Head Full of Ghosts

Chapter 32 - I Disappear

Zahra didn't know where she was running to, she just ran. She ran until her legs and her lungs felt like they were going to give out, and then she ran a little more and they did. She slipped on a slick patch of grass and fell, tumbling down the slight incline of the lawn she found herself on until finally coming to a stop.

Once she did, she was unable to do anything but lay there, exhausted to the point that she was convinced she was dying. Air felt like knives scraping her lungs and her throat as she gasped desperately for breath. Her vision was black and blurred, though she was only distantly aware of the tears streaming out of her eyes. Her heart was pounding in her chest at a million miles an hour, and it felt ready to simply explode.

She lay where she had fallen for at least an hour, completely oblivious to the world around her. Her eyes were closed, squeezed tightly shut, but she still saw something with them. Just the one thing. The horrible woman thing that had come out of the box. The image of her standing there, smiling, while drenched in the blood of so many people that Zahra knew. That she had been close to. That she had called friend.

That were now all dead.

Zahra wasn't sure she could handle it. She wasn't sure she could ever go on again. There would always be that horrible memory in her brain and that monstrous image burned into her eyes.

Kevin - no, not Kevin. That woman, that thing, had called him Eli. Eli had warned them that if they entered that room, they would all be dead. He had warned them, but they didn't believe him.

But he had lied about everything. Basically everything he had said to her since she met him had all been a lie. Everything. Why would this one thing have been the truth?

Why couldn't he have just told the truth from the start? All of this would have been avoided.

The woman thing would be coming for her. There was no doubt in her mind about that. It wouldn't let her live. It couldn't. It would hunt her down and do to her what it... what it...

She burst into a fresh round of tears, the image now seared into her brain of the piles of bodies far too much to bear.

She didn't care. Let the woman find her. Let her tear her apart. At least then it would be over. Then she wouldn't have to live with those memories anymore.

She rolled over onto her back, arms spread out to either side of her, and waited.

And waited.

But the woman thing never came.

She sat up and looked around. She had been lying there for hours. The sun was already getting low in the sky. She had been a sitting duck all this time. The woman could've come for her, devoured her. But she didn't. Why didn't she?

Then Zahra realized what was going on. The woman must have known, or figured out, that Zahra came from a town of people. Or maybe Eli had even told her. He seemed to know the woman well.

So maybe the woman was following her. Maybe she hoped that Zahra would lead her to the town, and there she would have a free buffet of endless bodies. A chance to do to an entire town what she had done to that room.

Zahra couldn't be responsible for that.

She wanted to run back to the town. To warn them. To hide under the covers and forget the day ever happened. To have someone hold her and tell her everything was going to be alright, even though clearly nothing was ever going to be alright again. Ever.

But she couldn't do those things. If she went back to the town, the woman would follow her. So instead, she had to lead the woman away from the town. To lead her away so directionless and for so long that the woman finally gave up on finding the town and simply killed her instead. That was her responsibility now.