The Nightmare Catcher ch 2 part 2

Carrie sighed and stood in the threshold outside Dr Gordon's door. She watched the lives of so many people pass by her. She was in the middle of nowhere, she was almost 18 years old and she was supposed to living the best part of her life.

"After all these years and they still haven't found him..." She muttered. She thought long and hard about him, memories of earlier years came flooding into her mind. "You fucking bastard, just wait when I get a hold of you."

Taking a seat in Chickentown's small park, she quickly skimmed through the notes Rebecca had received from the social workers, doctors and her former school guidance counselor, Mrs. Miller "…We are referring Caroline T Reilly, for her outburst of negative behavior, bad temper, and we also believe that Caroline may be suffering from a eating disorder…"

She found a small letter from Dr Hellsinki, or Dr Hell, her former psychiatrist back in St Johanna.

"This girl has been bouncing from department to department for years; apparently, no one's ever made a proper diagnosis.

She's an enigma, for several reasons that you'll shortly see. Her condition since she came to us has improved a little, but she's a difficult girl to handle.

But then again, no one seemed to even have a clear guess of what was wrong with her. She'd been through every psychological profiling possible, and yes, while there were common elements, there was too little to make a clear estimate of her problem.

Perhaps in the beginning, all attempts by social-workers, therapists and doctors who tried to analyze her were met, to their great frustration, with a sullen silence and a great deal of intense staring at the floor, ceiling and walls from her. It wasn't until she moved out from Saint Johanna Psychiatric Clinic for Children in Saint Paul; she began to open up a little. But her casebook was filled with terms such as;

Lack of empathy…violent…antisocial…inflexible…anorexia...

Carrie found one small note from Dr Hellsinki…Possible Borderline Personality Disorder, we don't know?

Anorexia! No way! She had no problem eating a Big Mac together with a Super Big Menu, fast food or any kind of grease, except Chicken nuggets or any sort of food that contained chicken. (Thanks to chicken-factory TV-commercials). She was born skinny! That`s a biological fact.

But the rest of the words….Carrie took a deep sigh…were pretty close.

Certainly, she was polite and respectful to those who showed her respect. But when someone was forcing her to do something she didn't believe in, or want to do, nothing could move her from her spot. Carrie noticed Dr Gordon's notes that she had written earlier.

"Carrie is very unwillingly to talk about her family or herself. You need to almost force her to say anything at all, and when she does speak, it always about something other than the question. Mrs. Schwartz has just informed me that Carrie has threatened and insulted her classmates again and even ignored the detention she's just recieved. But this time Carrie has also threatened Mrs. Schwartz herself when she wanted to look in her sketchbook. Her grades are good but she is very antisocial. If this continues, I will have no choice to inform the socials and perhaps give her some new medicine, move her to another city or back to St Johanna.

But I will not give up on her! She`s a vulnerable but very strong girl who needs to find the right path!"

"Thanks for the warning!" The nerds are "anti-social", they are always playing computer games or reading chemistry books, but they don't get put into a straigtjacket! Why me?"

She didn't want to get involved with people, what was wrong with that? Speaking to people meant they started to ask questions, wanting to know her feelings and try make sense of her life. Rebecca was one the few therapists she'd met, who luckily was more open minded and actually cared about her. Rebecca couldn't understand Carrie's background history, so instead she focused more on her future.

Plus she was a woman with great stubborn patience.

Glancing at her watch, to read 13:28 pm; Carrie cursed the time and grabbed her bag, it was time for dinner and she was late. "Nancy is going to hand me my ass on a platter for being late…again." Opening her phone which she had kept shut down during her session, she found Nancy had tried to reach her ten times and sent five text messages. All with the same message:

"Carrie! If you read this message, I want you to go straight to "The Hill" after your meeting with Dr Gordon. It lays on the eastside of the city. You will find people there and I will be waiting for you. Something bad is going to happen! I don't know but DO IT NOW!"

Carries eyebrows frowned. This wasn't Nancy's style? She was a very calm and reasonable woman, she never interfered in Carrie's business or tried to control her life, (except forcing her go to school and the sessions.) One of the reasons Carrie stayed with her so long and hadn't run away like she had before with her two other foster families was because of Nancy's relaxed style of guardianship.

Is everyone turning insane?

"Carrie!"

Carrie ears shot up suddenly at hearing her name, she scanned the street for the source of irritation but she didn't see anyone she knew. "It must been someone else calling." She thought, trying to calm herself down. She began to walk down the park-road, but then she heard her name again. She whipped around looking for the person who had called her. Nobody there! A new terror filled her, was she now hearing voices? But the voices she heard were not like regular voices. The voices were whispers, like when you hear water from a far. They spoke to her.

"Higher Ground, You must go to higher ground."

"Oh great, I`m turning schizophrenic!" Carrie thought sarcastic, trying to ignore the sounds.

"Now you listen to me you stupid girl, Move your ass straight to the hill now or you will be very sorry." The voice sounded like an old woman and this time it screamed straight into her right ear, like she was standing right beside her.

"What the…!" She turned around fast and saw a mysterious woman standing very close beside her. She was old, with white hair and a night blue dress that looked like it came from another century.

But Carrie was even more surprised when the woman's face became shocked when Carrie looked straight into her eyes, almost as if she didn't except her to listen, or see her at all. Like when you expect a person to be deaf and you`re talking shit behind his back, until you discover he can very clearly hear you.

"You…can see me!"

"Yes of course I can see you!" Carrie shouted. Staring angrily at this crazy old woman who had just giving her a nice ringing sound in her right ear. "What is this all about?"

"Oh dear Izabella!" the old woman whispered, clutching her hands on her chest as she starred at Carrie. Something in her face changed. First it was the shock of Carrie's outburst, and then her expression became disturbed. Her eyes changed for a second, like her soul disappeared somewhere else, leaving her eyes all blank until it returned back to her… in her almost invisible body. Carrie froze, she could see through the woman's body. This wasn't any ordinary insane old woman?

"Oh my poor girl, this is going to change everything." The woman whispered sadly.

"What do you mean?" Carrie peered suspicious at her.

"The time of judgment is coming, and you will soon discover the truth about yourself. Prepare yourself and be brave."

Only this time, the answer didn't come from the old woman's lips. It came out of nowhere, which caused the old woman and Carrie to jump slightly and look around. But there was no one near them. The voice sounded young and feminine, like a soft breeze. It was something familiar in it, Carrie couldn't place it, but it felt like she'd heard it before, a long time ago.

Suddenly there was a tremendous roll of thunder that crashed over their heads and at the same time the streetlights flickered, causing everyone in the street to stop. Carrie frowned, looking up at the sky as she wiped away the first raindrops on her face, watching as the dark clouds started to overpower the blue sky.

Carrie looked back at the woman, but she had disappeared out of the blue. Did she just image it? Or did an old crazy ghost woman or something just tell her that "everything is going to change?". Is it some kind an apocalypse? Then the strange voice giving her a strange riddle?

What`s going on?

Taking Nancy's command with heart, Carrie started to walk fast to the hill. She wasn't the only one who'd chosen this road. Surprised that she hadn't notice before that people were carrying bags, suitcases and personal belongings on their backs. Shops were closed and there were no cars in sight, except one in a backyard. An old rusty red Ford. This wasn't a few people moving out from the city because someone started a "bandwagon effect", this was a mass evacuation!

And then something far, far stranger happened. At first she thought it was her senses playing tricks on her. She turned around and realized others were feeling it too. The very ground beneath their feet was rumbling, as if a small but persistent earthquake was happening below the streets of Chickentown. Now something new, from outside the city, less than a mile away, came hurrying after the vibrations. A strange sound she would never have imaged to hear, not here in the middle of Minnesota!

It was the sounds and smell of saltwater rushing.

She whirled around and saw...and sure enough, there was a huge tidal wave heading right for Chickentown.

"Oh my God…" she whispered.

This can't be happening, this could no fucking way be happening! They were hundreds of miles away from the nearest coast, but there it was. A huge thirty feet high wave, bearing down on them with the unstoppable motion of an avalanche, coming towards them at high speed.

Carrie didn't even think about running. She just did it. With pounding legs and burning lungs she ran as fast she could. The rain came like an ice-cold shower over her head; Carrie could hear the water behind her, and the screams of the other people trying to escape. She had to be above the level of that wave and she had but a brief span of few minutes to do it. The thought of rushing into the nearest building and climbing to the roof was in her head, but in the corner of her eye she noticed the old car standing few meters from her and changed her mind.

Having some lessons how to hot-wire a car from her old days in St Paul, Carrie unlocked the front seat, climbed in as fast as she could and managed to turn on the motor by tying a negative and positive cable together under the steering wheel. Praying the car had enough gas!

Not caring if this car belonged to someone else who perhaps should need it right now, Carrie pushed the pedal down with her Doc Marten boot, shot out to the street and then stepped hard on the accelerator and headed towards the end of the town, far away from the wave. Her heart was beating like mad. She watched as some people just stood there on the sidewalks staring at the wave. Others ran around like crazy chickens. Through her rearview mirror, the water was coming in at every direction now and all things; trees, benches; trash cans, children's plastic paddling pools and trampolines were being dragged along the ride.

People too…

Blinking with surprise, Carrie could swear it seemed like two huge ships were surfing over the waves towards the town. One painted red and one that seemed to look like a damned ghost-ship from a horror movie. She prayed that Rebecca has listened to her husband and gotten out of the town, and that Nancy was safe and sound on the top of the hill. Because the chances of not getting smashed by the water were pretty slim.

And before she knew it, the car's bonnet crashed into a huge dumpster that had just rolled into the road in front of her. Luckily she had her seatbelt on, but the last thing Carrie could remember seeing before she passed out was the wave smashing into right side of a building next to her and then one second later it was towering over her like a dark shadow.

"Yes, this is going to change everything!"