Running Home – Chapter 6 (Penn and Sword series)

On the drive back, I stare out the window, watching the streetlights flicker by, fiddling with the edges of the red felt blanket. Over and over, I question the conversation I just had. Where had he come from? How could he appear and disappear like that? What is that red room? Was he real? Am I insane?

Penn, he’d said. A cartoonish, whimsical, stick-thin young man with a fierce determination and sad sparkle in his eye. Witch’s hat. Wand or key or whatever that thing was. He seems like a fantasy, a character from a fairy tale book stepping off the pages. There’s no way he can be real.

In the driver’s seat, Simon licks his lips for the third time, struggling to say something.

I speak before he can. “Do you have nightmares?”

Simon’s eyes widen. “Nightmares? I mean, yeah, of course. Doesn’t everyone?”

“What about recently?”

Another lip lick. “I guess. Stress with school and moving and running the house.”

“Did you… feel them, too?”

Simon’s foot startles on the gas pedal and the car lurches slightly at the stop sign turning into their university neighborhood. A crossing vehicle flashes its lights, the driver flipping us off as he passes. Simon waves politely, head low.

I tap his arm. Simon’s eyes flicker over, blinking rapidly. “Did you?”

“Sarah got in my head, that’s all. Creepy-crawlies, like… what does that even mean?”

Biting my lip, I sit back. Simon pulls the car down the street, ending in the curving driveway of Excalibur. The lower windows shine, some reality show blaring on the screen beyond the sheer curtains.

Simon cuts the engine. Pauses in his seat. “Look, I don’t want you to be scared of staying here. But yeah, I’ve had the dreams. What happened to Sarah was… intense.”

I nod. “Right. That’s all it is. You just… you cared about her. And so… you dreamed the same dream. Out of empathy. Or whatever.”

“Exactly, exactly,” Simon says.

“There aren’t actually bugs swarming us at night. Because we haven’t seen any.”

“Right.”

“You haven’t… have you?”

“Hm?”

“Seen them?”

“Oh, no. I haven’t seen anything. No bugs, no, uh, creepy-crawlies.”

I sit back, rubbing thumb and finger around my triangle necklace charm.

Simon swipes at his blonde hair and curls a fist around the car keys. “Look, Monday, would you wanna like… grab a coffee or something? Before class?”

My heart thuds into my stomach. I’d had my fair share of suitors. Eudora and I had laughed and teased each other about our cute boy experiences so many times. I just never mastered the rejection part as well as Eudora. She could reject a guy flat out and he’d still walk away smiling. “Simon, I… You’re great. Really, I’m just, uh… I’m not ready to, uh…” Chest tight, I try to think of a way to do this without jeopardizing my tenancy.

Simon waves his hands. “Oh no! Uh, no! I wasn’t asking you out.”

My mouth drops. “Oh…”

“Not that I wouldn’t. You’re, uh, very… uh…” Simon’s eyes trace down my figure before he shakes his head at himself. “It’s a house thing. We started it over the summer. Monday coffee. If you’re… into…” Deflating, Simon puffs out the last word. “… coffee…”

My cheeks go warm. “Uh…” I don’t have an excuse to refuse. My first class doesn’t start until ten in the morning. “Sure. Why not?”

Simon perks up at once. “Yeah?”

I swallow back my words and nod.

“Great!” Simon hurriedly helps me with my boxes inside the house, a half-skip marking his steps. He offers to take them up to my room so I can relax after a long day, but I assure him I can manage.

Before I cross through the kitchen, though, Landon stops me, dressed in the same casual clothes as this morning, but this time with a black apron around his waist and a towel draped over his shoulder. “Don’t skip out on us again,” he warns, eyebrows wiggling. He points a wooden spoon at me. “Gotta try at least one of my meals.”

I blink. “Oh, you actually cook cook?”

Landon grins. “I do if that’s what gets you going, Sword.”

Simon rolls his eyes. “We all take turns.”

I startle at the mere idea of touching a pan or knife again. “We do?”

“Yeah, keep it fair. And there’s six of us, so just makes sense. Well, I guess seven, but… Ghost doesn’t eat.”

“But I… I don’t…”

Landon laughs. “What, you a soup burner like Bethany?”

From the living room, a harsh voice calls, “I heard that!”

The boys laugh, and Simon pats my shoulder. “Don’t worry, I can help you out on your nights, if you like.”

Landon returns to his large pot, stirring something spiced and tongue-watering. From the fragrant oregano and sizzling sausage, I know the gumbo is going to taste amazing.

I steal away upstairs before anyone can pull me into another conversation. The day weighs heavily on my shoulders, but so do Penn’s words.

Don’t fall asleep tonight…

All I want to do is sleep. And Penn might not be real, anyway! Why should I listen to a whimsical figment?

I curl my red blanket into my arms, whispering, “He was real. I saw him. I shook his hand.”

But everything about him doesn’t make sense, shouldn’t exist.

With a huff, I hurry out of my room before I can change my mind, pausing in the hall long enough to cast the door across from mine a long glance. I check for red static or orangish scents. None appear.

Downstairs, the Excalibur residents crowd into the living room to watch a reality dating show. Something about teams and a silly obstacle course game. I try to pay attention, but lose myself in Landon’s homemade dinner. With my fork, I dissect each ingredient. From peppers to herbs to grain of rice. I list off each component in my head like a mantra.

Landon nudges my leg from the couch. “It’s not a science experiment.”

My cheeks heat, but I match his smile. “It’s good.”

“I know,” he says, wiggling his brows.

Bethany sits up between him and Harry on the couch to take control of the room. “Okay, coffee plans. Who has the earliest Monday class? When do yours all start?”

Jordan shrugs from her spot on the loveseat. On the beanbags, Simon and I both say “Ten” at the same time. He shoots me a shy smile.

Harry raises his hand, though doesn’t look away from his phone screen. He’s been scrolling through it for the past twenty minutes without stopping. “8 a.m. sharp.”

Groans carry around the room.

Jordan rolls her eyes. “Then you don’t get to come to coffee.”

Bethany shakes her head. “Jordan, c’mon. It’s tradition.”

“We’ve done it for a few weeks,” she says. “Hardly a tradition.”

“We’ve done it all summer!” Simon points a finger to the ceiling. “We have to establish good habits now at the start of our new college careers or risk falling into the traps of late-night drinking and house-parties during prime studying hours!”

Bethany snorts. “Hm, let’s see. Drinking or six a.m. wake time, cute boys or boring books and essays. Oh, I just can’t choose.”

I laugh, catching the teasing sparkle in her eye.

“We’ll figure it out,” Landon decides, stifling a yawn before knocking Harry’s phone out of his hands. “C’mon, couple rounds before we sleep.”

Harry rolls his eyes but grabs a controller from the charging station as Landon preps the racing game.

Less than an hour later, as yawns pass around the room, I can’t help one of my own, stretching my arms high above my head. I linger longer than the rest of the girls. “Night,” Bethany calls, waving at me before following Jordan upstairs. Harry and Landon continue their sleepy-eyed competition, but by midnight, they’re off to bed too. Leaving me and Simon alone.

Simon yawns again as he stands, clearing the table of leftover cups and plates. Silently, I help him gather dishes into the dishwasher and wipe down the counters. The actions are easy, mechanical even. A life I tap into without realizing I’m even standing in the kitchen until Simon clears his throat and gives an unsure wave. “Well, I’m going to head up. You?”

I tap a foot on the tile, unsure about being alone. Unsure about sleep. Unsure about too many things. My skin crawls, remembering the feeling of the nightmare bugs. “Yeah. Soon.”

Simon casts me a questioning smile, but keeps quiet as he pads up the stairs and closes his bedroom door at the top.

Excalibur quiets around me. Only the buzz of the refrigerator joins my silent turn in the kitchen, searching for a distraction. I have to stay awake. Whether Penn is real tickles the back of my mind, but even if not, I want to avoid my dreams. Avoid the familiar diner scents and Eudora’s laughter. I could so easily lose myself in that world.

Absently, I fiddle with my necklace charm. Barely thinking, I open the fridge and find a few ingredients, my sister’s warm laughter echoing in my head. Late nights like these when one or both of us couldn’t sleep, she and I would experiment with mug desserts or frozen treats. Or make our autopilot meals. Lamb and onion-stuffed pitas. Grilled chicken quesadillas and cilantro rice.

I shake out of my head. No. Shoving the ingredients back onto the cold shelf, I snag a plain water bottle instead before plopping down on the linoleum floor.

Stay awake, stay awake.

I scroll through a mobile game on my phone, but even that can’t bring alertness to my mind. Emotional walls weak, I pull up mom’s texts from earlier, biting my lip at all the unanswered messages.

When are you coming back to the diner?

We could use your help.

You can’t do this, you know how we worry

Your sister wouldn’t approve of this behavior young lady

Lip curling, I stash the phone away. Eudora would have applauded me all the way out the door. Probably even followed her little sister’s escape. Away from that stifling diner. The horrendous expectations. The shouting voice of a father turned strict and commanding boss.

I lean back on the cabinets, a knot of homesickness coiling tight in my chest. I close my eyes and count my breaths and smell… pancakes…

“Ugh, why does dad do this every year?” dream-Eudora complains in my ear. She snuggles closer to me, hiding under our shared blanket. “He knows I hate pancakes.”

I just hug her close. Breathe in her peach-scented hair. Relax into the dream.

“Cantha,” she whispers, her breath tickling my ear. “What if we stayed?”

I shake my dream head.

“But what if… leaving… is worse? What if… we lose everything and we’re out there alone and-and… Oh, I don’t know. Just not sure… about leaving mom and dad.”

Her breath puffs again, tickling down my neck, through my hair…

And more pokes and prods travel over my face. Push against my lips.

“Acantha!”

Long fingers waterfall down my face, pushing the tickling feet from my skin. I blink awake to find Penn shaking me. “I said not to sleep!”

“I… I didn’t, I wasn’t…”

“Did they say anything?” Penn holds me tight, leaning close to search my eyes.

I push him off, chest knotted and breathless. “I wasn’t asleep, I was just—”

A thud and a scream from above fully wake my memory-sticky mind. We both jump up and bound up the stairs to join the jolting bodies of my roommates gathered on the second floor. They all crowd around a crying Bethany. She shakes, collapsed on the floor, smacking at her own arms and legs.

Red lines stream out of her mouth and ears.

“Get them off!” She coughs, chokes, swipes at her face. “I want to go home!”

Harry snatches her wrists to hold her still. “Beth, talk to me.”

“Get them OFF ME!” The bright-eyed girl is crazed, shouting into his face. “They’re trying to get inside—” She cuts off on another choking cough, as if something has lodged in her throat.

Jordan swats at Harry’s head. “Do something! You’re the doctor!”

“Pre-med!” Harry hisses over his shoulder.

“I’ll call 911,” Simon says, rushing back to his room for his phone.

“That won’t be necessary.” Penn’s voice cuts through everyone’s panic like a sharp knife, calm and low. Penn rolls his crinkled sleeves higher on his tattooed arms, then kneels with Harry on Bethany’s opposite side.

Above them, Simon shakes his head. “She needs an ambulance.”

“Not yet,” Penn instructs. From his boot, he pulls out a long, thin implement. The strange key. The same thing he used at the storage facility. The tips both glow a dim red, the shade of his mysterious room. Bethany tries to push him away, but Penn grips her countless curls and tugs her face close.

“Hey!” both Harry and Landon shout.

Penn ignores them, using Bethany’s shocked pause in shaking to examine her panicked stare. He checks both eyes as she coughs and sputters.

“I’m calling!” Simon shouts, phone to his ear.

In a breath, my mind surges with information, finally accepting the reality of the creepy-crawling nightmares. They’re real. I felt them. And now they’re attacking Bethany. Penn was right.

I snatch the phone from Simon.

“Hey, what are you doing!”

I just turn back to Penn and Bethany, having no explanation other than I trust Penn’s judgement. Creatures from nightmares attacking the waking world? What is an EMT going to do about that? “Penn?” I ask, kneeling with him. “What can we do?”

“Try to stop them.”

“But how? You said they were dreams. How’re they doing this to her?”

Penn finally scans his red-lit stylus device down Bethany’s face, her crazed eyes lit from the glowing tips in horror and need. Her lips verge on violet, veins popping at the temples. Chokes lessening and lessening, arms going limp.

“Penn!” I shout.

“Gotcha.” Penn’s eyes sparkle as he pushes the wand’s length down Bethany’s throat.