Rabbit Blood

Chapter 54 - Harmful Apparitions

Leslie had long, long periods of waking dreams - solid hallucinations that seemed out to get her - only interrupted with twitching and the occasional blurry, staggered trip to the bathroom. Sometimes there was a new plate of food by her door, but she didn't touch it.

So many dreams.

She saw a dazzling whiteness above her bed, moving like Tinkerbelle and raining sparkles.

"What's going on?" she asked it, knowing it would know.

"You left your family," it said.

No, no she hadn't. She had died. I couldn't help that...! But the light moved hither and thither, taunting her. She felt waterlogged, heavy and useless. Her brain played the exchange on repeat, repeat, repeat.

She was dancing, and the erstwhile blank room was a forest of unblinking eyes. In her periphery, they seemed to advance, but retreated when she faced them. Drunk, dizzy spinning. Take me out of this. Butterfly, butterfly.

A clawed hand took one of hers, lifting Leslie out of bed - hadn't she been standing up? A shadow - Alastor's. They were waltzing together. But his bones were so thick, so cold... She felt them through his skin.

"You're not like him," she said, trying to convince herself. "You're not. Not at all." His answer was to give Alastor's twisted grin. Then he shrank, lightning-fast, and became Niffty. "Huh?" Leslie said as they danced.

"What? At least I'm more appropriate as a dance partner, height-wise," Niffty tutted. She began to lead. "You're just having a fever, that's all. Grab a shower and get out of those damp PJs; you'll feel better."

Leslie blinked. "Is this your power, turning up in people's hallucinations? Or is it just me?"

"Ehhhh, I'm prolly not the person to ask." Niffty gave her a twirl and dipped her; Leslie never knew she had such strong forearms. "Y'know," Niff said, "you should probably eat, too. Gotta get that strength up! Bad stuff coming!"

Bad stuff?

Now she was plunging into a deep pit, with screaming at the bottom. Now her brain gave her a VoxTube playlist she sometimes watched to go to sleep. Weird, how the mind threw up random things for mental occupation.

Now Alastor carried her back to the bayou, in that gangling coathanger-shoulders way. There was nothing sexy in the air; that illusion was gone, and she was afraid. No, no, no! Put me down! They struggled in the mud, smacking and grasping for each other's arms.

"You're going to be my coat!" he said, eyes agleam.

Leslie squeaked and yanked her hand free, then punched him in the face. While he crouched there, clutching his nose, she got up and escaped, mud caked to her. Too easy? He had to be right behind her. There were humans. Leslie forgot what she was as she ran to them, crying sanctuary. The humans yelled about a rabbit-monster, shot her in the kneecap, and then finished the job with a bullet to the neck.

Warm blood. Tasty blood.

Leslie cried when she was back in the room. Fat Nuggets was there and she stroked him, scratched behind his ears until she fell back asleep.

Bill Nye reruns, ending with bites to her shoulder that she only felt, never saw.

She woke up, covered in gravy; what she presumed to be Fat Nuggets was actually her dinner from hours ago. A quick trip to the bathroom to hose down.

More rolling and twitching.

Then the most terrifying of all... it felt so real. Leslie woke from more humdrum nonsense to the sound of scratching. As the bedside lamp flickered on by itself, she saw an ink drawing on the wall, floor to ceiling, etched with the spidery thinness of a serial killer's hand. A human-looking doll with crosses over its eyes, and its facial features and other appendages circled.