Sea of Green

By Deborah and Dianne MacDonald

Miranda Kestrel sat bolt upright in her bed driven from a fitful sleep by the same dread and wash of fear that had been tormenting her for almost a month. With her heart stuttering and then pounding simultaneously in her rib-cage, she gripped the blankets to her chest, drawing her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms protectively around them. The icy cold fingers of terror inched up her spine as she heard an all too familiar sound emanating from the corner. As it slithered and slid closer to her, she refused the urge to slam her eyes shut and throw herself down under the covers like a small child. She had learned long ago that hiding wasn't an option.

The temperature in the room dropped to frigid and Miranda saw her short panicked breathes puff out of her lips, lips that had suddenly gone very dry, as the thing that had made her nights a living hell part slithered, part crawled across the floor towards her. Reaching the bedside the monstrosity brokenly pulled itself up. Its bloated skin stretched and cracked, and oozed clotted blood as it made its way to a standing position. Well as upright as it could. The horror before her was a macabre broken doll, its head lolled to the left on its neck grotesquely, and it smelled of the dank stench of stagnant water. Its wet tangled hair hung over its bloated face like lank curtains. 

Miranda froze in terror as it lifted its chin and turned its head to stare at her with dark empty eyes. She knew what was coming next and she hated this part the most. As it open its mouth to speak water washed out of its parted lips, making the only audible sound a wet gurgling that escaped its lips every time it tried to talk.

Saved from having to participate in the whole house of horrors experience, she welcomed the sharp pain that shot through her temple like a knife cutting through her frontal lobe. Pain was always a precursor to her vision clouding and a feeling of being transported into another person's life and experiences. This was a particular spectator sport that she did not enjoy. Being a fiercely private person, she loathed being privy to someone else's memories. She didn't particularly enjoy sharing their feelings and the acute physical discomforts that were their last experiences as living beings either, and this phantasm looked like whatever had happened to it had really hurt. That was a pain that Miranda was not eager to share. In its new form the specter was given free rein to bombard her mind with garbled images and angry screams of torment. These images washed over her making her feel as if she was in a boat dipping and cresting the waves. She felt her stomach turn to rot as she swallowed past the urge to retch.

Miranda had had enough. Growling in frustration she ground out, "Look I've told you before I'm not going to do it. Find someone else to do your dirty work."

This sent the ghoul into a wailing, screaming fit inside Miranda's head.

"I know you want to get home, but I've told you before that they're not going to believe me. They never believe me," Miranda whined in protest.

The phantom began to twist and writhe before her like some kind of horror movie special effect.

"What do you want me to do?"

The horror inched closer as Miranda involuntarily shrunk back.

"Okay, Okay I know you want to make the person who did this pay, but I can't help you do that."

She heard the ghoul's screamed reply as it pulled and tore at its long hair. "I will never leave!" echoed through her mind, as Miranda received an image of the ghoul keening at her side in a rest home, and she didn't need to be psychic to know that that was not an idol threat.

She knew that the twisted thing in front of her had once been a person who had loved and had been loved by others, and that she should feel sorry for it, but after twenty days of sleepless nights, she just couldn't seem to muster any sympathy. She hadn't asked for any of this and she was sick and tired of having her life impacted by it.

This more than anything infuriated Miranda. Making her snap and scream into the darken room. "Alright I'll do it! Do you hear me? Now get out of my room before I change my mind!"

As she said this she hurled her pillow churlishly into the corner where the dead woman stood. The object flew through the banshee just as it gave a blood curdling scream of triumph and melted into the shadows, leaving the down pillow to fall impotently to the floor.

Miranda sat a rigid mass, her body quaking with pent up adrenaline, her breath coming in quick angry pants, and began to realize a sensation she hadn't felt in twenty days; the sensation of being utterly alone, nothing watching her, no murmurs in her head, no insistent images of horror, just her and blessed silence. And to think all it took was agreeing to sell her pride and privacy.

Sure, she'd do her part, she'd tell the police, and when they didn't believe her she would be done with this, she thought contemptuously. Surely then the spirit would see that she was powerless to help her and go away. Totally at easy for the first time in a long time, Miranda heaved a sigh and fell back into her bed exhausted and resolved, but out of habit she burrowed protectively down into the covers bringing them up high just in case the specter returned.

And no sooner had she fallen into a deep sleep then she was dreaming, she was a bird, light and lithe, dipping and twisting, flying above a sea of green high above the earth safe from its horrors and all the evils in it.