across the bench seat and wept, wept for the mistakes I’d made, wept for all the times I should’ve said “I’m sorry”, wept for all the times I never told Dad I loved him, wept for all the things we’d never get to do. He’d never get to see me graduate. He’d never get to walk me down the aisle. He’d never get to hold his grandchildren. And we’d never get to finish the Camaro.
When the tears ran out for what seemed like the hundredth time, I fell once more into the fitful, dreamless sleep of the emotionally exhausted.
********
The pitter patter of rain woke me. I opened my eyes to the barely-visible dash of the Camaro. I was still in the car and, but for the eerie glow of the clock’s face, it was pitch black.
I sat up quickly. I was wet. There were drops of moisture falling from the ceiling of the car, plopping gently onto me, the seat, and the dash. I looked for rips in the lining, but saw none. There were no bulges where water was pooling behind the material. The more I inspected it, the more confused I became.
I watched the drops and it seemed they were originating from the seat and hitting the ceiling, making that pitter patter. Then, from there, they were dripping back down.
It was raining—in the car—upside down. But that couldn’t be right.
I held my hand out over the seat beside me. Cold drops of water splattered my palm where I held it over the upholstery. It was then that I realized I must be dreaming.
I slid out of the wet car and set my feet on the cement of the garage floor. With a splash, they landed in a puddle. Drops of moisture zoomed by my face, racing toward the ceiling. All around me it was raining—upside down.
The streetlight out front cast a sliver of light on the floor in front of the garage door. It was just enough for me to see the wet concrete and the fat drops that fell both up and down. It was also just enough for me to see a darker, unfamiliar shape in the corner.
When I realized what it was, I jumped, barely able to get my hand to my mouth quick enough to stifle a scream. The shape was a silhouette—the silhouette of a person.
Though I could make out very little detail, there was something familiar about the form. My eyes burned with the strain of trying to see into the darkness, but finally I was able to make out fiery red hair framing the pale, pale face of a girl. When she raised a hand to beckon me, I knew immediately who it was. It was the girl from my dreams, the girl from the mist. It was the girl that looked just like me.
Questions raced through my mind, basic ones like who, how and why. Then she spoke.
“Save me,” she breathed.
It was just a whisper really, one I could easily have convinced myself I’d imagined and yet…it was so real.
“What?”
“Save me,” she repeated, just as softly.
I took a step toward her. I was both curious and afraid, but I was also moved by her plea. She nodded her head in encouragement and I took another step then another. I could see that her lips had lifted at the corners into a tiny smile so I took yet another step.
And then I saw the rest of them.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
There, in the shadows beside the girl, were other people. They were all deathly pale. All their mouths were open wide in silent screams and pleas that I couldn’t make out. Most of them were horribly disfigured, like they’d seen terrible battles and lived, though their wounds had never healed.
Among them, I saw a man with a wide cut on the left side of his head, the skull lying open grotesquely. I saw a woman that had apparently been tortured. Her clothes hung in tatters and, through the gaps in the material, I could see bloody knife wounds and chunks of flesh dangling. And then there was another man, one who looked familiar somehow. One side of his face was severely burned, which made him particularly difficult to identify. In fact, one entire side of his body was charred to the bone. It looked almost as if half of him was perpetually in shadow.
They were all like that, mangled in some way—bloodied, beaten, broken, burned, ripped and torn.