Three

It was painful to open his eyes at first but slowly it subsided and when he did open his eyes, they were met with biting rain that hurt his upturned face like needles. Kyle immediately noticed that the storm still raged overhead and the sky was still pitch black. He sat up quickly, using his hands as support, and fell back to a lying position as the blinding pain took over his eyes again in a dizziness that spread quickly. He reached a shaky hand behind his head and winced as he felt the swollen lump beneath his hair, blinking again as it shot pain directly into his brain.

He heard women’s voices behind him but he was vaguely aware of it at first until his head finally began to settle down again. He suddenly realized that it was Valerie and Melissa. “What happened to them?” Valerie asked.

“I don’t know,” Melissa replied with a soft voice.

Kyle sat up and did his best to ignore the pain that shot through his head again, doing his best to get to a standing position. He got up, with head down, and slowly turned in the direction of their voices. “How long was I out?” His voice was cracked and his throat was dry. He rubbed his head again but otherwise tried to forget about it.

They both turned to face him with relieved expressions. “You’re up!” Valerie yelled happily, with a smile spreading across her lips. “You weren’t out long. Only about five minutes or so. We tried to wake you but you must have hit your head hard. We couldn’t get you up. We thought you might have put yourself into a coma.”

They both stood under the canopy, shielded from the rain, but not inside the building where Cindy and Brett still were. He glanced towards the door and was happy to see that it was still closed. But he still thought he heard muffled voices screaming behind it. The sooner they left, the better.

“Are you all right?” Melissa asked, taking a step towards him, out from beneath the safety of the canopy. Valerie was only a step behind her and Kyle turned to leave as well. They started down the steps, at a slower pace, so he wouldn’t fall again.

“Yeah, I think so,” Kyle replied with a strained smile in her direction. “Yeah, I just hit my head pretty hard that’s all.” He cautiously reached a still shaky hand behind his head again and felt the lump. Again, pain filled his head and his eyes involuntarily squeezed shut with a terrible force. He couldn’t help but wince again in protest against the pain. But there was something else as well. An image floated across his vision burning bright and strong.

It was a bright sunny late August afternoon and a black Lexus was going down the highway. Cars were slowing ahead of it and the middle-aged man behind the wheel of the Lexus started to slow along with them; after all, they couldn’t push the other cars out of the way. A young, five year old boy was in the back seat of the Lexus looking out the window at the passing cars, blue sky, and green trees. The only thing on his mind was G.I. Joe the all American hero, always ready to save the day.

“Holy hell!” The middle-aged man behind the steering wheel yelled loudly, slowing the car down even more. The traffic in front of him was crawling, almost at a stop now, and the man saw that some of the cars in front of him are beginning to pull to the side of the road and the ones that weren’t were still driving slowly as to not hit the many people crossing the highway. “This doesn’t look good at all.”

He pulled the Lexus over to the side of the highway behind many other strangers’ cars and turned the ignition off, letting the engine die with one last rattle. The young boy in the back looked out the window in confusion and then looked at his father, as the man unbuckled, opened the door, and stepped out of the car onto the highway. The man opened the back door, unbuckled the boy and took him out of the car, quickly closing the door behind him. He put the boy down and started across the three-lane highway, with his son’s hand in his, dodging the slow moving cars as he moved with the other people, who were complete strangers to them.

“What are we doing?” The boy asked as they stepped onto the grass between the two highways and started across it to the opposite lanes. Cars on that side were mirroring the cars on the eastbound line, all-resting against the shoulder of the road. At least a dozen people stood in the middle of the westbound lane, all surrounding the overturned Lincoln Town car, where occasional screams drifted into the air.

“We’re going to try and help these people Kyle,” the middle aged man answered with a grave face. “That’s the least we can do.” Kyle, the young boy of five, studied the flipped car and listened to the screams and pleads as they entered the surrounding air. Standing in the middle of the westbound lane, with the Lincoln only a couple yards away, he was vaguely away of the hot sunlight that beat down on him. The sunlight quickly faded…

…And in the next instance rain beat down on him in heavy waves. Kyle now stood on the lower step leading into the Goodwin Resident Hall with pain and darkness plaguing his head. His eyes were still closed and as he lowered his hand from his head, he slowly opened them in disbelief. He barely remembered where he was or what he was doing. Both Melissa and Valerie stared at him with worried faces.

“What’s wrong?” Valerie asked. “Are you all right?”

“I don’t know,” Kyle replied when he once again found his voice. “I’m not really sure.” The overturned Lincoln, the Lexus, the bright afternoon of the August day, it all seemed so familiar to him. He had seen that when he was five and hadn’t remembered it until now. That had been eleven years ago; he couldn’t remember that far back. His memory was bad enough but why did he remember it now? It was strange that he had suddenly remembered something that had happened eleven years ago as if a random memory had been triggered at the back of his mind. “I think I am. Ah, it’s nothing to worry about. Let’s keep going. This rain is cold.”

They nodded and continued forward, with Kyle soon following, reluctantly. He didn’t want to move, his head hurt too much, but it was also because he didn’t know what to believe anymore. Where had that memory come from and why now? Of all times! The rain still beat down on them as they briskly walked down the stone walkway, doing their best to put some distance between them and the Goodwin Resident Hall. Kyle tried not to remember Cindy and Brett screaming at them about the bells, wherever the hell the bells were, but he just couldn’t face it that they were like that. He had been talking to them not even an hour ago and they had been fine. And now what had happened to them? And the worse part about it was that the way they were acting was somehow familiar to him.

Kyle looked up from his troubled thoughts and saw the top of the fountain, which stood in front of the cafeteria, poking out into the sky above the tops of the brushes surrounding it. He remembered Meghan telling them that whenever a woman from Converse got married, they dunked her in the fountain, or it was something like that. It was supposed to symbolize a happy occasion.

The gray stone circular rim of the fountain came into view as the three of them passed the trees and Kyle saw the statue of the woman set into the middle of the fountain, as if she were taking flight into the sky. “No, no, no!” Kyle yelled angrily, starting towards the rim of the fountain with quick feet. The two girls were right behind him and just as panicky and afraid.

A place of supposed happy occasions was now disrupted with the sight of sorrow and death. Kyle wanted to scream his anger and sadness, he wanted to turn in disgust but he couldn’t find his words or strength. He skid to a stop in front of the fountain, with the two girls behind him, and decided that enough time had been wasted. He might still be able to help her.

Face first in the overflowing water of the joyful fountain, Ashley Anderson floated, a lifeless mass, caught on the edge of the stone, half floating and half hanging over the rim of the fountain. With each fresh stroke of lightening, her drenched black hair shone across the gray stones, giving them a second’s glimmer.

Kyle quickly reached into the water, wrapped his arms around Ashley, and pulled her free of the cold water’s grasp but as he gently laid her down on the walkway, he already knew that it was too late. She had been in the water awhile and had been dead for quite some time now. “Damn it!” He yelled angrily, standing up and pacing with fury decorating his face like an ancient war-mask.

“Ashley,” Valerie said in disbelief, with Melissa echoing her. “Who could do this to her? She was the kindest and quietest one here!” Kyle stayed quiet. Countless people had commented on how calm he could be in the most dangerous situations, even if he was scared shitless inside, much as he was now. He stayed calm somehow, but calm only on the outside.

“We can’t do anything for her,” Melissa whispered sadly, turning her back to the fountain and walking to the path again, with Valerie soon following. The three of them merely jogged away in anger and disbelief. They were all beginning to wonder how long they still had in this awful place; how long they all had until they to would join Ashley in death.

Trying to push Ashley and the others out of their minds, the three followed the stone path around the cafeteria and soon they stood at the front of the campus. Kyle knew they should leave the campus behind them and get the police for help but something was pulling him, dragging him violently and involuntarily towards the bell tower.

Throwing themselves against the large black double-doors of the Thomas Dining Hall, their combined weight knocked the door open and as they fell through onto the dark red carpet of the lobby, they nearly ran into Meghan, who seemed as upset as they were.

“Don’t go in there!” Meghan yelled, running past them.

“No!” Kyle said, grabbing his shoulder gently and turning her around, kicking the black doors closed soon after. “No, it’s too dangerous out there. You need to stay with us. We’re better off in here.” As the doors closed with a loud thud, the four youths stood in dimness, with the few lights in the lobby still flickering on and off.

Statues lined the walls of the lobby, large white pillars held the vaulted ceiling in place, stairs led to the upper floors, and the floor was covered with a dark red carpet. They took the three red-carpeted steps down to the main floor and stood in silence, studying the enormous room. In front of them stood a brown oak table with a vase filled with neatly trimmed blood red roses. A piano constructed of black walnut wood stood empty-seated against the left wall but even so—with no player present—the song ‘Moonlight Sonata’ drifted into the air with an eerie softness, as if invisible hands pushed down the blood streaked keys.

Despite Meghan’s protests, they started across the carpet towards the hallway that led into the dining hall. “What’s in here Meghan?” Melissa asked softly. “Why shouldn’t we be in here?”

Meghan’s wide-eyed stare turned towards the piano as they began to pass it and the other three youths turned their own eyes in disbelief. A legless man in a tuxedo sat at the piano but he was only visible when lightening streaked across the sky, otherwise he was gone. His head was turned towards them with a large smile beaming across his face. His eyes were closed and his hands never missed a beat of the soft tune as if he had the tune burned into his mind.

There was no need to linger. Their legs moved faster and before they knew it, the four of them were moving down the hall at a quick speed, ignoring the gnarled faces of the statues that lined that hallway on either side. Their hearts beat loudly in their chests, now in fear more then anything else.

As they ran down the hall, the piano player’s dead insane laughter followed. It only made them move faster. “The door. It leads into the dining hall.” Meghan was pointing towards the tall oak doors that stood at the end of the hallway, closed now, with the carpet hitting them. “I came from in there. It should be okay; much better then out here.” They slowed and Meghan grabbed the door handles. “What?” She tried again and pulled with all her might. They didn’t budge. “Locked! It wasn’t locked a second ago! What’s going on here?”

Kyle threw his weight against the door but it didn’t budge. “Listen for the bells. Only then shall I appear.” The voice was that of the piano player. It echoed throughout the hallway with its own softness that mixed well with the softness of the melody. They all stood before the locked doors in utter fear, unable to move, unable to think of what to do, with only the sounds of laughter filling their ears.

Kyle had had enough; they had all had enough. They didn’t know what was going to happen to them or when. They didn’t know if they were going to get off this campus alive. They didn’t know if they were going to join Ashley in her death or if they were just awaiting another untimely death but another hand; a death that was due for them alone and only cruel enough for them to endure. Whoever was doing this was trying to tell them something and so far it wasn’t comforting in the least bit.

His calmness be damned! “Who the hell are you?” Kyle yelled angrily, spinning on his heels and starting back down the hall towards the piano’s soft voice. He could barely see the edge of the piano as he inched his way forward. “Where will you appear?” Fiery determination danced across his face, but as he spoke only the growing laughter answered him. “Why must we go to the bell tower? I’m here now and don’t intend to go any further! Do to me what you will but leave them out of it! I will not endure seeing them suffer! Your message was for me and me alone so let them go now you bastard!” That wasn’t the complete truth for Brett had told them that if called to both Kyle and Valerie but Kyle didn’t want to see anything happen to her or the others. He didn’t know who he spoke of or to and this secret bullshit was beginning to drive him mad! He was ready to end this. He’d give his life for their safety but he believed that whoever was doing this had plans for all of them; and sick plans at that.

“Kyle!” Valerie yelled. He turned in confusion and out of the corner of his eye saw the heavy door swing outward. He couldn’t move in time and the fast moving wood caught his shoulder, throwing him down in a sprawling mess of dizziness and pain. It seemingly opened by itself and bounced to a stop against the wall with a heavy thud. He vaguely hoped that his message had been heard and answered but it just seemed too good to be true.

The three girls started towards it in confusion as Kyle slowly stood, allowing the dizziness to subside. He rubbed his cracked shoulder blade in pain and with every move, pulled in a strained breath as more pain shot through it. The pain quickly spread but to accommodate for what was happening, he did his best to ignore it. As he looked through the doorway, he saw that it led to two separate flights of extremely steep, narrow stairs where two couldn’t walk abreast. Cradling his arm painfully, Kyle turned to Meghan with a sweat-covered face. “Where do those stairs lead?”

“To the bell tower.”

“That’s where we need to go,” Melissa finished, glancing at all of them with a questioning look. Kyle nodded, wiped sweat from his face, and started forward on shaky legs. The three girls slowly and reluctantly followed him into the room and up the dark narrow stairs, each walking behind the first. Their worried eyes studied the shadows of the stairway as they moved up it. Each clung to the railing to steady his or her balance with increasingly wobbly legs.

The right side of the stairwell was lined with long narrow windows, all closed and overlooking the pathway below. Every streak of lightening lit the stairwell and cast their shadows across onto the opposite wall.

When they reached the top landing, which was surprisingly big enough for all of them to stand, Kyle opened the door in front of them and came face to face with a young man about Meghan’s age, with a worried expression on his face.

He pushed Kyle out of the way with not so much as a second glance and looked up at Meghan as he started forward. “David!” Meghan gasped loudly in puzzlement. “What…” She seemed to be at a loss for words. “How are you here? But you’re…”

“…Dead,” the young man, David, answered. Kyle gave both Melissa and Valerie a questionable look but they merely shrugged in confusion. “I know, you’d like that wouldn’t you Meghan?” His voice was furious; seemingly over the edge in anger.

“No, I don’t want you dead.”

“But I’m dead and it’s your fault.” He smiled happily and moved closer to her until her shoes slipped and she stumbled to the second step from the top.

“I didn’t kill you,” Meghan sobbed sadly. The other three moved forward to get the man to leave her alone but something in his stance made them stay away. Something in his voice, in his nature almost, made them stay away. Kyle knew immediately that this man was dangerous and wrong. It was clear that he shouldn’t have been there. “I don’t want you dead! I want you to be here! It wasn’t my fault!” It was as if he was somehow pushing them away from him. It felt as if he was subconsciously keeping them away from Meghan; thinking them away from helping her.

“But that’s not what happened!” He yelled and stepped forward furiously with fiery eyes and a violently shaking body. Meghan gasped at his sudden movement, clearly startled, and took a wide step backwards as if she was unaware that the stairs were there. Her foot never found the floor and she fell backwards with a strangled yelp as she began to tumble over and over until her body came to rest against the bottom wall of the first landing with a loud thud. The soft cracking noise that drifted up from her limp body made Kyle turn away in anger. He knew that sound; the sound of bone breaking. Meghan’s lifeless body lay at an odd angle at the foot of the stairs with her neck arched unnaturally.

The man began to laugh uncontrollably and in the brief second that he turned to face them, Kyle saw his face and form change to a middle aged man with short graying hair and dark green eyes. In-between his laughter, he smiled at them shyly, almost as if he were hiding something and then he disappeared.

“What the hell?” Kyle asked the empty air angrily. “How the hell did that happen?”

“Meghan,” Valerie breathed disbelievingly as Kyle started through the open doorway, forgetting everything else that was happening around him. He was angry now, and though he didn’t want to know how any of this was happening he wanted to put an end to it, somehow. “What’s happening here?”

The room was large with old wooden chairs and tables lining the walls, a high vaulted ceiling with brown rafters, and a dusty atmosphere. It looked like an old attic that hadn’t been used in at least a dozen years. Opposite the door was a tall wide window that looked out at the black sky; it looked as if they were on the fourth floor of the dining hall. Kyle hadn’t known that there were that many floors in this building.

Kyle stumbled over something in the doorway and looked down in shock to see a dead police officer lying face down on the dusty floorboards. Kyle guessed that the officer had run into the young man and it had ended quite badly for him. But he was the first person, other then the workshop people, that Kyle had seen all night on the Converse campus.

As the three remaining youths walked into the high-ceilinged room, with wide-eyed confusion slowly dancing across there weather-worn faces, the door slammed closed behind them, locking them in the dark attic seemingly alone. The only light was from the lightening that streaked past the large window across the room from where they stood. When Kyle reached the middle of the room, he looked up and saw the high towered bell tower branching off from the ceiling and as he studied the two large iron bells, they began to ring with a loud tone, deafening to the ears. Their disturbing song pierced the youths’ young ears and threatened to implode their brains. Their screams—seemingly silent compared to the roaring overhead—couldn’t be heard but they expressed all their pain.

“Listen for the bells and I will appear,” a man’s deep voice said from the darkness of the room as the bells began to quiet down. There was a British accent in his voice and it somehow made him seem more eerie, if that could even be said to be possible. “That’s what I wanted you to know Kyle and I see that you’re finally here! That’s good.” The three youths turned to see a tall man in all black emerge from the darkness; the same man that Kyle had briefly seen outside in the hallway before he disappeared. Surely his mind was playing tricks on him, that’s all it was. A large smile crossed his face and he began to clap his hands together happily. “It’s good to see that all three of you made it. I was worried that you might not all show up.” He laughed and noticed their pain-streaked faces. “Ah, my friends are simply welcoming you.” He tilted his head back to look up at the bells overhead as their song died down and he threw his arms up, laughing merrily. “Call to them my beauties! Fill the air with your lovely songs! Celebrate, your song has driven them here,” he looked down at the three youths and lowered his arms, “and now the fun can finally begin.”

“Who are you?” Valerie asked strongly. “I’m sick of all this death and pain. Who are you? And what’s going on here?” The other two stood next to her with fiery determination set on their own faces. “And why did you kill Meghan?”

The tall man’s smile faded into a disappointed frown. “Aw, how dare you accuse me of doing something that I didn’t do?” He snapped back, having been taken aback in anger. “I don’t take kindly to threats and cross-examinations! I never touched a hair on that woman’s head. I never bloody dreamed of it! So be careful of what you accuse me of girl! Or do you want me to let you join her?” Valerie stepped closer to Kyle and the tall British man laughed again in delight. He pointed to the police officer on the ground and nodded. “Now, that I did. Poor Officer Henderson was in the wrong place at the wrong time, you understand. He had to take one for the cause.” He turned his gaze back on the three remaining youths. “But I am no killer and don’t appreciate being mirrored as one! Understand?” There wasn’t an answer. “Good!”

“Are you behind what’s happening here?” Kyle asked strongly, taking a step towards the man.

The man nodded and clapped his hands together again. “Yes, it is true that I am behind what is happening here,” the man laughed happily as if he was proud of the death and pain he had already caused. “And no, I don’t have a name. Nor do I really exist here as I am or rather, as you see me. I am standing before you—in a sense—but only because I’m really within your heads.” He saw the sickened, mystified expressions clouding their faces. “I am merely a thing inside your heads; something that you all share in a way. That is why I changed for your friend outside. I’ve changed faces and forms from a nameless entity to a named entity. Hell, I’ve changed from one nameless face to another nameless face. I am what you may like to call—or refer to as a memory. That is why I am within all of you as I am within everyone, just in different forms. I stand before you now as a figure of your minds neither real nor fake.” The three looked at him in utter confusion. “But I stand here as a memory that you all share. A memory that you all have locked away somewhere; a memory that you have all forgotten.”

“What are you talking about?” Kyle laughed in disbelief. “This is your sick joke that you’re willing to play on us, isn’t it? You’re a killer that likes to play mind games. Ha, that doesn’t make any sense whatsoever!”

“The three of us met here,” Valerie protested too. “We didn’t know each other before Saturday! I don’t know what you’re talking about. There is no memory that we can all share.”

“Oh yes there is,” the man replied angrily. “I know there is!” A little girl, the same little girl that Kyle saw in the mirror in the basement of the Resident Hall, appeared next to the man with a smile on her young face. She looked as if she were five or perhaps six. “Does this remind you of anything? I am within all your heads and you have simply neglected me and my existence but for no longer will I be pushed into the darkness! This is why you’re here! You’re here to remember what I am and what you three locked away forever!” He laughed and disappeared back into the darkness, leaving the little girl standing before them in silence, with that painful smile on her face.

This doesn’t make any sense, Kyle thought bitterly. A memory? That can’t be possible. None of this can be possible. I didn’t know these two until Saturday. What is he talking…Outside, lightening streaked across the sky, filling the room with a brief moment of light again and then Kyle felt the same pain zip through his head as early when he had touched the bump swelling on his head from where he had hit the ground. The pain was intense and sudden. The image floated back into view.

The overturned Lincoln sat in front of five-year-old Kyle but he didn’t know what it was. His mind was still fixed on G.I. Joe, the all American hero, and he tried to ignore the screams that drifted into the sky. He didn’t know who any of these strangers were but he knew that he was bored.

Kyle turned and started to weave in and out of the strangers that moved around him. All their attention was focused on the Lincoln and they didn’t even see the five-year-old boy. Kyle stepped out onto the hot pavement of the westbound lane and stared around, blocking his eyes from the sun. He didn’t even hear the sounds of the truck that was speeding up behind him. The driver didn’t see him for all his attention was fully focused on the overturned car, not the people hurrying across the street and certainly not the little boy standing in the middle of the road.

“Hey kid!” A young man yelled, snatching Kyle up and jumping back onto the median with a worried sweat covered face. “Look out kid!” He put Kyle back down with a smile, never breaking stride. The speeding truck flew past without even slowing. “Watch yourself out here kid!”

Kyle nodded with a downcast, embarrassed face and when he looked up again, the man was gone. He didn’t act well around strangers, they made him nervous, and now he didn’t know what to do. He still heard the screams drift into the air and behind those he heard sirens. AHH! FIRETRUCKS OR POLICE CARS!! Those had always fascinated him. “Hi,” a soft whispered voice next to him said and Kyle turned to see a young girl his own age standing a couple feet from him. “What’s happening?”

He just looked over at her and shrugged. “Don’t know.” He was very shy around people, even people his own age; he just never knew what to say. He looked at her and saw that her long dark brown wavy hair fell past her shoulders and her dark brown eyes studied the highway and cars surrounding it...

…And then Kyle met her wide-eyed stare of disbelief and didn’t know what to say. He was taken aback and completely unable to find words. To think that he had known her before Saturday was unthinkable, unimaginable, something out of movies, but it was strangely true in this case. “Valerie?” He whispered and slowly started walking towards the large window opposite him. As he walked, with the images and even more questions spinning through his head, Kyle realized that he saw the little girl standing in front of the window looking out at the storm. A little girl that he didn’t recognize though he knew that she had been the one he had seen in the window in the basement of the Walden Resident Hall.

“What Kyle?” Valerie asked, meeting his gaze with that same disbelief. “What is it?”

He ignored her as he continued towards the window. He finally turned to face her and smiled at her warmly, knowing that this couldn’t possibly be true. But it is, he told himself fiercely. She smiled back just as warmly and he was amazed that he had actually forgotten her, forgotten that face; that smile. It was hard for him to believe that he had actually forgotten that angel-like face, that beautiful caring smile, but most importantly those lovely dark pearls that were her eyes. How could he forget someone that beautiful? Finally he replied softly, “Valerie, I knew who you were. I did know you before Saturday. I had just forgotten; I was too young to remember.” He looked out at the growing storm and his eyes locked…

…On the bright flashing lights of the ambulance as it pulled up beside the Lincoln and paramedics rushed out with a stretcher and worried faces. Kyle finally got a view of the car as the people surrounding it began to back away to make room for the paramedics. A young man leaned against the car with blood running down his face as if he were crying. Glass from the shattered windows of the overturned Lincoln decorated his face, hands, and arms as if he had tried to use them and failed. Poor man seemed to have gotten the worse of the…

“That’s why it seemed so familiar,” Kyle told the dusty air of the attic as the images ran through his head.

…And a woman lay on the ground crying and shaking.

“That was Cindy,” Kyle said again, stopping behind the little girl in front of the window. “That’s why it felt so familiar. That’s why it felt familiar to Valerie to. She saw the same things that I saw that day and like me she had forgotten.” He paused and tried to piece together the remaining information that was floating around inside his mind with nowhere to go. “Brett had represented the crying man with the glass inside him, just as Cindy had represented the crying woman.” He rubbed his head and smiled in spite of the strange situation occurring around him.

Kyle watched in surprise as the paramedics pulled a little girl from the car and then another little girl. They seemed to be twins but Kyle saw that the second one they had pulled from the car wasn’t moving; the first was screaming and crying uncontrollably. They both had long red hair. The first had dark blue eyes and the second one had dark green eyes…

“Melissa?” Kyle whispered in confusion. “Oh dear God, it was Melissa in the overturned car. She has a twin? But I thought she was an only child?” Perhaps he was wrong. Surely he was wrong.

...Kyle watched sadly as the paramedics put each little girl, the shaking woman, and the crying man into the ambulance and drove them away.

By this time officers had finally arrived and told everyone to leave unless they had any information that might help. Kyle saw his dad appear and move towards him. “Everything’s okay here Kyle,” his father told him, taking Kyle’s hand again, and starting towards their Lexus again. “We can leave now.”

As Kyle started back across the highway towards the Lexus, holding his father’s hand, he turned to see if he could see the girl with the long wavy hair but she was gone. Kyle knew that he was never going to see her again but he wanted to see if he could. His eyes drifted to the empty Lincoln and he sighed heavily as his father buckled him in and then started the car after getting in himself. Soon they were heading back down the highway with the Lincoln lost behind them.

“But I did see her again,” Kyle said to the empty air in front of him as the images disappeared from his aching head. “I just didn’t remember that I saw her before.” He turned to face the two girls who still stood in the middle of the room with worried eyes turned to him. He noticed that Melissa had moved closer to the dead police officer and was trying to see if he was dead or just knocked out. “Melissa?” She looked up at him with a confused face. “That was you in the Lincoln eleven years ago. I know it was and I had forgotten until now. That’s the memory that we all share. Valerie, you were there too.” He looked back at Melissa with a soft, saddened face. “Melissa, I’m so sorry that your sister died in the accident.”

“What?” Melissa asked, forcing a laugh. Valerie looked at him and then at her in confusion. “I’m an only child. I don’t have a sister; I never have.” Her eyes darted between them with confusion.

“Melissa, I know you tried to forget and I’m sorry to bring it up,” Kyle started with a soft voice, “but it’s the memory that we all share. I’m sorry. I don’t want it to hurt you but we all remember it. This is what he wanted us to remember. This is what he set up for us to remember.” Kyle guessed he meant the man when he said “he” but he wasn’t quite sure if a memory could be called a he or she.

“I remember now too,” Valerie whispered sadly. She turned to Melissa. “Oh sweetie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

Melissa began to sob uncontrollably, with sorrow and pain starting to float across her features. “I didn’t know what was happening. I remember pain and then my parents crying a lot. They told me Mary was in the hospital and I never really thought anything else about it. Then they told me that she had gone to a better place but I didn’t know what that meant at the time. I tried to forget and I guess my parents lied to me about something.” The sorrow turned to anger, which appeared beneath her sobs. “I shouldn’t be expected to remember any of this!”

In a split second, Melissa leaned down and picked something up off the police officer’s back, holding it in her right hand as she started across the room towards Kyle. Valerie moved forward to try and talk to Melissa but Melissa merely pushed her aside, never breaking stride from Kyle’s direction.

“And you made me remember Kyle!” She sobbed angrily. Lightening flashed outside casting dancing shadows over Melissa’s face and even with the brief light, Kyle couldn’t make out what was in her hands. “I shouldn’t be expected to remember this! Why did you have to say something?”

“I’m so sorry Melissa,” Kyle replied calmly. “I didn’t know. I thought you knew, I’m so sorry.”

“No you’re not!” She yelled angrily, as she approached him with red hair waving behind her and tears streaking out of her dark blue eyes and down her cheeks. “You get away from my sister!” Kyle had completely forgotten about the little girl standing behind him but he knew that she was only an image of their minds to make them remember. She was only as real as their minds allowed her to be. “You stay away from her Kyle! Do you hear me?”

“Melissa?” Valerie called after her but the other girl didn’t heed to Valerie’s words. “Melissa, what are you doing?”

“I’m protecting my sister!” Melissa yelled as she stepped up in front of Kyle. As another flash of lightening streaked across the sky, making shadows dance across Melissa’s face once again, Kyle felt the sudden blinding pain shoot up through his right side into his head and then another one, just as blindly painful and sudden, merely seconds later. “I won’t let you near my sister!”

Kyle looked down through the blinding pain and saw Melissa withdraw the knife from his side; the knife that she had taken from the dead officer’s back. Had the British man used it against the officer just as Melissa had strangely and suddenly used it against him? Kyle neither wanted to know nor cared to know. Kyle’s hand went to his wounded side and he felt the warm blood begin to pour out of him. His breath started to come in troubled gasps and his eyes began to slowly fade in and out. Melissa filled his abruptly blurred vision with Valerie, as beautiful as ever, standing in the background alert and confused. She seemed to know nothing of what was happening to the man or what Melissa was doing. Kyle was just glad that he could see those beautiful eyes once again.

As the blade buried itself into his chest three times, Kyle distantly heard himself scream as he fell to his back with blood filled breaths. His eyes began to fade more and more with darkness and pain. “No!” Melissa yelled angrily. “Mary, where did you go?” Kyle guessed that the little girl had finally disappeared and he couldn’t help but smile. Melissa had struck out against him to protect someone that was merely in her head, in all their heads, and now he was powerless to bring himself back to reality. The pain flowing through his veins like blood was as real as this was going to get.

The last thing that filled Kyle’s vision before his eyes closed to darkness forever was Melissa’s tear streaked face and the bloody knife in her red hands. As death overcame him, Kyle distantly heard Valerie scream and then a clicking noise. The last thing that drilled into his head were three deafening booms that seemed like soft whispers to his aching head.

Those two wonderfully beautiful pools of darkness that were Valerie’s eyes were ripped away from him and this time he knew, just as certainly as the five-year-old boy had known, that he’d never lay eyes on them again. He’d never see that beautiful woman again and even in death it seemed to tear him apart!

“Melissa?” Valerie Timmerman called after her. “Melissa, what are you doing?”

“I’m protecting my sister!” Valerie heard Melissa say as she stepped up in front of Kyle. As another streak of lightening flashed by, with silence following, Valerie didn’t know what was happening. “I won’t let you near my sister!”

Seconds later, Valerie heard Kyle scream painfully and fall backwards onto the dusty floorboards of the attic. The little girl had disappeared and now Kyle’s motionless body filled he area where the little girl had just been seconds before. “No! Mary, where did you go?” Valerie saw Kyle’s bloody shirt and then her eyes drifted to the bloody bladed knife in Melissa’s hands. Her friend had snapped and killed Kyle. Kyle was lying there dead on the ground because of something inside their heads and a sudden pain of sadness struck her deep inside. She hadn’t even had time to say goodbye to him and she regretted it.

Valerie ran to the officer’s body, doing her best not to take her eyes from Melissa. She screamed and unhooked the Beretta from the cop’s belt. “Melissa! How could you? What happened to you?”

Melissa turned to face her with a tear-streaked face that was contorted with anger. “I told you to stay away from my sister!” Melissa started to cross the room towards Valerie with the knife held in a jabbing position again.

Valerie cocked the pistol in shaky hands and with eyes closed, tears running down her face, she pulled the trigger and heard the deafening boom of the gun as the bullet exited the barrel. She opened her eyes briefly to see Melissa’s eyes widen in disbelief and pain and then the girl stumbled backwards, dropping the knife as she did. In fear and sadness Valerie pulled the trigger two more times and again, two more reports echoed thunderously through the large bell tower. Valerie saw the two bullets slam into Melissa and throw her lifeless body back onto the floor next to Kyle’s.

Being the only one left alive in the room, with fear and sadness coursing through her veins, Valerie dropped the smoking Beretta from her shaky, clammy hands and stared out the window in disbelief. She sank to a sitting position, put her face in her hands, and began to sob for her friend’s deaths.

Epilogue

Valerie left the campus behind her and got the nearest police officers. She brought them back with paramedics and soon found out that Cindy and Brett were still alive and with some therapy could be perfectly fine. Neither remembered anything about the incident, only that they thought that they had been knocked out.

Valerie cried for hours after seeing the bodies of her four friends as they were brought out and put into the ambulance. She explained to the officers that she had shot Melissa in self-defense and there was nothing else to prove, the knife and Kyle’s body explained enough. She left out the part about the “memory” and the little girl. She just said that Melissa went crazy and began to kill everyone, even though it was a good lie. She wasn’t questioned further on her knowledge of what had happened. As far as the officers were concerned, her story fit well with the awful situation that had occurred and ripped away four peoples lives in one night.

She never forgot that night or the people she had known for those four days. She had another memory that she wasn’t going to lock away in prison in the back of her mind and throw away the key. This one had her lost friends in it; she was going to treasure it forever. She just wished she could have said goodbye to Kyle before he had been taken into the darkness of death. To just say one word to him would have been better then what had happened but she knew worrying about it would only make her sob harder.