Chapter Six:

Inside the trunk was a once handsome man. His neck was bent in such a way it could only be broken—severely broken. There was a screwdriver in his chest and his sandy-blonde hair fell across his horridly blank, but still green eyes. It was Robert.

Danny fell against Morton and gagged. She bent away from him and the car and retched as Morton tried not to hurl himself. Danny looked at the corpse. She couldn't believe it. She had talked to him less than ten hours before. She bent double and retched again. "How could this happen?" she gasped.

Morton covered his mouth with his hand and shook his head, but didn't say anything. How could he say anything? Here was a man whom he didn't know very well, but whom his wife knew like a best friend, dead. He didn't understand what was going on; why people, who were all linked to Danny and himself, were turning up murdered. "Danny, we need to call the sheriff..."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," a cruel voice said from the shadows. The phone sounded the dial tone in Danny's shaking hand as the owner of the voice exited the safety of the shadows. The owner was a man, about their age and height. He was somewhat on the skinny side and wore baggy jeans and a sweatshirt. Neither writer could tell what color hair he had because he wore a neon orange beanie hat. Nor could they tell what color his eyes were because the porch light didn't shine as brightly where they were standing. He approached them and said with the same cruel voice, "Mrs. Reiny, you and I have a score to settle."

Danny backed into Morton and squeezed his hand in apprehension. "Oh?" she replied. "Would you care to enlighten me?"

The man gave her a look. "I think you know what I'm talking about, Mrs. Reiny. You have until this time in four days time to figure it out. Then we'll decide how it will be fixed." Without another glance at either of them, he turned around and walked back into the shadows calling over his shoulder, "My name is Brett Henderson. I'll be calling every evening at six o'clock. Think hard."

Danny handed the phone to Morton and whispered, "Mort, I'm going back to bed before I hurl again. Will you please call the sheriff and tell him about Robert and see if he can get over here to do something about him. I don't want him in my car any longer." She hurried back into the cabin without looking at the body.

Morton pulled the screwdriver out of the body and dropped it next to it in the trunk as he dialed the number. Someone answered on the second ring. "Hello? I'd like to report a murder... This Morton Reiny... No, we don't know who did it. We just found the body in my wife's trunk... Can you send the sheriff to check things out for us? I don't want Danny to get even more upset... Yes, thank you."

In the morning, Danny woke to hear the sheriff and Morton talking outside. That is, to say, she heard the sounds of their voices through the closed window. She walked to the window and peered out. Morton and the sheriff were definitely in deep conversation. Yawning, she crawled back into bed and fell asleep.

In her dreams, she was being chased through the woods that their cabin rested in by an unknown figure made of shadows. She could clearly see the screwdriver in his hand, raised as if to stab her in the back. There was no sound other than the rapid beating of her heart. She came to the edge of the cliff that overlooked the lake. She skidded to a stop and nearly fell over the edge. When she turned around, she saw it was the Brett Henderson character, a sinister look of malice in his eyes. He raised the screwdriver to plunge it in her heart when she fell over the side of the cliff and fell several feet before landed on a strangely floating platform. At her feet where the bodies of three people she had known her entire life... Her three older sisters...

Danny woke up screaming with Morton running into the bedroom followed by the sheriff. Morton sat at the edge of the bed and cradled her and asked, "What happened?"

"It was horrible... I was being chased by that Henderson character then when he was about to ki—kill me, I fell off the cliff and landed by—by—"

"By what, Danny?"

She closed her eyes against the image forming in her head and buried her face into Morton's chest. "The bodies of Jessica, Anne, and Lily... they were dead, Mort... all of them..." she whispered.

Morton kissed the top of her head and glanced at the sheriff. 'Wait downstairs, I'll be down in a minute,' he mouthed to him. The sheriff nodded and left. "Danny, it's all right. They're fine, I promise. They're going to see your play tomorrow night, remember?" he said, holding her out so he could see into her eyes that were wet with tears. "It was just a dream. It doesn't mean anything."

She wiped her eyes and said, "But it was so real..."

"They always are. But they aren't real and they aren't prophetic, so there's nothing to worry about," he said, lifting her chin. He looked into her eyes and smiled. "All right?"

She nodded. "All right. What did the sheriff say about Robbie?" There was a strange light in her eyes. Cryptic, almost demon-like.

"He didn't know what to make of it. Said it resembled Glenn's in the way that the wounds matched perfectly," Morton sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "So we know Glenn was stabbed with a screwdriver."

Danny put her face in her hands. "A screwdriver... he chased me with a screwdriver," she muttered under her breath.

"Pardon?"

She looked up. "In my dream. Henderson was going to kill me with a screwdriver... You don't think he's behind the murders, do you? I mean, since they're so similar and in my dream..."

"I told you, dreams are not real." Morton stood. "I've gotta go talk to the sheriff. Is it all right with you if they do an autopsy?"

Danny sighed. "Yeah, that's fine with me. Better confirm with his parents, though. Their number's in the green address book on the kitchen desk drawer."

"All right. You need to relax, all right? You're all tense. Do some deep breathing exercises or something..." he smiled at her again and left, closing the door.

"What is going on here?" she thought aloud. Digging around in her drawers, Danny hunted for her black and purple Hawaii print surf shorts and white tank top. Upon finding the articles of clothing she was searching for, she went into the bathroom and locked the door. Keeping one eye on the window's reflection in the mirror, she ran the shower and undressed. After quickly brushing out her hair, she climbed in and let the warm water saturate her long hair. As she shampooed her locks, she thought of what had happened since she had moved in with Morton...

Glenn had been killed. She sold one book to the publishers. She managed to scrape the lead in 'Wicked' for all her acting skills were worth—she was more of a stunt person than acting, but she did have some training in high school and a love for it; maybe that's what helped her. Morton proposed and they married. Robert was murdered and stuffed into her Camry's cramped trunk. And then the horrific nightmare.

Danny wanted to make sense of all the happenings, but nothing fit. And who was this Henderson character? She didn't recall seeing him before, but his voice sounded familiar. What was their score to settle? He seemed to be seething about some wrong she committed against him in their past when they happened to cross paths, of course, when that was, Danny had no clue. She wished she did, though, just in case it really was Henderson who was murdering all those people (so what if it was two—that's two too many in Danny's opinion) so she could compensate her mistake and save any innocent lives shoe could. How could her life get so complicated and frustrating all at once? She found it nor only frustrating but rather annoying.

After her relaxing shower, Danny went downstairs, her wet hair swinging behind her as she walked gracefully down the stairs. She met Morton and the sheriff on the front porch and asked, "Any epiphanies?"

The sheriff cleared his throat, put his notebook away and said, "I have some leads. That Henderson man and some other ideas that aren't completely formed yet. I'll look into Henderson and check out his history. I have to go, there's a case I have to testify in roughly an hour. Gotta prepare. Don't worry; I'll keep you posted on what I find." He nodded a good-bye to the both of them and left.

Danny watched him drive away. "He doesn't embroider still, doe she?"

"I dunno. Probably," Morton answered also watching the sheriff's car drive farther and farther away.

"Great. Just what I need: the sheriff doing home crafts when I need him to help me save other potential victims," Danny muttered, slightly on the side of irritated. "The shedding of innocent blood is a crime I will not tolerate. Especially if it is because of me. It's a foul deed and those who spill the innocent's fluids—may they be sent to the deepest and darkest depths of Hell on a shutter."

"Danny, calm down—"

She whirled on him. "I will NOT calm down! People who were once very close to me are turning up murdered! I cannot help but see a connection! I want it to stop now before others get hurt, Morton. Is that so ridiculous to ask for?" she said, her voice rising in pitch and volume. "If there truly is something I've done against Henderson, I wanna know how to fix it before the entire cast of 'Wicked' is buried by the end of the month! This is not just a crazy stalker fan, Mort. This is an insane stalker who is out for my blood! You of all people should know how I'm feeling right now. Didn't you have someone like this after you a little over a year ago?"

Instant confusion danced across Morton's handsome features. "What're you talking about, Danny?"

"How could you forget something like that?!?" she screamed at him in a fury of mixed emotions. "First, your dog, then your friend and your neighbor, finally, your soon to be ex-wife and her boyfriend. All dead within a time period of three days. You had those three days to prove you were the original author to a particular story, did you not? Amy's house was burned to the ground, was it not? The word 'shooter' was carved everywhere in your house—on the rafters, the walls, the ceiling, the desk, on the doors. It seemed to be an obsession, but when the sheriff went to see you, the carvings were gone; totally vanished." She took a deep, shuddering breath, "I don't know what happened since I wasn't there, but I do think you know. Somewhere in your subconscious... Morton, I want to know what happened, so I might be able to stop it from happening again to you and to me."

He looked at her seriously and stared deep into her twin blue seas. "If I can't remember what happened, what makes you think I could tell you?"

"Repressed memories are easily brought to the surface by magic," she said simply, walking past him and up the stairs to the bookshelf. She ran her finger along the spines of the many books present there. Finding her certain one, she pulled it off the shelf and began flipping through it. It was a magnificent book. Green leather bound with golden stitching, the cover was covered with some of the simpler sealing spells, Morton knew. Danny had often brought the book from its resting place and looked through it. There were spells to turn one into stone. Spells of Sealing. Spells of Forgetfulness. Spells of Life and Death. Before long, Danny found the page she was looking for. She looked at Morton. "Darling, you don't have to let me do this, but I would like to know what had happened. This would require me riffling through your thoughts and thoughts are meant to be private. There may be thoughts you don't want me to read. If you want, you can just tell me no and I'll put the book back on the shelf right now." She looked at him hopefully.

Morton took two minutes to think about it. In the end, he agreed. Truthfully, he wanted to know what everyone was talking about as much as Danny did. So it began. It took her a while, but Danny was able to find her power inside her brain and she put Morton into a magic trance. As she chanted the spell's words, she thought of what she wanted to know as hard as she could. After nearly ten minutes of Morton's trance, Danny found it. She found what happened. As she watched his repressed memory like a movie, the horror grew within her. She saw every tiny detail as it happened. She saw the murders themselves and felt like retching. But if she did throw up, she would lose the connection to the memory and would have to start over again. When she came to end of the story when Morton started eating corn that was fertilized with Amy's flesh, Danny broke the connection, disgusted with what she saw.

She looked at Morton. He was pale and shaking from realization. "I don't think I even remembered killing those people as it all happened," he said quietly, trying to keep his breakfast in.

Danny rubbed her face. "Well, at least we have an option. Maybe you suffered split-personality disorder then and you're going through a relapse—if it's you, that is. Or maybe it's me who's the murderer and I'm the one with split-personality disorder this time..." she thought aloud so he could hear and interject his opinion.