I used what battery was left on my phone to reverse look-up John's phone number. It belonged to a Harriet living in Seattle. Dead end. I entered his name in the white pages and filtered by zip code. The most likely address indicated he was living in a cabin off of the Salish Sea, in what was typically a vacation property, most likely renting. It made sense, considering he'd appeared suddenly.
Some odd minutes of marching later, I found the cabin. The dusk was dimming, less than two hours from daybreak, putting the time somewhere in the estimated range of five to six thirty the morning. The house seemed well cared for. The windows were pitch black, dead to waking. My mobile was dead, so I had to settle for squinting through the fading moonlight to spot what details I could.
A dark blue truck sat in a cobblestone driveway. The doors, tires and license plate were flecked with mud, too thick for it to have come from the roads recently. It hadn't been moved in the past few hours, if the film of dew around it were any indication. The grass was tall and wildly uneven, no footsteps throughout. The sidewalk and porch were clear as well, no traces of dirt from their exterior. I scuffed my shoes through the grass, attempting to brush off what muck I could—best I not leave a trail.
I took a step on the driveway, then stared at the track. The outline of my shoe's imprint shone beneath me. Not working.
I took off my shoes, tucked them beneath my arm and crept up the sidewalk. No footprints, this time. Good.
I continued to the front porch. Worn pieces of deck furniture, all whicker, a matching set, sat beneath shuttered windows. The patio floor was fading, its paint worn down from rain. I came to a stop along the front wall, directly between a window and front door, yet out of sight from both.
I pulled my sleeve around my hand, grabbed the doorknob and slowly pushed inwards. As anticipated, the door didn't budge.
I crouched lower to pull up the welcome mat. No key there. I turned to my right, considering the mats beneath the furniture as hiding spots, then decided against it—they weren't moved often enough. Shame my rucksack was missing. Lock pick kit would make this much simpler.
There was a screen beneath the shutters, but the glass only blocked the upper half. Hadn't bothered to move it down for winter, yet. The owner may as well have sent me an invite personally.
I slid my finger between the shutters and pushed upright, flipping the latch out of place. The shutters swung open. I ducked beneath the window frame, then stared in. The living room was empty, dark. The muffled shouts of two over-modulating speakers, possibly three, echoed through the walls, into the hallway. Music and a pair of voices blurred together into a barely distinguishable mass. Most likely a TV, though why they'd be playing so loudly, I wasn't sure. Hearing problems, perhaps. That'd mean someone other than John was home.
I wrapped one hand around the edge of the shutter and used the other to grab the sharp end of the hooking latch. With as much force as I could quietly apply, I tore the hook through the window, poking a hole into the top edge of the screen. I dug my fingers into the hole and tore diagonally through the screen. My fingers were red and one was twitching, but it was done. I steadied myself on each side of the frame and entered the house.
I pulled my sleeves over my hands, pushed the glass panel for the window down behind me and set the latch. No need to leave the invitation open for someone else.
My footsteps slowed by necessity, their impact as soft as I could manage. Dust crept up. If I'd found a light source, I envisioned flecks of dead cells were drifting through each room.
The walls were lined with logs, as anticipated from a cabin. The furniture was simple, standard and well-worn, another matching set. All of it had been here longer than John had. The sole items that looked even remotely personal were the laptop on the log coffee table, a stack of DVDs, their titles obscured by a lack of light, and a shelf of books so thick I presumed they were medical.
A faint flicker of light flashed through an open doorway. I took a step back instinctively, pressing against the wall. The orchestral score amplified, encroaching from the same direction. I snapped my head towards the source and walked into the kitchen.
"You know, I never understood all these elaborate tortures. It's the simplest thing... to cause more pain than a man can possibly endure," a voice struck through the walls, followed by a loud smack, amplified by speakers. The beam and sound were cracking under a nearby door, fluttering intermittently, presumably the telly. Said door was so close to the exterior wall, it must've lead to stairs. A basement.
I tried to listen to the house, for any other sound. Nothing. No creaks in the ceiling, no calls upstairs, no alarms, nothing of note except the basement. If it wasn't John, they'd know where he was.
The television continued. "And of course, it's not only the immediate agony, but the knowledge... that if you do not yield soon enough... there will be little left—"
I consciously ignored the audio, pressed one hand against the door, twisted the handle and pulled. It didn't budge. I leaned against the surface and peered through the crevice. A bolt and chain were both set on the upper left side, locking it. The hinges weren't visible from this side, indicating the door swung inwards. I leaned my ear to the door and knocked at the panel. The sound echoed. Like many interior doors, it was hollow, thereby weakest at the frame.
A muffled scream crackled in the speakers and through the wood. Immediately, it was swallowed by a howl, three times as loud and from a single direction. The door shook from residual force.
I stepped back, raised one leg upright and plowed into the door repeatedly. On the fourth strike, the wood cracked through the center and broke off its hingest. The middle chunk toppled down the staircase, onto the tile floor.
The howl pierced my eardrums. I latched onto the doorframe, steadying myself. I stared through the hole. Both the floor and the lower steps were coated in deep scratches, claw marks in sets of five ran deep into the faux-wood floor to the point where cement was visible. The first four claws all ran parallel, equally spaced, but the fifth was shallower and out of alignment to the rest, like a thumb.
A snarl sounded off the wall, rattling pipes, shelves, keys, the telly and what sounded strangely like chains. leaned my torso through the door and turned.
A cage stood at the back left corner of the room. Three overlapping sets of metal bars, all running in different directions, formed a cage so collectively thick, I could hardly discern the outline of a creature inside. It was marginally larger than the size of a man with enlarged hands and feet, too disproportionate to be a disguise, covered in dusty tan fur, though it seemed brown in the lack of light. Its nose pulled out to the length of its chin, where it flattened to a snout. Its canine teeth protruded, poking over its lips at uneven slants. It crouched on hind legs with a curved, unstable pose, struggling against the chains that pinned it. The wall clamored.
The creature bit along its chains, shaking its head. It stumbled back, then tried again, its stance swaying to lean predominantly towards its right side. A scar pushed into its lower left leg, fur matted around the point of impact. The creature's eyes were barely visible, but they were wide, sharper than a wolf's with far more of a visible sclera. His irises were dull, dark blue.
Against my better judgment, I held the stare. "John?"
How that seemed the obvious conclusion was more challenging to articulate than it was to know. The body language couldn't be a direct translation, but the coloration, the stance and the scar, they all matched too well.
Furthermore, at the sound of the name, the wolf's eyes rose to mine. There was no emotion in them but feral hatred, an automatic defensiveness, but the longer they held, the more clearly they belonged to the mysterious school nurse.
So, werewolf, not vampire. There was diversity in my probable delusions. Good to know.
I glanced towards the telly. A set of keys rest directly across the room from the cage. They could've been thrown there from the other side. It was plausible he'd locked himself in there, though how he'd get out, I wasn't as sure. I supposed the chains were looser on a human form. One of the poles might disconnect to reach the key as well, though I couldn't imagine that'd be quick.
The wolf lunged, its left hand smacking the bars. It snarled in my direction, baring its fangs in a threat. I pulled away from the door, back into the hall upstairs. His growl echoed up the walls.
I paced to the opposite side of the hall, found a large card table and pressed that up against the door. The sound muffled slightly. I leaned my back against the cupboard, slid to the floor and stared blankly away. The lights of the TV kept flickering, bouncing across the cabinets in a pattern too unstable to trace past the fact that it existed.
I'd wait until morning. The restraints were steady. If my instincts were wrong, John would be back soon, and even if they weren't, he had plenty to explain.
"Sherlock," Mrs. Hudson's voice called. An alarm clock growled in my ear. I pulled my pillow over my face, muffling the sound. It didn't stop her. "You're already late. Time's not going backwards, you know."
I fought my way through the mass of covers and emerged from a mass of blankets on the floor. My neck cracked as I rose to observe the blurry room. Two computer monitors and stacks of books were sprawled across the floor. At first glance, it was all white, blindingly so. The longer I stared, the more my surroundings came into focus.
My reflection stared back from a mirror on my dresser. My face was completely clear, no pores, and my eyes flashed between colors, turning gray, blue, green and back again in rapid rotation. I couldn't remember a mirror, there.
The instant that thought occurred, the mirror vanished. I grabbed the side of my bookshelf and rose to my feet. The carpet sank far more than it should. I looked down. At first glance, it was two inches higher than normal and slightly off white. The color faded upon eye contact, correcting to what I was supposed to see.
I pulled my phone from my pocket. It turned on, until I realized the battery was dead. Then, the screen flashed black. Either I was right back to hallucinating, or I was dreaming.
I opened the door to the hallway and stared outside. For that first second, the path was endless, the walls blue, yet covered with nothing but mirrors. By the second, the walls and photographs had flickered back to their default in reality. The scents of eggs and ham wafted up the stairs, or at least the expectation of it had, which was close enough to perceive as true, here.
"Sherlock, is that you?"
I set my head against the door frame and shut my eyes. "I'm sleeping."
"Then get up, dear. School's not waiting."
"No. Literally. It's inconsistent with reality. I'm hallucinating or asleep," I shouted back, hoping that would stop her.
No luck. "That's wonderful. Do you want turkey or bologna for a sandwich? Don't tell me to send nothing. Carol Jensen's boy says you keep throwing your food out." I was fairly sure she'd said that before. Last Thursday, to be exact.
With more exhaustion than I should've felt, I strode towards the stairwell. I leaned over the railing, towards the kitchen. Yet again, the doorway was a different color, then corrected on sight. Mrs. Hudson stood at the stove, finishing an omelet.
When my foot hit the third step, the whole house dimmed. The fan shattered, the windows boarded up. A second figure appeared by the table, holding Mrs. Hudson from behind. He was almost six feet with blood red eyes, a mouth with fangs but no lips and no other facial features. It held a tape recorder beside her head, repeating her words in perfect clarity, "Sherlock, you're already late."
Another flash, and Mrs. Hudson's body was a corpse across the floor, her blood spreading across the surface. Dozens of puncture wounds stabbed through her clothes, all of them the shape of a mouth. The figure stood directly in front of me. His face was my father's.
"Rationalizing in your sleep? You really are my boy," he stated, his voice rising to a pitch that was borderline chipper.
I outstretched a hand to grab him by the throat. My fingers phased through him, into nothing. He smiled gently back, smug, yet with a dissonant calm that, in another context, implied reassurance.
Again, the tile changed beneath me, from the quaint linoleum of Mrs. Hudson's kitchen to the expansive marble tile of my family's estate. The sole constant was Mrs. Hudson's body, still sprawled across the floor. Hundreds of bitten corpses scattered around her, none of which I could see past the increasing number of wounds. Through all of this, the figure of my father kept staring, watching my every breath. His smile spread when I looked back.
"Oh, and keep the werewolf. An untrained dog that rips people's throats out in delirium, and then shoots them. Imagine the complaint forms to the neighborhood watch! Before it kills them, I mean." He never would've said that, not phrased that way. Whoever this was, they were too casual, too cheerful.
"You're not father."
As if to prove my point, the creature in my father's form let out an over-dramatic gasp. He slapped his hand to his face. "I'm not? Oh, God. My entire self-concept, just, whoosh," he snapped his fingers.
A flash of light passed. I was back in Mrs. Hudson's kitchen. My hands were white, shriveling to bone. A chill ran down my throat, burning my insides with frostbite. My breath rose in visible smoke, partially obscuring the false face. I could still hear its smile.
"Shouldn't you be waking up right now? Or have you not mastered that part of lucid dreaming? Let me help."
The ice melted to water inside my mouth. I tried to take a breath, yet the moment the air hit my nose or mouth, liquid filled them instead. There was no logical way this could be happening. I was dreaming. Though I repeated the point, I couldn't stop the spasm.
"Wake up, honey."