[[Disclaimer: Still not claiming ownership of anyone but Alice... Walter shall be in this one more!
Chapter 2: Mind Numbing
Day 741
4:21 PM
Got excused from work today. I guess I'm really starting to show how exhausted I am. I haven't slept since Walter came, and I feel like such a zombie. I can't bother to hide it anymore. I guess Marty could tell, because he pulled me off to the side before I started waiting on people and asked me if I needed to take the day off. I knew that Dr. Fischer would murder me if I missed work, so I refused the offer. But I think I should have just taken it before, because Marty ended up having to drive me home after I put jalepenos on a lady's pancakes.
He's a really great boss, though; he's going to pay me half wages every day that I'm taking my little vacation, as long as I "come back ready to work." The only way I can come back is if I sleep, but how do I do that when my body won't allow me to? I love Marty and all, he's a great guy; but I think HE should try getting visited by dead people sometime. He'd probably make some worse mistakes than a mistaken breakfast topping.
Alice
Alice closed her daily log and set it back on the nightstand between energy drink cans, chocolate wrappers, and a two-liter bottle of Arizona iced tea. The nightstand was one of the more organized parts of her apartment in its disastrous state. It looked like a tornado had swept through it over the course of the past week - there were empty bottles, food wrappers, and untouched microwave dinners littering the tiled kitchen floor, giant splashes of Red Bull stained the carpets where she had been especially careless, the cushions dangled haphazardly on the edge of the couch... She hated living in a "pigsty," as mothers called this kind of mess... Mother...
"Agh!" she groaned in pain suddenly, her hand jumping to her forehead. "Another damn headache..." she sighed. "Where'd I put the aspirin..."
It took almost all of her strength just to sit up on the mess of tangled sheets, and she nearly collapsed standing, but somehow Alice managed to stumble across the hall into the bathroom.
It was somehow worse in the bathroom that anywhere else. Among the empty cans and such were empty pill bottles, their contents scattered across the white tiles like tiny colored beads. The bath tub was full of water left unused, and it reeked of mildew already. She stepped gingerly over the bottles to the medicine cabinet, where the mirror confirmed that she looked as terrible as she felt.
Is that me? she couldn't help but think as she stared at this stranger, the one with the bloodshot sunken eyes, the matted and tangled hair hanging over her face in all the wrong places, and the tear stains tracking grey streaks down her cheeks from her week-old mascara. God, no wonder Marty let me off today. I look like shit!
She made a face just to confirm that this was real, and sighed when she saw the girl copy her. Well, if Walter comes I hope he's happy he made his friend one of the living dead.
She opened the medicine cabinet to find that there wasn't much left in there. She had stopped taking her medication, but Dr. Fischer wasn't coming for another six days anyway. She could get away with it if she just flushed, she figured. But they obviously weren't going to be of much use now that most of them were strewn across the floor. All that remained after she ransacked her "pharmacy" were two bottles of Prozac and a half-empty bottle of aspirin. "Whatever works..." she said aloud, taking the bottle of aspirin off the shelf and making sure to keep the door of the cabinet open. She didn't want to see herself this way.
Alice felt her head give one especially insistant thump that nearly blinded her in pain. "Will you quit it?" she moaned, leaning her head back and closing her eyes. "Ohhh, Walter, you're driving me insane!"
Alice kicked one of the bottles in a random direction, sending more pills flying across the room. She breathed a heavy sigh and wished she could make herself pick them up.
xxxx
So here I am again... On the couch, with pills and iced tea and my television and my mess... I'm such a fat bastard.
Alice knew that her 127 lb didn't exactly count for "fat bastard" level, but she still felt like the laziest slob alive. "My maid's on vacation," she said to herself, chuckling at her own movie reference and popping two of the aspirin into her mouth, followed quickly by a swig of ginseng and honey. She propped herself up against one of the comfy white pillows and stared blankly at the television, waiting for sleep to finally hit (she knew it wouldn't happen, but she needed something to pretend to have faith in). She took the remote from the coffee table and turned on the tv, waiting for her VHS (A/N: LOLANTIQUES! Keep in mind that this all is taking place in around 1994, so no DVDs for a while) to rewind the tape. It clicked and began her favorite movie for as long as she could remember, Alice In Wonderland.
She leaned back on the couch, facing the television on her side. As Movie Alice chased the rabbit down the rabbit hole, she thought to herself I feel like I'M in a rabbit hole... Where are the floating pieces of furniture and talking bunnies?
By the time Movie Alice had reached the talking doorknob, Alice suddenly realized that her heart was pounding painfully in her chest, and an unexplained feeling of dread was beginning to take hold of her.
Will you relax already? she snapped at herself. Why can't you ever figure out that he's GONE?
What made you think I was gone, Alice?
Alice's heart jumped into her throat, and her head jerked up in shock at the sound of his voice. She sprung off the couch when she saw the shadow - there, in the hallway. Without a doubt, the height and body of a man. It only appeared for a few seconds before it disappeared down the hall. It was such a tease - she wanted so desperately to follow him, but...
What if this is a trick? What if it's a burglar or an axe murderer or--
Oh, but there's always been an axe murderer in your house...
"What's that supposed to mean?" she shouted aloud.
No answer.
I'm really getting tired of this crap...
She glanced at the kitchen, but the slight gleam of determination that appeared in her eyes sizzled out almost instantly.
Aw hell, what am I thinking? The hospital made sure I didn't have anything sharp in the house, the closest thing to a weapon I have is a plastic butter knife! What's the use?
What's the use indeed... however, even if you had more than a butter knife, I doubt even the sharpest blades you could muster could truly harm me.
Still confused, Alice frantically scanned the room for anything she could at least whack him over the head with. Can't exactly hurt someone with a rolled-up People magazine... I'm not even touching that whiffle bat... oh!
She caught sight of an umbrella propped up against the wall by the door. Eh, I'm probably going to die anyway. Might as well hit him a couple times for making me so goddamn paranoid.
She made her way to it and bent to pick it up when something caught her eye. Small and filthy and a crinkled white color... a piece of paper, slipped underneath the door frame. Her brain was trying with all its strength to control her curiosity, to get her to focus on the problem at hand, but she couldn't resist. She strayed away from the umbrella and picked up the tiny paper. It felt extremely aged; the paper felt like it would disintegrate into dust if she unfolded it too fast, like it had been under the door for a thousand years. She slowly folded back the edges, trying not to harm this little note. Something told her it was important somehow.
She reached the final fold in the paper. Seconds (or were they minutes? Hours? Years?) ticked by. Something warm was bubbling in the pit of her stomach, filling her up to her toes, a feeling she couldn't quite place. It felt something like deja vu - but this had never happened to her before...
Something was wrong. This writing... It was unreadable, a child's chicken scratch! "Of course..." Alice sighed, "It's just a worthless piece of paper! Why can't it just--"
Her eyes caught the writing again. Something flashed in her head - an image of some sort of seal... two children crouched in front of a door...
"AAAGH!" Alice cried out in pain, clutching her head and falling to her knees. It was as if something had set off an explosion in her brain - waves of agony hit her one after the other, until she was on the ground, nearly unconscious, with the image of the writing burned into her mind over the picture of the strange, yet familiar symbol:
Mom, Why doesn't u Wake Up?
x x x x
The woman's hand swung forward and struck her across the face. "Idiot!" she shouted in the girl's face. "You fucking pathetic waste of life! Why do they even keep you here?!" She pushed her to the ground and kicked her in the stomach. The girl whimpered in terror and pain, but the kicks and punches kept coming.
Why does she always do this to me?
Why do the grown-ups hate me so much?
Why can't they all just die?!
"You're a fucking monster!"
"Monster..." the girl said, barely audible over the woman's heavy breathing. She felt herself being dragged up off the floor by the collar of her shirt and shoved against the wall, but her body had gone strangely numb.
"WHAT DID YOU SAY?" the woman roared, her face only inches from the girl's.
"YOU'RE THE MONSTER!" the girl bellowed right back. With inhuman force the girl grabbed her arm and tore it away from her own; the woman was wrenched backward and sent flying into the wall on the other side of the room. A large crack formed behind her from the impact, blood seeping through the cracks from the woman's bleeding skull.
The woman coughed up blood and moaned in agony, but her body was paralyzed by the pain, stuck against the wall. The girl inched toward the dying woman, her eyes glowing an emotionless yellow.
"Disgusting..." the girl said in an icy whisper that seemed to fill the whole room. She took the woman's neck in her tiny hands and squeezed. Her neck burst apart, sending blood and chunks of skin flying across the room. She let go and let the body slump to the floor, a long line of blood from the explosion streaked on the wall.
A moment passed in silence. The girl merely stared down at the body, blinking rapidly. She raised her hands and saw the blood of the woman who had tormented her for so long... "Oh God..." she whispered faintly, her eyes wide in terror. "What have I--"
Her hands covered her face, and she fell to the floor weeping. The stench of the blood on her hands was almost unbearable, but she couldn't help herself from crying.
"God, forgive me!" she cried.
Footsteps outside.
The door burst open, and a white light flooded the room, blinding her...
An old woman stood in the doorway, nodding for her to follow her.
"Leave the body, child."
She gulped down the tears and stood on shaking legs. She crept uneasily to the old woman and stared at her with wide eyes. The light behind her was so bright, she couldn't see her features clearly.
"I know who you are," she said with a rasping voice. "You're searching, aren't you?"
The child looked away, back to the dead body against the wall, but the old woman took her head in her hands and turned it to face her, smiling a crooked smile.
"Pay no mind to Sister Morgan. She deserved her fate, for what she did to you, child, was enough to earn her a lifetime of punishment."
There was silence as the girl processed it all. Had they known the whole time about the beatings?
"I have a surprise for you. Do you want to know what it is?"
She nodded slowly, still uneasy about this stranger.
"Would you like to see your mommy?"
Another crooked smile, and the light behind her glowed brighter and brighter, filling her vision completely - and the only sound was a little girl shouting "Yes!"...
x x x x
Alice felt her body lurch upward, gasping for breath. Her senses were returning to her slowly, but she still felt as if she were in that room... She gulped down fresh air and tried to make sense of her surroundings. Her eyes were blurry and wet, and she could feel drying streaks on her face where tears had been.
"What a nightmare..." she sighed, leaning her head back against her pillow. It was soaked with sweat. Alice shuddered and eased herself back upright. Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness. It must have been really late, because despite the fact that she lived in the middle of the city there were no sounds of traffic on the road. In fact... she listened closely and couldn't hear a single sound; all the simple noises that she was so used to had just vanished.
"A dead silence," she said to herself, chuckling at her own joke, but it still didn't ease her furiously beating heart. It wasn't just the nightmare that was spooking her. She knew that she was back in her own bedroom, but something felt different about it. There was an almost complete absense of color, and she couldn't help but feel out of place, even among her own possessions.
She felt herself shiver, and realized how cold she was. The temperature in the room had dropped at least twenty degrees in just a few seconds. She pulled the blanket close to her but it felt as though she were draped in ice. Teeth chattering, she eased herself out of her bed. The carpet felt like frozen marble on her feet, but she ignored it and shuffled to the door.
"God... h-how'd it g-get so c-c-cold?" she sighed, rubbing her hands together and trying to find a little bit of warmth. It didn't help her at all, nor did it ease the sense of dread in the pit of her stomach. She placed her hand on the doorknob, and instantly recoiled. It was blazing hot.
"Damn it!" Alice cursed, popping her scorched fingers into her mouth. "Just my luck, there's a fucking FIRE, too... Guess I might as well just sleep until I get burned to death and--"
She froze on her way to returning to the bed, her eyes fixed on the other side of the room. She thought she had heard something, and now it was confirmed. There he was, leaning against the wall and gazing out of the window as though in a trance. He didn't move at all, but she could feel a cold hand placed over her mouth, and the whisper against her ear didn't sound like it was coming from her head; "Don't scream."
He looked almost exactly like she remembered him, how the posters and the newspapers had described him; early twenties, the same shaggy brown hair that was currently hiding his face from view, the same blue coat that he always wore...
"They kept you in this vile state..." he said quietly, not taking his eyes off the window. "...this pill-induced dream of yours..."
He turned from the window and his eyes bored into hers, yellowed and hollow with the absence of life.
Alice blinked, still not believing what she was seeing. "W-Walter," she stuttered, searching for her words, "but y-you were--"
"Dead?" he finished the sentence, flashing a wicked grin at her and chuckling. "You'd be amazed by what else I can do... You WERE, in any case... Back before you betrayed me."
In an instant he was in front of her, inhuman speed taking advantage of her mortality. Alice jumped in surprise and stumbled back against the wall, her breath increasing and her head pounding again. My head...
Walter took a step closer to her, his head cocked to the side in mock confusion. "Why do you still insist on running away from me, Alice?" he asked her in an irritatingly calm voice. He took her hand in his - a shiver inched down her spine at his touch, ice against her skin. "What have I ever done to hurt you?" His fingers slid up her wrist. One part of her wanted to slap him. The other half... she wasn't sure.
Why do I run, anyway? I'll only get caught in the end. Just like now... Well, maybe I'm running because I'm being visited by a psychopath serial killer from beyond the grave.
Walter smiled. "Well, you're quite the thinker, not the babbler," he said quietly. "It's much better than the others. Must more... submissive." He squeezed her wrist, sending shockwaves through her body. She wrenched it away from him and spat, "You're insane!"
Walter looked back up at her, the same confusion act returning to his face as she screamed. "Maybe I don't want to relive a childhood, or the job that I never wanted in the first place! You haunt me, you make me hear voices, you disappear for so long and then... then..."
She felt something wet fall onto her cheek. She hadn't realized until now that she was crying, but there they were. Just like so many times at the graveyard, unexplainable tears over a man who she could willingly kill at this moment - but as much as she wanted to rant at him, chew him out and spit and snarl and lash until he couldn't just stand there looking so god damn smug, she couldn't find the words anymore. Nothing would fit her rage anymore, no words angry enough, miserable enough, desperate enough...
Yet all he did was watch her, that same grin planted on his face at the sight of her tears. He nodded silently, his hand tracing its way up her arm to her cheek and rubbing the lone tear away from her cheek.
"A part of you will always be mine..." he said softly, cradling her face in icy hands. "...and his."
Without warning, she found herself in his arms. He pressed her against his chest, his hands holding tight against her back, an almost loving vice grip on her body. Alice couldn't hold back a shiver, he was so cold... but something about this moment was familiar... this feeling in her gut... Juicy tears leaked from her eyes as she felt her arms wrap around his waist, unable to explain even to herself why this felt so right.
Minutes passed. What felt like the good amount of an hour passed, but here in his arms time was just a number. Alice's muscles were relaxing, her eyes half closed and her breath coming slow. Her left ear was leaned straight into his chest - no heart beat where it should. Holding a dead man was more comfortable than she had once figured.
"Alice..." he sighed in her ear, a silver puff of frost on the bare skin of her neck. "I'm..."
"Mmm?" she whispered, easing her head up to look at him. He wouldn't look her in the eye, staring away into another direction.
"I'm... sorry," he said, shaking his head slightly.
Alice began to reply, "Why?" but all that came out was a wheezing noise. Something was wrong here. A cold, stinging sensation bubbled in the pit of her stomach, slowly rising. Alice gasped for breath, clung to Walter's jacket for dear life, but it kept growing, the pain doubling by the minute. She felt warm liquid bubbling in her throat, and her eyes darted downward to see what was going on.
She didn't have to look closely. Even with her vision blurred with pain, she could see the stained tip of a silver blade protruding from her body.
Alice choked, blood gushing out of her mouth, the room spinning in all directions as if she were hammered drunk. Her grip on Walter was loosening, but he still held her as though they were still just hugging, like old friends reunited. He leaned in to her ear and whispered, "I thought I was clear... We're finishing the job... You just need to step up and reclaim your place..."
It was too much. A moan of pain, almost a scream, attempted to escape her, but was silenced by icy lips pressed to her own. A smile crept over his face as Walter examined her expression, a bubbling brew of mingled pain and shock and confusion. Finally, he took his hands away from her, backed away as she fell. Alice felt her mind slipping with her body, falling, falling, everything black... and the only sound was Walter's voice.
"We'll see her soon..."
x x x x
A/N: Wow, I had no idea that so much time had passed since I wrote the first chapter! I'm so sorry to all my readers, there's been a lot of shit going on in my life. I got a life, a boyfriend, and his psychotic ex who has some sort of vendetta against me. That whore almost got me expelled just because she took something I said in complete sarcasm as a threat against her life! What a twat...
But anyway, away from my personal bullshit for now.
THANK YOU, CASHOPEIA AND LITTLE MISS READER, FOR BEING MY FIRST FANS:D
I know it takes me a lllooonnngggg time to update these, but I'm really stressed right now, and I really shouldn't be doing this right now because I have two projects due Monday. But my readers deserve it because they're special. :D
PLEASE RATE AND REVIEW, because then I will love you. A lot. :D
Hooray for excessive use of the :D smiley.
:D
