Remember Me (26 page)

she said finally.

Still, I didn't know how bad it could get.

Amanda put more logs on the fire. Then she took out the empty syringe and drew back the plunger, filling it full of air.

"She's going to put a bubble in his vein!" I groaned.

"That will give him a heart attack," Peter said grimly.

"Or a stroke. I'm surprised she didn't shoot him with the bubble with the first shot. But maybe she didn't want him to have to suffer."

I looked at Peter. "You have to stop her."

He sighed. "I can't."

"Go into her body. Make her put the bubble in her own vein."

Peter was shocked. "That would be murder."

I gestured to Jimmy sprawled before the sacrificial flames.

"This is murder. What you do would be justice."

Amanda kissed Jimmy on the forehead and picked up his arm.

"She would resist me," Peter said.

"Resist her back," 1 said.

"I can't make her commit suicide!" Peter cried.

Amanda rolled up the sleeve of Jimmy's bathrobe.

"And you can't let Jimmy die!" I yelled.

His face filled with dread, Peter bowed his head. I was quite prepared for him to say again that he couldn't interfere.

But then he suddenly stepped forward and went into Amanda.

Amanda paused. Had she been able to see what I could see, she would have got out of the room while the going was good. The phenomenon was similar to when Peter had overlapped his hands with the others during the seance, only a dozen times more intense. Most of Peter had vanished; I could catch only a faint glimpse of his face through the thousand miniature geysers mat had erupted like psychedelic discharges over every square inch of Amanda's body.

The girl knew something was wrong. She raised her arm and peered at the syringe in her hand.

The point of the needle bent toward her eyes.

Amanda jumped to her feet. She tried, but she couldn't drop the syringe. Peter, I supposed, did not have the control to aim for a tiny vein. I didn't mind, as long as he kept her occupied until Garrett arrived. Amanda twisted around the living room like an epileptic caught in a fit, the blood from her torn lip splattering the lapels of her white robe, screaming for help. It was a wonderful sight.

Then she stopped in midstride. Peter reappeared by her side, staring anxiously into the dark doorway at the north end of the living room.

"It's coming," he said.

"What?" I demanded.

"My Shadow."

Amanda shook herself, still holding on to the needle, and turned toward Jimmy. I jumped to Peter's side and grabbed hold of him. "You can't run," I said.

"It's coming," he said, panicking.

Amanda knelt by Jimmy's side. Pulling back the plunger, she refilled the syringe with deadly air.

"It's not as bad as you think," I said. "I faced it."

"It wouldn't be the same for me," Peter said, throwing off my hold.

"You can't leave till you kill her!" I yelled.

"I can't kill again!" he yelled back.

I stopped. Even Amanda paused in the middle of her evil deed. She was wiping the blood from her mouth. She had everything ready; she just wanted to kiss Jimmy goodbye.

"When did you kill someone?" I asked Peter.

He pressed his arm over his eyes and sucked in a deep breath as if he were about to shout.

But all that came out was a shameful whimper. "I crossed the lane in front of that truck on purpose," he said. "I killed myself."

Amanda touched her bloody lips to Jimmy's sleeping mouth.

"That's not possible," I said, echoing his words to me about my own conviction of suicide.

He nodded miserably. "It's not something I'm likely to forget." He turned to go.

"It's not something my Shadow will ever forgive."

Amanda reached for Jimmy's arm, searching for a vein.

"But we need you, Peter," I pleaded.

His gaze strayed again to the dark doorway, and he trembled. "I can't, it's too close," he said.

Amanda squeezed the flesh on the inside of Jimmy's elbow.

"All right," t said, my voice empty. "Leave, if you feel you must."

He looked at me with pain in his eyes. "I'm sorry."

I turned my back on him and stepped toward my brother.

"So am I , " I replied, and I heard the disgust in my tone, even though I did not want him to hear it.

There followed another pause, in both realities. Amanda had found the desired vein and was pressing the tip of the needle to it. But she couldn't stop looking at Jimmy's face. Peter, it seemed, couldn't stop looking at me; I could feel his eyes on the back of my head.

"I love you," Amanda told Jimmy.

"Shari," Peter said. "I love—"

He didn't finish. It wasn't the time for confessions of the heart, he must have realized. He went by in a flash toward my brother. Unfortunately, he had waited too long. Before he could reenter Amanda's body, something came through the dark doorway at the north end of the living room. I couldn't see it as I could my own Shadow, but I could sense its movements. Peter only had time to throw a single terrified glance in its direction before it crossed the room and was upon him.

He crumpled to the floor precisely as Amanda stabbed

Jimmy with the needle and began to depress the plunger.

I had previous information about the dangers of air in the bloodstream. A relative was a registered nurse and had once explained how careful RNs had to be when giving people injections to clear away any bubbles from the medicated solutions. She had added, however, that if the system could quickly break down a large bubble into a number of tiny ones, then the person would most likely survive.

It gave me an idea. And if I could fly, I thought, I should be able to do anything.

I dived into the air in the syringe.

I don't know how I did it. Once again, the power must have simply come to me because I wanted it badly enough.

I saw little before I was thrust into Jimmy's body: a blur of curving plastic walls, the vague shape of a gargantuan thumb, the distorted flames of the fireplace blazing before my microscopic vision like a sun gone nova. Then there was the motion of powerful winds, and I was riding a wild and pulsing current of liquid night.

Yet not everything was dark for me inside Jimmy's vein.

Outside the window of the air bubble, I detected huge spheres of tumbling tissue chasing me along an endless tunnel of blood. Even more remarkable was the sound, a pounding thunder that grew so rapidly in volume and force that I feared it would drown out my mind. A fool could have recognized it—the beating of Jimmy's heart—and I was racing toward it with the speed of an angel.

A dark angel.

The thunder skipped as I plunged into a spacious chamber of churning blood.

It skipped twice, three times, and then it halted altogether and everything was silent.

Dead silence. The bubble had caused Jimmy's heart to stop.

A golden light began to dawn in the strange night.

A realm of beauty and bliss unfolded.

It was Jimmy's dream. I remembered.

"We were in a strange place. It was like a world inside a flower. I know that sounds weird, but 1 don't know how else to describe it. Everything was glowing. We were on a wide open space, like a field. And you were dressed exactly as you are now, in those slacks and that blouse. You had a balloon in your hand that you were trying to blow up. No, you had blown it up partway, and you wanted me to blow it up the rest of the way. You tried to give it to me.

You had tied a string to it. But I didn't catch the string right or something, and it got away. We watched it float way up in the sky. Then you began to cry. "

It was all true. It was a miracle. We were on a field that stretched almost to infinity, to the borders of an all encompassing lotus that sent a thrill through every particle of my being at the sight of it. A brilliant white light shone in the sky, radiating a peace and joy beyond understanding. It was the light Peter had spoken of. It was all-knowing. It knew our situation.

Yet it was not there to interfere. It was merely there to observe. It was the silent witness of the movie of my life finally uncloaked. Jimmy turned to me and smiled.

"This is nice," he said.

I had on my green pants and yellow blouse. Jimmy was wearing his white bathrobe. The balloon I held in my right hand at the end of a thin string was not the brown Jimmy had told me after he had awakened from his dream, but red. And he had been wrong about me wanting to blow it up further. I wanted to pop the balloon. It was the bubble that had stopped his heart.

Still, it was impossible not to be happy. The field we stood on was like a living jewel.

"Yes," I said. "It's beautiful."

Jimmy took more notice of me. "Shari," he said, puzzled. "What's going on?

You're supposed to be dead."

"I am dead," I said. "But being dead isn't like people think it is. Anyway, I can't go into that now or you'll die." I pulled down the balloon and tried to pop it in my hands.

Unfortunately, it had a surface as firm as steel. "Oh no."

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"This is an air bubble that Amanda put into your bloodstream. It has to be broken up."

His eyes widened. "That's right. She was trying to kill me. Did she succeed?"

"Not yet, I don't think," I said, continuing to wrestle with the balloon. "Your heart's only been stopped a few seconds."

Jimmy gazed about the glass field, and his concern quickly receded. "But it's so peaceful here. And that light's so nice.

I want to stay. I want to die."

"No," I said firmly. "You have to live."

"Why?"

"Because you're young and beautiful. You're wonderful.

The world needs you. Mom and Dad need you. If you die, it'll break their hearts."

"But I want to talk to you," he said. "I miss you."

"I miss you, too. But you have to live a long life. And then, when you're done, you can be with me."

"Where is this place? Are we in heaven?"

"No, we're in ... " I began, hesitating, wanting to say we were in his heart, before deciding we might be talking about the same thing. "Yes, this is heaven."

"I'm glad you made it here," he said.

"So am I. " It occurred to me then that because the bubble was in his heart, it might be better if he tried to pop the balloon. But when I started to give it to him, it began to slide from my grasp. It was only the warning of his dream that enabled me to react quickly enough and pull it back in.

There was slippery gook on the palms of both my hands. It was like black chimney soot.

Jimmy had a little on his hands, too, I saw a moment later, although not nearly as much as myself.

"What is this stuff?" he asked, brushing with his fingers.

Neither of us could get it off. It was the only stain in our entire world of light.

We had brought it with us, I realized.

The light itself must have helped me with the realization.

When I spoke next, I did so with the certainty that I spoke the truth.

"It's hate," I said. "We've got to get rid of it. We have to forgive Amanda in order to be able to burst the balloon."

"That bitch. She pushed you off the balcony."

"So she did. But what's done is done. I see that now, Jimmy. I really do. Don't you see?"

"But she murdered you," he protested.

"Amanda is sick. She needs your help." I added, "Besides, she told you the truth. She is your sister."

He raised an eyebrow. "You can't be serious."

I nodded. "I'm afraid I am."

"Oh no." He shook his head. "I knew I should have gone away with mom and dad."

I had to laugh at his discomfort. And it has been said there is nothing more forgiving than a hearty laugh. When I looked down, my hands were clean; so were his. Jimmy had never been one to hold a grudge for more than two minutes. I estimated that was how long his heart had been stopped. We were running out of time. I handed him the balloon, and he held on to it.

"Pop it," I said. "It's the bubble in your heart. It's killing you."

"Will I remember any of this?" he asked, worried.

"I don't know," I replied, my voice faltering as a tear ran down my cheek. "It doesn't matter. You will always remember me. And I will remember you. You were the best brother a girl could've had." I started to hug him goodbye and found I couldn't budge from my place.

Neither of us could move, and it was getting late. "Pop it, Jimmy," I said. "Live. Be happy. Be happy for me."

"You know, Shari ...” he began as he squeezed the balloon in his fingers. But he didn't get a chance to finish the sentence. I didn't get a chance to hear it.

The golden lotus exploded with the flash of a thunderbolt. It was not, however, real thunder that I heard. It was the beating of his heart.

CHAPTER

XVII

A. REAPPEARED STANDING beside Jimmy. He was still lying on his back on the pillows. Only now he was coughing. He was alive!

For the time being. Amanda had scattered logs across the carpet and was transforming the living room into a furnace of flame and smoke. A funeral pyre for both of them. She really was off her nut. She had the needle in her hand and was going to put a big balloon in her own vein.

Fine, go ahead, I thought, before I remembered my promise to forgive her. Ten seconds, and I was already forgetting.

Someone was hammering on the front door.

Amanda had the needle up to her skin. The someone at the door was going to be too late to save her.

I crossed the room in one leap and jumped inside her. It was weird. It was like having a physical body again, only one that didn't fit. I felt so thick. I decided not to worry about it. I whipped my right arm upward and flexed my palm open.

Amanda did the same and dropped her needle on the floor.

She was bending over to search for it, coughing her blessed lungs out, when the front door burst open.

"What the hell," Garrett shouted, running into the room.

Amanda dashed behind her barrier of burning logs. I got out of her quick. "You can't have me!" she screamed.