The Downward Spiral part 1

This won't be easy to write. I made it this far, so I might as well.

A day after she had shown me the menu, I found Catherine sitting inside the library, pouring over a large, old book as far away from the wide windows as possible. In reaching distance there were two others waiting to be read, She looked more than just a little spooked, very unnerved at something. I immediately pulled out a chair and sat across from her.

"Hey, Catherine. Jeez, you look like hell. Are you alright?"

She bit her lower lip, thinking about her response. "I, ah...I had a really bad nightmare last night. Actually, a whole series of nightmares. One after another. All of them were horrific and so realistic. Then I had an insane bout of sleep paralysis that scared the living crap out of me. I couldn't sleep after that."

It explained her looking like a ghost, but I got nervous. "Do you remember them at all?"

"I kind of do. One had me walking on a forest path in the middle of the night. There were candles lighting the way, but they didn't help at all. If anything it made everything more creepy. Even worse, every step I took I knew that someone was following me. It was one of those dreams where you want to run and scream, but you can't. Another one was me just staring down a hallway in some sort of giant castle or palace. I could see large pictures on the walls that spanned the entire length down. I couldn't make out what they were of, though. But the whole time I was just so uncomfortable. Like I was seeing something forboding and wrong."

I nodded slowly, looking at the books that she had next to her. A voice in the back of my head screamed out 'it's starting again'. "What do you have there, Cathie?" I said, motioning at the other books.

She closed the book she was reading and showed me the title: Celtic Monsters and Myths. She slid over the other two books, which were about the hidden meanings of dreams.

I smiled and tried to make light of it, saying, "So...did you learn anything?"

The books were put off to the side and she continued, "Nothing you don't already know: the forest represents the unconscious, life, fertility, change in one's psyche. Candles mean illumination. And if you dream about a dark shape staring at you while you sleep, it means a dark shape is staring at you while you sleep."

We both chuckled at that little quip, but for me the mirth quickly died. "Wait. Something was staring at you? Like, an actual something in your room."

She let out a long sigh and nodded. "Yeah. I didn't really see it, per se...but I felt it.I knew it was there." Catherine checked her cell for the time. "I should head out now. I have an appointment with Dr. Frey. I'll tell him about all this and see what he has to say."

"Please do. You know how much I worry. Do you want me to walk you to your car, just in case?"

"Absolutely."

As we left for her car, she didn't seem to want to talk about anything. Even when I tried to strick up a conversation about dinner or the weather, she nodded silently and kept close by. We finally got to her car, and to my horror I heard her let out a wet cough. Not a good sign in the slightest. I tried to reason with it, telling myself that allergy season was kicking and she might be getting a cold. "Are you alright?"

She responded, "I'll get back to you on that."

My gut instinct told me that things were wrong...very wrong. I didn't want her to get into that car and drive off, lest something bad happen while I wasn't there. But my fears on that proved to be for nought: Catherine drove safely there and drove safely home. The second she was in her room the texted and then called me, saying that she felt bad for getting me worried, and that she told him everything. He was as surprise and shocked as we were, she said. He recommended that she steer away from any sort of over the counter medication, saying that most of the side effects for such drugs typically undermined the benefits, especially in her case. He wanted her to take teas, keeping with his preference for the natural.

"Say, you want to get something to eat tomorrow? That 'No Joe's About It' place is amazing." she said offhandedly.

And so plans were made for a delicious lunch and walk.

One Year

One year ago today, Catherine disappeared from my life and hasn't been seen since. Goddamnit, she was getting better. What happened? I know that the police have done all they could in trying to track her down, but they can only do so much. I will elaborate more on how it went down, but right now I can't. I feel nauseous and depressed.

Please, Catherine. Come back to me.

Lights

And then, finally, the lights came back on. I was outside, laying on the grass with Lunagirl snuggled close to me when I heard my father scream out "Yes!"

I rushed into the house and saw--much to my delight--all the lights in the house back on. I experimentally flicked a lamp on and off just to make sure it worked, and thankfully it did. My phone practically blew up with messages from my girls all praising the gods of electricity.  It was so nice to finally put away the flashlights and candles and get back to light bulbs. Because of that week long incident my parents invested in a generator, so in the event a monster storm of any kind it, we would be safe. Three cheers for having power!

School started back up a few days later, my schedule consisting of computers, math and another anthropology class, continuing from last semester. Life was getting back to its usual routine: wake up, go to school, hang out, do homework, do chores, sleep. Repeat until winter break.

Catherine, God bless her, recieved a lot of extra help to assist her with passing her classes. She was getting better, academically and emotionally. Her cought started to go away, too. She didn't talk about the white tree we found, nor did she want to. Naomi mentioned how she wished that we took a picture so she could draw it or show her art teacher. Personally that tree gave me the creeps. I had never seen a tree quite like it, nor do I think I ever will again, and for that I am glad.

For our anniversary, we ate a wholesome dinner of chicken and sweet potatos by candle light at her house. It was very sweet and very romantic, and best of all, my Cathie was acting like herself again.

Some time during the middle of September, Catherine came over for a study session and a dinner. She went over her math and I read my anthropology textbook. It was an interesting chapter on the development of superstitions and folklore. She and I talked through the while, occasionally making observations about the other's subject. When the both of us had finished our work, we began to make preperations for dinner: for tonight, fettuccini alfredo.

Catherine insisted that I relax and allow her the honors, but after I insisted ad nauseum, she allowed me to cook the pasta as she made the sauce.

It was these quiet, peaceful moments that made the evening for us. No words were spoken, but none needed to be; we could understand each other perfectly without them. We set the table and ate slowly, enjoying the moment and each other.

"I feel that I can move past all that and focus on the future." she said. "My restaurant, our marriage. It's going to be great. Oh, I made a menu for the reception if you want to see later on."

"Sounds like a plan." I replied.

After we cleaned the plates she showed me a rough draft of her idea: shrimp scampi, swiss steak and jambalaya where some of the few dishes she wanted to have. The menu had an absolutely delicious range of flavors, all of which I couldn't wait to share with the rest of my family.

Eventually she had to return home. I walked Cathie to her car, we kissed goodbye, and I waved to her as she drove away.

Before I walked back inside, out of the corner of my eye, I could have sworn I saw someone in black under the streetlight.

The White Tree

When you have very little to do, the hours seem to grow long and longer. Five minutes seem like thirty, and thirty minutes seem like a full hour. Taking walks around the entire neighborhood lost its novelty and I had caught up on all my reading. It was during this time that I learned the meaning of the phrase, "boredom is not a burden anyone should bear."

So in my desperation to get away from boredom, I called up Catherine and the others to carpool somewhere, preferably a place with electricity. Thankfully everyone was available to hang out, so away I went to pick up my friends and fiancee to steal them away. During the drive I heard several horror stories about what had befallen them in the meantime: Florence and her family had to clean out broken glass from not only her shed, but from her garage as well. Vivian's stove stopped working, which meant that they could not even warm up soup for mealtime. The window to Naomi's family room had a nice big tree branch thrust through it, making an unholy mess. Rebecca had to deal with her poor mother twisting her ankle on something. The injury wasn't too serious, but it made things harder on Becks.

We stopped at our nearest Sonic and ate a yummy lunch there. As we sat in my car, wondering what to do next, Catherine said, "Let's go to the park. I want to take a walk through the woods."

At first we were all a bit shocked that she would want such a thing. As you know, Catherine had developed an irrational phobia concerning forests, so at first I didn't know what to say. But she looked at me with this expression of 'trust me, I know what I'm doing.' I did trust her, so I complied. "The park it is, then."

On the way there Naomi asked, "So has Dr. Frey been helping you?"

"Mmhmm. Very much. He's a huge help."

"How are your parents doing?" Rebecca reached over and patted her arm.

"They're doing good. They're such troopers about this whole thing, making sure that I'm safe and keeping their eyes on me. Sometimes it get a bit much, but it helps."

Vivian said, "What do you want to do in the woods?"

"Walk around, get a feel of the place again. I want to see if I can do it."

After that, we spent the rest of the ride in silence. I trusted Catherine to know what she wanted to do. Maybe her fear of playgrounds would be conquered as well. All too quickly, we reached our destination. I parked the car and said, "Well, we're here."

As we walked towards the woods, I patted Catherine on the shoulder in comfort. I wanted to let her know I was here.

Vivian was the first to walk in, and halfway down the path she looked back to see if we were coming. Rebecca followed, then Florence, then Naomi. I hesitated walking along with them, since I didn't want to leave Catherine waiting. But she gave me a firm push, saying "No. If you're in there, it will give me a lot of incentive."

I whispered, "You can do it, Cathie."

To be honest I wanted to be right there with her, to hold her hand at let her know that everything would be alright. But if this is what she wanted and if this helped her, then so be it.

I walked as far as the girls did, turning around to see what Catherine would do.

She stood at the mouth of the forest, looking at the path and took one hesitant step forward. I saw her mouth the words 'here come the sun' as if it were a prayer that kept her from harm. She didn't close her eyes as she walked; Catherine kept them wide open as if in defiance, it seemed. With each step she got more and more confident, so much so that she walked right past us.

We cheered loudly on her behalf, and in my happiness I bum rushed her in a hug. I was so happy that she had faced her fears. I gave me hope that she would completely get better, and we could look back on all those frightful times and laugh.

All six of us walked down the long path, chatting and now fully enjoying ourselves in the soothing shade of the forest. I don't know how long or how far we walked, but in the fork in the road, we saw something...chilling.

Before us was a dead, white tree. The branches were bare and gnarled as if writhing in pain. It wasn't small by any means, but it wasn't big either. Hung on those branches were trinkets held with twine: bird feathers, fish scales, bottles of what looked like blood and dirt, pieces of goat horns, broken glass and mirrors, an entire assortment of bizzare and disturbing decorations. The trunk of the tree was not spared from oddity: some parts were smeared with what I assumed was ash from a burned thing. Some words were written on it (carved into it) in a strange language that neither I nor anyone else could identify.

Catherine tugged at my hand, "I want to go now. I don't like this at all."

I turned to look at her and saw that her face was nearly at white as the tree. I saw fear and anger in her eyes, but nothing that suggested violence. Without looking back, we all walked quickly away from the tree and to my car.

Happy Birthday, Rebecca!

Happy 22nd, Rebecca! I hope you have a great semester and get accepted into Miskatonic like you wanted. If you do, don't forget to send us an e-mail once in a while to let us know how you are doing. I hope you liked the books I got for you!

Still Dark

I got a call from Catherine at 9 am the next day. She apologized for not contacting me the day before, saying that the hurricane had caused her to have a panic attack.

"Is everything alright?" I asked, hoping that it was but prepared if it wasn't.

Catherine said, "I'm fine now, I promise. I just hid myself under the blankets and repeated a mantra that Dr. Frey taught me. I just say 'here comes the sun' over and over again and picture something beautiful, and I feel much better! I wish I knew this before hand, honestly. It would have saved us a lot of trouble."

"Hey, if you're feeling better, then everything is fine. What are you up to?"

"Me? I'm looking at the trees on the ground and wondering when the power will come back on. The same thing as everyone else."

We talked for a while and made some plans to hang out together. When it finished, I gently placed the phone down and briefly fell back to sleep. An hour later, I was finally ready to get up. I walked around the house for a while, doing any chores that I needed to do; fifteen minutes later I was done.

With the power out and nothing else to do, I took to catching up on the reading material that I planned on finishing. However, after a few hours of that it got tiring. My neck started to hurt from looking down so much. So what else was could I do? I painted a wee bit, picked at the strings on an old guitar, tried to knit but ended up just doing cat's cradle, and ate some chips. How exciting.

I wandered outside to get some fresh air. Lunagirl was back outside playing around, eating, sleeping, the usual cat stuff. For her, life continued as normal with nothing amiss at all. Cats live so simply. Electricity doesn't play a huge part in their lives at all.

Catherine showed up to my house at 12:30 just as I was doing yet another lap in our backyard pool. It had gotten so unbearably hot without the air conditioning that it was pretty much the only option. She called out my name and knelt down to give me a kiss. "So how is my little mermaid holding up without any power?"

I rolled my eyes, smiling, "I'm holding up. It's not that bad, really. How are your folks?"

She replied, "They're doing fine. Mom misses watching her shows and Dad keeps on flicking at the lightswitch. I even caught myself doing it."

I got out of the pool and got us two bottles of water from the outside cooler; we both needed the hydration badly. I can't say that the conversations that we had were anything of note. We sat in the shade and talked about simple things, like when the power would come back on and what the autumn semester would bring us.

"Well, one of the things Dr. Frey wanted me to do was put away all fo those drawings that I made in a folder, then put it in my closet and forget all about it. He said that Fear Dubh couldn't hurt me and my thinking about it like that was hindering progress."

Taking a sip from my water bottle, I asked, "So what else did he say?"

"He wants me to keep writing in my diary and focusing on the good things that I have instead. Won't be too hard, really. I have a lot to be thankful for." She placed her hand on mine as she said that.

Catherine stayed over for dinner that night, which consisted of us eating the rest of the coldcuts in the fridge. It wasn't all that bad; at least we HAD something to eat. She left after that, and I went to bed. Hey, I had nothing else better to do anyway.

On day three I woke up early to see the sun rising, walked outside for thirty minutes, and then returned inside. I read some magazines and greeted each family member as they woke up. My father opened the refridge for some milk, but he found that that all of our food had spoiled. Every last item had thawed to to the point of inediblility. And so with heavy, heavy hearts, my family and I had to toss out three refridgerators and freezers worth of food. It was so surreal seeing the usually full fridge now completely empty. It was a harsh reminder that things were getting serious.

The Storm

On August 21, we began to prepare for the oncoming hurricane. I can't tell you how many times I went out to the supermarkets (with and without friends) to get the supplies that we needed in case of something going wrong. With a hurricane that big on the way, we couldn't take any chances.

August 27 was pretty much judgement day. We were as prepared as we could ever be, flashlights, batteries, the works. Lunagirl, usually an outdoor cat, was brought in the house due to our fears that she would be hurt. We knew that she was smart, but from what we heard, the hurricane was too big and too wild to risk her safety. As I predicted, Lunagirl loved being inside. She roamed the house like an excited kid through Disney World, brushing up against and jumping up on everything she could find; it was the cutest little thing.

Before I headed off to bed, I made sure to call not just Catherine, but all of my girls to make sure that they were safe, sound and prepared for whatever came their way.

We all slept in our basement, where it was the safest. Lunagirl curled up next to me and didn't stir for the remainder of the night. If I dreamed of anything, I can't remember for the life of me.

In the morning I awoke to the sound of Lungirl meowing loudly in my ear. No doubt she was hungry. She pawed at me, insistent that I get up and tend to her needs.

"Alright," I croaked,  "I hear you. Come on...let's go"  I got up from the couch and lumpered up the stairs, rubbing my eyes as I did so. In my blurry vision I could not see anything outside the windows, besides the early morning sun rising. Lunagirl sat at the backdoor, waiting to be let out. I said, "Be patient, kitten. Let me get your breakfast...really? You want to be let outside now? Oh, alright. Come here."

I walked outside, with Lunagirl in my arms, into a near war zone. Fallen branches and unearthed trees were everywhere. One large tree had completely fallen over into our neighbor's pool, breaking the fence and crushing their heater. Luckily, our pool only had half a tree in there; all my dad had to do was fish it out, albeit cursing up another storm. My precious cat seemed confused about what happened and why the people around her seemed so distraught. It seemed that as she ate her food she was mulling over this puzzle.

My mother tried to turn on the lights multiple times and found that we, like the rest of our neighbors, were completely without power.

My phone came alive, and before I had time to say 'hello' to the caller, Vivian practically screamed, "Dude! That was one hell of a storm last night! That hurricane destroyed three houses on my street!"

"You're kidding."

"Nope. I'm looking at them right now. No one's dead, but their houses are toast."

And as if to prove her point, shortly after our call ended I got pictures of the said houses. They were indeed toast.

Twenty minutes passed and a text message from Florence read, 'Tell me that you're alright, El.' I responded with telling her that I was indeed alright, but without any power. She texted back with a '-3- same here. My parents are getting twigs and bushes out of the shed. The windows broke and there is glass every which way. I have to help clean it all up. Christ almighty -_-.' Damn, I really felt bad for Flo.

On a whim my father got us all in the car to see how everyone else faired. The neighborhoods around ours were lightless, looking with absolute horror at how many power lines were completely torn from the poles, knotted with the branches of the trees that fell them. Seeing as we were in the car already, we all went to the magical land of 7-11 to get breakfast. You never saw a convenience store so crowded, I swear to God. I got a cinnamon roll and orange juice to ward off the hunger. So there we were, sitting in the 7-11 parking lot wondering what the hell we would do, and in that time Naomi sent me some pictures of what happened near her. Surprise, surprise, it was as bad as everyone else's.

When we returned to our house, the power was still out and wouldn't come back on. The hours ticked by and still nothing. Rebecca set me a video message from her phone to mine, walking around her street and expressing her dismay at how the storm ravaged seemingly everying.

The one upside that I liked was that the stars could be seen much better without all the lights. The first day wasn't so bad, actually.