Paranormal Realities Box Set (37 page)

“Thank you. I’ll take over from here,”
Dad said.

By this time, I’d been able to calm my
wailing down to a few hiccupping sobs. I lifted my head off the wheel as Dad
opened the door.

“Come on in the house, honey.” He reached
into the car and took the keys from the ignition.

Grabbing the messenger bag off the
passenger seat, I let him take my hand and help me out of the car. With his arm
over my shoulders we crossed the street and walked to the front porch. The two
of us climbed the steps and entered the house.

“How about something to drink? Can I have
an OJ?” I asked. The crying had taken all the moisture out of my body.

I followed Dad into the kitchen, where he
poured the drink and handed it to me.

“What’s going on Kizzy?” he asked. “What
are you doing here? And why were you driving my car? Not only do you not have a
license, it's dangerous. You could have gotten in an accident, young lady.”

Taking a gulp of the juice, it burned all
the way down my throat. But the sensation was oddly comforting to the soreness
there.

“I know, Dad. I came here because I’m
worried about you.”

“Why? You know I’m working nights at the
plant. What could happen to me? I should be sleeping.”

“Why aren’t you sleeping?”

The question seemed to confuse him. “I
had the strangest dream and it disturbed me.” He pondered that for a moment. “I
think it did anyway.”

“I have something here.” Taking the
messenger bag off my shoulder, I put it on the kitchen counter and extracted a
plant from inside. I tore off some of the leaves and placed them in the mortar
and pestle that sat in the corner near the spice rack. After mixing in some
olive oil, I ground the leaves to a paste.

“What are you doing?” Dad asked. “Don’t
think you’re going to distract me from your illegal driving, Kizzy.”

“Dad, please,” I insisted. “We need to
apply this poultice to the wound on your shoulder.”

“How do you know about that?”

Crossing to him, I pulled back the collar
of the shirt and peeled back the bandage. The area around the wound was already
significantly redder than the last time I’d seen it.

“This stuff will heal it real fast,” I
said.

After pushing him into one of the kitchen
chairs, I reached into the mortar and slid my fingers through to scoop up a
glob of the mixture. I applied the goop of Downy Woundwort poultice to Dad’s
shoulder and packed in on. I retrieved the first aid kit from the bathroom and
dressed the wound with a bandage.

“It does feel better,” Dad said. “But
what is it?”

“An herbal remedy.” I took two more
plants from my bag. “Mix up a poultice and apply this stuff to your shoulder at
least two more times in the next two days”

“Honey, I think all this is unnecessary.”

“Please. Promise me.”

“It’s just a scratch. I’ll be okay.”

“Dad. Think. How did you get it?”

“Well, like I said. I had a weird dream.
I think it made me walk in my sleep I woke up outside in the courtyard with
this scratch.”

“Did you dream of a white blond haired
woman-like creature who bit you?” I asked.

His eyes widened in surprise. “How did
you know?”

“Dad, you were bitten by a ghoul. If you
don’t treat this you’ll go crazy. Please trust me on this.”

“I must have told you about the dream
before,” he said with a laugh. “That’s right. I just mentioned my dream to
you.”

“But you didn’t mention the creature,” I
reminded him.

“I must have.” He chuckled. “Funny. A
ghoul. You had me going there for a minute.” He patted my hand.

“Please, just apply this stuff two more
times. You don’t have to believe in the ghoul. Just do it. If you love me
you’ll do it.” My eyes bored into his and I tried to pour every bit of
seriousness into my gaze that I could muster.

Finally, he nodded. “Okay, honey. I
promise.”

“Did you see how I made the poultice with
these leaves and the olive oil?”

“Yes, Kizzy.” By his tone, he was clearly
humoring me.

Pressing my lips to his cheek, I prayed
he would follow through with his promise.

“I have to go, Dad.”

“Don’t think you’re going to avoid a talk
about your driving.”

“Later okay? I have to get somewhere fast
or the world will collapse on me.” At the front door, I turned and glanced back
at my dad standing in the hall.

“Sure, sure.” He smiled. “You go. I have
to get some sleep anyway.”

With one last lingering gaze, I opened
the door and went outside. Once there, I decided to run back to the wormhole
house. It might not be as fast as driving but at least it would be safer and
less likely to get me thrown in jail.

Although I told my legs to move like a
zooming rocket, I’d never won any track meets and never would. I ran over the
uneven bricks that made up the sidewalk of Dad’s block. As I navigated around a
square littered with people enjoying the sunshine for a fresh air lunch hour,
my breath churned not just with the physical exertion but also with fear. Would
I get back in time to go forward in time?

After about ten minutes, I arrived at the
wormhole house and ran through the courtyard to the spiral staircase. However,
when I rounded the corner, I discovered a major problem. The stairs were not
where they had been. The entire metal section had broken away from the house
and had fallen on its side. The flight of stairs leaned with the bottom half on
the ground and the top touching the side of the house.

Damn, damn, damn. This wasn’t good.
Something serious had shaken that thing loose.

Quickly, I scanned, searching the place
for an alternate way to the upper floor veranda. Nothing seemed possible
without climbing equipment to grapple my way up. I elected to climb the spiral
staircase to the highest point where it leaned against the wall and then try to
make the almost five foot leap to the veranda balustrade.

Since the staircase was on its side, I
didn’t have the security of treads to mount. Instead, I scaled the edges of the
steps and the winding banister. The structure wobbled and jiggled beneath me. I
knew it wouldn’t take much for the metal section to topple completely to the
ground with me pinned beneath it.

When I reached the summit of “mount
metal”, I managed to pull myself to an unsteady standing position. With feet
planted on the sides of separate stair treads, I prepared myself. This distance
would have been much easier with a running start. Since I didn’t have one, I
tried to create some momentum with swinging arm movement. As I brought my arms
forward, with the staircase lurching beneath me, I leaped.

I leaped…and didn’t land exactly. I
didn’t fall either. More precisely, I ended up clinging to the wrought iron
balustrade over my head as my feet dangled. But my feet didn’t find anything to
lever against since they were probably between the ceiling and the floor of the
lower veranda.

To the left was one of the columns. If I
could get my foot on that before I lost all feeling in my upper arms…

Somehow I managed to wedge the ball of my
left foot on the column and used it to lift with my leg as I pulled with my
arms. I finally came, with shaking legs, to a standing position on the edge of
the veranda. I inched along that tiny edge until I got to the gap left by the
loss of the metal stairs.

Once on the veranda, reaching the window
to the bedroom wasn’t hard. The sight of the rope still attached where I’d left
it was a thrill. The beam that had semi-blocked the entrance to the hall when
Rom and I had crossed it with Namia stood in the same place. Gripping the rope
like a banister, I ducked under the beam and entered the hall.

Although much more debris littered the
floor, and the walls—not to mention ceiling—had more holes than
Swiss cheese, there was no more undulating movement. No pitching and rolling of
the floor. This lack of movement freaked me out.

What was happening? Had the wormhole
collapsed? If so, was I trapped in the past? If I went further down the hall,
could I be permanently stuck in some kind of limbo?

Clinging to the rope, I moved forward
almost tiptoeing, and not just because of the gaps in the floorboards. Somehow
I was afraid to create any vibration with my presence.

Without the movement of the walls and
floor to distract me, I noticed that the rope I held, although taut,
disappeared at a point about one foot ahead of me. When I walked that distance
the rope was still there but disappeared another foot ahead. Having forgotten
to breathe there for a few seconds, I consciously dragged in air and proceeded
on.

Just as I reached the middle point of the
passage, the hall began to shake and quake. Plaster and other materials fell on
my head and around me. I felt the rope behind me fall limp. Terror coursed
through me and I started to run. A sound like a freight train caused me to
glance over my shoulder. The hall behind me was rolling up like a huge cosmic
rug and that roll was about to overtake me.

“Rom,” I screamed, having no idea whether
he would be able to hear me.

The rope ahead of me jerked hard, lifting
me off my feet and hauling me, flying, forward. The weightlessness behind me
also buoyed my body upward.

In front of me, I saw Rom, Zen, Petra,
Senji and Chase partially within the hall, heaving at the rope hand over hand.
Zen glanced up and his eyes widened and mouth dropped open, but he did not miss
a beat towing in the rope.

Something nipped at my toes and I felt
the tennis shoe on my right foot fly away. A tug of war waged. Which would win,
my friends or the black void?

At the end of the hall my body hit Rom
and the others as if I were a bowling ball and they were pins. All of us
tumbled end over end down the stairs and into a pile atop one another on the
landing at the bottom. As we struck, I heard the rolling freight train of the
wormhole crashing above followed by complete silence.

My neck wasn’t broken and it seemed that,
except for my shoe, nothing was missing. A laugh broke from me. Underneath me,
Rom lifted his head and began laughing too. Zen, who lay under Rom, opened his
eyes and chuckled. His chuckle quickly turned to a full-blown laugh. His arms
came up around both Rom and me. Lying on the floor, we rocked in a giant hug as
we continued laughing hysterically.

“I’m glad you guys think this is funny,”
Petra said from under Zen. “But I’m being crushed here.”

“You think you have a complaint,” Senji,
who was under Petra, drawled. “I’m lying on top of Chase and I think I’m
turning him on.”

“Wait til I get out of here, Senji,”
Chase yelled. “Turn on? I’ll tune you up, dude.”

Sparring with vampires, fighting with
shape shifters, warring with ghouls... All that paled in comparison to the
terror I felt as Zen’s van turned the corner to my home block and pulled to a
stop at the curb.

“I'm sorry, Kizzy,” Senji said in the
back of the van. He closed his cell phone. “Franky's still dead.”

My heart fell and bounced against my
stomach.

“But there's one difference,” Senji
continued. “He died in his sleep at home.”

So I had changed history, but not enough
to save poor Franky. Had anything else changed?

What would I find in my own house?

After opening the passenger door and
jumping out, I barreled across the sidewalk and up the steps only to find the
front door locked. My hand shook as I extracted the key from its hiding place
under a pot and tried to insert it into the lock. Rom finally took the key from
my hand and opened the door for me.

Once inside, I dashed around scanning
each room as Rom followed.

“Mom,” I yelled. My heart pounded so hard
in my chest it sounded to my ears like the base of a rock band drum.

“I’m up here, honey,” Mom called from
upstairs but I barely heard her because, through the French doors in the
kitchen overlooking the courtyard, I spotted a small boy with familiar blond
hair.

Scrambling to get through the doors, I
screamed, “Adam.”

The blond head came up and my brother
fixed me with wide blue eyes that immediately lit with a happy fire.

Kizzy,” he squealed and ran toward me.

Dizziness swamped me. Was this real?

Kneeling down, I waited for Adam's
beloved weight to ram me before I wrapped my arms around him and swept him up
into a twirling hug. One, two, three times we turned in a happy circle.

“Your arms are too tight,” Adam finally
complained.

With my face pressed into his little
neck, I luxuriated in the chocolate, soap and dirt smell of him. The feel of
his small arms around my shoulders produced such a wide smile I thought my face
would crack.