Page 61 of Paranoid

No!

He is bleeding as he falls, his face ashen.

“Oh, God. Luke! No, no, no!” She watches in horror as she sees the light in his blue eyes dim, his lids close.

“No . . . no . . . I didn’t mean to—” Sobbing, she kneels beside him. He can’t be dead, can’t be. She feels as if her soul has been scraped raw as she touches his face. Cold. So cold. “I’m sorry. Oh, God, Luke, I’m so, so sorry.”

At that moment, his eyes open and he stares at her. “Where did you get the real gun?” he whispers.

“From you. You gave it to me.”

“Did I? I don’t think so.” Before her disbelieving eyes, his face begins to rot, his skin curdling away from his teeth, blood oozing, his nasal cavity exposed, his eyes bulging.

She screams and scuttles away, across the old plank floors, scrambling to her feet as she hears the others. Laughing. Screaming. Running.

Yet over it all the decaying, horrific thing lying before her whispers in a hoarse voice, “I forgive you.”

What? No!

“Stop!” She pulls the trigger. Hard. On purpose. Aiming for the creature that had been Luke.

Click. Click. Click!

“I forgive you,” the thing says again, his hideous voice a rasp, yet somehow ricocheting off the walls of the cannery.

“Stop! Just stop!”

Rachel’s eyes flew open.

Her own words echoed in her head even as they jarred her awake.

Sweating, breathing hard, her heart pounding a frantic tattoo, she was lying in her bed, not at the cannery. Twenty years had passed. Luke was long dead. She was safe in her own bedroom. There was no gun. She wasn’t going to shoot anyone, ever again. There was no gun. She wasn’t going to shoot anyone. Not ever!

Pushing her hair from her eyes, she felt beads of sweat on her forehead. In fact, her entire body was moist. Get a grip. For the love of God, Rachel, pull yourself together.

At the foot of the bed Reno was curled in a ball, but he’d lifted his head to stare at her. As he always did when the onslaught of night terrors caused her to cry out. “Sorry,” she said as if the dog could understand.

But she was sorry. So damned sorry. For everything that happened that night. If only she hadn’t gone to the cannery. If only she hadn’t gotten separated from Lila. If only she hadn’t had the wrong gun.

What was it Luke had said in the nightmare? When she’d accused him of giving her the deadly, real pistol.

Did I? I don’t think so.

She’d wondered about that....

If only she’d known more about guns.... Hell, she’d been a policeman’s daughter. She should have had some insight into what was real and what was not. But the truth was she’d never held a pistol before that night. Ned Gaston had seen enough damage with firearms to never allow one in the house. He’d even kept his own service weapon at the station.

“Don’t do this,” she told herself, speaking to the dark room. It was over. Long over. Luke was dead.

She eyed the clock: 2:47 a.m.

Her phone was on the nightstand and she checked it.

I forgive you.

The cryptic message was still there and had slid into her subconscious and her dream. Unfortunately, it had become part of her nightmare.

Click-click!