Free Mania by Craig Larsen Page B

the lake. Nick held his elbow, keeping his brother from losing his footing in the slippery snow as they climbed the embankment. Once they reached the road, the two brothers ran the rest of the way home, their skates digging into their ribs, their hockey sticks gripped in their frozen hands.
     
    Nick woke Sam late that night, holding the lens of a flashlight against Sam’s mattress, shaking him on his arm. Sam awoke in a cold sweat and yelped, then saw his brother’s face in the eerie reddish glow emanating from the flashlight. “What?” he said. “What is it?”
    “I’m scared.”
    “I know,” Sam said. “But don’t worry. No one’s going to find out. No one knows where we were today.”
    “It’s not that,” Nick said.
    “What?”
    “What if that man followed us home?” Nick asked.
    “What are you talking about?” Sam asked him. His face was a collage of shadows in the dimming light of the weak flashlight, gradually darkening as the batteries died. “He didn’t follow us anywhere. Don’t you remember what happened?”
    Nick felt stunned. He wasn’t sure what his brother was asking him.
    “You really don’t remember what we did?”
    Nick shook his head.
    “You can get in bed with me if you want.” Sam lifted the covers to let his younger brother climb into the narrow bed next to him.
    “I’m scared,” Nick said. The batteries gave out before he switched the flashlight off, and Nick was still awake when the room went black.

chapter 9
    A few nights after Sam’s murder, Nick woke up in a panic, certain that Sam’s mutilated body was lying in bed next to him. The room was pitch black. The dim green numerals on the old digital clock on his nightstand cast the only light in the thick, musty darkness. 4:02 A.M. The shades were pulled closed, but it would hardly have mattered had they been open. Outside the nighttime sky was heavy with storm clouds. Nick became aware of the windswept patter of rain being blown against the window glass. He reached a hand out, blindly searching beneath the covers for the corpse next to him. His heart leapt in his chest when he felt the smooth skin of Sara’s slender shoulder instead. Nick thought that it felt like ivory.
    “Are you awake?” Her voice shattered the night with the intensity of a china cup dropped onto a tile floor.
    “I don’t know.”
    Nick was aware of the perspiration on his face before he was able to comprehend the passage of time. A light had been switched on next to the bed, revealing the dinginess of his cramped one-room apartment. Sara was sitting on the edge of the mattress next to him, peering down at him with a glass of water in her hand, concern evident on her face. Nick glanced at the clock. 4:50. Forty-five minutes had somehow disappeared.
    “I was dreaming,” Nick said. “A terrible dream.”
    “Here.” Nick realized that Sara was holding something toward him. A small orange tablet, barely the size of the head of a pin.
    Nick shook his head. “I took one already.”
    “You need to sleep, darling.” Sara set the glass down on the dresser, then placed the tranquillizer next to it. When she faced Nick again, her eyes had turned to glass. It took Nick a few beats to understand that she was crying. When she blinked, a tear tumbled down her cheek, then crystallized into a diamond on the cusp of her chin before freefalling toward the bed.
    “I don’t know what’s real,” Nick said.
    “The doctor said you were going to have trouble accepting Sam’s death, Nick.” Sara didn’t mean to touch his face. But she did. Her fingers were as cold as ice on his forehead, then gently gliding through his hair. “And I don’t blame you, sweetheart. It’s only been a few days. You’ve barely slept.”
    Nick shook his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t mean that. I know that Sam’s dead.”
    Sara waited for her lover to continue.
    “I meant about my dream. The last few weeks, I keep having the same dream. I’m back in Madison. In