Nightmares of Caitlin Lockyer

Part 17

17

Caitlin slept peacefully, for the moment. As the bright sunlight streamed through the window into her hospital room, I was incapable of sleep.

I felt I owed her some explanation and it was easier to tell her when she was asleep. I hesitated, not knowing how much to tell or how little. Maybe if I spoke my piece now I could resist telling her when she was awake and asking for answers. Or maybe I'd never have to tell her.

"She'd gone shopping and we didn't even know she was missing until hours afterwards," I blurted out before I realised what I was doing. "It was weeks and she wouldn't answer her phone, no one had seen her.

"Then there were the envelopes. No return address, just printed labels on the outside and inside…zip-locked freezer bags with bloodied cloth and skin, cut with a jagged knife. Sometimes every day, or more than one every few days. I wouldn't let Chris check the mail – I put a lock on the letterbox so she couldn't…" My voice died as I remembered again what I could never forget.

"It must have been over a month before her body turned up, dumped at the base of some sand dunes. Near...where you were." I swallowed convulsively, but continued. "For more than a month, they'd just hurt her, until they killed her." A memory I didn't want. One that plagued my dreams.

I looked at Caitlin, wondering who her envelopes had been sent to. Nothing had been found at her house and she still lived at home with her father. Had they even sent them? Or were the cuts on her body something someone did just for the hell of it? I tried not to think about it. My thoughts went back to Alanna, as they always did.

I sat in the chair next to her bed, my closed eyes seeing only pictures of the past. "Alanna was my sister, my twin, but we were so different. She was always so cheerful, so determined to succeed and make a difference. She'd help someone when no one else would bother. The next thing you know, everyone would be helping her. She stopped to help a woman push her broken-down car off a busy road outside Uni once. The two of them could barely budge it, then a Council truck pulled over and the whole road crew helped her get the car onto the kerb. I was stuck on the other side of the road and six lanes of traffic, so I saw the whole thing. I wouldn't have believed it if it was anyone else, but Alanna…it's just who she was.

"We were at a party once, and everyone was drinking. A normal Uni party after the end of exams. A girl she didn't know was so drunk she passed out and hit her head as she fell. A room full of drunken med students and no one seemed to know what to do. Alanna just stepped in and took charge. She knelt on the floor next to the girl. She sent one person for ice, another to call an ambulance, someone else to find the friend the girl had arrived with. By the time the ambulance arrived, she had the girl's name, contact details of her next of kin and everything. There was nothing for the ambulance officers to do but get the girl to hospital.

"Alanna was such a fighter, she would never have given in to them. Never stopped fighting, never let them win. So they broke her and they killed her. How could anyone do that to her?

"I wanted to hunt them down and hurt them for what they did to her. But the police didn't arrest anyone and they could still do it again, to someone else!" They'll do it to Chris next. My parents won't give in. I gritted my teeth, trying to force the thought out of my brain. "Please wake up. I need to know how to find them before they can get to Chris. She's the same age as you and I can't let it happen again. Not after…"

I looked at Caitlin, serene in sleep. It was hard not to see the corpse I'd thought she was. I didn't get there in time. I let it happen to you. I looked away, at a mercifully blank wall.

"I'm sorry, Caitlin. I never wanted to see you hurt. Not like this. I should have helped you sooner."

Once again, I lay back and closed my eyes. I couldn't look at her any more, but the image of her on the beach seemed burned into my retinas, eyes open or closed. Shit. Sleep feels like a dream I barely remember now, while this is a nightmare I can't wake up from.