The vague uneasiness of having a ghost had been replaced by the stark terror of having a stalker. She was drawing her gun at every shadow. Her dwindling supply of dishes was testament to that. She had knocked over another wine glass last night at the sound of her neighbor in the hall. Her hands had been shaking so badly while she cleaned up that she had been afraid she would cut herself. She dumped the mess of sodden paper towels and shards of glass into the trash on top of yet another fractured cereal bowl and the remains of her last tumbler. She either needed to go shopping or stop drinking.
The John-ghost always looked surprised when she aimed at him, crystal-blue eyes comically wide. She briefly entertained the thought of shooting him just to see what would happen, but the paperwork would be mind-boggling and she didn't want to give Broyles any more reason to fire her. Shooting at phantoms wouldn't go over well she was sure.
The new card was in the bottom drawer of her desk with all the rest. She had no intention of anyone else seeing it. She wasn't sure who knew about them besides Charlie. Peter, now, and it was sickly thrilling that he knew something so private. It was probably in her psych file. At times she wondered what else was there. Did they contain tapes of an interview with a child sobbing, "sorry sorry sorry," and the shocked voices of the officers as they realized the girl was not apologizing for shooting her stepfather? Broyles knew, she was sure. The calculating gaze he turned her way left her believing there was nothing he didn't know about her. Disconcerting. A relief, too, that whatever he saw, whatever he knew, made her what it was that he wanted. Pride at being chosen.
Charlie noticed how jumpy she was, of course. He tried to talk to her but she was highly skilled at changing the subject, could give lectures on the practice. He worried, and she appreciated it, but she felt guilty already for burdening him with knowing that she was hallucinating John. He didn't need to know more. She wondered who she was protecting, Charlie or herself, and shivered from the little splinters of mistrust that crept into everything now.
Peter was trickier still. His worry was backed by insatiable curiosity and it was evident that she couldn't resist the open stare he turned her way when he wanted to know something. Her face burned remembering the weight of his gaze and the need to make him stop looking at her like that. So she told him, smirking her way through the story, a protective mannerism developed ages ago. She nearly broke at the sickened look on his face but his eyes always came back to hers. And in them, at the end of the story, at the end of the day, she saw something reflected there that made her heart pound.
He watched her closely now and at times she felt like screaming at him. He teased her and played, drawing out a smile, distracting her and she felt like hugging him. She did neither and they circled each other warily. She threw herself into the work, the chase, the puzzle. Anything to keep her jittery mind occupied, but inevitably she surrendered and made her way home to break things and check the locks obsessively.
She struggled to stay awake every night, trying to eek out a few more minutes of what passed for sanity. The dreams had become unbearable. Each clamored to be king-of-the-nightmare-hill. Old favorites she hadn't had in years revisited her, joining forces with new terrors to overwhelm her sleeping mind.
She was small and standing in a field of crying, bleeding scarecrows. She tried to help, but the bandages turned to snakes and her hands were covered in blood. She could hear him walking up behind her but the gun fell from her small blood-slick hands and sank beneath the surface of the ground. He was close, too close... and she looked up, miles up she was so small now and John looked down at her coldly.
She woke herself up with her screams.