“Fine. Go ahead,” he said in his sleep. “What does the tree house do?”
Ambrose turned the page.
And that’s when it happened.
At first, he didn’t understand. The pages were so blurry that they looked almost grey. He squinted his eyes harder, but there were no more shapes. No more outlines to the letters. He held the magnifying glass up to his eyes. It changed nothing. He took away his bifocals. Nothing again.
He had finally gone blind.
“NURSE!” he yelled out.
Ambrose heard the floor creak near him. Little tiny baby steps. There was only silence. He thought he heard breathing near his ears. He didn’t know what it was, but he could feel it. Something was in here. A little whisper that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
“Who is that?” he said.
There was no response. Only silence. Ambrose called out to the nurse again, and he finally heard her walking down the hallway from the kitchen. He was going to ask her to read the next line.
Until she started coughing with the flu.
“You okay, Mr. Olson?” the nurse asked calmly in her broken English.
There was something in her voice. Something wrong. If Mrs. Reese were working tonight, he knew he could trust her with the diary. But her son Christopher was in the hospital after he touched Mrs. Keizer and his nose bled…
Just like David.
Ambrose knew he needed to get to Kate Reese. He needed to get to the sheriff. Whatever was happening back then was happening right now. And his brother’s diary might be the only clue as to how to stop it.
“You okay, Mr. Olson?” the nurse asked again suspiciously.
The old man held the diary in his arms like his high school coach taught him to hold a football.
As if your life depended on it, boy.
The old man folded his brother’s diary in his lap and did his best to put on a casual voice.
“I need you to take me to the hospital,” he said.
“Why, sir?” she asked.
“Because the clouds have taken my eyes.”
Chapter 68
The sheriff opened his eyes. He must have fallen asleep. He didn’t know where he was. He looked around the room, but he couldn’t find his sight. He had heard the term “blinding headache” before, but he never knew it could be literal. He had to blink for a full minute to get rid of the fog.
He calmed his mind and tried to find his way with his other senses. He was fairly certain he was in the records room because of the dusty smell. He must have fallen asleep when he was going over records with Mrs. Russo. But he couldn’t hear anything.
“Hello? Mrs. Russo? Are you there?” he said.
Silence. The sheriff tried to remember how he got down here again. He remembered that he hadn’t left the office in days despite having that horrible fever. He knew that every time he tried to get to the hospital to be with Kate and her son, there would be another emergency. Another bad traffic accident. Another stabbing. Another bar fight.
It was as if the world were conspiring to keep him away.
The sheriff was the furthest thing from a conspiracy theorist, especially when the theory involved something as groundless as coincidence. But he also had an instinct to know when someone was fucking with him, and that instinct was flashing red. There were simply too many coincidences that kept him from getting to Kate Reese and her son. There were too many distractions that kept him from doing his work in the records room. There was too much noise that kept him from remembering that…
that name…that little boy…what was his name?
The sheriff couldn’t remember, but his instinct told him that was wrong. The voice kept telling him that he couldn’t remember, but the sheriff knew he had an exceptional memory. Not exactly photographic, but close enough when it counted. And this one counted…Somehow this mattered to Kate Reese and Christopher and…
that name…that little boy…his name was…
The sheriff’s hand began to itch again. God, it was itchy. He looked down at his hand, and his eyes started to find focus. In the dim light, he saw that his hand was scratched raw. The skin was red and broken. Blood had dried on his fingernails. But there was something else on his arm. Hidden under his sleeve. He vaguely remembered hiding something there.
his name was…that little boy’s name was…
The sheriff pulled back his sleeve and saw words written on his arm in black ink.