The Killing Vision - By Will Overby Page 0,38
of his similar experience. “She must have lost her mind,” he said.
Dana nodded. “She just about did.”
Their waitress brought their sandwiches, and Joel bit into his greedily. “What about the others?” Joel asked between bites.
“Well,” Dana said, tearing open her bag of potato chips, “There’s Joseph, the old guy. He and Barry can both see the future.”
Joel stopped chewing. “Really? Both of them?”
Dana nodded. “I think Joseph’s comes and goes. But Barry…”
“What about him? Father Michael said he’s had some rough times. That he tried to kill himself.”
“Yeah,” Dana said softly.
“What happened?”
“Well, I only heard him talk about it once,” Dana said. “It was one of the first times I’d been to the group, and it just about terrified me. I was almost too scared to go back.”
Joel’s curiosity was brimming. “What did he say?”
“He was living in Memphis with his fiancée. They’d been together about two years, and they were in the middle of planning their wedding. One night, out of the clear blue, he had a vision of her being murdered. Stabbed to death, actually.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Yeah. He didn’t know what to do. It was the first time he’d had a vision. He didn’t know if he should tell her because he didn’t want to upset her. And he wasn’t sure it was even real. He just about lost it, worrying over it. In the end, he told her about it, and they just kind of laughed it off.” Dana fell silent and took a sip of her drink.
“I don’t have to guess how it ended,” Joel said.
She nodded. “Barry was the one who found her. She’d been attacked in the parking lot of their apartment house. She managed to crawl to the back door, but she died before anyone could help her. They never caught the maniac who did it.”
Joel was shaking his head in disbelief. “Poor guy.”
“He began having more visions. Some pretty bizarre ones, I think. You remember Flight 800?”
“The plane that blew up over New York?”
“Yeah. He saw that a day before it happened. Nine-eleven, too. He tried to contact the authorities about it, but they ignored him, though he was investigated by the FBI after the fact. Now I’m sure they wish they’d listened.”
Joel shivered. “Creepy.”
“I think it was right after that he did it. Slashed his wrists. Luckily, he was late with his rent. His landlord showed up, found him bleeding to death in the bathtub.”
Joel pushed his sandwich away. He suddenly wasn’t very hungry anymore. “Well,” he said. “I don’t feel like such a freak.”
Dana laughed. “I know what you mean.”
“I take it he still has visions.”
“I assume so.”
“Has he ever had a vision about anyone in the group?”
Dana shrugged and popped a chip into her mouth. “Not sure. If he had one about me, I don’t think I would want to know.”
“I hear you,” Joel said. He watched Dana’s hands as she picked up her sandwich, watched her lips as she bit into it. He wondered what he would discover if he touched her, what secrets in her heart would be revealed. He had begun to feel something stirring within him while sitting here with her. Something warm and exciting yet strangely terrifying. He was feeling a growing attraction to her, an attraction he hadn’t felt for anyone in so many years. He wondered what she thought of him, if she considered him fat and gross. He tried not to think about that. He knew what he looked like, and he didn’t need an inner voice—one that was starting to sound more and more like Clifton or Wade—reminding him. So, before he had a chance to stop himself, he blurted out, “Are you seeing anyone?” And when Dana looked up at him in surprise, he felt sure he had done the wrong thing.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have asked that.”
“No,” she said, smiling, “it’s all right.
“I just say things before I think sometimes. I didn’t mean to—”
“No.”
He looked at her. “Excuse me?”
She smiled. “No. I’m not seeing anyone.”
Joel felt his face grow hot. He tried to return her smile, but he couldn’t meet her eyes. Instead, he found himself talking to his sandwich. “You seem like a really nice girl,” he said. “I just get nervous when I talk to…” He trailed off, unsure of whether to say “girls” or “women.” He cleared his throat. “I mean, if you wanted to, if you’re not busy maybe we could—”
“Joel,” Dana said, “are you asking me out on a date?”
His face and