it drove me insane. And I guess with my past…it was too much. And that’s how I got in the institute.”

“
She literally drove you insane?” I asked, voice low, conscious of how close our mouths were.

“
Yeah,” he breathed out. “Just the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

I thought about that and tried to figure out what to do next. What was there to do? She was a ghost and like it or not, we were both seeing her.

“
Did she try to harm you before?” I asked.

He sighed and straightened up, breaking up the closeness of our embrace. He looked around him at the dark alley.

“
Not exactly,” he said. “But I never gave her the chance.”

“
How did you get rid of her?”

“
Medication,” he said. “Therapy. Whatever they did to me.”

At the mention of his medication, I swallowed hard and looked straight forward at his chest.

I debated on saying anything for a while. I didn’t want to make him suspicious. I already had a feeling he’d go home and check his meds, which meant I could easily be busted if I wasn’t fast and careful. In the end I couldn’t figure out what to say. So I just gave him a small smile.

“
You’ll be OK, Dex,” I said. I was so close to leaning in an inch and kissing him delicately on the lips. Very close.

“
Will I?” he breathed back, his frantic eyes powering down with a wash of passion.

I was starting to feel competing feelings of lust rise up throughout my body. It frightened me enough that I had to pull back. I let go of his back and looked away, back up at the end of the alley. Abby was still gone.

“
Look, I know this is hard for you,” I said, finding my breath hard to control. “But at least we both see her. We’re not crazy. You shouldn’t have even been on any of those medications anyway, or in therapy. You can’t cure ghosts with doctors and pills.”

“
Can’t you?” he asked.

I looked at him sharply, expecting him to be vindictive. But he still looked alone and cold, which melted my heart again. I reached for his hand and held it in mine.

Dex, I love you
. That’s what I wanted to say. I wanted to tell him that and confess my sins of what I did to him.

But of course, I didn’t do either of those things. I just gave his hand a squeeze and said, “I’m in this with you, you know that.”

He nodded and fished a piece of Nicorette out of his pocket. “I really wish we could just go back home and be alone.”

Be alone? I was unable to hide the shocked look on my face.

He caught the expression and shot me a sly grin as he popped the gum in his mouth.

“
Don’t worry, kiddo. I just meant I’d rather be with you and not with any of these fucks that Jenn wants us to eat with.”

“
I thought they were your mutual friends,” I said, crossing my arms.

“
I said this was a compromise, didn’t I?” he said.

“
So what do we do? Go eat or go home?”

He sighed and stepped away from the wall, shooting an anxious glance up and down the alley.

“
Am I fit enough to go for dinner?” he asked.

I looked him over with a discerning eye. Of course everyone looked garish under streetlights in a dirty alley, but he looked OK. Eyes were less bloodshot and his hair was sexily messy thanks to my handiwork.

“
Show me your ass,” I said to him, turning him around with my hands.

“
Perry,” he admonished in fake shock but he let me twirl him. The back of his pants were all wet from sitting on the ground but luckily his black cargo jacket was long enough to cover most of it. He had quite the perky butt, which helped.

“
I think you’ll pass,” I admitted. “I don’t know what Jenn’s going to think…”

“
Who cares,” he said with a shrug and straightened up his collar.

“
As long as you don’t,” I said sternly.

“
I’ll be OK,” he said. He took a step forward, trying to walk away but I grabbed him and brought him closer to me. He was taken aback at my gruffness.

“
You’re not allowed to lie to me anymore, you got it?” I said. “You tell me everything that’s going on. The next time you see Abby, you tell me, just as I would tell you. Just as I have told you. We’re in the same boat now. I don’t know what the fuck she’s doing here or what she wants, but it’s something and I don’t think she’s going to go away until she gets it. You…me, we both have to be prepared for this. Got it?”

He blinked hard and then eyed my Kung-Fu grip on his arm. “I’ve got it. Wow. Perry…when did you…”

“
When did I what?” I challenged.

He smiled. It started off small and then spread across his face until the corners of his mouth cracked. “When did you start acting like me?”

I paused at that. But just for a second. Then I hoisted him forward (which was really just a foot) like I was throwing him against the wall. He laughed and trotted off toward the street. I joined him and we went to the restaurant, leaving the alley and Abby behind.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Dinner was a total chore. The restaurant was absurdly expensive, considering it was just “tapas” and we pretty much had to pay $50 each for a bunch of tiny appetizers and weak drinks. But neither Dex nor I made a peep about it. We had other things on our minds.

Their mutual friends, Sarah and Jorge, were nice enough. A yuppie couple who made it big on the internet back in the 90s. At least Jorge did. Sarah seemed to be his third wife, but she was Jenn’s college friend and there was a weird competition between them. Every time Sarah flattered Jorge on how well his stocks were doing, or whatever they were talking about, Jenn bristled all up like a porcupine and then mentioned how well Wine Babes was doing in the ratings. She never once mentioned Dex. I guess because Dex wasn’t technically doing all that well for himself, at least not financially. The truth was,
Experiment in Terror
had still yet to make it big, despite the copycats out there.

Dex seemed withdrawn and disinterested in the conversation and his food. Only his drinks got his attention. I was surprised that after three drinks, he was still as coherent as usual. I thought the Valium would have done more than make him see the ghost of his ex-girlfriend. But I suppose that was probably the worst side effect any medication could ever have.

I couldn’t help but think about Abby throughout the whole excursion. It made me think that the reason Dex was on medication was because he was seeing ghosts. But if that was the case, it was wrong, not to mention unfair. I saw ghosts too, but I wasn’t carted off to shrinks and prescribed shit. Why were ghosts seen as a mental illness instead of just fact? Or at least a fact that was accepted, if not understood? It seemed like cheating, kind of. Then again, I never knew why he was on his medication. I had Hasselback tell me, but Dex never actually answered that one. I made a mental note to ask him later.

I was also frightened about the whole thing. How long had Abby been trying to terrify him? Was she in his apartment every night for the past five-odd years? Or was she only there because I was there…because I was either weird competition, or because she knew my abilities. Maybe after years of trying to get through to Dex, she finally found someone who listened: Me. But why? What did she have left to say? Did she blame Dex for what happened to her? Was she out for revenge…or worse, whatever worse could be?

Yeah, I was terrible company and so was Dex. Jenn had to spend most of the meal handling the conversation. I didn’t feel bad for her, though. She was the one who saw her beloved sitting in an empty alleyway, head between his knees, hiding from a nightmare, and she acted like it wasn’t a big deal at all. I didn’t understand her one bit and I was liking her less and less by the second. I didn’t even think that was possible.

Unfortunately, whatever I thought about Jenn didn’t matter because as soon as dinner was over and we were back at the apartment, she scooted me into my room.