SOMETHING ROAMS THE NIGHT...

FORTY NINE

No way. No. This wasn't possible. 

How did I end up here? What was I doing in a madhouse?

"It's okay," the man soothed me, his frog-like eyes studying my frightened expression. "We'll take care of you."

"How did I get here? Why am I here?" 

"Your family, they dropped you off. Decided you needed some treatment," the man told me.

"My family?" I gaped at him. How could they do this? How could they put me here?

Haley, I know how you feel...

When they found out you killed someone...

They put you here...

Thinking you were insane...

"They came with a boy, an Ezra Kane?" the man interrupted the reaper's voice in my head. "They said you killed someone when you didn't even know it yourself. Claimed you might be going a little bit..."

"Insane?" I blurted out. "I'm not insane, I don't belong here."

"Well, they seem to think otherwise," the man sighed. "You kept mentioning a dead person's name. Believe me, I know all about the reapers, but they were all killed that day. The town is already free of them."

"Nobody is truly safe," I mumbled. "The reapers are not dead."

"I'd given you some medication to break up your thoughts, giving you the opportunity to face your fear, head on. That's the only way you can be treated."

I gasped when I remembered the graveyard, and Damon speaking to me. That had probably been the effects of the medication. I feared Damon, and somehow he had separated himself from my mind so he could talk to me.

If I could get rid of Damon, get rid of my fear...

"Give me more of it," I said suddenly. 

"What?" 

"I want you to give me more of that, right now," I pointed to the syringe. 

"But you could die. You can't have more than a dose of this within twelve hours," the man explained, his eyes popping out of his head.

"I don't care, I have nothing to lose. Just do it."

I winced when the needle pierced into my arm, and then darkness engulfed me whole.

"I'm not afraid of you," I breathed. I was once again in the grave, Damon standing before me like a voracious zombie. 

"Oh, yeah?" he challenged. I heard the crack of limbs, the disgusting squelching sound as he shifted into his original form-a reaper. "You fear me, Haley. You fear me."

"No," I clenched my fists. Then I remembered the gun the scientist had slipped into my pocket before I passed out. 

"Face your fear," he'd said. Had he known I was telling the truth the entire time? Was this even the first time something like this had happened?

"I can feel you trembling, hear your heart racing," the reaper lurched forward, claws raking against the soil. "I feed on your fear, I feed on your darkness. I can feel the energy flowing in my veins."

"I'm not afraid of you," I repeated, and yanked the weapon out, training it on the reaper's head. Its mocking expression didn't waver. 

"Brave Haley, eh?" it jeered. "You wouldn't even have the guts to-"

Bits of decomposed flesh and icky black goo spattered all over me as I pulled the trigger. There was a hiss of smoke from where the chemical had reacted with the reaper's skin. The smell was like I was in a landfill of a million decaying bodies.

"You will pay..." the reaper howled its last words in agony, and then slumped to the ground, dematerializing into a foul, black liquid at my feet.

 I doubled over, and vomited.