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  Part 5

  After that conversation, it seemed to John that all the people in the world were part of something like a fabric. He was connected to everyone that he met and he was like a string that tugged at their lives and altered their course. It was in that way that all living things were intertwined. He was connected to Alice Miller and Lauren and now to this man John and, of course, to Jillian. They had their own connections to everything else and each tug on the strings caused a rippling effect to travel all the way around the entire world. Jillian did something strange to this fabric. She was not connected to everything but only to John, and only while she fed on him. She was something of an aberration, but through him she was tugging on the fabric of reality in a strange way, causing it to bend around on itself like a ring.

  If the world really did work like this, then small things, small tugs on the strings, could have enormous effects. Reality was not a solid structure like stone. It was fragile if the strings were pulled from within. So maybe the future could change and maybe, if he could get rid of Jillian, then maybe the ring would snap back into the string that it was supposed to be. Maybe everything could go back to normal.

  John found himself contemplating these thoughts as he lied on his bed in his room. It was only the middle of the afternoon, and only a short while after finishing his conversation with the older John across the street. It would normally be impossible for him to sleep so early but he had dug through a drawer and found an old bottle of sleeping pills. There had been about a half dozen pills left in there and he had taken them all. He didn’t know how Jillian intended to kill Lauren but he was going to stop her if there was still time. Jillian always came when he slept.

  He was lying on his back staring at the ceiling and the drugs were beginning to make him drowsy. He had closed the curtains and placed towels over them to make the room darker. He remembered the last time he had slept flat on his back but he tried not to think of the terror that he had felt then.

  Before sleep overtook him, he wondered what he would be like if he made it out of this. Over the last few weeks he had become someone else. He realized now that he had been angry and frustrated but he had also been more confident. He hadn’t broken out in nervous sweats or stammered as much. He had been able to speak his mind and go about doing the things that people were supposed to be able to do like going to the movies without having panic attacks. If he could keep the good things, and get rid of the bad, of the symptoms of this withdrawal, then maybe he could be happy.

  And, of course, if he could save Lauren.

  John took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He felt sleep approaching and tried not to panic. Moments later, the medication did its job and he slept.

  When John's eyes opened they had adjusted to the darkness. His muscles were on fire and he couldn’t move. He felt the witch's presence in the room with him, off in the corner where she always appeared. He tried to move his lips to ask her if she really was Jillian, but he couldn’t, and it didn’t matter anyhow for now he believed it.

  As was inevitable, the witch jumped on top of him. He kept his eyes open and saw the grin on her ancient face and her sunken, black eyes. She tilted her head at him and wrapped her wrinkled fingers around his neck but didn’t squeeze.

  “Are you not afraid?” Her voice was like the rustling of dry leaves. John glanced to his left and the witch followed his gaze and she noticed them: there were lupins in his left hand, flowers that he had taken from the house across the street. The lupins let him think.

  Her eyes widened and she looked back at John. His eyes were turned to his right now, straining to look at where his other hand lay. Everything was riding on the trick that he had used to wake himself up. He focused his entire will on moving his right hand and the thing that it held.

  The witch followed his gaze again. As she turned her head, John broke out of the paralysis and his arm came up, and all that she saw, there in the dark, was the blade of a knife as it met her eye and buried itself in her skull.

  Conclusion

  Lauren burst through the door at Printsy’s and found Alice Miller sitting behind the cash register. The owner of the store frowned at her and stood up.

  “Lauren, what’s wrong? Where have you been?”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Miller,” Lauren said. “I have no idea what happened but I slept in. I woke up just now and my alarm was going off still from this morning.”

  Mrs. Miller frowned. “Lauren, it’s four o’clock. You’re telling me you slept until four in the afternoon?”

  “I’m so sorry Mrs. Miller. I have no idea what happened. I can work the rest of the day.”

  Lauren straightened her hair because she had not done so since getting up. Her face was flushed and she was wearing a t-shirt and jeans that she had thrown on in a rush.

  “Lauren, why didn’t you just call?”

  “I couldn’t find my phone, Mrs. Miller. Again, I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, stop apologizing, will you? Why don’t you just go home? I’ve been running the store on my own for most of the day, anyway, and you don’t look too well.”

  “By yourself? Where is John?”

  Alice Miller shrugged. “The strangest thing. He lost his mind earlier and burst out of here. He’s been very strange lately.”

  “Wow, yeah, I can’t believe that.”

  “Well, that’s not all.”

  “Oh no?”

  “He called back just a little while ago and apologized and said he needed a few days off for something. Again, very strange.”

  Lauren frowned. “A few days off for what? John doesn’t do anything.”

  Mrs. Miller smiled a little as she shook her head.

  “John said he’s going to spend a few days at the movies.”

  END.

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