Chapter 3: Aftermath

"How are you feeling?" Allison asked.

We had just cleared the bank parking lot and were sitting at the light, waiting.

"Me? How are you feeling? Are you really feeling sick or was that just to get us out of there?"

"Mostly that, yeah; I mean, if I think about it too much, or start to picture it in my head, then it kind of builds up. Seeing her lying there with half her head..."

I cut her off, "Okay, enough. Don't go there."

"See what I mean?"

"Yeah, let's change the subject, where do you want to go? Do you still want to go shopping?"

"I'd love to, but I think it would piss off the powers that be, who are going to be plenty ticked off at us already. If we're not at least someplace they can find us ... No, I think our best bet is to pick up Shannon and go back to the house."

"You want to drag her into this?"

The light changed. I made a left and watched the bank sign disappear into the rear view mirror knowing it would never look the same to me again.

"No, but she needs to know what's going on and for once it would be nice if she didn't have to be the last to know. Besides, you know how her brain works -- she might have some ideas, she always does.

We were only three blocks away when I had to pull over to let two oncoming police units go by on the opposite side.

"Just about what I figured," Allison said. "We barely got out of there in time. Five more minutes and we were gonna be stuck there with nothing to do but stare at the walls until Mom or Dad came to get us. They probably would have wanted to separate us so we couldn't talk about it."

"Yeah, like that would have worked, sooner or later we'd have dozed off and then we could talk about anything we wanted."

"On top of that the cops and the FBI probably would have been tossing questions at us all day hoping we would start talking out of sheer boredom."

"Why the FBI?"

"Bank robbery is a federal crime. One of them got away; the feds will manage the hunt."

I thought about that for a second. "What are we going to tell Rebecca?"

"As little as we possibly can. Nothing at all if we can get away with it. She's in LA and occupied with the other case so it's unlikely she'll be involved with this one. I'm sure she'll hear about it sooner or later but unless she knows we were there it won't mean much to her."

I pulled into Shannon's driveway. The garage door was open and Karen's car was gone.

"Just checking. I don't know how she would react if she found out the truth. Allison, I just..."

She cut me off as she opened her door. "Don't. You can tell me later, and by that I mean after the police, later. I don't want you to try and explain it to me because that will make you think about it and try to analyze it and then you might slip and accidentally say something that would sound wrong. We can't take that chance."

I got out and followed her up to the door. She rang the bell, knocked twice, rang the bell again, and then she just opened the door and walked in. If Mark or Shannon were home they would know it was us. Right on cue Shannon met us in the entryway still brushing her teeth. She mumbled something that sounded like "just a minute" and offered Allison a cheek.

Through the sliding door I could see Mark out on the patio cleaning the pool. He looked different somehow but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. As I walked toward the door I realized what it was, he was taller, in fact he was bigger all over, his shoulders were broader, his arms were fuller, and he had let his hair grow out longer than I think I had ever seen it. Suddenly it hit me, this was my best friend, and I hadn't seen him or talked to him in ... weeks? No, it was probably longer than that. He hadn't been around much at family gatherings now that he had a job. And then there was - God help me I didn't even know if he had a girlfriend, much less who it might be. I glanced over at Allison and she fixed me with an intent look while twitching her head in Mark's direction. I got the message, opened the slider and stepped out.

"That is so sad," I said.

He gave me a confused look and said, "Good morning to you too. What's so sad?"

"I just realized I haven't really seen you all summer. Dude, you're getting huge." I walked up to him to emphasize the point and sure enough, he was a good four inches taller than me at least. "We've always been close to the same size -- you were starting to creep up there at the end of school -- but now ... and you're getting all buffed out, I mean, damn, look at your arms. Where have you been working out?"

"Right, like I have spare time for pumping iron. This is just from work. You should try it sometime."

"You got all this from asking people if they want fries?"

"Dude, where have you been? I haven't worked there since school got out. I'm working in a warehouse; I move stuff around. Sure the big orders are on pallets but still, a lot of the orders are put together stuff, one of these, two of those, and I'm their newest trained monkey. So anytime they need someone to fetch and carry, you know who they call"

"Well, it shows, you look good. So what else have I been missing? I don't even know if you have a girlfriend these days."

"Not really, Shari lost interest after I quit. I think she got tired of me never being available. The first couple weeks on the new job, I thought I was going to die. She wanted to hang out all the time but all I wanted to do when I got home was shower, eat, and crash. So suddenly I was single again, but that's okay, I'm banking my paychecks and hoping to pick up something decent to drive soon. If you should suddenly have a mind to dump that truck of yours cheap, let me know."

I laughed and said, "I'll keep it in mind."

We stood silently staring down into the blue water of the pool, watching the vacuum head move back and forth. Finally he spoke again.

"I never really had a chance to say anything before, but I'm sorry about Angela, I know she was special to you."

"Yeah," I said softly, "she ... was." The emotion in my voice covered the break but still, I had almost blown it and said 'is' instead of 'was.' Allison was right, I needed to bury Angela completely until her 'killer' was caught and she could come back.

"How's her brother doing? I heard he was plenty broke up about it."

"He was, still is, but after this morning I think he's going to be okay."

"Why, what happened this morning?"

"I figured out he's been holding a lot in since she died, running away instead of dealing with it. I went over and pissed him off, then let him vent a little. I think he'll be okay now, we had breakfast and then I dropped him at Cindy's so they could talk, she's going to take him home on her way to work. We'll see how it goes from there." I decided it was time to change the subject. "Your mom back in LA with your dad?"

"Yeah, it's test day. He's spending the whole day getting poked, prodded, and having things shoved places I don't even want to think about. Then comes the fun part; waiting for the results. Mom's trying to hide it but she's pretty stressed about it already." He checked his watch and pulled the hose out of the pool. "Time to get ready for work; you and the twins got plans today?"

"Not any more. Allison wanted me to take them to the mall to shop for school clothes but that kind of got shot down. I have to call my dad when I get home; we'll see what happens from there."

"Sounds serious, what happened?"

"There was a problem at the bank. Technically speaking, we should have stayed there, but it's not like they're going to lock us up for bailing out." He glanced at me and I shook my head. "Probably shouldn't say anything else for now. Don't worry, we're not really in any trouble but the police are going to want to talk to us, so until they do I don't think I should be giving out any details."

"Nothing serious," he retorted, "just the police wanting to talk to you about a problem at the bank? The last problem the police wanted to talk to you about involved you beating the shit out three guys. What did you ... never mind, you're right, you probably shouldn't talk about it."

He finished storing the vacuum hose in the little shed then stuck out his hand. "It's good to talk to you again, Jimmy, I hadn't realized how long it's been. You are planning to drive me and Shannon to school, right? I mean, I don't want to be a third wheel or anything, but..."

I took his hand and shook it. "Of course, don't be stupid, and don't worry, you won't be a third wheel. Shannon and I are making sure things don't get too serious. For now, we're just friends who will never have to worry about finding a date or someone to go to the dance with, but we want to make sure we don't rush into anything. She means too much to me to risk losing her because we got carried away."

"Dude, you have no idea how good it is to hear you say that. I had this weird idea the two of you were hooking up and I don't think I could take you banging my sister. Making out is one thing, but she's too young to be doing the nasty, even with a nice guy like you."

"Mark, you know I would never do anything to hurt Shannon. Or let anyone else hurt her either."

He smiled and held out his hand again. "Yeah, at least I don't have to worry about her being safe when she's with you." This time when I took his hand, he pulled me in close and hugged me. "Thanks for taking care of her, and for being there for my mom too. It means a lot to her how much you guys care, it means a lot to all of us." He gave me a firm squeeze and then headed into the house, passing the girls who were headed out as he was going in.

Once Mark had disappeared down the hall, Allison asked, "What was that all about? I'd swear he was almost crying."

I stared intently into her eyes as I answered, "No, I'm sure you were mistaken. We were just talking about some things, catching up and stuff, then he went to get ready for work."

She held my eye for few seconds before nodding. "Right. My mistake. Okay, so let's get out of here; we've got lots to do and we don't know how much time we have so ... the sooner we get home, the sooner we can get started. I left a note for Karen telling her we'd be at our house for the rest of the day."

Pulling into the driveway triggered something, maybe it was the safety of being home, I don't know, but suddenly the reality of what had happened, and what I had done, burst full upon me. I had killed five people. Somehow I had taken over a man's daydream and twisted it into something so real he couldn't tell the fantasy from reality and had killed four people, one of whom had killed him at the same time. I sat there, staring blankly at the steering wheel and not even really seeing it, not knowing what to do next.

"Jimmy?" Allison's voice seemed to drift on the air around me. It took me a second to focus on the source. I looked down and found her hand already resting on my thigh but I couldn't remember it being there before. Following the arm upward eventually led me to her face. It was obvious that she knew what I was thinking, but it was the look on Shannon's face behind her that pulled me back towards reality.

"My God," she said, "what's wrong?"

I shook my head and said, "We need to go inside." Without waiting for an answer I opened my door and climbed out. I heard her pressing Allison for information as I walked around the truck and opened her door. I took her hand to help her out; she didn't actually need help but this was something I liked to do for them whenever we went anywhere. I had grown up watching my dad do it for my mom and seeing how special it made her feel. She stepped out of the truck and into my arms. As I hugged her to me tightly and kissed her neck, I could feel the tears beginning to leak down my face.

"Hey, need a little room here guys," Allison said as she tried to climb out of the truck. I released Shannon and her eyes got wide as she saw the tears. She gave Allison a look but she just shook her head and said, "Inside. Take him to his bedroom and make him lie down; I know you're worried but promise me you'll wait until I get there before you start asking questions. Jimmy, give me your phone. Promise me, Sha; it's important, we can't talk about this here; just take him to his room and both of you get comfortable."

Shannon took my hand and I tried to apologize and explain as she led me through the garage, "I'm sorry, Shannon, I just..." but she cut me off.

"Shhh! Don't talk, wait for Allison." She kissed me and squeezed my hand. "It's okay, I can wait. C'mon." She steered me on to my bed and began taking my shoes off. As soon as they were off, she reached for my shorts.

"I don't think that's what she had in mind when she said to make me lie down," I said, wiping my eyes.

She smiled and pulled my shorts down and off, "In you go. Lie down before the little mommy gets here and spanks us both." As I crawled dutifully into bed, Shannon quickly stripped down to her underwear and climbed in with me, snuggling into my side and resting her head on my shoulder. When I hugged her to me and kissed the top of her head she shifted and lifted her face for a real one. It was a wonderful distraction from thinking about what had happened at the bank so I ran with it.

I like kissing; from the very first time I had kissed Shannon, the night I had invaded her fantasy and discovered my ability, kissing had become one of my favorite pastimes.

Kissing is an amazing thing. It's one of those things that everybody does a little differently, and it's an excellent form of communications; volumes can be spoken in an instant with a simple kiss. Kissing is also the earliest form of oral sex we are ever exposed to. It's amazing to me that most people don't even recognize it as sex, but think about it, what are you doing? You're making love to someone's mouth, with yours. If you have ever gone down on a woman I challenge you to tell me how it's any different. As oral sex, it is also unique in one way. It's the only form of oral sex that both partners can practice at the same time without being distracted by what the other partner is doing. Kissing also engages all five senses on a level that few other activities do. Think about it and you'll know I'm right.

Granted I don't get around much, but so far all the girls I have kissed say I'm really good at it. They say it's because I seem to be focused on what I'm doing. I pay attention, respond to my partner, and I don't get distracted. That part's true; when I'm kissing a girl, really kissing, not just a casual or passing brush of lips, but a real kiss, that is the only thing I'm doing. Apparently that's unusual for guys, especially guys my age. In most cases they're thinking about where they want to go next: where their hands are and where they want them to be, or getting the girl's clothes off and what they will do if they get that far. Even if they're already having sex, the guy seems to be in a hurry to get there again. Hello? Seems to me that if you pay attention to what you're doing you stand a much better chance of getting there. If she's not happy with this step, you're not likely to get to the next one.

Ang ... Amber once told me that how a guy kisses tells a girl a lot about how he is going to be in bed. Is he in a hurry? Does he kiss you gently or hard? Does he respond to your kiss or just rush ahead and trust you to keep up? Kissing a girl will tell you a lot also. Is her mouth tense? Then she's nervous or apprehensive. Is she pulling back? You either have really bad breath or you are doing something she doesn't like. Never rush a kiss unless you are 100% certain your partner shares your sense of urgency. Kissing is great foreplay; I never have to ask what the girls are in the mood for. If they kiss me gently, teasing at my mouth, playing with my tongue; then I know they want me to make love to them. If one of them, most often Allison, starts raping my mouth, then I know I need to start tearing things off and fuck her like I'm mad at her.

I was still lost in Shannon's mouth when Allison showed up. I hadn't even realized she had come in until I felt the covers move.

"Any other time I'd be wanting some of that action for myself, but right now we need to talk and we can't do that here. Everybody get comfortable and let's go someplace more private, and since I missed out on the make out, I get the middle."

I kissed Shannon's nose and slid over to make room for our other lover. Once she was settled and everyone was ready I whispered one of our group triggers and we all dropped into dreamland. Since I

didn't have a venue in mind we ended up in one of our glades. There are two. The original is Allison's. It's a place she created several years ago to relax. The other is an exact duplicate that I made without even knowing it. The rules are different in mine and we usually go there automatically, but every once in a while if I'm not thinking about it we'll end up in hers. A quick check of our rings said it was mine. In Allison's version both of our rings would have been visible when we were touching. In mine Allison's is missing.

"Okay we're here," Shannon said, sitting up. Suddenly, instead of being cuddled up half naked, we were dressed summer casual, you know; shorts, light tops, and sandals, sitting in wicker chairs.

"There's been an escalation," Allison said.

"Yah," I said. "You could call it that."

"Escalation my ass," Shannon said irritably. "There's got to be more to it than that. We've had escalations since the very beginning, but you've never reacted like this. What happened?"

I swallowed hard, suddenly unable to speak.

Allison glanced at me and then looked back at Shannon. "So much for not talking about it until after ... This escalation killed five people."

Shannon was appropriately dumbfounded. She sat for a second with her mouth hanging open and apparently no idea what to say.

"Okay, now that you're sufficiently shocked I'll tell you the rest," Allison said. "It also saved me, Jimmy, and six people who work at the bank. There was a robbery. When we got to the bank, I was on the phone with you, and then the security guy came over and asked me to come inside. You remember that part?"

"Yeah, you said they needed you for something and hung up."

"Well, before I even walked into the bank there was a gun in my back and he took the phone away. Once I was through the door I saw all the staff sitting on the floor with their hands on top of their heads. The security guy told me to sit with the others, shut up, and do what I was told. He never even waited to see if I did it, he just turned around and left. The reason he didn't worry about my compliance is there was another guy with a gun leaning on a desk watching everyone on the floor. His gun had a silencer on it. Pretty obvious what the option was. Mr. Personality tossed him the phone before he left. I'd only been there a few seconds when another guy brought Jimmy down the hall. Once they had us all they duct taped our hands behind us and then taped our mouths. Apparently one of the employees was in on it. Her name was Linda and she's the newest teller. We figured it out after the phone rang and they had her take the call. They hadn't taped her mouth and she sounded way too calm on the phone to be worried about him actually shooting her. Jimmy and I tried to drop out and meet so we could talk but the guy watching us woke us up again as soon as we fell asleep. We sat there for a while longer then suddenly I could see Jimmy was kind of looking funny. The next thing I know the guy with the gun shoots Linda; God that was so gross, one second they were staring at each other like they wanted to do it right there on the floor, the next there's blood flying everywhere, everybody starts screaming around their gags and two guys come running out of the vault. Psycho shoots both of them before they get three steps and then sort of slinks over to the vault, looks down inside and then points his gun at something. Just as he pulls the trigger the guy in the vault shoots him. When the bullets hit him, Jimmy practically went into convulsions on the floor and I knew what had happened."

Shannon's gotten a lot better at this since we started. She doesn't need nearly as much explanation as she used to. Must be hanging around Allison so much, because she doesn't interrupt any more either, just waits until you're through, then asks any questions that came up. She picked up on this right away. She looked at me. "You bridged this guy while you were both awake?"

I nodded. "Sort of. We were both awake but I didn't actually bridge him until he started daydreaming."

"Daydreaming? About what?"

"Fucking Linda," I answered. "Apparently she was hooked up with the guy in charge but the two of them were having an affair."

"And you saw this?" Allison asked. Now that she'd given the part she was sure of she was just as anxious for the details as Shannon.

"Not until I was in. I think I need to show you. Tell me if any of this looks familiar." I closed my eyes and concentrated and suddenly we were back in the bank. I was looking at Allison as the guy with the gun was getting on her about staying awake. I even felt my rage at his mistreatment of her.

"Stop," Allison's voice came from nowhere. "Shannon, did you feel that?"

"Yeah, he's pissed at the way that guy's treating you."

"He's so sweet. But we've never felt anything when he's done this replay thing before. I just wanted to see if it was just me or if you felt it too. Go ahead, Jimmy."

I let the scene move forward and suddenly I felt that tickling sensation and looked at the gunman. There was the rushing sensation and suddenly I was in. Then the view shifted."

"Oh my God," Allison whispered, and I knew she understood.

"What?" Shannon asked.

"Tell you later, just watch."

The vision played out as before, even the points where I was looking out my own eyes with the vision of what the gunman was seeing overlaid on top. I never realized how fast everything had happened before, but suddenly it was over and Allison was in motion. The guard came and went; Allison called 911 and then started freeing us. I waited until she had told me how to make the pain go away then stopped the sequence and we were back in the glade.

"Okay," Shannon said, "just a couple of quick things; why did you scream into the phone and then knock it on the floor?"

"If I'd tried talking they would have asked a bunch of questions, this way they would just ID the number as being a bank and send in the marines. I figured it wouldn't waste as much time. Besides, I needed to get back to Jimmy and get us the hell out of there."

"That's another one: Aren't they going to be pissed that you guys left?"

I responded, "Oh yeah! They'll be plenty pissed, but they really can't do anything to us. If we had stayed they would have wanted statements. We wouldn't have had to answer anything, but it would have looked funny if we hadn't. They couldn't make us talk to them at all unless they called mom or dad first. We could just refuse to talk and they couldn't touch us until our parents or legal guardians showed up. Even then we could have demanded an attorney first or just refused to talk about it, and as minors they couldn't really push the issue. The chances of our being able to tell them anything different than anyone else there is pretty slim. Still, we didn't want to be stuck there all day with them trying to get us to say something. So we left. The bank staff will tell them who we are. They'll also point out that we are kids, so they'll probably be really careful when they come over to talk to us. We canceled the rest of the day so we could be here in case they showed up. If they are mad about us leaving then they really wouldn't be happy if we made them look for us. We're going to need to call Mom and Dad soon either way so we'll have to keep this short. I want to warn them that the police will be coming by; I don't know if we actually need a lawyer present or not."

"We do," Allison said. "We need to have someone explain to them that it would be a really bad idea for our names to be associated with anything that happened, especially in any documents or statements that might be released to the press. They'll need to make sure the bank staff doesn't mention us either. Then we need to make sure the press knows that if our names are mentioned we will take action against anyone that puts the information out to the public. I think Mr. Carruthers would be a good choice; he certainly handled the hotel thing well."

"Girl, you don't miss a trick. So what did you see back there that I missed?" Shannon asked.

"Well, you saw Jimmy bridge the guy, then take over his daydream and turn it into something else? I'm guessing a series of memories because they seemed to be real life actions that he recognized. Basically he was reliving past events and responding as if they were really happening. He was literally lost in the dream, not even realizing that it was a dream and responding like it was really happening. You saw him do all that?"

"Yeah, I watched the whole thing. It was incredible."

"No, you didn't."

Shannon shook her head and looked at her. "What are you talking about?"

"It wasn't Jimmy that did it."

"Okay, I'm lost." She threw up her hands and stared at us.

"Play it again, Jimmy. Not the whole thing, just the part she needs to see. Watch closely, Sweetie. He warned us what was coming before he started."

I played the scene again from the point of his roughing Allison up, invading the daydream; she stopped me right after my perspective shifted.

"Look familiar?" Allison asked.

Suddenly Shannon got it and blurted out, "Holy shit! That's the same thing that happened at the end of the fight with Brad. You were back inside, but the view was weirded out and you couldn't stop yourself. This looked just like that, but that means..."

"That it wasn't me in control. Bob's explanation was good; it made sense even if it was far fetched, but it was still wrong. This wasn't an 'Id' thing, not just a wild fight or flight reaction. Somehow I took over that man's daydream, then picked a series of memories out of his mind and played them back so perfectly that he couldn't tell reality from the dream. I used him to kill four people. I don't know what would have happened if he hadn't been shot by the guy in the vault. Could I have pushed him so far that he would actually have killed himself? Would he have gone outside, killed the security guard then run in front of a truck still thinking he was running through the jungle? I don't know, and I don't want to."

Allison was shaking her head before I even finished, "It doesn't matter what you want. You need to know."

"What? Why do I need to know this? I don't want to be able to do that?"

"Don't you realize what this means?" Allison asked.

Shannon made one of her out of nowhere perfect observations, "Mikkelson."

"What?" I asked.

"Mikkelson,, " Shannon said, "And Parry. Don't you see Jimmy? It's you that's doing both their nightmares."

"I'm not! I couldn't do that to anyone."

Allison put her hand on mine, "You couldn't kill four people either, but something just did, and it used you to do it."

Her words seemed to fall in my chest like trees falling in the forest; tearing through all my arguments, and echoed through my mind when they finally hit. She was right. Someone, or something, had used my ability in a way I didn't even know it could work to kill four people, five if you counted the shooter. Was it unreasonable to consider that the same ... person, being, power ... had done the same thing to Parry and Mikkelson, using my ability to continue the nightmares after I stopped? With this question came the memory of an earlier conversation. It must have shown on my face because Allison caught it immediately.

"I know what you're thinking," she said.

Shannon nodded. "When we came back from doing Mikkelson, you said you were glad we went along because a part of you wanted to keep going."

I felt tears coming again, "Part of me did, and now it's killing people."

"Not necessarily," Shannon said. "It doesn't have to be part of you." Allison gave her an 'Oh, please' look but Shannon shot her down. "No, hear me out, there's precedent here. Amy moved Jimmy around without his knowing it."

"We don't know that." Allison countered, "Amy doesn't play by any of the regular rules. She can move around on her own. She said she's tried to see Rebecca but the scene freezes."

"Yes, but she also said it hurts to do it. The only time it doesn't hurt is if Jimmy does it. I think she's been using Jimmy's power all along, even if she doesn't know it. I'll admit that might be a bit of a stretch but you have to admit the possibility, and if she can, even hypothetically, then you have to accept the argument that someone else can too."

I looked at Allison to see if she had any holes she wanted to poke in the argument. Apparently, she didn't either because when I said, "She's right. It's a valid theory." She just plowed right ahead.