Page 5 of A Storm of Nightmares

“Betty and Dan just started... um... sleeping together. And she’s not on her period right now.” My mouth starts moving without my permission, and I immediately regret confessing my sister’s business. I look over at my dad and give him my best I’m sorry look. It doesn’t do much to calm him. He looks like he could explode at the drop of a hat.

“Ok, well, I think we gathered as much information as we can for tonight. Thank you for your cooperation. We’ll be in contact.” Officer Sanders reaches into his shirt pocket, pulls out a card, and gives it to my mom. “If any of you can think of anything else, or if you hear from Betty, please reach out to me.” He gives us a quick smile that doesn’t feel genuine at all, and then the two police officers make their way out the front door.

Chapter 2

“Kat?” I hear Betty’s voice calling out my name. I grab the doorknob and throw my bedroom door open in a hurry. I take a few swift steps down the hall, sliding to a stop in front of Betty’s room, and try to open the door, but it won’t budge. “Kat, are you there?” She sounds so scared.

I start banging on her door and pulling the doorknob with all of my strength, but nothing works. I feel hot tears run down my cheeks, but I can’t give up. I have to get this damn door open. I have to see my sister.

“Kat, help me! You have to get me out of here! Please hurry!” I can hear Betty’s harsh breathing through her desperate sobs, and it only makes my own tears fall faster. My efforts are futile. I can’t get to her. I fall onto my knees, still banging on the door, but my arms are growing tired.

Just when I am about to give up, the lock clicks, and the door slowly swings open right in front of me. I get to my feet and rush inside Betty’s room, but she isn’t there.No. She has to be here. I just heard her from the other side of the door!

I spin in a circle, my eyes checking every inch of the dark room. I go to the open window and peer outside, thinking maybe she got out that way. But there’s just dark nothingness.

A chill runs down my spine. I turn towards Betty’s bed, but I can hardly make myself look at it. The second my eyes land on her hot pink sheets, the room seems to grow even darker.

I take a step towards the bed. And then another. There’s blood on the sheets. A few drops a first, but with each second passing, the dark crimson dots grow and multiply until the entire bed is covered. I hold my breath in fear. This isn’t possible.

I close my eyes and try to shake the image out of my head, but then I hear something shuffling behind me. My eyes fly open. The bed is gone. I look around in a panic and realize everything is gone. I’m standing alone in an empty bedroom.No!I throw my hands up and take my hair in both fists while I scream in frustration.

“Kat!” Betty’s voice rings through my ears one last time, and I open my eyes, breathing heavily.Fuck.My nightmares are getting worse. I sit up in my bed, put my hand on my forehead and let the tears build in the corners of my eyes while I try to catch my breath. I look around at my room, panting and disoriented for a moment until I remember where I am.

I’m not in my childhood bedroom; I’m not even in the same neighborhood. It’s been four years since that night. The night that my entire world shattered around me. I’m twenty, I live on my own in a studio apartment, and I still see Betty every time I close my eyes.

I get out of bed and make my way to the bathroom. A shower will help clear my mind. Scalding hot water usually does the trick. I step out of my pajama bottoms and pull my t-shirt over my head while the water heats up.

The anniversary of Betty’s disappearance is coming up, and every year as it gets closer, I can hardly breathe. I can hardly sleep. And when I do sleep, I dream of her. I have nightmares about the night my sister went missing while I was in the room right next to hers. I spent that night reading.Reading, for fuck’s sake.I should have heard an intruder or a struggle, or at the very least, I should have felt that something was wrong. Intuition, a gut instinct, whatever you want to call it.

I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and want to throw my hairbrush through it. But I practice self-restraint, so I don’t break yet another one. I can’t afford to keep buying new mirrors.

In high school, I was so envious of Betty’s beauty. I never thought I looked like her. I saw myself as the ugly duckling between the two of us. Crazy, I know. I’m not ugly; I do understand that. But it was hard growing up with a perfect sister. She had the looks and the personality, and I just had my stupid books.

Now that she’s gone, all I see when I look in the mirror are the similarities between her and me. It’s like looking at a ghost. Sure, her hair was a few shades lighter than mine, and her eyes blue, not green, but we were so much more alike than we were different, and I can see that now. Because of that, I hate looking in mirrors. I can’t stand to see Betty’s face looking back at me.

After I take a quick shower and gather myself into a semblance of a functioning human, it’ll be time to get to work. My parents are not happy with my career path, but it was my only option as far as I’m concerned. The choice was made for me the day Betty vanished. I tried the whole college thing, but I couldn’t do it.

College was Betty’s thing. She was so excited to move to LA with Dan and start a new chapter in life. Every minute that I sat in class, I felt like I was stealing from Betty. Taking what was meant to be the best time of her life. It made me sick after a while. I left after my first year and haven’t looked back since.

Now, I’m a private investigator. I work out of my apartment, and my business is just starting, so finances are very tight. I know this is what I’m supposed to be doing, though, so I don’t mind the initial struggle. It’s more than worth it.

The cops failed Betty four years ago. They never came up with any suspects or leads as to where she may have been taken. Officer Beer Belly kept insisting Betty had run off with Dan, and they were out in the world somewhere, living happy lives. That prick. He suggested we all try our best to move on.Move on?As if it’s easy to stop thinking about my sister every second of every single day and wondering if she was even alive.

My parents tried their best to lead normal lives, but they’ve been broken since Betty went missing. It’s a wonder they’re even still married. Our family hasn’t been the same without her. I talk to them once or twice a month, and I only moved a few blocks away, but we’re not close. I think it hurts them to see Betty when they look at me.

A part of me has always wondered if they blame me for her disappearance, the way I’ve always blamed myself. After all, I was the only one there that night. I’ve wondered if my parents had been home that night, would they have felt the coming storm? Would my mom have gotten that freaky sixth sense that only mothers get?

I can’t help thinking that I’m an awful daughter, an even worse sister, for not helping Betty that night. Not that I’m some strong hero who could fight off a kidnapper, but maybe, just maybe, if I had intervened at the right moment and caught the intruder by surprise, I could have prevented so much heartbreak.

Soaking my sorrows in a hot shower is the only thing I can do lately to keep my anxiety and grief at bay. I need the pain, the burn of the water cascading down my body until my skin screams for relief. It grounds me.

While I’m inhaling the thick steam that surrounds me in the shower, images of my horrid nightmare flash through my mind. It nearly brings me to my knees. My heart races at the recollection of Betty’s blood-soaked bed. I clamp my eyes shut tightly while I try to steady my breathing.

The blood on her sheets was the only thing that didn’t fit with Officer Sanders’ theory of Betty running away. If she packed up half the clothes in her closet and took off willingly with Dan, where did the blood come from? Betty wouldn’t have staged a scene. And if she did, there would have been more than three tiny droplets of blood. Things just don’t add up, and the way the night supposedly played out doesn’t sit right with me.

Although it was such a small amount, I will never believe that the blood means nothing. But there were no signs of a break-in or struggle, so the cops pretty much ruled out foul play. Incompetent imbeciles, if you ask me.

Blood. Waking up from a nightmare about Betty almost always results in me thinking about blood all day. And seeing as how I can’t get my sister out of my brain lately, my days have been total shit.

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