Chapter Five

When I woke up, I was on a small bed that crackled when I moved. It had a plastic cover under the sheets just in case the person who was sleeping here had an accident. I groaned and rolled onto my side. The thin white blanket I was under was scratchy and stiff.

I swept my eyes around the room once. I was in a small square room that was painted white. There was a brown, wooden chair in the corner and a door that was shut tight.

Where am I? I wondered. I sat up slowly and stood up. The floor was white tile. All this white was hurting my eyes. The room had no windows except for a tiny one up to high for me to reach.

I went to the door and turned the chrome handle. It was locked.

"No!" I whispered. Why was I locked in this room? Why? Who would do this to me? I went back to the bed and lay down, staring at the ceiling.

I saw at the corner of my eyes, the room change. The bed I was laying on grew higher from the ground and the walls shifted to make the room larger. There was another identical bed beside mine.

"You are here, but you don't really exist," someone said.

I looked up and found the evil gray woman. She was talking to us. Carrie was sleeping I the other bed now. Cathy was standing beside the boy whose face I couldn't see. There was a new woman who looked so much like Cathy. I knew I loved her but I didn't know why.

"I'll sneak up to visit with you when I can," the new woman said before being pushed out the door by the gray woman. The door was slammed shut and then there was a key in the lock. I couldn't turn to look at that locked door. And I couldn't help wondering if I would ever get out.

"Cory..Cory," a voice said. The bed shrank back down to normal size and the walls closed back in the make the room a small square again.

Above me was Penny's face. She looked concerned. Her eyes were red and puffy. It looked like she had been crying. I didn't say anything to her. She had locked me in here. I didn't like locks and I didn't like people who used locks.

"Cory, honey, talk to me," she said. A tear fell from her face and landed on the white sheets. I reached out a wiped the small wet spot.

"Why am I locked in?" I asked. I didn't look at her.

"Don't you remember what happened at Dr. Collins'?" she asked. She pulled the brown chair over to by bedside and sat down. She took my hand and squeezed it tightly. I didn't squeeze back.

"He's in the hospital," she said quietly.

I didn't say anything. I only remembered the evil gray woman and more locks. Why were there so many locks in the world?

"You hit him on the head with a glass vase, but he is going to be fine," Penny said. "Where are we?" I asked. I wanted to go back home to Penny and Craig's house. I wanted to see Spunky, maybe brush his coat for a while. I wanted to tell him what happened.

"Don't worry, they are coming to take you somewhere nicer," Penny said. Tears ran down her face and she reached up to wipe them away quickly.

I sighed in relief. I didn't know what I would do if I had to stay locked in this white room with no one but myself.

The big, white door opened again and two men in white jumpers came in.

"It's time," the taller one said.

Penny nodded and leaned over to hug me, "You have to go to live somewhere else for awhile Cory," she said. She was crying freely now.

"Not back to the Grandmother's house," I said in terror.

The two white men just looked at eachother and shook their heads.

"No, honey," Penny said, "Don't be afraid, Craig and I will visit you as much as we can," she said.

"That's what she said!" I yelled, "She said she would come up and visit us whenever she could!"

The other woman in my dream had been my real mother. I remembered now. She said that she would come and visit us whenever she could. And she did at first but slowly the visits started getting shorter and then she would only come up once in awhile.

"I don't believe you!" I yelled at Penny. She shrank back against the wall and hugged herself protectively. I ran at her and slapped her in the face .She looked more startled than hurt. The white men came behind me and grabbed my arms. I stopped struggling when I saw Penny's face. I could see that she wanted to best for me. She wanted me to be happy. She thought I would be happy where I was going. But I knew otherwise.

"It'll only be for a little while dear," Penny called out after us. The white men were dragging me through the white corridor. There were other white men and a few white women watching us.

"She said that too," I whispered.

I was put in the pack of a police car. Did they think I was a criminal? I was only a little boy. They should be saving this car for the real bad people. The evil Grandmother never had to go to jail. She was so evil that she called us the devil's spawn. She was the real devil's spawn. Couldn't anybody see that?

"You should be taking away the gray woman. She's the bad one!" I yelled through the grate into the front of the police car.

The officers just ignored me. Why should they listen to an eight year old? Who would they listen to? I had to make them believe me.

"Cathy will tell you!" I yelled, "get Cathy, I need to talk to Cathy!"

They didn't say anything. I sat back against the seat and crossed my arms in frustration. I looked out the window and saw a train go flying by. There were so many things I hated. I could name them all any time anybody asked. The only problem was, people didn't ask what you hated, they asked, what you liked. There weren't many things I liked. Nothing anybody would understand at least.

We had to stop at the tracks to let the train pass. It was going so slow, as if it was taunting me. I knew the train was the beginning of my problems. It took me right into a place I would never escape. No one could escape the place the train took me.

We went over the tracks and entered a town called Charlottesville. I watched the buses load up with passengers and I wished that I were on one of them. Escaping. Going away. Anywhere but here. I didn't care where I was as long as it was far away from here.

We drove for a long time. I sat in the back silently. I was through wasting my energy on people who would barely even acknowledge me. I couldn't help remembering Christmas time in the locked room. We gave the evil woman a present that we had worked so hard one. We just wanted her to like us. But she was the same as these policemen; she threw the present away and left us alone again. I wondered if I would ever find someone to pay attention to me again. Would I always be just another number?

Maybe it was for the best that I was going to a place to be alone. At least it was far away from the memories. I thought I could escape the memories but I couldn't. You can't escape something like that.