“I said, I’ve got the rubber ball.”
“Okay.” She sounds reluctant, doubtful. She pauses for a few murderous seconds. “We’re going to start now. You’ll hear a little noise and feel a few vibrations for this next part. I’ll need you to keep still.”
I’m strapped down like a captured beast. Jumping jacks are hardly an option.
As it turns out, “little” and “few” are drastic understatements. This spaceship is rocking like it’s on a mission to Mars, banging, clacking, and rattling, the violin music rendered inaudible by the clamor. I grit my teeth, close my eyes, and try to endure.
Whoa. What the hell was that?
Did this thing just . . . ? No, it can’t be. But I felt it, as if . . .
Holy shit!
This entire machine just skipped off the floor.
Oh my God.
Now it’s not just skipping—it’s tilting upward.
Oh no . . . oh no . . . OH NO!
My chest turns heavy and thick. Blood drains into my face, as the machine inclines sharply, feet rising, head dropping. My reflexes kick into action, and I feel my hand rapidly and repeatedly squeeze the rubber ball.
“Wrong ball,” Donny Ray says through the headphones, in a mocking singsong tone.
I jerk at the sound of his voice. The machine continues to lift. Sweat rolls from chest to face to scalp, as gravity pulls it downward.
“SOMEBODY GET ME OUT OF HERE!” I say through a panicked scream. “SOMEBODY HELP ME!”
The MRI comes to a jarring stop, now pointing straight at the ceiling. The noise and vibrations cut out, and I’m immersed in stillness. My body is completely upside down. My pulse is hammering out of control.
“Christopher,” a new voice says.
Wait, I know that voice. It sounds like—
I catch movement from above. With chin lowered to chest, I strain to see up through the end of the tube; then my heart erupts into a fast-footed beat, as black dots dance before my eyes.
“Dad?”
My father peers down at me.
“Dad, what are you . . . ? Where did . . . ?”
“You’ve been looking at things from the wrong side,” he tells me through the headphones.
“I don’t understand.”
“You will, soon.”
“Be careful on that road,” Donny Ray chimes in. “It’s a killer.”
Then I hear laughter. It’s my father. The horrifying laugh I remember so well. The sniggering and cackling one that always climbed into maniacal shrieking, echoing through the house late at night, twirling through my ears like jagged corkscrews.
I close my eyes and scream.
Through the headphones, I hear glass shatter. The white light explodes.
And then in a heartbeat, the MRI is back on the floor, and I’m outside the coil, looking up at . . .
“Jenna?” I say, clenching at the sheet. “What are you doing here?”
She answers with an expression devoid of emotion, or . . . No, that’s not right. Something is there, something I think is . . .
“I have to go now,” she says.
“Go where?”
“I can’t stay here with you.”
“Stay where? What do you mean?”
Jenna doesn’t answer—and now she can’t even look at me. She turns away. She walks. And as the distance between us widens, Devon materializes at her side, then hand in hand, they drift toward the exit doors and disappear.
“Devon! Jenna!” I shout, tears filling my eyes. “Wait! Don’t go! Please! Don’t leave me!”
And they are gone.
I hear glass shatter again. The white light explodes.
And then, in an astoundingly quick beat, I’m looking up at the tech.
“Are you okay?” Her expression is tempered with professional concern.
“I just saw—” My voice is thick, mind spinning out. I struggle for composure. “Yes. I’m okay. I just got a little panicked. Please . . . let’s just get this over with.”
But I know it will never be over. The terrifying confusion, the madness. Not now. Not ever.
This is just the start.
45
Everything around me is moving in wavy circles. A few moments later, my vision starts to settle, and I see I’m . . .
In the Loveland parking lot.
The last thing I remember is the MRI tech looking down on me. I check the dashboard clock.
That was nearly forty minutes ago.
More weirdness, more seeing and hearing things I shouldn’t. More worry. Time keeps bending, my perceptions doing the same, and I’m no longer sure whether to trust either.
It’s like a part of me is dying.
Or maybe I’m already dead.
I shouldn’t be working in this condition. As my mind loses its contours, that only seems clearer. But I can’t stop right now. Not when I’m on the verge of a breakthrough with Donny Ray. Equally pressing, I need to figure out what’s happened to Nicholas and Stanley. I just have to hang on a little bit longer, wait for the test results, then once I know what’s wrong, figure out some kind of strategy.
The MRI.
All at once I’m back there again, reliving the nightmare. My stomach hitches, my skin turns cold. My body is shaking.
The phone rings. I fumble to find it.
Jenna says, “I’m just checking in to see how things went.”
“You’re still here.” My words fire out. “You didn’t . . .” I stop myself, and for about five seconds, there is dead silence.
“Of course I’m here,” she says through a laugh of reasonability. “Where would I go?”
“Nowhere. I just . . . I thought the call dropped.”
“Oh . . . so how did the MRI go?”
“It was nerve-wracking,” I say, trying to control the quake in my voice, fully aware the attempt is less than adequate. “Like being stuffed into a clothes dryer.”
“Sounds not so fun.”
“You have no idea.” And really, she doesn’t.
“Did they say when you’ll hear back with the results?”
“Two days, hopefully.”
“We’ll just wait, then.”
“Yeah . . . we’ll wait.”
“Chris.”
“Huh.”
“There’s something else. Tell me.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Sweetie, I know you better.”