Chapter 4

    Kat was in another memory, she knew, but this was different from the two she'd seen earlier. Before, it had been shared memories, hers and Matthew's. This, she knew from the start, was Matthew's memory alone. She felt somehow out of place, like she was intruding on something private, yet she didn't know how to leave even had she wanted to.

 

    She was in Matt's bedroom, in his apartment. He was seated at a desk, writing something. She was a few feet away, yet somehow she knew what the note said even though she couldn't see it. Still, morbid curiosity drew her to step forward until she could look over his shoulder. The note was rather short, and he was just finishing it.

 

    "I don't want to fight it anymore. I don't have the strength. I hope you can forgive me. I'm sorry, Matthew."

 

    Slowly he set the pen down. Kat knew what was going to come next, she'd seen the note before, she knew what it meant. "No," she whispered softly, staring at him. Screwing the cap off a bottle of gatorade, he took a sip, and then he reached for the second bottle.

 

    She'd known that Matt was on antidepressants the entire time they'd known each other. She'd found out early on. But she hadn't thought it was a big deal, she'd thought he'd had it under control and that the medication was working for him. She'd never gotten into the details of what he was taking, how much he was taking it, and so on. He'd never volunteered the information, and she hadn't found out the whole truth until after he was in a coma. She'd never known that he tried over half a dozen different SSRI antidepressants over time, getting very little effect from any of them. She'd never known that they'd moved him up to SNRI antidepressants, and that, while some of them helped a great deal, his body had gradually grown tolerant to them, every time. She hadn't known that that was why they'd moved him up to tricyclic antidepressants, a type popular in the 60's and 70's, but rarely prescribed anymore except for extreme depression that showed resistance to treatment. The tricyclics were powerful, far more so than SSRI's and SNRI's. The problem was, not only did tricyclics tend to cause more side-effects, but while even a major overdose on an SSRI or SNRI wasn't likely to cause serious harm and would be recovered from relatively quickly... Even a moderate overdose of a tricyclic could kill.

 

    She'd only found out everything after, once he was already in a coma. His mother had told her. His mother had had ongoing permission to talk to his psychiatrist for years. The woman had kept up on his medications, on what they meant. She'd known how much Matt cared for Kat, and they'd sat together by his bedside in the hospital more than once. It wasn't until then that Kat knew Matt's exact conditions, beyond the fact that he took pills for depression. Major Depressive Disorder, Avoidant Personality Disorder, and Dysthymia. Kat had had no idea his problems were that serious, but the mother had confirmed something Kat herself suspected. Matt had a habit of hiding his pain, of covering it up. He was adept at putting on emotional masks of normality, of acting like he was fine even when he wasn't. 'He didn't want to burden other people with his problems,' his mother had said, 'He figured that just because he had to suffer didn't mean others should suffer with him'.

 

    The entire time she'd known him Kat had noticed that Matt didn't seem to react like most people would when bad things happened. He never got angry, he never shouted or yelled, he never whined or pitched a fit, he never blamed anyone. He always seemed to just accept it, and act as if everything was fine. Kat had thought maybe it was a macho bit, of not letting it get to him, or that maybe his sweetness so overwhelmed everything else that he really was able to just let everything roll off his back. Not once had she guessed that he was just bottling it all up inside, pretending he was fine so that no one else would ever have to share his pain. When she'd found out, it had made her wonder. How many of those times when they'd been together and he'd seemed happy, how many times when they'd just been talking and sharing things with each other, had he really been secretly suffering and just hiding it for her sake? She wished he hadn't shut her out, she wished he'd told her. She didn't know if she could've helped, but she'd have tried. She'd have done anything to help him.

 

    "You knew I loved you. Why didn't you just tell me?" she asked the image of Matt before her. But it was only a memory, and he couldn't hear her. Instead he screwed the cap off a second bottle, a pill bottle this time. She watched as he poured a small handful of the pills into his palm, before suddenly his hand came up to his mouth and he tilted his head back as he swallowed the pills, before taking another sip of gatorade to wash them down.

 

    "Stop it, please don't take anymore," Kaitlyn pleaded with the boy before her, even though she knew her voice would die out in the air around her without ever reaching him. Pouring another small handful of pills into his palm, he threw these back as well. Even with just that much he was already into the range of an overdose, and he had a lot left in the bottle to go.

 

    "STOP IT!" she shouted, unable to bear it. Lunging forward, she tried to reach out and knock the prescription bottle out of his hand, but her flesh just passed through his, making no contact with either hand or bottle. She was as helpless as a ghost as he swallowed a third handful of pills.

 

    The horrible thing was, even though he clearly knew he was overdosing, knew what the overdose would do to him... He wasn't crying. He wasn't sobbing from pain. This wasn't an act done in the heat of the moment. His was a look not of anguish, but of surrender. Of giving in to an opponent who'd played a superior game and whose win was inevitable. This wasn't the desperation created by one long day or week of agony. This was someone who'd borne the pain longer than that, had borne it so long that they were used to it. And who didn't want to bear it anymore. Who'd made the conscious, reasoned decision to throw in his chips and fold his cards.

 

    "Call me, right now. Let me help you..." Kat offered one final plea, her own tears falling where his would not. But he continued swallowing the pills. Continued until the pill bottle was empty. Then he simply pulled out a drawer of the desk, carefully placed the empty pill bottle inside, and closed it. Leaving the note on the desk, he walked over and stretched out on the top of his bed. And then he simply closed his eyes, as if he was about to go to sleep. The pills would take hours, perhaps even a day to kill him, and he was clearly willing to wait.

 

    "Why didn't you tell me?" she whispered, burying her face in her hands. It was all she'd been able to think since she'd gotten the call and learned what he'd done. All she'd been able to think about when she'd first sat by the hospital bed and stared down at his comatose face, looking as peaceful as if he were just sleeping. Whether or not she could've helped him. Why hadn't he at least let her try? His attempt to kill himself had failed, but it had left him shut away in his own mind, where no one could reach him. Well, now she could, now she knew, and she had a way to get to him.

 

    "I'm going to save you," she told the boy on the bed, not caring if he couldn't hear her. "I haven't given up on you Matt. I'll never give up on you. Drag me through a thousand places and memories, and I'll walk through every one until I find you. I'm not letting you go. You're mine. My Fox. And I'm going to bring you back."

 

    At that moment, Matthew opened his eyes. "Kat," he whispered. Nothing else, just her name. But it was enough to draw her towards him like a magnet, her arms outstretched to try and embrace him. But before she could reach him, the  world around her disappeared.

 

---

 

    "Lady? Hey lady, wake up," a female voice was calling nearby. Kat felt dizzy, disoriented, even though her eyes were closed. She was laying on her back on a hard surface. Taking slow, deep breaths, she tried to will her mind into clarity.

 

    "See? I told you she was dead," another voice, a male one this time, said from the same general direction. It was a kid's voice, that much was clear.

 

    "Shut up, Timmy! She is not," the first voice, just as childlike, said. Then suddenly Kat felt something poke her in the ribs a few times. "C'mon lady, wake up."

 

    Finally the dizziness faded enough for Kat to open her eyes, and she looked to the side, expecting to see the kids she'd heard. She saw them alright, but what she saw froze her on the spot. The girl had at some point been badly burned. Burn scars covered more than half her face and almost all her exposed arms. And the boy, one of his arms was shrunken and dark, almost withered, and the veins leading away from the arm were discolored in dark reds and blacks, leading all the way to the top of his neck. The girl was holding a long stick, that must've been what Kat had gotten poked with. Both kids couldn't be older than eight or nine.

 

    "HA! See that, Timmy?" the girl demanded, pointing triumphantly towards Kat's open eyes. The boy just gave a sullen shrug, admitting his defeat. Turning her attention back to Kat, a look of concern crossed the girl's features. "Hey, you alright lady? You don't look so good. You want me to call nine-one-one or somethin'?"

 

    Taking one last deep breath, Kat struggled to lift herself to a sitting position and then paused there as another surge of dizziness hit her. Only once it had passed, as she started to take a look at the area around her, did it all come back to her. This had to be another part of Matt's mind. It looked like she was sitting in the middle of a major intersection in some kind of a town or village, perhaps even the one she'd seen from the edge of the cliff, only it was daytime now. But at least that explained why the town around her seemed deserted except for the three of them. It also explained the two kids' strange appearance. It was all a part of another dream-place, she just had to figure out what it all meant.

 

    "No, I'll be fine, you don't need to call anyone," Kat finally told them. "So, you're Timmy, and you're...?"

 

    "Ivy," the girl filled in. "What are you doing laying out here?"

 

    "Good question," Kat muttered.  "I guess I must've gotten tired. I'm Kaitlyn, by the way. I don't suppose either of you knows a Matthew?"

 

    The two kids glanced at each other, then back at her. "Yeah, we know him," Timmy said, giving her a slightly odd look. "Why?"

 

    Well, that certainly made things a lot easier. "Because I've been looking for him. Do you think you could tell me where he is?" Kat asked.

 

    "We don't know," Ivy quickly spoke up. "Isn't that right, Timmy?"

 

    The boy hesitated a few seconds, before giving another sullen shrug. "Right. We don't know nothin'."

 

    The two of them were acting decidedly odd, but Kat had no idea why. Even if she assumed they were lying, why would they? "Uhm... Do you think maybe I could talk to your parents?" Kat finally inquired.

 

    "They're at work. It's not near here," Ivy said evasively, before suddenly pointing up the street. "But if you want to talk to an adult, there's always someone at the Sheriff's."

 

    "I guess I'll try there. Uhm... Thanks, for waking me and all," Kat told them as she rose to her feet, reaching down to brush some dirt off her jeans.

 

    "Sure, lady. Bye," Ivy said with a little wave, before turning to Timmy. "Race you to the playground!"

 

    And with that the girl was off like a flash in the opposite direction from where she'd pointed. The boy took off after her, but it was clear he wasn't quite as fast as his friend, and she could hear him calling "IVY! WAIT UP!" as they faded into the distance.

 

    Turning, Kat started her way up the road. The silence of the town around her, the lack of cars or even people walking along the sidewalks, was eerie. It made the place feel abandoned, like some kind of ghost town, except all the stores and buildings were in good repair, none of them looked like they'd be falling down for decades yet at the least. Most of the stores were small family run businesses though; she couldn't make out a single big chain anywhere. There was a drugstore, a small diner, even... There, along the side of the road, was Weaver Books. That was the name of the bookstore where she and Matt had first met. Only, it had closed down little more than a year after that. She guessed his mind was filling in some of the details of these places using old memories.

 

    She'd only traveled a block when she spotted the Sheriff's Department up the street, and instinctively she picked up her pace a little as she angled towards it. From a distance, the place didn't seem very active, there were no cars parked in its small parking lot that she could see, but Kat didn't let that get her down. Making her way to the front door and pulling it open, Kat stepped into the dimly lit room beyond while calling out . "Hello?"

 

    For a second she thought no one was going to answer, the reception desk was empty, and though the one door leading deeper into the building had a window, the lighting was bad enough that she couldn't make out anything. But then the door suddenly opened and a man stepped through, at least something that greatly resembled a man.

 

    It looked like large portions of his visible skin were gangrenous, including part of his face and a decent bit of the top of his head. The problem was that with that much rot and infection that close to his brain, there was no way he could still be alive. So what was she looking at, a zombie? He sure wasn't acting like a zombie though, he wasn't shambling, or moaning for brains. He simply strolled up behind the reception desk, gave her a bored look, and asked "Can I help you?"

 

    "Uhm... Yes, some kids directed me here, and well... Uhm... I was wondering if you know a Matthew?" Kat asked, still unable to get over someone talking and breathing with that much of such a vital part of their body covered with dead flesh.

 

    "Matthew Ellison? Sure, I know him," the man said, his features twisting into what she thought would've been a suspicious look if he'd still had control of all his facial muscles. "Why you looking for him?"

 

    "He's my boyfriend, and I need to speak to him," Kat explained.

 

    "Your boyfriend? Don't you think you're a little old for him?" the man pressed, and the look he was giving her had turned downright odd.

 

    Now that she thought about it, there was nothing that said Matt had to be his true age, in a place like this. His subconscious could've shaped him into anything. Who knew how old he might be in this world. "Oh, right... I meant to say he's my boyfriend's cousin. Sorry, slip of the tongue," Kat scrambled to cover her mistake.

 

    "Sure," the man said, clearly not convinced. "This doesn't have anything to do with the disappearances, does it?"

 

    "The disappearances?" Kat prompted.

 

    "Not from around here, are you? People have been disappearing all over town, of late. Haven't you noticed how empty it is out there? Anyways, the Ellison boy has always been so weird, some people are starting to say maybe he's a witch, that maybe he's connected to it all. Hell, just the other day a couple of our more religious citizens were convinced he must be some sort of demon, and that he was personally dragging people off into the night and doing who knows what with them. It's got a lot of people spooked, that's for sure," the man told her.

 

    "Some people are starting to say? You're the sheriff, aren't you supposed to be out there, you know, gathering evidence and asking questions and putting together suspects? Why are you getting your information off the rumors and gossip of what other people are saying?" Kat demanded.

 

    "Sorry for the confusion, ma'am, but I'm just a deputy. I don't act without direct orders from the sheriff," the man said, raising a gangrenous hand to pick at his teeth even though he didn't seem to have fingernails left and half the teeth looked rotted anyways.

 

    "Well, where's the sheriff?" Kat pressed.

 

    "The sheriff was one of the first people to disappear, ma'am," the man informed her.

 

    "Then doesn't that make YOU the acting sheriff? Or at the very least, shouldn't you be out there finding him?" Kat demanded, gesturing forcefully as she spoke. She didn't believe anyone could really be that stupid.

 

    "Sorry ma'am, I have no orders to that effect. In lieu of the sheriff, I suppose I could act on a written request from the County Manager or perhaps the Mayor, but..." the man trailed off, still looking bored.

 

    "Let me guess, they disappeared too?" Kat asked, not sure whether to feel annoyed or disgusted.

 

    "That would seem to be the case," the man agreed with a nod.

 

    Kat just sighed with exasperation. "Look, forget it. Could you just tell me where I might find Matthew?"

    "Well, you might find him a lot of places," the man said. He started to trail off, but a long sharp glare from Kat caused him to finally grumble and shrug. "I suppose the most likely would be the old statue of the Stranger, out past the playground. I heard he hangs around there sometimes."

 

    "The playground down the road that way?" Kat queried, pointing in the direction the two kids had gone.

 

    "That would be the one. Now, if you don't have anything else to bug me about, I've got a show to get back to watching," the man muttered, before turning and walking through the door to the back without even waiting to see if she answered or not.

 

    "I can see why no one has bothered to disappear you yet," Kat muttered under her breath as she headed back outside. The deputy seemed about as much of a non-threat as you could get.

 

    As she made her way up the road, Kat finally caught a few more glimpses of the people of the town, through windows, or walking down alleys or the sidewalks of distant streets at intersections. All seemed to have severe scarring, or some horrible disfigurement or disease, and in each case it was markedly visible, almost as if designed to deliver a shock at the first sight of it. What it was supposed to represent in Matt's mind, she had no idea.

 

    Passing the playground, she saw Ivy and Timmy playing on a swing set, and several other children on the surrounding toys and devices. Not a parent in sight of any of them, unthinkable in the real world, especially if there was an ongoing string of disappearances. The kids, like the adults, were all disfigured in some way, right down to the youngest, who couldn't be more than five years old. Whatever it was inside Matt that had created this place, it had spared no one.

 

    It was another couple blocks until she spotted what had to be the statue. It stood on a small plot right next to a building simply labeled "Town Museum of History and Artifacts", which neither gave the name of the town nor seemed large enough to hold much in the way of artifacts. The statue was of a hooded figure, the hood hiding any hints of a face within. Its hands were stretched slightly outward, the palms face up, as if to show peaceful intentions and a lack of weapons. Yet despite that, the statue gave off a faintly menacing feel. The rest of its body was hidden within a cloak, yet for a statue that gave so little detail, it was surprisingly well sculpted. It was as if the artist had wanted it clear that there was someone waiting inside that cloak, ready to leap out at any moment. Surrounding the statue on three sides were benches, and on one of those benches sat a boy.

 

    She recognized him. How could she not? He looked almost exactly as he had when they'd first met. Maybe a touch younger, late twelve perhaps, early thirteen. The lonely boy with the warm, kind eyes. She couldn't see his eyes now though, he was staring at the ground, lost in thought, and didn't hear her approach. He didn't show any signs of the disease and disfigurement that had afflicted everyone else in the town.

 

    "Matt?" she asked softly, hesitating a second before taking a seat on the bench beside him.

 

    He looked up at the sound of her voice, and then gave a start when he saw her. She got a shock of her own. His eyes were black. Completely black. No iris, no whites, it was as if his pupils had consumed them all. His eyes were the darkest night, empty and starless, but his features held the same expressions of the sweet boy she once knew. "You..." he started to say, staring at her. And for a second she was filled with a sudden hope. Did he recognize her? Did he remember her? "You don't look like the others."

 

    Kat felt her hopes fall flat. Instinctively she glanced down at herself, but just as quickly she knew what he meant. She didn't have the townspeople's disfigurements either. "No, I'm just a visitor here," she finally said softly, turning her gaze back to meet those bottomless eyes.

 

    "Who are you? How do you know me?" Matt pressed.

 

    "I'm Kaitlyn... Kat... We've met before, Matt. Don't you know me?" she asked, still feeling some faint hope that some part of him would remember.

 

    "I'm sorry, no," Matt told her, finally turning his eyes back to the ground before him.

 

    Kat felt a little pang at that, but she quickly pushed it to the back of her mind. She couldn't focus on the hope she felt each time she saw him, she had to work on helping him if she could. Now if she could only figure out how to do that. First thing's first, she needed to figure out what this world was supposed to represent. "Why are you out here all alone?" she questioned after several second's silence, putting a concerned expression on her face.

 

    "Because he's alone too," Matt said, glancing up at the statue. "He understands me. He knows what it's like to feel this way."

 

    Kat couldn't help but glance over herself, but it was just a statue, unthinking and unmoving. Somehow though this part of Matt identified with what the statue was supposed to represent. "Feel what way?"

 

    Matt sat there for awhile, looking anywhere but at her. Just when she thought he wasn't going to answer, he spoke. "So different, so unlike them. Like even your friends don't know you, and never could. You don't see things the way they do. And no matter how hard you try, you still can't seem to think and feel the way they do. Like... Like you're an alien, a different species. And you can't understand it, and you can't fix it. You're just..." Matt trailed off, his gaze turning once more to the statue. "Strange, a freak. So you try to pretend, and you try to blend in. And you learn how to keep them from seeing it, everything that's beneath the surface. Until you're the only one who can tell how different you are."

 

    A thought occurred to her, but Kat hesitated a second before asking it. "You said I don't look like the others... Matt, do you know why everyone in town looks the way they do?"

 

    Matt began to visibly tremble from suppressed emotion, his features tightening. "I hate them," Matt said, his voice choked. "I don't want to, but I do. I hate them for being what I can't. And it does something to them. They used to look normal, long ago. But it's like over time, the more I've hated them, the more they've all changed. I don't know how, I don't know why, but I know I'm the one doing it to them."

 

    "Do you think they're that bad?" Kat murmured softly, trying to understand.

 

    "No... I'm the monster. I know it's not them... I know it's me but... I want so badly to be normal, to feel normal, the way they do. And the more I see them, the more I'm around them... I want what they have, and I hate them for having it," Matt got out, tears suddenly beginning to streak down from his black eyes. Tears of anger, of pain, and dozens of other emotions she was sure he didn't know how to deal with. But his tears weren't clear, they were red, deep red. They were blood. He was crying blood.

 

    Instinctively, Kat moved to wrap her arms around the boy, but as she got close and he saw it he suddenly jerked back, away from her. His expression was one of fear, and his eyes suddenly shifted behind her, to the statue. Kat's only gaze instinctively followed, and what she saw froze her to the spot. The statue was moving, stone having turned to cloth and flesh. By the time she saw it it was barely a foot away, and she didn't have time to evade it as it suddenly wrapped the edges of its cloak around her. Instead of bumping into a person though, the inside of the cloak was an empty void, and Kat found herself falling into its darkness.