Chapter one of Revision and Editing
See The New Wonderland if you don't know what I mean. Other wise, read on.
Alice O'Malley wandered around the freezing forest for hours. She pulled her coat tighter against her and let out a sigh. The air was so cold that her breath showed up as a puff of was taking in the freezing hell that she called her hometown. She figured that a long walk would help her figure out what was missing in her life.
"I need boyfriend. That's it, a boyfriend. Someone I could spend all of my extra time with and be happy." Alice mumbled, kicking the dirt and looking about the forest for the thousandth time. The landscape hadn't changed, and the trees didn't have the answers. Alice came here on days off from her college classes; she was going to school to be an English teacher. The forest was a calm place, so serene in it's various seasons, it helped her to think about what was important in her life.
A laugh vibrated off the trees around her. Alice looked around and saw no one. She could hear some kids laughing in the distance. Then the laugh sounded again.
"I'm weird-ed out. This joke isn't funny!" Alice said and ran for the road up above. She knew it was probably nothing more than some neighbor kids playing a prank on her, but it scared her.
Alice reached the dirt road and began running as fast as her feet could carry her to her house. She could feel the gravel -where the snow had melted- hitting the back of her coat like someone was throwing it at her. Alice slipped and went tumbling into a snowy ditch; her head hit a large rock, she quickly shook it off and got back up, running at the same pace. There wasn't time to stop and worry about her head, someone was watching her, she could feel it.
A car horn blared as Alice crossed the street to go into her house. A brand new black and silver Dodge Ram 4x4 veered out of control on the icy road and smashed right into her going at least 60 mph. Alice lay on the ground, unmoving.
The driver got out of the car and ran to Alice. He lifted her head and felt her neck for a pulse. "Hello? Can you hear me?" he asked pushing up her eyelid to see if she was faking unconsciousness. After much shaking and nudging her, he realized she was actually hurt. The driver searched her coat pockets and jeans for some sort of identification; he found none. Lifting her up off the road, he set her in the passenger seat of his truck.
The man decided he would talk to her while he drove to the hospital, even though he knew she couldn't hear him and wouldn't respond to his conversation. He was very nervous and he knew that if she died, he could never live with himself.
"My name is Theodore Hatter. I'm so sorry for hitting you, the truck was sliding down the hill, there's just so much ice, and I'm really sorry. Please don't sue me. What's your name?" Theodore asked looking over at the limp body; his heart sank. "Of course, you can't answer. I'll call you Jane, since it's a very generic name. Oh! They will ask me your name at the hospital, but I won't know. This is bad, bad, bad, bad." He said shaking his head vigorously as he pulls the truck into West Point Medical Center's parking lot that had been only a few blocks away.
Theodore lifted her out of the passenger seat and carried her though the emergency doors. An older nurse with gray hair and a nametag with name Harriett scribbled on it ran to help him carry her. Another nurse who was considerably younger than the first started asking all sorts of questions. Theodore's mind slowed down and everything became completely surreal.
The nurse bombarded him with questions. "What's her name? Her age? Where does she live? What happened? Who are you to her? Is she allergic to any medications? Sir? Sir?"
"I don't know." He said slowly as if he were speaking through another person. Alice was wheeled down the hall on a stretcher.
Alice was checked into a private room and the younger nurse sat down Theodore outside of it. "Now honey, I need you to start answering my questions." The nurse said sitting beside him.
"What is her full name?"
"I don't know. My truck slid out of control and hit her, I checked for an ID but she didn't have one."
The nurse scribbled down everything that he said. "Well that answers just about all of my questions. If you don't know her name then you won't know where she lives, her age, or anything of the personal sort. I just need your name and then we'll keep you informed as the evening progresses." She said standing up and holding out her hand to shake. Theodore shook her hand and looked up. "I'm Theodore Hatter."
Smiling, the nurse said, "I'm Annie, if you need anything else, I'll be at the nurse's station." Annie pointed to a small round desk in the center of the hall. "Over there."
Theodore held his head in his hands and decided to take a nap until they had deduced what was wrong with Alice. In a matter of minutes Annie, the nurse, came over to him and set her hand upon his shoulder. Theodore looked up at her fully expecting some lawyer to pop out from behind the nearest doorway to slap a lawsuit on him.
"Doctor Wicket says that she appears to be in a coma. There is good news though, we found out who she is because she had on an allergy bracelet." The nurse named Annie held her clipboard a few inches from her face. "Her name is Alice O'Malley, she is," the nurse looked up at the corkboard ceiling and counted silently to herself. "23 years of age and allergic to cephalosporin's. If you'd like to stay here, I'm going to have you sign in as a visitor."
Theodore nodded and stood up. "I should probably stay just in case her family can't be contacted. Where do I sign in at?"
Annie motioned for him to follow her to the nurse's station.
A loud beeping that turned into ringing in the distance snapped Alice out of a sound sleep. It sounded almost like an old time telephone, one that you would see in an old black and white film. She looked around to see that she was in the forest.
Alice grabbed her head. "Did I hit my head?"
The phone started ringing again and there were voices in the distance.
"Has someone come to my forest, and just what the hell is that irritating ringing?" Alice joked running towards the direct of the noises.
The snow flew up around her legs as she picked up the pace. The ringing got louder and the voices grew quieter as Alice drew closer. Then she saw it, the phone that is. To Alice's surprise, it was actually a phone hanging on a tree in the middle of the forest. Alice checked all around her and concluded two things; she was bat shit crazy and she was hearing voices, or that phone, which was connected to absolutely nothing, was ringing and there weren't any people around.
Alice let out a little cry of disbelief when it began ringing again. "Ha! I've lost my mind. I can see it now," she motioned her hands in the air to give emphasis. "College student goes insane at 23!" She dropped her hand to her sides and stared intently at the phone. "How can it be ringing?"
The phone continued to ring even though it wasn't connected to anything but a nail and a tree. Alice figured there was no use in letting it ring and picked it up. She held it up to her ear for a few second before calling out a faint 'hello'.
Theodore sat in an old wicker chair beside Alice's hospital bed. The nurse told him that she would try to contact her family and until she did, it'd be best if he stayed.
"Alice?" he asked, Alice remained unmoving in her flower printed hospital gown. "They say that when people are in a coma, they know subconsciously what's going outside of their body. Looks like I'll be having a lot of one-sided conversations with you." Theodore laughed sadly to himself.
"Alice." A male voice said from the other end.
Alice's voice shook; she had always been a terrible liar. "No, this is not her. Can I take a message?"
"You are a poor liar."
Her eyes got wide and her body shook as her eyes swept the premises. "Excuse me? Who is this?"
The man laughed dark and childishly, like this was some sort of sick and twisted game. "I can see you Alice."
"What? How can you see me?" Alice demanded looking around wildly. There was a loud pop and the receiver cord thumped against the tree, she was holding a cordless phone.
"Goodbye Alice." He said, with a slight chuckle to his voice.
"Wait! Who is this? How do you know my name? How is this phone even working?!" Alice screamed into the receiver and bashed it against the tree until it had broken in half.
Alice held her arms close to her chest and looked around; nothing was out of the ordinary. Only thing worth mentioning was a pile of old junk sitting in a heap a few yards away from her. Nothing special, people dumped stuff down there all the time. However, she couldn't recall ever having seen it there before.
She had a nagging urge to go over and inspect it. Probably not her best choice, but one that she made nonetheless. A shattered mirror sat on the top of the heap. It looked like a rock had been dropped on it, or something else heavy. There were children's toys too; dolls, rocking horses, dragons, and things printed with butterflies. She looked into the broken glass and saw a black shadow behind her head, hovering just out of reach. Alice jumped and jerked her head around wildly, but the black mass was gone.
"Must have been my imagination." Alice thought.
She ran to her house only a few blocks away, slammed the door behind her and locked it tight.
Alice looked at the picture of my parents who died six years earlier. She was only 16 then, and the last member of her family. She would have been put in a foster home had it not been for her father's will, which specifically stated that she would not go to a foster home and that she was to live alone or be placed within the care of her family. He had also left her his entire fortune.
"My father knew I wouldn't do well with strangers." Alice sighed.
Even with all the money she could possibly need, being alone made her venerable to stalkers and even more scared when weird things were happening around her.
"I could call David." Alice said reaching for her house phone by the front door. David was her best friend who she went to college with for a year until he moved. He had gotten a better offer at Eastlake College a few towns over. So, he left West Point College and moved in with his boyfriend Alex. Alice only ever heard from him when he needed advice or on special occasions.
There was knocking at the door that scarred the phone right out of Alice's hands. It was loud and unfriendly, definitely one that she didn't recognize. Alice grabbed a large vase that had belonged to her mother off the bookcase by the door and held it up like a bat just in case the visitor wasn't to friendly.
"H-hello?" Alice yelled, eyes locked on the door handle, fingers gripping the vase like her life depended on it.
The handle shook violently as if the visitor was a burglar or something, and hadn't heard her say hello.
"Hello!" Alice yells louder and grips the vase tighter.
"Open the door Alice." A voice from the other side demanded. A shiver traced Alice's spine up and down like the
"Who is it?!"
"It's David." The voice calls in a monotone voice.
Alice didn't believe it was David, relying solely on the fact that he has never sounded like Ben Stein. Alice grabbed a small monitor off the bookcase and flipped it on. The camera links up to the peek hole in the door, the technology was courteously of her father's job within the government when he was still alive. It was similar to that of a car's camera on the back to see while you are backing out.
Alice looked out on the intruder and seen that it was clearly not David. This person has no facial features, just the outline of a face and stark white skin with an ace set where a nose would be.
"Come on Alice. Open the door." The thing said shaking the handle again.
Alice inched close to the basement door under the stairs not to far from the front door and opened it silently. She crept down the stairs after locking the door behind her. Alice opened the door at the bottom and entered the basement, locking that door behind her as well. The entire room was steel plated because her parents had used it as a panic room when they were still alive.
Alice looked at the monitor in her hand and saw that the door had been opened and the cam was now open and looking at the kitchen. She began to shake slightly and went to a large wooden cupboard.
Throwing back the doors, she dug through the shelves of caned and boxed food, searching for the pistol her father kept hidden behind them when she was little.
Alice found the gun and a box of bullets along with it. She hadn't actually had any training in firing a gun before.
"I'm sure if I have to. I can."
Alice opened a pantry door against the east wall made of faux wood and sat down inside with the door shut. She held the gun close to her pounding chest, ready to aim and fire at anything that moved on the other side of the door.
I Alice sat in silence for a good ten minutes before she realized that the pantry she was sitting in had not been completely dark. There was a light coming from beneath the floorboards. She felt the sides of the small enclosure and sure enough she found a switch, flicked it and the floor fell out from under her. Alice had toppled down a small staircase and slammed into a dirt wall.
The room was just tall enough for her to stand up. A small click behind Alice caused her to jump and almost fire the gun. The doorway she had fallen through closed back up and locked.
"I suppose this is pretty safe." Alice muttered to herself.
She started thinking, and realized that she had never seen this area of the house before. It was more than likely only supposed to be temporary and that's why it was only dirt and not bricked in, she presumed. Alice looked around for the light source and found it to be a small crack in the wall. As she approached it, Alice saw that there was a cover over the light and it wasn't a crack in the wall, but instead it was a large mirror covered with a drape. She pulled the cover and exposed a mirror as tall as she was and just as wide.
It shined and shimmered like the surface of an undisturbed lake in the springtime. Alice couldn't see her reflection, but only the watery surface. She touched it and her hand went straight though. Alice snatched her hand away immediately and held it close to her chest. Mirrors were definitely not supposed to be able to touch beyond the surface.
The 'glass' felt like water and it was freezing cold. Alice was half debating whether she was going to throw a dirt clod through it when she was drawn to the sound of feet above her. The intruders had broken into the panic room.
It sounded to Alice like there were at least six men walking around above her. The voices were muffled and she couldn't understand anything they were saying. It was only a matter of time before they found out she was under the floorboards.
It was then that Alice realized she left the bullets for the gun up above. Popping the clip out of the gun, she saw she only had two bullets loaded into it. Alice's only choice was to take these guys on in one on one combat if they ever found her. They way she saw it, she had three choices; get caught and die, get caught and kill them which would make her a murderer, or find another way out of the dirt room. Alice looked around, just dirt and the mirror with it's drape over it. The mirror wasn't solid. Could she go through it? This sounded absurd to Alice but in her desperate situation, it made perfect sense.
She waltzed up the mirror, stuck her hand through the glass again, and felt around. There weren't any objects in the way, other than the fact the watery substance had a temperature so cold it could give her hypothermia, she thought it was a great idea.
Alice felt something grab her wrist. She screamed but just before she got the chance to pull her hand back, something was pushed into her hand. Upon instinct, Alice dropped the item in her hand as if it were poisonous. A small ball of yellowed paper sat on the floor in front of the mirror. Alice picked it up and examined it. The paper was an edge of a book and there was a small note scribbled across the blank margin. It read YOU HAVE ONE MINUTE.