The Awakening: The Anthem of the Angels

By C. B. Logan

CIA Officer Dakota Warren is fatally shot and killed in an attempt to rescue the President of the United States only granddaughter. However, in the morgue she awakens from the forbidden hallways of death with ancient knowledge and powers every immortal will kill to obtain.

Her horrors did not stop there; now the dead plague her night and day. Ghosts, fallen angels, demons and other creatures of the dark hunt Dakota with a psychotic fervor that pushes Dakota to the brink of insanity. They want what she took from the other side and will kill to have it: the ability to resurrect the dead back to life.

With the help of special friends, and the love of one man who has been dead for over a century, they will fight an epic battle to stop Armageddon and prevent the Apocalyptic Riders from breaking their seals prematurely, and to restore balance to the universe before its annihilation.

Join Dakota and her immortal friends on a heroic journey that will sweep you away to another world of love, mystery and a quest to end the destruction of the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491838457

C. B. Logan

C.B. Logan grew up in the great Pacific Northwest where The Awakening Trilogy takes place. Currently, C.B. Logan is close to graduating with a double Bachelors in Cultural and Physical Anthropology and plans to pursue her Master’s soon after. LOGAN’S HEROES is C.B. Logan’s charity that places dogs in high risk shelters with soldiers/veterans suffering from PTSD. The majority of the proceeds from The Awakening Trilogy go to training service dogs, and traveling to and from veteran’s homes across America. C.B. Logan lives in Boston, Massachusetts, Saint Petersburg, Florida and Morro Bay, California to continue her work with wounded souls…both canine and humans. C.B. Logan loves to receive mail from those that have read her work, and is available to anyone interested in volunteering with Logan’s Heroes in their community. Please visit her website at www.cblogan.com to email her with concerns, comments or questions about Logan Heroes or about The Awakening and future works in progress.

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2013, 2014 C.B. Logan. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/14/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4918-3846-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-3845-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013921584

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Epilogue

Thank You:

The State of Oregon,

For all my childhood memories.

Dedicated To:

Violet Jade Smith

&

Ethan Moore

Look for ghosts; but none will force

Their way to me. ’Tis falsely said

That there was ever intercourse

Between the living and the dead.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Affliction of Margaret

Prologue

Two Years Ago

Open up!

Don’t leave me! The child whimpered. Her hands clutched me with a death-like grip on my bloodstained clothes, panic seizing the girl’s crackling voice.

I did not recognize the frightened child I held in my arms. The kidnappers had beaten Raven beyond recognition; the reasoning behind it at that moment was insignificant. Our imminent escape was the immediate concern.

I glanced over my shoulder at the closed door. I jammed discarded, heavy objects in front of it before hearing sounds of shouting, and guns shooting at it from behind. The metal door dented inward from the spray of bullets from our enemy.

I turned back to the child; I was in pain from the piercing sensation against my bruised side. The terrorist fought when I entered their secret room moments before. They broke a few of my ribs as I killed a person or two with my bare hands to retrieve Raven from them.

Protecting the girl was my one job, the kidnapping one of my many faults. I was getting the girl back to her home, one way or another.

My smile down at her was unsure as we searched for a place to hide. Our bodies trembled with fear. They were many and I was one, and no one in my team knew of our location.

I held the child tighter in my arms as my mind began to race with panicked thoughts. She was a girl I had been sworn to protect after her grandfather’s second inauguration as President of the United States, and a child I had come to love as my own for the last few years.

My attention turned back from the past, as her legs and tiny arms entwined around my bruised and broken body, her bony chin penetrating into my right shoulder.

The pain would keep me alert.

I’m not leaving you. Don’t look, baby. I breathed the words out loud, pressing her shaking body against mine.

The shouts from the halls became louder after my words to her. I could hear their boots advancing closer to the blocked door that separated us from them. I pivoted around to focus on it, backing deeper into the shadows of the warehouse room, anticipating the worst outcome I never expected and feared to come.

I realized at that moment there was no way out.

Open up! A familiar voice from behind the door demanded; my hunter’s fist battered into the steel door. The child cried out against my shoulder with each thunderous sound made on the other side, clutching my shirt tighter with her hands. The door quickly became pressed with force, heaved against, and then ripped apart from its hinges.

They’re going to kill us, aren’t they? She looked up with her swollen face into mine, and then her lips pressed against my ear. They’re going to kill us…

My eyes drifted away from her tearful eyes. I hugged my body against the filth that plastered the walls and ignored her words, watching the door as we sank deeper into the shadows of our prison.

Cover your ears, baby, it’s going to get loud in here. I whispered again, removing my gun from its shoulder holster and pointing it at the door.

I readied to fire it at any moment when the door would open from the beating it was taking. The door resonated as it fell in, slamming against the debris blocking it from the inside.

I would take them all to hell with me…

I pulled the trigger and began shooting.

Present Day

They abandoned me in hell…

Forgotten in the sanatorium was not the deal I made with the government officials, my employers.

They promised the visit was only a matter of a couple of weeks, testing my unique abilities, so they said, so they promised.

Now, I was nearing three months locked away with the insane I endured day and night. I had yet to see the man that placed me here, and the new group in charge conveniently forgot why I arrived in the first place.

That was just my luck.

Doctor Flannigan’s smoker’s cough stirred me from my thoughts. He waited on my response to his preceding question; the one I dreaded answering… again.

The young man before me was beginning to irritate and grate on my frayed nerves with his repetitiveness; the identical interrogation questions other doctors bombarded me with the previous months.

Well, do you believe?

Do I believe in the existence of ghosts? I snorted at my own words. If you asked me two years ago, I would have laughed in your face and said you were the one that is crazy.

And now, how do you believe?

Now, my beliefs have changed.

The doctor stole a glance up from the medical report, directing a suspicious glare my way. Ms. Warren, it says here in your file that you started hallucinating almost two years ago?

Yes, that is what the last doctor said.

You were a scientist working for the government. Now you see demons and ghosts?

I adjusted the state hospital bathrobe to cover my bare knees, and began fidgeting with the hospital identification band around my wrist. It felt awkward and restrictive around my flesh.

I looked up and waited before answering.

You would not believe what I have seen.

Dr. Flannigan folded his hands on top of my file and smirked. From my point of view, severe psychological trauma can betray someone into believing a fabrication of masked lies. Hallucinations are a coping mechanism of the subconscious when reality is too painful.

Everyone’s reality can be painful, Dr. Flannigan.

The doctor cleared his throat and reopened the packed file, turning several pages back before speaking. It says here that—well, this is interesting.

He looked up with an unexpected expression.

Isn’t it always interesting?

He cleared his throat again. They pronounced you dead, and you revived on your own, and you came to in the morgue? That has to be a mistake…

He flipped through the massive data with determination; a concentrated, deep groove wedged across his forehead.

You’re right, that is a mistake, he looked up and smiled at my statement. "Twice that night

I died. You see, that is when it all started; the hallucinations, the nightmares and everything else. I blamed it all on psychosis at first. Then, it all started going to hell when I woke up from the dead in the hospital."

Dr. Flannigan seemed amused without looking up at me, and continued his quick review of my records.

Admitting these episodes were hallucinations is the first steps to—

I interrupted. I’m not hallucinating and I’m not insane. They are real; the dead walk among us.

The doctor mumbled under his breath in anger, pitching his hands upward and lapsing back into his chair.

Ms. Warren, are you saying you had a near-death experience?

No, Dr. Flannigan, it was not an experience; it was reality.

He smirked once more and jotted notes down on an adjacent writing tablet next to my file. Okay, I’ll bite.

I glared at the condescending attitude of the young man after he spoke. You won’t like me when I’m mad, Doctor. If my husband was alive you could ask him about my… talents, and what I do to those that get on my bad side.

The doctor glanced at me after my threat, he smiled, and then turned on the video camera with a small remote.

The DOD insists resolving this matter as soon as possible, and for you to reach a successful recovery. It’s apparent you are too valuable to the government to be locked away forever.

His statement triggered me to pause in my fidgeting state.

That’s very considerate of them; especially since I worked for the CIA, not the Department of Defense.

I glanced over my shoulder, inspecting the video camera before I began to speak, and then twisted my attention back to the doctor. I began to wonder who would see the recording, and why I became relevant after three months of denying my existence in my new hell.

Let’s begin. In these reports, my colleagues state that you believe you can communicate with the departed. Tell me why you think you can speak with and see the dead.

I can do more than that.

Well then, start from the beginning and tell me everything.

I smiled with a hint of wickedness in my glance back to the video camera; they wanted to know what happened? Well, I would end their curiosity and tell them the twisted and sorted details of my experience with death, immortality, creatures of the night, fallen angels, and murderous demons; and tell the story of the ghost I fell in love with.

It all started when I came home—

If you cannot get rid of

The family skeleton,

You may as well make it dance.

George Bernard Shaw

One

It was never my intention to return home a shattered and ruined woman. All the same, here rested my lot in life. I was sixteen when I left; young, exuberant and free from the chains that held me captive. Years later, I found myself back where it all began, creeping into town, wearing a badge of shame and guilt.

I left home an eager teenager, ready to implement and carry out adolescent dreams; dreams of freedom from an oppressing mother, of leaving behind the despairing nature of my father, and of feeling inferior to my mother’s love for my younger brother.

My saturated, childhood visions were with anticipations of leaving Astoria, Oregon to burrow through this miniscule world by myself. As a child, I longed for a life far more exciting and adventurous, only to return home a cursed older woman.

Now, I realize, they were wishful dreams of a child.

I graduated high school at fourteen, accepted at Massachusetts Institute of Technology at fifteen and left home at sixteen to fulfill my dreams of being a scientist, just like my father.

It was easy for me to leave Oregon. I was an awkward child, not cared for by kids in school. I left my nose buried in many research books, and was always studying every move my father made in his lab. I had no friends, and I had no desires to connect with anyone other than Dad. I loved being alone with him when I was living at home. He had been my best and only friend in life.

College treated me as cold as high school did. I never fit in for one reason or another. The taunts and alienation from others made me work harder to graduate. By that time, when it was legal for me to drink, I was working on my master’s degree.

Soon after graduation, the CIA recruited and whisked me off to the Farm at Camp Peary, near Williamsburg, Virginia. I was the youngest recruit there.

At the agency, I kept to myself in the labs, peering into microscopes, studying encryption information, and many other things. Other officers in my department tried dating me, but I felt awkward and still that ugly, loner child. I lacked common social skills of someone my age and preferred to spend my Friday nights trying to master encrypted codes and crossword puzzles.

That is another story by itself.

As I looked back on those years, I realized that everything I understood about my life had sprouted into the realization that I had become a lifeless corpse without a past. How I hated the truth about my life. My return home felt as if someone placed the last nail in my coffin, sealing me away for eternity.

If only my father were still living, I could face my new life. He had been a buffer between mother and me, the aspirin for my aching sorrows. She never recognized me for whom I had become, and she never tried to understand me.

Dad and I were of equal minds then; old spirits bound together by science and shared knowledge about life and the wonders of the universe. Sometime in my early teens, his brilliant mind turned into a chaotic sludge of delusions and extreme paranoia.

I had to escape…

Later, I abandoned him for an education on the opposite side of the country, leaving him far behind and moving into the unknown of my life. I called every other month to see how he was doing after I left. The phone calls soon became less frequent, unpredictable at times, and then sometimes not at all.

Hearing the paranoia in his voice, ranting and raving about the dead rising from their graves, and the end of the world, how I was never to return home, how I was safer far away as long as I stayed out of Astoria home, how I was safer far away as long as I stayed out of Astoria; it was all too much to swallow.

I regretted abandoning him.

My new life consumed me soon enough, and I began volunteering for every known work that no one wanted in the agency to avoid having to dwell over the demise of my father. My work became the most valuable thing in my life, and it gave me an excuse as to why I could not come home to visit my family.

Dad died ten years after I left Astoria; a broken and lost soul. My mother raised my younger brother alone afterwards. I did not even return for his funeral, Mom never forgave me for that one, and I did not blame her; the selfish act was unforgivable.

I could not fathom the idea of seeing him lying dead in a casket. I had to hold onto his ghostly image, animated and full of life. The memory of his deep laughter and numerous taunting as a child consumed me years after his funeral. Dad never ceased loving me, even after I left, and I never stopped loving him, even after his death.

When she did call, before the accident, and if I answered, it was to rant and rave to me for not returning home on holidays. Never did she say she loved me or needed me after dad passed. We always fought over one thing or another. Our brief conversations always became hostile; the past creeping into our words, nasty reminders thrown into one another’s faces.

Everything was my fault: the house falling down on its foundations, my brother’s sexual preference and lifestyle, and of course, her misery as a widow with an ungrateful daughter. It was always my fault for forsaking them in the darkest hours of their lives.

Before my birth, Mom had abandoned a life of modeling in her teens. She had fallen in love with my father, a science major at the University of Oregon, a man that one day died penniless and broken. They married young, too young for true love to grow.

Dad promised her the world, Mom dreamed of an exciting life, they both ended up compromising and settling for less.

I was born to be that constant reminder to her of what she threw away for love.

I arrived before the wedding of my parents; they were not ready to raise a child. She reminded me daily of how I, in some way, twisted her beautiful body into something too horrible to look at.

Mother did not forgive me for that one either.

My absence from their lives all these years had denied her the pleasure of tormenting me as she did when I was a kid, and even into my teen years. Her secret hate for me pushed me to leave Dad behind and not look back. I could not take her bitterness another day.

Now, I would have to ingest Mom’s torturous reminders of my failed attempt at life. She was her own sanctified, spiritual martyr. The cross she bore was heavy and laden with piercing thorns. She beckoned me to crawl up on her cross with her by initializing my return. My return home was her secret dream come true, and my blood-soaked blasphemy.

Shakespeare could have penned a tragic play on the catastrophes that brought me back.

As I drove through the darkness of the night, I began to miss the radiant sun of the south, the hot licks of the wind against my face, and the blatant kisses of the night air. I made the Dallas field office my home for the last few years after transferring from Langley, never once thinking of Oregon.

I missed my life in Virginia upon arriving in Texas. I felt as if my director betrayed me by sending me there. My new position was not in a lab where I felt the most comfortable, or studying encryptions, which I loved to do, but the transfer was more or less a penalty for becoming involved with a man that would end in unspeakable tragedy.

Being back at home pushed the longing for the south aside. I realized how much I had forgotten Oregon’s majestic beauty, with its cool climate and dark green hills, mountains topped with glistening snow, which danced in the sun as if they were rare African diamonds scattered across a white sea of frost.

At that moment of seeing my home town, I contemplated my own forgetfulness of the beauty of the trees and how they towered toward the vaults of heaven, brushing the sky with their twisting, ancient trunks. I forgot how much I missed the ambrosial scent of the ocean, and the two rivers that flanked my childhood city, blanketing its brine fragrance across my town.

I had forgotten much since I left decades ago.

My return home was necessary, they said. Living in Dallas became too much to handle alone, too harsh of an existence after the accident, the tragic event that propelled me to return home.

Questions from fellow officers riddled me day and night on the incident that caused my near death, how it happened, and all the debate over whose fault it was for a girl’s death. The reporters were not as generous as my colleagues had been; they hounded me until I ran away, right back into Mother’s cold embrace.

The ghosts of my victims who did not survive the accident in Texas committed themselves as my bed companions; they never gave me a moments rest.

The doctors were adamant that fresh air, family and needed rest would help overcome the amnesia I suffered daily. The memory loss of that night was always close to revealing their secrets in my restless sleep, and then they would sink over the edge of insanity and away from my grasp as I endured nightmares that wakened me.

That night, driving alone, the heavens cascaded light rain down on me, as if the gods perceived my misfortunes and wept to earth for me. The generous, full moon guided me, illuminating the way up Coxcomb Drive to my family’s home. It was past midnight when I pulled into the driveway of our century old, two-story wooden house, located high up on Astoria’s forested hillside. Now weathered, rotting fence wrapped the decrepit house and south of the property rested the tranquil beaches that lined the long coast of Oregon.

We moved into it after Grandpa’s death when I was a young girl; he willed his entire fortune to his son. Mom, after Dad’s death, at last had her own museum of self-inflected pity, of distorted memories of what should have been and what had become of her life. The five acres of carpeted forest had given her private sanctuary of wretchedness to do as she willed, away from prying eyes in the city, away from pointing fingers that used to yell at her and call her… witch.

Their outcries were an embarrassment to a girl like me.

I could always remember the times at Grandpa’s house every summer as a child when he was alive. I ran carefree through the woods and delighted myself with my imaginary play friends. He would sit on the steps of the porch, watching my playfulness with pleasure and roaring with laughter at my solitaire games.

I remember slumbering in lush pastures of the greenest grass God ever caressed, under the shade of azure skies. I would recline there, attentive to the sounds of the branches of the trees above me, mesmerized by their malleable swaying in the cool wind. The wildflowers used to sing out to me, humming a song from my active imagination.

My invisible friends came to play with me when I visited. Grandpa would join in our fun as we all sang and danced together in the meadows that lined the property. And at night, my ghostly friends returned to the forest to wait for me another day. Life was far simpler when I was young, compared to what I would now have to face in the future.

The porch lights were dim but on, the house appeared pitch dark within, oozing with depression from every inch of the decaying property. I sat motionless inside my vehicle, staring at the once grand house of my ancestors, now in ruins before me. My knuckles became drawn from my ironclad grip on the wheel as I stared in disbelief at the sight of my new residence. I began to wonder if I should crawl in the backseat and sleep until the morning sun arose, or arouse the scary monster deep within her dungeon and listen to her awakening growls.

My brother Jonathan sent random emails every so often before my arrival back in Oregon, telling me of our mother’s days and nights, her problems and how much he missed me. At times, I did not answer him back, pretending that I was too busy to answer his excessive pleas to return to him. The only real connection between us was a rare Christmas or birthday card he would send. Reading his emails about our mother’s drunken nights, or pill popping days made me feel relieved I was not around to witness her decline from sanity. My escape from her initial stages of binging saved me from my own insanity at that time.

Before he died, Dad complained several times to me on the phone about Mom’s ill treatment of him. He cried on the phone of how he needed and wanted to live with me, pleading for me to break him free of the rest home she placed him in after he lost his mind. Somehow, my brother survived through it all, alone, and without my support.

Jonathan was the over-dramatic boy in the family. He was flamboyant and fascinating, but devoted to Mom. He indulged her every need, and still loved her without the fear I once had for her. His letters were full of hope; hope that I would return home someday, hope that we all would find forgiveness, hopeful for the future of the Warren family.

I remembered Grandfather once said that hope sank many ships in the heat of battle. Jonathan’s own hopeful wishing came true with my accidental near-death.

The night was quiet after I turned the car off and rolled the window down, allowing a crisp breeze to tickle my cheeks. My blood pressure began to grow as I sat in silence. I hated how mom had that effect on me.

It was the expectation of seeing her once again, after years of solitude away from her that caused my heartbeat to quicken. It was the memory of her piercing grey eyes, their ability to see all my inner nakedness, and how they penetrated deep into my soul. The memories of her screaming at me when I was young, her spit ejaculating from her mouth as she yelled curses at the day of my birth, haunted me for years. I always kept to my dad’s side in fear that the taunts of the other children when I was young were true…

They called her Witch.

I became uneasy with the past memories of my mother as I reclined the seat back and closed my weary eyes, forgetting for a bit about the ancient times, and listened to the harmonic music of the forest as it sang sweet lullabies and carried me off to another place.

Rose . . .

Open up those eyes, my little sleepy head. My brother’s laughing voice stirred me into sitting upright.

Oh, God… I groaned.

His head leaned into the car, displaying his charming smile. Figuring on hiding out in this car all night?

I smirked, rubbing my aching eyes.

No, I was in need of a quick nap.

I lied, I never needed or wanted to sleep, the ghosts of my past kept visiting me in turns each night. Bits and pieces of my shattered memory came back in chaotic dreams when triggered by someone or something in my sleeping state. My subconscious spoke to me, telling me hints of my distorted past.

When I came to life in the hospital after the kidnapping, after being pronounced dead and my lifeless corpse was transported to the morgue, the events that ejected me into death’s grip were confusing and unclear.

Fragments that invaded my amnesia riddled mind haunted me on a regular basis. The doctors said the amnesia would disappear and my memory would one day return when least expected. Traumatic events as mine sometimes did that to a victim, they said. To sleep without the horror of the past that I could not remember or understand, and my sanity was to return someday seemed almost impossible to believe in anymore.

Their hope was my distraction.

Right… Jonathan’s uttering his doubt in my words caused me to abandon my reflections. Mom’s not here, she went out.

He opened the door before I could say anything and helped me out onto my cramping legs.

Out, as in out of the house, out?

I stared in shock at him, shaking my head in disbelief, turning miffed at her absence. My mother had gone out on the first night of my homecoming, knowing her prodigal daughter was returning home. I should not have been that surprised.

Jonathan wrapped his arm around my neck and directed me toward the house, the thought of Mom evaporated from my thoughts by his tender embrace. I leaned against him, sensing his enthusiasm; the nostalgic smell of Dad’s old cologne on his clothes deterred my thoughts of Mom. I realized how I missed him at that moment, and how the years of separation had cost me, and would cost us in the near future.

It’s a long story; anyhow, it’s good to see you! He teased, pulling me closer, choking the air out from my lungs.

I have missed you, I laughed with him. God, you have grown!

He lifted me off my feet and twirled me around in his arms, setting me back to the earth. We soon left the yard and entered the witch’s lair, flipping on lights as we walked deeper into the house. Antiques littered every corner of the room, the nicotine-stained walls from her ceaseless smoking displayed photos of days long gone.

All of the framed photos were black and white images of Mom in her beauty queen days before she started a family. She had been beautiful back in her days, smiling for the cameras, displaying the beauty pageant wave. The other photos were of Jonathan throughout the stages of his life, and only one was of me; looking sad and dejected. Dad’s pictures were nowhere in the collection, misplaced or discarded; only the witch knew of their whereabouts.

I fixed your room next to mine. I hope that’s okay.

Jonathan watched as I lingered around the cluttered parlor room, running my index finger over old memorabilia; somewhere, an indication of Grandpa’s old tobacco pipe emanated from the old woodwork. Stacks of old magazines and newspapers lined other walls, the house screaming that Mom had turned into a hoarder.

How far away is it from Mom?

A flight up, she can’t climb the stairs anymore, he snickered. She’s not that bad. I think you are harder on yourself than she is.

He seemed more determined to convince me of her transformation than before in his recent emails and letters. Mom would never change for anyone, especially me, I thought to myself as I glanced in shock around the room.

You want to make a bet?

Dakota…

I left the parlor, sickened by years of decline she had allowed the house to fall into, and made my way up the flight of stairs to the next level.

I cannot imagine a moment in life where mother was never angry at me… it’ll be like old times.

Jonathan cleared his throat as he sensed my discomfort. Things have changed. She has friends she hangs out with all night, until morning sometimes.

Yeah, vampires can’t take the sunlight.

Jonathan ignored my comment as he opened my bedroom door and permitted me to walk in the spacious room first.

I admired the transformation of Grandpa’s old room, decorated in my favorite colors of mossy green and creamy white. The bedroom accentuated a large brass bed, with various decorative pillows at its head, and at its feet rested Grandpa’s old Navy trunk.

Warren antiques furnished the rest of the room and on the south wall green velvet curtains embellished the windows. The same large window looked out to the vast backyard and beyond the property line, deep into the forest I remembered so fondly.

I turned back to Jonathan, who resembled a small schoolchild grinning at me. He flung his dark curls from his large eyes and ran a finger over his manicured eyebrows with perky dramatics.

Yes, I am your decorator. I am gay and full of style.

It’s beautiful! I imagined I would be up in the attic with the bats.

Well, he patted my head. If you need me, shout out. The walls are paper thin. I can hear everything.

With a deep bow, he exited, closing the creaking door behind him.

After a moment of uncomfortable silence alone, the bed called out to me in lullaby hums and encouraged my weary body towards it after his departure from my room, humming songs of rest I needed.

I did not care that my bags were still in the backseat of my car, or about my mother’s mysterious whereabouts, those things were less relevant to me than my sleep; though fear of sleeping crept up on me at the very thought of it.

Would my victims come out in my sleep, crawling from the shadows to wrestle with me? Would they allow me one peaceful night? I ignored the nagging thoughts and allowed myself to fall onto the uneven, aged mattress and close my heavy eyelids, promising myself rest, directing myself not to fall asleep. My breath slowed to a steady, but deep pace. I could feel the tug on me, whispering to me to try at least to rest, if only for a few minutes.

I closed my eyes, thinking back on the few clues my subconscious would allow me to remember about that night in Dallas not so long ago.

Somehow, the memories of the horror I experienced swept me away before I could fight it to remain in the presence, turning to vivid reality within my mind. Suddenly, the scenes of that night began moving in a panoramic succession right before me and I could not escape its hold…

Blood was everywhere. It felt warm against my aching, bullet-riddled body.

I remained disposed, unmoving on top of the wooden floor, listening to the girls’ screams, the echo of her voice vibrating in my ringing ears. I raised my blood-soaked head and allowed my eyes to adjust to the chaos that ensued around me.

Four men with semi-automatics ran; shouting with violence at one another. Dizzying bullets slammed through the warehouse windows from outside, ricocheting off metal and wood. They began scrambling toward the broken front door, dodging the array of arsenals that exploded around them. One had the child in a vicious grip by her wrist, dragging her little body across the floor towards the exit. The child’s free hand reached out for me, her blackened eyes pleading to me to rescue her, screaming once again when they reached the threshold of the door.

My arm felt heavy and awkward, as if weights had tied it down and nailed it to the floor. Somehow, I reached for my discarded gun beside me, the pain searing through every fiber of my body. It was close enough for my fingers to grasp out for it, coaxing it closer. Blood trickled down my swollen face, blinding me in one eye as I struggled to grab the gun. I developed a sudden burst of strength deep within me. I rolled onto my side and fired my weapon at one man and then at others in rapid motion.

They dropped lifeless to the floor.

The little girl ceased screaming and looked around with panic; the dead and the dying splayed out like lifeless, theatrical puppets. Fresh pebbles of her captor’s blood painted her pale face.

There were no sounds coming from the child’s throat. Her eyes danced toward me. My deep, painful wounds tried denying my body to move anymore. My grief overcame me, blurring my senses and incapacitating my mental strength. I could feel life was ebbing away as I dropped back to the floor. The florescent light above my broken body swayed back and forth from the ceiling, its bulbs flickering, promising to die with me.

Rose . . .

Dakota…

At the sound of both my names, I sprang up into a sitting position, snatching my semi-automatic from under the pillow. It swept out in front of me to the person standing in the doorway. I rubbed the sleep from my tired eyes and focused on the target before me. My name, Rose, being called out in some void soon slipped from my thoughts.

My mother, silhouetted by the shadows of the hallway, leaned against the doorframe, puffing on a half-smoked cigarette sticking to her bottom, red-stained lip. Her appearance in Dad’s old work clothes and her ancient hair rollers bound up by a red bandana reminded me of Rosie the Riveter pictures of the 1940s.

Mom, I exhaled with relief. I lowered my weapon to the bed and fell back onto the pillows. I could have shot you.

That’ll be the day when my daughter shoots me in my own house. The sarcastic tone continued to drip from her words. You plan on sleeping all day?

I heaved a disturbing sigh. I haven’t been to sleep but for a few minutes.

Try eleven hours.

I sat back up, allowing my tangled hair to cascade across my face and shoulders. Eleven hours of sleep and I did not feel any more rested than the day before, and the day before that. Although eleven hours was more sleep than I had in the entire month.

I was thankful my nighttime haunting was brief, allowing me to sleep away through the night. I began trying to remember my night terrors at that moment, hoping clues would put the pieces back together for me.

The night of the child’s death evaded my thoughts while awake, but always came to haunt me when I attempted to sleep. Between strands of my hair, I gazed over at her as she examined my disheveled person; a long ash fell to the floor by her fuzzy slippers.

Nice, I commented, pointing to the grey remains of the cigarette that landed on the floor. Your slippers match the nicotine stained walls.

It’s time for breakfast. She turned after her short statement and headed back down the hall toward the stairs.

Hey! I thought you couldn’t climb the stairs?

That is for me to know and for you to never find out. Come downstairs for breakfast or starve! She shouted from down the hall.

It was always one lie after the next with her. Poor, gullible Jonathan, believing his elderly mother was too disabled to climb the stairs to the second floor.

I heaved myself off the bed and commenced down the stairs, not wishing to begin my new start in Astoria with Mom this way. My rumpled clothes I had on from the night before felt revolting against me. My aching legs from driving all night felt resentful as I willed my feet down the steps toward the bottom floor of the house. Jonathan came whisking by me in a rush at that moment, almost propelling my body over the stair railing. I faltered in my steps as his body pushed past mine in order to reach the kitchen first; he had not changed since childhood.

Good morning, sunshine! He called out, jumping the last two steps, his feet landing on the bottom floor with a loud thud.

Hey, watch where you are going. I grumbled.

Mom’s antiquarian kitchen was full of intoxicating breakfast aroma when I entered it. I sat next to Jonathan at the table to avoid sitting by Mom on purpose. I looked over at my brother and smirked at his choice of clothing; the outfit reminding me of a pink flamingo in a petting zoo.

What are your plans today, Jonathan? Mother inquired, smoothing his black hair behind his ear after placing his breakfast in front of him, and then tucked a napkin into his pink