"Watcha doin'?"
Angela rolled her eyes. She had been terrified when she first started seeing him places, hearing his voice, getting these 'phone calls'. She had been afraid she was losing her mind; changed her number and reading books on the symptoms of trauma survivors. Her computer was full of bookmarks from diagnostic sites and victim support forums. She never participated, couldn't-it would make her weak, but she thought it would make her feel better. Sometimes it did, when she was having one of her better days but for the most part she just felt lonelier from the fact that her symptoms like the hallucinations weren't shared by anything else. She also couldn't help but feel like she was just a bit more devoted to recovering then they were.
Seeing and hearing Thomas had gotten more and more common and even (don't say it) comforting until it verged on frequent. Even annoying.
"What do you want?" she asked with the practiced bored drawl she'd used to make pushy subordinates question their plan of usurping or to ward off advances in bars.
"Just thinkin' 'bout you…"
His voice was slurry and oddly paced as well as higher than usual.
She knew Thomas wasn't real. She knew it the way people knew that they wouldn't win the lottery but still played or the way people who had long ago lost their faith continued to pray to god. She had come to find an odd sort of familiar relief in his presence. Strange considering the man had sexually assaulted her and, at least, attempted murder.
She had thought maybe, romantically, that these encounters were her conscience, confronting her for killing him. She had never believed in the death penalty before and even now the woman methodically lowering the taser felt like a different person. The feeling of that cold fury came back, though. The anger and the power that it had given her still coursed through her and made her shiver.
Thomas never made her feel guilty, though. Sometimes he chattered in his painfully cheerful way, talking about nothing. Sometimes he flirted, ineffectively. Sometimes (more and more recently) she talked back to him. She told him about her day, about interesting things she'd read…She'd been doing a lot of reading lately-she was on disability from the firm after what had happened, they said they were concerned about her handling the stress but she was pretty sure they just wanted to make sure she didn't sue.
Tonight he was going for an uncomfortable combination of friendly and flirty.
"Missed you, ya know…"
"What do you want?" He could only ignore logic for so long. She knew that.
"I jus' wanna talk…I had a few drinks and….I….missed you."
"You're not drunk, Thomas." She knows he hates his full name, the weight it carries, especially now. There's a determined pause. She can see him wince on the other end of the phone and feels an odd mixture of pride and shame.
He dropped the affected voice sharply.
"Okay. So I'm not drunk. So what?"
He said it in that terrible way he had of making everything sound perfectly reasonable and so obviously wrong.
"Why would you pretend to be drunk?"
"Because. It just. Ithoughtit'dbeeasier."
"What?"
"I thought you might talk to me. More. if you thought. I. Didn't know what I was saying."
He stalled and then rushed, obviously nervous.
"That doesn't make sense, Thomas." She knew he wasn't real but even so, her feelings about 'poking the bear' were getting stronger. But she couldn't stop.
"Why won't you see me?"
"You hurt me." She was disturbed by how vulnerable she sounded. How raw.
"I know. I jesus . I-I'm sorry. I just want to fix this. If I can. I swear."
She started to panic. Why would her mind do this to her? This wasn't fair. She became very suddenly aware of the fact that Thomas must have become more real to her then she wanted. She thought it could be controlled, that she had a leash on it. She didn't. She couldn't. She was going to end up like Thomas, trapped in a world of her own delusion.
"You're not real, Thomas."
"I am so." His childlike intonation rang in her ears. It would have been laughable if it wasn't so eerie.
"I watched you burn." She must have. She lit the damn fire. She knew it.
"I, um, got saved. I'm, um, something else now. It's weird and different and I think it might freak you out a little. But it's still me."
She hangs up the phone, too shaken to even say 'goodbye' or 'fuck you' or 'why the fucking hell am I losing my mind?'
Her dreams were filled with blue and fire.
She was making her first trip outside in at least two weeks when it happened. It wasn't that she was afraid, per se, she just didn't want to be around anyone, if she could help it. People were too exhausting now. She went out at night because there were less people. The isolation made her feel safer. She could conquer the things in the dark. She was taking a short cut through an alley (no people) and, suddenly, he was there.
An all-too familiar male shape blocking her exit.
He wasn't wide but he was solid. Even if she hadn't known, unyielding torso pressing against her back; bony fingers, too-cold, stiff hands laced around her neck (last thing she'll ever feel), she's seen what he can do.
"I, um. I…Hi."
He was there in the flesh (no way that's flesh), looking like something not entirely human. His pale skin paler, his eyes shining like blue flames (oh god, flames). His eyes are clear and focused, none of the discomforting cocktail of innocent child and bitter damaged adult that they held before. He looks more solid somehow, reinforced. She starts to back up, breaking into a run.
"Wait!"
It's a shrill, unearthly sound. Like some kind of dog whistle for humans.
She feels pain in her ears like never before, pressure that makes her head feel like a porcelain doll's and it's about to crack…
"I'm sorry," he stage-whispered, "I'm still not used to that yet. My voice, it's…loud. He told me I'd get better at controlling it over time."
He?
She realizes suddenly that they're close to the ground. He's supporting her. She doesn't even remember falling and the familiarity of the position makes bile rise to her throat.
His motions are more fluid than she remembers. Suddenly she's on her feet and he's standing about four feet away from her like he thinks she's going to bite.
Right. She's the one who's going to bite.
"I'm sorry," he says again and she's starting to hate those words, "I didn't mean to touch you or anything. I just…"
She notices that there's color in his face, not so much a normal flush but as if it's painted under the pale, like water trapped between two panes of glass.
"What are you?"
He lets out a short, bark-like laugh.
"I'm me."
"You're….no. You're not. You're not real."
"Of course I am. In the flesh."
Her stomach starts to churn.
He pinches a bit of his harder, glossier skin to demonstrate.
"I watched you-"
"I got better. Didn't we go through this once?"
There's a mocking smile on his lips, so at odds with the childlike expression his face commonly bears and it looks so wrong but it fits him somehow which is worse…
He's more effective, none of the fidgeting or uncomfortable shifting, awkward gestures that used to define his movements.
He's holding her hand like someone would at a funeral, resting on top and cupped around. It's a would-be comforting gesture and it's so out of place she could just laugh and when did he get so close to her?
"I'm real. You can't deny it."
He's warm, warmer than he must have been in life(cold bony fingers) and the idea that this thing feels more real than he did makes her want to laugh until someone shows up with a straightjacket.
"You're a delusion." She might just be saying it to piss him off now. She's not sure. She wants to break that horrible calm.
"Why would you talk to me three times a week if you thought I was a delusion?" He asks slyly
Shrewd, weaselly Tom is her least favorite version of him and that's saying something.
"What are you?"
"Do you believe in, uh, ghosts? I'm kind of like a ghost except I'm solid. And I…eat. That's how he explained it, at least."
He absently runs his tongue over his (god those must be fangs) unnaturally white, pointed teeth.
She's no expert but she knows when teeth are meant for piercing (felt them in her damn leg). Tom isn't just a monster; he's something she's only seen in movies and books and he's standing there with too-bright eyes and marble skin and (fangs) sharp teeth. Outside matches the inside now.
She feels the blood drain from her face.
He seems to know what she's thinking.
"Oh, jeez," he runs a hand through his hair without seeming to ruffle it, "You don't happen to be one of those girls who, you know, likes vampires and stuff, do you?"
He listens to her terrified silence.
"No, of course not. That'd be weird. And too easy." He pauses. "Nothing's ever going to be easy."
He's starting to talk to himself and that's a bad sign. She knows this. And he used a word, the word and it just can't be real, it can't itcan't itcan't…
"I'm not gonna hurt you." he ventures, then catches himself with a self-deprecatory smile, "I'm not making this easy, am I?"
No, he certainly isn't. He sure as hell didn't the first time and the fact that he can acknowledge it is either a small step forward or a huge step back.
"I came here to apologize," he continues, like her silence is a response (and he really needs to stop doing that), "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what I did because I know killing is wrong, even if I'm not sorry that he's dead. I'm sorry for scaring you, scarring you like I did. The last thing I want, wanted, was to scare you. So, I'm sorry I'm not dead, I guess."
He paused. He's not waiting for a response now. He seems to be thinking.
"I'm sorry for putting you in that position. I realize that you became me and that's funny. I mean, I don't think it's funny that you're lonely now or that you don't want to be around anybody but it's funny. I wanted to stop it and I passed it on to you. But I got a second chance and I'm the last person who you think deserves a second chance and I can't leave it like that. I came here tonight thinking I was going to…never mind. But I can't. I don't want you to be me. I don't have to be me anymore," he tapped his chest determinedly, "and if I don't have to be me, nobody should. I'd be lying if I said I didn't get happy every time I heard your voice on the other end of the phone but…it's not right. I'll leave you alone, if you want. I won't talk to you anymore. I'm sorry."
The absurdity, the fucking absurdity of this odd man, this fucking infuriating man who acts like a child and talks like an author telling her to move on…The only person who, god forbid, she actually has anything in common with anymore (and isn't that fucking perfect?). That he gets the last word is just so unfair that it makes her want to scream.
And just like that, he's gone; nothing blocking her way out.
She gets home and throws her cell phone in the trash, registers for a new one that comes not two weeks later.
A month afterwards she's out at night, going nowhere important. She catches a glimpse of icy blue eyes in her periphery. They vanish. She doesn't turn around.