Peripheral Vision: A Supernatural Thriller(42)
“You’re nothing like Elizabeth. You’re just like all the others. You’re a fucking liar.”
“Please.. I’m sorry!” She choked.
“It’s too late.” He plunged her back into the water. Sarah fought desperately, but eventually her body went still.
Nick snapped out of his rage and stared down at her for a moment in disbelief. His eyes were filled with horror. “Oh God... Sarah?!” But Sarah didn’t move. “What did I do? No... Please…” He whispered as he pulled her above the water and dragged her lifeless body out of the river. “Sarah?” He asked again, shaking her, but Sarah was gone. Nick was never going to kill her-not Sarah. Just scare her into submission, and keep her there until he could make her fall in love with him again. It was a good plan. He knew she had fallen in love with him too, but he scared her. It was all his fault. He shouldn’t have told her so soon. He destroyed her and their future. It was too much for him to take. “Fuck! No!” Nick turned away from his dead princess and walked back to the river. “Damn it Elizabeth, you promised!” He dropped to his knees next to river bank, slamming his fist again and again into the cold hard ground. And then his chin dropped to his chest. His body shook as he wept.
Nick didn’t move for the next fifteen minutes, and then the wind picked up from out of the north and with it came a ghostly whisper.
“It’s Okay...”
Nick, startled by the whisper whipped his head back toward Sarah, but her body was gone. He looked in all directions at once-frantic and disoriented.
Sarah had come to sometime shortly after Nick had gone into his trance next to the river. A dream had overtaken her during her time under the river. She had been staring up at Nick through the water, when her eyes had drifted shut.
But moments later, when they opened again, she realized that she was no longer beneath the cold flowing river, but instead lying on her back looking up at the blue sky. It was warm here and bright, much too bright, in fact. Sarah turned her head to the side, blinking, as she brought her hands up to cover her watering eyes. A strong, earthy-floral scent arose from the darkness and pulled Sarah back into the bright light. She let her eyes open wide this time as she sat up and found herself looking out over a vast field full of yellow flowers.
Sarah stood up in the field. She was drenched. Water was dripping from her hair and body and the blue nightgown. The bottom of the nightgown had been dipped in mud, but she didn’t care. It was the smoke in the distance that had her attention. Was it a fire? She asked herself, but that’s when she saw them. The six girls in white, flowing dresses floated above the yellow field. They were still crying, but they also seemed to all be pointing at something behind her, at the opposite end of the rolling field. Sarah turned her head. It looked like a forest of tall evergreen trees. She turned back to the girls-something was different. Sarah counted again. Had she missed her the first time? Sarah didn’t think so, but here was another girl now with them. The seventh girl floated towards Sarah, the girl’s arms extended as if to embrace her.
“Follow me… come with me through the trees, come with me.” The words flowed out from the floating woman like the familiar verse of a song. Sarah already new the words, and she suddenly realized that she already knew this woman too. Sarah remembered. She finally remembered her face. The face of her mother. How could she have forgotten that face or those beautiful blue eyes?
“Sarah,” her mother said, “everything is slippy now. We must hurry. It’s time for you to go back.” Sarah’s mother reached out and took her daughter’s hand and one by one the other girls followed suit. Soon, they were floating quickly above the field of yellow flowers. Faster and faster they moved, until they were no longer in the open field, but instead surrounded by a tall canopy of evergreen trees. They stopped. It was snowing here. Sarah’s mother turned to her daughter and opened her left hand to reveal what looked like a small glass marble. It was glowing. “Don’t let him see you.” She said. The words seemed to echo across the worlds as a blinding light flashed from the tiny orb.
Sarah’s eyes snapped open, she was back, lying in the tall grass next to the river, but she didn’t move. In the night sky, her mother’s beautiful face was still clearly visible in front of her eyes. It shimmered and twisted with the stars and soon floated away like a small grey cloud in the dark, but her words remained. “Don’t let him see you.”
Sarah counted to thirty in her head, before she quietly rolled over to her belly in the tall grass and silently crawled away, careful not to make a sound. She held her breath as she crawled. In the moment, time seemed to last forever, but once she felt far enough away from the river she climbed to her feet and ran. She ran as fast as she could towards the front of the old river house, shivering violently from the cold and wet. She looked back over her shoulder hoping to see Nick still kneeling next to the river, but he wasn’t there. Sarah spotted Nick’s truck, still in the driveway, with the driver’s side door surprisingly wide open. “Please God... keys...” Sarah prayed as she ran up to the truck. She jumped in the driver’s seat and thankfully, saw that the keys were still in the ignition. She looked back towards the river, but still there was nothing. Sarah’s panicked fingers clumsily turned the key- she almost expected it not to start at all, but it did. As the truck fired up, Sarah reached out quickly to close the door. But at that moment Nick jumped between Sarah and the closing door. Sarah screamed. The door slammed on the back of his legs.