Chapter 5: Together again

The street light closest to your living room window sways energetically in the harsh evening wind, sending occasional flashes of light into the already well-lit apartment. It soon starts to irritate you and you stand up, walk to the window and pull the curtains shut to block out the annoying flicker. Your hand grips the thick fabric for a moment as you close your eyes and gather yourself, your back still turned to your guests.

“I’ve been running from this for twenty years. My father’s bad choices and my mother’s recklessness... This never-ending nightmare. ”

Behind you, three people sit in quiet contemplation. The holy quaternity, together again despite their best efforts. Joined by fate at the cusp of adulthood, cemented by a bond forged by their collective loss of innocence as children. 

This meeting was somehow destined to happen. It feels as if your lives will continue to intersect until one side of this fight perishes; Either you and your childhood friends - or him, the Masked Man, the puppeteer of death. 

“How are you feeling Candy, do you think you could tell us about it now?”

Derek’s calm, authoritarian voice cuts through your dark thoughts. You turn around to look at Candy who’s sitting on the sofa, looking disheveled and tormented, like she hasn’t slept for days. Your old friend has not been well. Lines cut through her face, aging her prematurely. There are scratches on her cheek, not deep, but red, fresh. She has a mug in her hands, gripping it tightly as if it’s the only thing tethering her to this reality.

“It’s… he…” Her voice is shaking. Derek looks up at you and makes a slight nod with his head, beckoning you to sit next to her. You step past the low table and gently place yourself on the sofa. She doesn’t move, but you notice her body stiffening.

“We’re here for you. Please, go on.”

She doesn’t look up, but nods.

After a difficult start, a picture soon emerges. Candy moved to the Midwest around the time you lost touch, meeting a man and getting pregnant. She had a son, named him Malcolm, and settled down with a steady job in an obscure town, far away from everything that reminded her of Saintfour.

“I had to be somewhere away from the rain and the fog, you know?”

She scratches at her face nervously before sipping the coffee. 

“A place without trees, or little trees at least. A dry, tree-less place.”

“And did you find such a place?” asks Bobby. He sent Mark home soon after she arrived, despite his protestations, and called Michael to let him know he’d be late. 

“Yeah, I did.” Candy smiles faintly. “It was wonderful, I was really happy. Malcolm was happy.”

But then the smile fades. 

“I sorta… forgot… all about Saintfour, until…”

The mug starts to sag in her hand and you stealthily reach out to grab it before the content spills. 

“When did the nightmares begin?”

Derek is standing with his arms crossed, his stern gaze fixated on Candy. You try to catch his eye, to deter him from going all detective on her, but he doesn’t see you. Candy swallows and answers in something close to a whisper; “Maybe… three months ago? It was really gradual. I had the occasional bad dream once in a while, I took sleeping pills for that, it was manageable, but suddenly..”

She turns to look you straight in the eye. 

“Suddenly it wasn’t just once every few months, it was every week, several times a week, then every night. And then, during the day too, I would find myself trapped in a nightmare all of a sudden, only to be awoken by a colleague or a neighbor, worried out of their mind. I was going crazy, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t find rest, none of the pills worked, nothing… worked–”

It’s too much to bear. She bursts into tears. You quickly wrap her in your arms and hold her tightly, letting her cry into your shoulder. It’s heartbreaking but as the sobbing gradually subsides, you wonder what happened to her boy.

“Candy..” you say tentatively. “Where’s Malcolm? Is he with you?”

She breaks away from your embrace, wiping her face with the heel of her hand, shaking her head. 

“No, god no, he’s at a friend’s house.”

“The… father?” asks Derek.

“Long gone.” Candy sniffs and gratefully accepts the tissue that Bobby is holding out. “He wasn’t the fatherly type and honestly, I didn’t mind as much as I thought I would.”

She wipes her eyes first, then blows her nose. You look between Bobby and Derek, your next question at the forefront of everyone’s mind.

“How.. how did you know to come here tonight?”

When deciding to reach out to your old friends, you quickly realised you had no way of contacting her; all her numbers were disconnected or forwarded into oblivion. Her mother had died in the years between high school and your last reunion, and not a single person could say where she’d gone since you lost touch.

Candy twists the tissue in her hand.

“I had.. some sort of vision, I think.”

A few nights ago, she had a nightmare like no other. She walked through the forests in Saintfour, lost. Suddenly she could hear moans. She moved towards the sound, stumbling on stones, cutting her knees while the branches scratched at her face.

“Wait.. these scratches?”

You point to the red welts across Candy’s cheek. She nods gravely, then continues.

“When I finally reached the sound, it was my mother, my dead mother, having sex with Sherif Nixon on top of some sort of pentagram, surrounded by animal carcases.”

She covers her face with her hands and mumble; “It was disgusting.”

Derek’s eyes dart to yours, alarmed. A sudden rush of dread makes your stomach sink. Candy continues.

“He was… doing horrible things to her, and she was moaning and gasping, like an animal, but she was dead! And then suddenly he stopped and looked at me.”

Her voice breaks.

“And he asked if I liked to watch and if I wanted to… to join… and the words were stuck in my throat and I stepped backwards and fell into the swamp. He just kept talking and touching her as I sank, deeper and deeper. Oh god!”

At that, Derek steps closer and crouches down, facing her directly.

“Candy, I need you to focus, what did he tell you? What did he say? Be specific."

She’s shaking now, tossing her head from side to side, unwilling, or unable, to continue. Derek puts his hands on her arms and squeezing them carefully, willing her to stay in the moment.

"Please Candy, tell me what he said, tell me."

You’re torn between not wanting to cause your friend more distress, and desperately wanting to know if there’s a connection between her nightmare and the terrible sight that greeted you a few nights ago. Candy's strangled sob makes you reach out and just as you’re about to utter your plea for Derek to stop, Candy speaks:

"He said something… something about the dead belonging to the curse, something about the seed of the mask and, and from blood…" She struggled to get the last words past her trembling lips. "... Comes salvation."

Her sobbing is renewed, and the three of you consider her words.

"What could any of that possibly mean?" Bobby says incredulously. "What's the seed of the mask, the Masked Man didn't have any children, did he?"

"Not to my knowledge, no," I say, "but I'm more concerned about the blood thing."

As if on cue, the scar on your stomach pulses once, twice. A physical reminder of the sacrifice you made to save your friends. 

“I don’t like any of it,” says Derek, now on his feet and pacing back and forth. “If the dead belong to the curse, that sounds to me like they won’t be truly at rest until the curse is lifted.”

He stops and turns to the rest of you, still on the sofa. “That means it could actually be my dad’s spirit, aiding the Masked Man.”

“Don’t say that,” you gasp, “your father would never willingly join the Masked Man, he took everything from him! And he wouldn’t say those things, your dream–”

You stop yourself and glance at Bobby and Candy.

“His.. dream? Derek, did you have dreams too?”

Bobby looks at you first, and then directs his question to Derek. Your husband has stopped pacing and runs a hand through his hair, frustrated. 

“I dreamt about my parents’ deaths, and then my dad threatened to kill me at the encouragement of the Masked Man.”

He looks at me with a pained expression. “Sarah found me on the floor, I was sleepwalking and drew… a pentagram. On the floor. Over there.” He points to the kitchen and sighs. “I killed our cat in my sleep.”

“While you were possessed ,” you correct him, “and he wasn’t sleepwalking. When I came into the room, the Masked Man spoke to me through him and he had no knowledge of this.”

Candy and Bobby both look at you with horrified expressions. 

“Now that I’ve had some time to think, I believe he was trying to get Derek to kill me.”

“Sarah, no–”

“I think that’s why the gun was there. The Masked Man wanted me dead.”

You let the statement sink in between the four of you. Bobby is the first to break the silence.

“When exactly was this dream?”

“Three days ago.”

Candy gasps.

“My dream was three days ago. When I woke up, I had written a date and time and the address of your apartment on a notepad next to my bed. That’s why I came!”

This revelation stuns you all. You struggle to get your head around the implications. 

“That.. can’t be…” you mumble. Bobby clears his throat.

“I… I also dreamt about Sheriff Nixon.”

Everyone turns to him in unison.

“Coincidentally on that same night.”

“You didn’t tell me that when I asked you.”

“You weren’t that specific,” he says apologetically. “And in any case, it wasn’t as violent as that. What I remember from it was going to Derek’s house and finding no one home, so I let myself in and found Sheriff Nixon in his office.”

“What was he doing?” asks Derek.

“Nothing really, drawing something on a map.”

“Did he say anything? Speak to you at all?”

Bobby shakes his head. 

“I don’t think he even noticed me there.”

You look from Bobby to Derek, and then to Candy. The four of you are silent for a few moments, trying to make sense of this strange pattern.

“It’s like with those damn letters,” mumbles Candy to herself, “just a hundred times worse.”

Then she looks up at Derek.

“Do you have a cigarette?”

“I quit, sorry.”

“I’ll make some fresh coffee, shall I,” you say and rise from the couch, your mind screaming for a distraction. 

“I could use that bourbon right about now,” says Bobby, but you shake your head at him. “Sorry Bobby, Mark told me not to serve you more alcohol tonight.” He waves a hand resignantly at you. “Fine fine…”

You reach the kitchen and fill the kettle with water. Derek soon appears behind you.

“We need to talk.”

You open the cabinet to take out fresh mugs, but turn your head briefly and notice the seriousness in his face.

“I’m listening.”

He walks over to the counter and stands close to you, lowering his voice.

“We need to go back to Saintfour.”

You almost drop the jar of instant coffee and some of the granulates spill onto the tabletop. Derek takes it from your hand just as the water starts to boil.

“Are you insane?!”

The boiling sound obscures your outburst but Derek still makes a shushing motion at you. 

“Lower your voice”

“Oh excuse me,” you hiss as the kettle clicks, “have you lost your mind? We’re not going back to Saintfour.”

Derek calmly spoons instant coffee into the mugs before taking the kettle and pouring the water in. You watch him, furious at his suggestion, and at the same time, puzzled by how calm he is about it.

“Do you hear yourself? We’re not going back, you said–”

“I know what I said.” 

He puts the kettle down and turns to you, his face only a few inches from yours.

“I… I know what I said.”

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before putting a hand on your arm.

“Sarah, I think the Masked Man has somehow taken my father’s spirit from the afterlife. I think he’s using him to further his sick plans.”

He gives you a look, both vulnerable and determined.

“I know it’s not what you wanted to hear.”

“It’s not even like you to believe in that sort of stuff Derek!” you whisper through your teeth.

“I. Know. ”

His grip on you tightens.

“But I can’t ignore this. It’s too many strange coincidences, it’s too many terrible clues across the four of us, in our dreams for god’s sake…”

You turn your face away, annoyed that Derek, your childhood friend, your husband, and the most rational man you’ve ever known - suddenly has found it in himself to actually believe the things he cannot see, to accept the things he cannot explain.

“You promised…”

He pulls you close, wrapping his arms around you tightly, burying his face in the crook of your neck. You feel the prickle of tears in your eyes.

“I know, and I wouldn’t ask this of you if it wasn’t..”

He pauses for a moment and then lifts his head, taking your face in his hands, his bright green eyes fixing you in that familiar, loving gaze.

“..If it wasn’t important. If it wasn’t a question of my dad’s… my dad’s..”

“Soul?”

He nods solemnly. You stare at each other for what feels like an eternity. He strokes your face, his brow furrowed.

“Will you come with us?”

"I don't know..." You sigh, feeling your determination falter.

“You think Bobby and Candy will join?”

He purses his lips.

“I think they want to finish this as much as I do. To end this.”

You nod, resigned.

“I guess…”

Just the thought of it scares you, but maybe, with the gang together, it will be okay?