Author's note: ok, I've had a few typos and stuff, so sorry about that. I have to type these kind of fast because I have finals coming up at my school. (Although, me being me, I'll probably never study for them anyways. XP )
Disclaimer: D. O. I.
Chapter 2
And So It Begins
Before my mom drove off, she said, "Courtney, I have to run a few errands today, so if you need me, just give me a call." I could only nod. I didn't even look at her. I was still feeling really uneasy.
"Courtney?" This time I had to look at her.
"Honey, are you okay?" She managed to snap me out of it long enough for me to realize that I was being a total wuss about a BAD DREAM!! I looked at her, smiled, and said,
"Yeah, sorry….Just zoned out pretty bad there." She rolled her eyes, but laughed and asked sarcastically,
"Courtney, how much sleep did you get last night?"
"About 7, maybe 8 hours." In all honesty, I only had about 6. I managed to fall asleep sometime around three. She just sat there, studying my face, though. Finally she said,
"Well, if you need anything, just call me."
"Okay, mom." Then I climbed out of the car.
The de ja vu feeling was still there, but not as strong as before.
It reminded me of two killings that had been reported in the last month, one right after the other. I knew it was silly to worry about that, they didn't even happen here in St. George, but it made me think of the killing closest to my town, the second one. It was a seventeen year old boy walking home from a basketball game. Supposedly, he was kidnapped, then found dead only hours later. Both of the people that were killed (I didn't know much about the first murder-except for this) were found dead at least a day after they went missing.
To keep the de ja vu from getting strong again, I didn't look anywhere except for the building that I was headed towards-especially not up. Once inside, I got going. Then, that stupid feeling (like someone watching me) came back!!!
I was only checking things off of some sort of list, and had to move one box to a different pile. I hurriedly set the box down and looked around me. Suddenly, there was a breeze, but I didn't turn around, in hopes that this wasn't a re-run of the dream. Then, someone threw their arms around me from behind, picked me up, and spun me around. Normally, I don't freak out over things like this.
For example, if someone sees a spider or a mouse, I always end up being the one that kills the spider-or gets rid of the mouse. Hopefully I'm the first one to spot it, too. The reason for this being…well…I usually don't freak out in situations like that, but when other people start to freak, that's when I start to loose my cool just a little….I could really do with out the audiences.
The memory of my bad dream was so fresh in my mind, and the de ja vu was creeping me out so much, that I couldn't help but let loose a small squeal as I was still being spun around. Finally, I was set down.
I spun around to find myself face to face with my best friend Beth.
Beth and I had known each other since sixth grade. We didn't become friends until seventh grade, and by then we were inseparable. We ditched a couple classes throughout school, got each other out of tight spots, things like that. She was outgoing, but I was the one to always reel her back down to earth somehow.
Beth (her real name was Bethany, but she didn't really like to be called that, if you catch my drift) was a cute girl. She was skinny like I was, had short blond hair, fair skin, and she was about my height; only like an inch shorter than I was.
She was also pretty tough, in the way that if you insulted or said something bad about one of her friends, she wasn't afraid to speak up and defend them. She was cool (liked by a lot of guys and totally oblivious to it, I might add) and didn't go looking for trouble. But in some cases, it almost came to a fist fight between her and some snobs or some stubborn (and apparently extremely stupid) kids. The only thing to really end it was when I stepped in and sided with Beth. I was usually the quiet one of us, but people saw me and Beth play-fight sometimes, and it didn't look like they wanted both of us coming at them, and at the same time, too.
"Beth!" I gasped , and sank to the ground, breathless.
"Courtney!!" She giggled. I had no idea why she was laughing so hard. "I actually just scared you!"
Oh. That's why. Yeah, she had always tried to startle me sometimes, but could never quite get me at the right time. (I was also very good at hiding my surprise.) And every now and then-even without meaning to- I would end up scaring her.
(I couldn't help myself! She could take me out in one easy move-of course without me seeing-and scaring her was the only revenge I could get! (Black mail worked, too, but I'm a sucker for puppy pouts, and that's what started us play-fighting, again.) That was also when I found that I could be pretty silent and sneaky sometimes!!)
But we did that kind of stuff almost two weeks ago-in school. I had missed her so much since then!
By this time, Beth was still laughing her head off, and I was on my butt, glaring at her from my position on the floor. A few short moments passed us and Beth had calmed herself down enough to help me up from the ground. I dusted myself off, and not 2 mili-seconds later she had thrown her arms around me again, but this time in a tight hug that stayed firmly planted on the ground, and not spinning out of control.
"How's it going, Beth?" I asked Beth; she was already forgiven.
"Fine…I was so bored, so I had my sister drive me here. How are you doing, so far?" Then she released me. (We had ended up taking driver's ed together, but like me, she didn't have her license yet.)
"I'm good." I then picked up my check list. "How long are you going to stay?"
"I can probably have lunch with you, but then I'll have to go."
"Oh, okay. I was almost finished with this list, and if I get it done early, maybe we can have some spare time." I looked at my watch. It was already 11:47, and my lunch break was at 12:30. Since I usually didn't eat anything , we'd have a lot of free time-especially if we got done early.
We did get done early, but only by about 10 minutes. I would run off labels and names, but sometimes Beth couldn't find it, or didn't know where to look for the tags, and we would end up laughing; sometimes for a good, solid five minutes.
Sitting under a tree at a park across the street from my work, I got out my iPod and we listened to random songs. Some songs would remind us of things, and we would reminisce about old stories and old memories, old people, things like that. One in particular was "Mambo #5" by Lou Vega, or something like that. We were in color guard together one year, and it reminded us of sitting outside the band door early in the mornings after practice. Sometimes the band practice went longer than color guard (and since the flag closet was in the bad room, we had to wait for band practice to be over, too), so we listened to random songs, one being "Mambo # 5" and then we would sing to it.
I let the song play as we laughed again at the memory of just the looks we would get from some people!
"They probably thought-" she broke off into another peal of laughter. I was already laughing too hard to talk.
"-that we were…nuts!" I eventually finished for her. I laughed harder as she just nodded her head, laughed even harder, and fell over. Seeing her fall over made me laugh harder, still. (With me, laughing is almost contagious, so it's embarrassingly easy to make me laugh--just seeing some random person laugh can make me crack a huge grin!)
We went through some more songs, singing softly to the ones that used to make us sad, and laughed more at the memories the other ones brought. When I looked at the clock on my iPod, I was instantly saddened; it said 1:33, meaning my lunch break was over.
Beth, noticing my stunned silence, asked
"Courtney, what's wrong?" I pointed to the screen and mumbled,
"My lunch break is over." That seemed to depress her, too. We didn't see much of each other over the summers, and I was really starting to miss these times I had with her.
Beth, possibly reading my mind as she sometimes did, gave me a huge hug and said,
"Hey, call me when you get home, and maybe we could hang out again!"
She tried to say this brightly, but it was my turn to read her mind; she was just as depressed as I was--if not more. So, I hugged her back and said,
"Thanks, Beth. We really should." I didn't really know what to say after that. I could feel myself get more and more depressed.
OOOOOOO
Before we knew it, we were in front of my work building, and her sister had pulled up in their red car. I sighed as I turned to hug Beth….I couldn't be sure, but I think that she also had the feeling I had…like we probably wouldn't see each other very soon, and couldn't really count on it anytime after that. I gave her a huge hug and she returned it. I suddenly wanted to say something to her to let her know how much I loved being her friend, and how glad I was that she was mine, but I didn't want to say anything mushy; I would feel stupid, and--for goodness sake!--her big sister was right there!
As I backed away, I saw the same awkwardness in her eyes, and it looked like she saw it in mine, too; so we laughed again, hugged once more, and then she got in her car.
"Bye, Courtney!" She said, waving.
"Bye, Beth!" I called as her sister drove off. I watched as they drove away, and it felt as the farther they got, the more my "happiness level" went down. I hoped that my instinct would be wrong, and I could see Beth again, and soon!
Then, a gust of wind started to blow. Shivering, I turned around to go back to work. I was wondering if it was going to rain so I looked up…and stopped dead in my tracks.
It was the exact same forecast in my dream.
The next wave of de ja vu was so powerful, that I almost sprinted till I got inside of my building. As I got inside, I was informed that a new "batch" of packages had arrived, and I only had to organize them and then double check that they were there. I went to the garage part of the building and got going, still extremely paranoid. The door to the garage--where the trucks dropped their loads off--was still open, so it was slightly breezy.
I had a whole other wave of de ja vu, and my mind instantly thought about the killings, sending chills down my spine.
I then decided that it was probably in my best interests not to freak myself out again, and focused on organizing the boxes.
Soon, I got that feeling again…the feeling like someone was watching me. For the second time today, I stopped dead in my tracks, and then I looked out the garage door.
It was starting to get dim outside; the clouds were still in the sky, but the sun was going down in the west-the sky almost already a dark blue! Could it really be that late?! Had I been working for that long!?!
As I continued looking outside, the feeling started to fade. Even though it was fading, I was more alert than ever-my heart picking up speed and pumping the adrenaline into my veins. I continued what I was doing. I got to about three boxes later, when the feeling came back.
This time, I completely dropped my box and looked out the garage door; this was getting way out of hand!! The sky was almost black now. As I stared at the almost-blackness, I got the most powerful feeling of de ja vu and fear I may ever get….Still watching the darkness, I came to a conclusion. Whoever--no, scratch that--whatever was watching me…wasn't…human. And I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach about the rest of this evening.
I glanced at a clock. I had only about a half an hour until I could go home, but I didn't care; I was going to move this last box, perhaps one more, and then go home.
As I reached for the second box, a breeze picked up. I could hear the trees rustling. But then, exactly like in my dream--almost as if I was having a direct flash back--
I felt a slight breeze beside me, and as I spun around I was knocked out cold.
ooooooooo
I woke up, what seemed only a few seconds later, and sensed that I was bleeding somewhere. Out of nowhere, I felt this horrible, searing pain in my right shoulder. I realized as it started to spread that it felt like I was burning! Like fire!! I tried not to scream, but I couldn't stop the moans.
If you've ever been burned from an oven, or scalded your tongue on hot chocolate, then you'll kind of know what I'm talking about. The only difference was that this burning pain was multiplied by at least ten times, it was burning me from the inside, and was starting to spread.
I heard a small scuffling noise, and then a tiny growl, almost a moan or whimper. That's when I started screaming from the pain-I just couldn't contain it. And as I screamed, I was picked up. It almost felt like I was flying--I didn't seem to touch the ground, but I knew I was moving, and fast. But, as quickly as I was picked up, I was set down again.
I kept screaming, but through it, I could hear a voice. It was quick and very quiet, but it sounded sad. I could be wrong--in fact, I wouldn't doubt it if I was--but it sounded as if the voice said,
"I'm so sorry." Then it was gone, and I had the feeling that I was alone.
I was in so much pain, now! The fire was slowly, excruciatingly spreading. Along with the pain intensifying, my screams were, too.
I know that this is morbid to say, but I hope that I'm dying. Death…anything is better than the torture I am enduring now.
Author's note: wow! This is getting intense for me! Is it doing that for you, too? I hope you like it so far!! Last time I checked, I had only two reviews, but reading them made me feel so special! Tell me what you think!! (Also, sorry again for the typos, I proofread the first chapter and the preface, but I guess I didn't catch them. I'll try not to mess up so much!)
LOVE YOU!!!
ELS
