Steven Harper - Nightmare

"How do you feel?" she asked. "Are you in pain?"

Kendi checked. "No. Where am I?"

"Medical center. I called an ambulance. Can you talk? Can you tell me what happened?"

"Just a moment now." A man whose hair was as white as his coat bent over Kendi. His name tag proclaimed him Dr. Benjamin Yarmul, and Kendi immediately thought of Ben. "Can you follow my finger?"

Kendi tracked Dr. Yarmul’s finger, wiggled various bandaged appendages, and assured the doctor that he felt no pain anywhere. Another person was in the room, an Asian woman Mother Ara’s height with a carefully-woven black braid trailing down her back. She didn’t speak as the doctor examined Kendi.

"The damage was superficial," Dr. Yarmul said. "All of it psychosomatic, but still damaging nonetheless. We’ve closed your wounds and there won’t be any scars, but you’ll need to keep the bandages on until tomorrow morning just to make sure, all right? We’ll have to keep you here overnight for observation anyway."

Kendi and Mother Ara thanked the doctor, who then left. The Asian woman came forward and took his place next to Kendi’s bed.

"This is Inspector Lewa Tan," Mother Ara said. "She’s from the Guardians."

"Can you tell us what happened?" Tan asked. Her voice was gravelly, odd for a woman.

"I was attacked. In the Dream." Kendi tried to sit up again. This time the bed tilted upward with him until he was in a reclining position.

"Did you see who attacked you?" Tan asked.

Kendi shook his head. "Not really. He wore a hat that kept his face all shadowy."

"But it was definitely a man," Tan said.

"Yeah."

"Are you up to telling the entire story," Mother Ara said, "or do you want to rest?"

"I can talk." Kendi shifted position beneath the crisp white hospital sheets and explained what had happened to him. Tan held what Kendi assumed was a recording device. Mother Ara listened attentively. Kendi had thought he was fine, but by the end of it he was sweating and his heart pounded as if it had happened to him again as he told it. The bandages reminded him of the suffocating couch cushions, and he had the sudden urge to tear them off. The man was pointing a needle pistol at him, and the hospital room felt small and confining, with no place to run. He forced himself to take deep breaths and continue talking, though the sweat turned cold on his body.

"And then I called you, Mother," he finished. "That was pretty much it."

Tan leaned forward. "Kendi, you saw the killer write a number on the woman’s forehead. What was the number again?"

"Fourteen."

Tan and Mother Ara exchanged glances. "You’re sure it was fourteen and not thirteen?" Mother Ara asked.

"Positive," Kendi said. "Why?"

"Just making sure," Tan said.

"So how long was I out?" Kendi asked.

"About four hours," Mother Ara told him. "You scared me out of my wits. Ben’s outside. You scared him, too, and he insisted on coming down."

"Ben?" Kendi’s heart leaped. "Ben’s outside? Can he come in?"

"In a moment." Tan leaned closer. "I need you to answer a few more questions. If you’re up to it."

Kendi leaned back against the pillows. "Yeah, okay. Go ahead."

Tan went back over parts of his story, gently asking for more detail here, a simple retelling there. More details surfaced as Kendi spoke, and he reported them to Tan and Mother Ara.

"We still don’t know who the victim is," Tan said. "Though if she was wearing a gold medallion, she was probably a Child. Did you recognize her from the description, Ara?"

Mother Ara shook her head. "There are thousands of Children."

"Then I guess we’ll have to do it through old-fashioned detective work," Tan said grimly.

"Any more questions?" Kendi felt tired now, and his eyelids drooped.

"Not for the moment," Tan said. "Though I’ll want to go over it with you one more time a little later, when you’re rested."

"You should sleep now, Kendi." Mother Ara patted his shoulder. "Inspector?"

"Wait," Kendi said. "I wanna see Ben."

"I’ll bring him by in the morning," Mother Ara said.

"No." Kendi roused himself. "I want to see him now."

Mother Ara looked at the Inspector, who shrugged and opened door. She gestured into the hallway, and Ben rushed into the room, his face even paler than usual.

"Kendi!" he said. "Are you all right? You look like shit. I mean-you didn’t-you-"

"I’m okay," Kendi said. "I’m glad you came by."

"What happened to you?" he demanded. "Mom said she thought you were hurt in the Dream, but we didn’t know for sure and they wouldn’t let me in to see you and-"

Mother Ara put a hand on Ben’s arm. "He’s fine, Ben. Don’t tire him out. I’ll tell you about it when we get home."

Ben flushed. "Sorry. I was just-you know."

"Yeah." Kendi’s head drooped. " ‘S okay. I’m glad you …you were …"

"Let’s leave him now," Mother Ara murmured. But Kendi was already asleep.

In the hallway outside Kendi’s room, Ara gave Ben some money and asked him to go get her some juice. The moment he was out of earshot, she turned to Inspector Tan.

"Number fourteen," Ara said. "Did he skip a number?"

"Either that, or there’s a corpse we haven’t found yet," Tan replied. "Let me check with the ME." Tan took a small phone out of her pocket, spoke rapidly into it, paused, then sighed and hung up. "Examiner says the finger sewn to the victim Kendi saw does not belong to Iris Temm. So there’s definitely another corpse hiding out there somewhere."

Ara didn’t know how to respond, so she said nothing.

"You should go home," Tan continued. "I’ve got to try and track down who and where the victim actually is . We’ll meet here in the morning to go over Kendi’s story one more time."

Ara agreed. The next morning, she and Inspector Tan questioned Kendi again, but no new details came to light. Ara, unwilling to let Kendi stay by himself, installed him in her guest bedroom with orders to spend the remainder of the day being quiet. To Ara’s surprise, Kendi didn’t protest at the confinement. Ben, meanwhile, offered to stay home and keep him company.

"Teenagers," Ara said to Tan on the front porch. "For weeks they fight doing what you tell them, and then out of nowhere they up and volunteer to do the right thing."

"Especially when it involves missing a day of school," Tan observed.

Ara, enjoying a proud maternal moment, ignored this. "Did you learn who the victim was?"

"Her name was Vera Cheel," Tan rasped.

"How did you find her?"

"Checked to see if anyone on duty in the Dream didn’t turn in the transcriptions of their communications. Cheel’s name popped right up. Linus is already at her house. Let’s go."

Vera Cheel’s house was larger than Iris Temm’s, and tidier as well. The body had been taken away by the time Ara and Tan got there, for which Ara was grateful.

"What …condition was she in?" Ara asked as they entered Cheel’s living room. It was bright and airy, with several potted plants scattered tastefully about. A vase filled with lush red roses sat on the coffee table. Half a dozen technicians were going over the different rooms with scanning equipment. Tan’s partner Linus Gray was in deep discussion with one of them, and he gave them a distracted wave as they entered.

"Same as Iris Temm," Tan told her. "Pretty much bludgeoned and crushed to death while she was in the Dream."

"I suppose we should go into the Dream and get a look, then." Ara fingered the dermospray in her pocket. "It’s been less than a day since Vera was killed, so the images will be stronger, I think."

"You sound hesitant," Tan said. "What’s wrong?"

Ara pursed her lips, not wanting to give voice to her thoughts. But a killer was on the loose, and they couldn’t afford to let a potential lead slip away. "I was wondering if I should take Kendi in with me."