Chapter 5
Kanna and Carry could also barely believe what they had just heard.
The stranger who had just introduced himself as Frank Cullen and who seemed to know Peter´s sister Sarah over the internet.
And who had claimed that the same woman who had killed their friend Beth had been his girlfriend? His lover.
"What?" Sarah exclaimed surprised. "You are telling me that this lunatic had been your girlfriend."
"I am sorry," he responded, also speaking englisch now. "It seems that she had find out that we knew each other over the internet. Maybe she had gotten the wrong idea about us and thought we had an affair. Well - this could be the reason at least."
His german was very good. Even if he was obviously not his native language and seemed to be an englisch speaker.
"That is hardly a reason to murder someone," Sarah responded harshly. At least it should not have been. But they all knew that some people were killing others for that very reason all the time.
"And especially not some innocent girl who had nothing to do with you or me in the first place." Sarah continued. "If she thought that, why had she not gone after me then?" She growled.
"I don´t know. I have no idea what was going on inside her head that she did something like this," Frank said. "Maybe she had mistaken that girl for you. Maybe she had just snapped and went crazy. I don´t know," he told her.
"That girl as you call her was my and Kana´s best friend," Carry remarked angrily.
She was speaking in englisch now. Having forgotten to keep using german in her outrage.
Kana was also looking angry. Not as much as Carry, but definitely angry. But she did not say anything. To be honest, she was too buffled by the entire situation right now, to even know what to say.
"I am sorry, I did not mean it like this," Frank assured them, sounding apologetic.
He had switched into englisch as well now. Which sounded far more natural for him, Peter thought and was obviously his birth language.
But that was no problem and made barely a difference to them. Peter and Sarah were speaking the language very well themselves, while Kana and Carry were coming from the USA.
xxxx
It was kind of ironic that exactly the revelation that this Frank had been in a relationship with the killer was what at least somewhat distrated both Peter and Kana from the instantly bad feeling both had about this man.
At least at one side.
Maybe their feeling had been so much about the man himself, but because he had a personal connection to the killer.
But still... Somehow the strange `sixth sense´ that they both possessed was practually screaming at them that something was wrong about this man from the moment he appeared. It was nearly like someone were shouting at them inside their heads.
Triggered by meeting one special person. Something that normally didn´t happen.
Not even when Peter and Kana first met each other, the first other person each of them ever met who also had `visions´, their `gift´ didn´t flare up like that.
But for this man here it did. And they didn´t know why.
But they both had for a long time learned to trust their visions.
xxxx
Still, even without their visions, the story the man just told them would have seemed suspicious to Peter.
That he met Sarah in the internet and that this Frank turned out to be a fan of his books. That they had then arranged a suprise meeting without telling him beforehand. And that of all places at the train-station, right before he wanted to leave to his trip through a few different countries of all things.
And then this man´s girlfriend just `coincidentally´ snapped at the same time he intended to meet them and decided to show up at the same place to murder someone?
A strange line of coincidences indeed.
Somehow it all sounded pretty much like bullshit to him.
Well, there was still a chance that it had actually happened this way.
But at the same time this also unsettled Peter on another end.
Did that mean that Sarah had been the true target? And a psychopath had just somehow killed the wrong person?
Had this Frank known what his woman was going to do? Had they maybe planned the murder together? But why?
Or had she truly just acted on her own accord and everything else was just a coincidence?
Or was there another reason for all of this?
xxxx
"I came to inform the police about this," Frank stated. "Then I met you here."
"I see," Sarah replied.
"Despite everything, I am glad to actually meet you," Frank said to Peter. "I have red all your novels."
"Yes - thank you," Peter replied reluctantly.
Somehow this `compliment´ seemed like a punch in the guts to him right now. He could still not shake off the bad feeling he had about Frank. And he was not sure if he should.
"I guess I will go now and tell the police everything that I know," Frank stated. "But I would really be glad if we could talk a bit more later. I really am a fan of your work."
He took one step closer to Peter.
"I especially like the story with that girl who had this visions and who had this monster suddenly standing behind her. You know, the one with the grey skin, the black eyes and the four clawed fingers."
Peter froze.
He had never written this in any of his stories.
But... The description matched exactly with the creature Kana had seen at the train station earlier today.
How did this Frank knew this?
Peter´s eyes went to Kana. She was looking back at him just as surprised as he was.
Did Frank have the same gift like them? Was this his method to let them know about it without the others noticing?
And then, what about his murderous girlfriend? Was this somehow connected to what had happened?
They were not sure anymore.
"Here is my handy-number." Frank handed a piece of paper to Peter.
Who just looked at the number, not saying anything for a few moments.
"Sarah - it was good to finally see you in person as well," Frank said and gave a short nod to her, while he was passing her by.
"Till later then," he told them all.
With that he walked into the front building of the police-station.
Peter and Kana looked at each other.
"If you excuse us for a moment?" he said to Sarah and Carry, took Kana by the hand and pulled her away.
Both women looked a bit surprised at him and Kana suddenly leaving together like that, but neither said anything.
They knew that this would likely only increase their impression that something was going on between them. But neither Peter or Kana actually cared about that at the moment. Not that they had that much of a problem with the idea of them thinking this in the first place.
They had other worries on their minds anyway.
The two were walking together in the direction away from the double building of the police station, over the parking area in front of it, in the direction of the street.
They were walking along a number of parked cars. The parking lot was divided into two parts, one for the police cars, the other for the cars of the visitors. But no people were currently there.
So Peter and Kana would be able to talk under themselves undisturbed. After a couple minutes they were about a hundred meters away from the others and so at a `save´ spot where Sarah or Carry could not longer hear them.
"Peter - what this guy just said?" Kana questioned. "About that... creature I have seen? Had you ever written anything about something like that?"
"No," Peter replied. "There is no way he could have known that, unless he shared the same vision as we did."
"So he is like us," she stated.
"Most likely," Peter said. "But still... his entire story is more than a bit suspicious. His girlfriend just attacks someone right at the train-station, for no reason, just where he said he wanted to meet me? And the person just happens to be one of your friends? A bit much coincidence."
"You can say that," Kana said grimly. She was thinking about Beth. "Do you think he had known what this woman would do?"
"That is hard to say. We don´t really know anything about him," Peter admitted.
"But, what about his offer to meet us again and talk with us? I guess it would be better to decline then, right?" she concluded.
"Yes," he replied, not really sounding convinced either. "That would be the smart thing to do," he stated. "But..."
"Do you know just how I felt a few minutes ago, when I realized that you had the same gift like me?" she asked him.
"Yes - I know," Peter replied.
xxxx
As long as he could think back, Peter had always somewhere in the back of his mind asked himself how it would be to meet someone else with the same gift he had. Someone who could truly understand him.
But he had never actually thought there would be a chance it would really happen. Yet still, no matter how much he convinced himself that it would never be, deep down there had always been the wish to find out more about his `gift´.
And now he had met two others within just one day. It felt like a damn inside him had broken.
He assumed that Kana was feeling the same way like he did about this. No, he was actually pretty sure.
xxxx
And Peter was correct with it.
Just like him Kana felt the same incredible urging to find out more.
They could not quite explain it themselves. But for both of them, the desire for any chance, no matter how slim, to find out anything more about it was suddenly becoming overwhelming.
Even if the rational part of their minds told them that it was probably pointless. That the chance that this Frank actually knew something that they themselves didn´t was very low. The chance that he did still existed.
Even the fact that there was a possibility that he was involved in the murder of one of Kana´s best friends did not change this.
The truth was that they were not thinking entirely straight when it came to this topic. And they themselves were aware of it.
At some level this only unsettled them even more.
But still, despite that the rational parts of their minds told them that it was a bad idea, despite the warning signs...
... they both knew that they would possibly accept Frank´s offer to talk with him again in private.
xxxx
"What do you think we should do now?" Kana asked him.
Peter shrugged his shoulders.
"For now I guess we should wait until after Frank has spoken with the police and then find out how they reacted to what he had to say to them," he pointed out. "Then we can still decide if we should meet them again or not."
"I guess it sounds like the best we can do," Kana responded.
And after that? they both thought.
They walked back to Sarah and Carry to talk to them about what to do for the rest of the day now.
There were a few things Peter still had to do.
In first line, since his planned trip across Europe would obviously not happen, at least not now, trying to cancel at least a few of the hotel and train tickets or switch them to other dates.
xxxxxxx
This night Peter had another dream.
In this dream he saw the same alien city like a few nights before. The same bizarre asymetric building, the same large triangular entrances.
And the giant bright star in the night-sky.
The one thing that was different to the first dream he had seen this city however, was that the last time the city had been entirely empty.
This time he was actually able see the inhabitants. First it was only unclear and like from a great distance. But then his sight was quickly moving closer.
At the same time however he felt fear coming up inside him. A cold fear about actually seeing this creatures from close by.
xxxx
Somewhere in some part of his mind Peter asked himself if Kana had right now the same dream like he had. (He was not sure if he wished for her to have it.)
After all what happened the last day, they decided to stay in the same hotel for the night. So she should be sleeping in the same building and just a dozen meter away from him right now. Far closer than they had been during their first shared vision.
But since he was not awake right now, Peter was not really thinking about this consciously. Kana and their shared vision were just a stray thought that came to his dreaming mind.
xxxx
Instead he was now focussed on the beings in front of him. The inhabitants of this city.
Like Peter had expected from the size of the entrances in the buildings, they were very large creatures - large, monstrous and bizarre, like out of an nightmare.
They were looking like a bizarre mixture between amphibians and reptiles.
Their hairless green outer skin, layered with small barely visible skales, seemed to be gleaming in the pale light of the obviously artificial light-sources of the alien city.
They had elongated heads with large milky pupilless eyes - like fish´s - and wide mouths filles with sharp teeth.
The creatures possessed two pair of long curved limbs that seemed to be equally developed and able to serve as either arms or legs and allowed the beings to change freely between moving on all fours or only their lower limbs like humans.
Each of these limbs however also possessed three spike-like appandages that were connected with pieces of skin that looked like the webbing of amphibian creatures. All that made them seem like a twisted cross between lizards without tails (or dragons if you wanted) and fish.
And these creatures were intelligent, very intelligent and aware. Peter could tell just by looking at them. The creatures, the way they moved and held themselves, practically radiated a sharp, but completely alien intelligence.
xxx
The creatures were moving.
More of them came slowly moving out of their buildings, all over the city, some of them walking on two legs, with their upper limbs lifted up like overlong arms, like a bizarre carricature of walking humans. Others on all fours like animals.
They were all heading in the direction of a wide free place in the center of the city and gathering there.
Twenty of them were forming a large circle and then sitting down. Dozens more were gathering directly around them. And hundreds more in different places throughout the entire city.
All of it was looking like some kind of strange ceremony. Performed by creature that were so foreign and literally alien that Peter was not entirely sure he would have understood the purpose of said ceremony even if it were explained to him.
To his surprise however the monstrous creatures did not seem nearly as frightening to him as Peter knew they should be.
Mainly because it was overshadowed by something else.
From above, far above. He could sense it, he could somehow feel it in his entire body... and it was as if the blood and every cell inside it turned to ice.
He realized it was a bit like when he had met Frank. Only then his extra sense had been screaming at Peter to be wary about him. Now it was screaming at him to run away in pure horror and flee to the end of the universe if he could.
But as he looked upwards, he could see nothing, just the night-sky... and the stars.
And yet he knew that something was there. Something thousands of times more terrifying than the creature he saw right before him.
Then, for a moment, he could see something. It was like a giant shadow overlaying the entire sky and darkening the stars.
He could not make out it´s real form.
Or maybe there was nothing to see and this shadow actually was it´s real form? he thought. But Peter could not still not see it clearly... and he begann to had himself feel confused as he tried.
In one moment he saw the giant shadow, in another the empty night-sky and the stars. it seemed like it was there and yet not. As if it was blinking in and out of existence.
Then, much to his surprise, the alien creature suddenly started to radiate a sense of confort and warmth to him... maybe only compared to the formless terror above them.
And something else. Peter felt something, some kind of energy or power maybe, coming from the aliens, he could not even beginn to describe it... and directed into the sky.
It was as if they were somehow trying to fend it off, to send it away.
Or maybe they were giving some kind of offering to it? he did not know.
But after some time the being above them seemed to be drawing back... and then it had disappeared.
At the same moment Peter was suddenly hearing unknown words and sentences appearing in his mind. It was af if multiple voices were speaking to him, but all in languages he could not understand.
At the same time he saw flashes of symbols those meaning he did not knew.
But then, out of all of it, there was a small bit that for some reason he did understand.
One small sentence.
"He is coming."
Then the dream ended and Peter woke up in his bed in the hotel-room. And in opposite to nearly all other dreams he had over the last years, he was screaming.
xxxxxxx
The next morning
Peter was dialing Frank´s phone-number. He knew it was probably a bad idea as he saw his fingers moving.
Even more so as someone picked up after a second.
"Yes?" he heard Frank´s voice.
With this I have finish the fifth chapter of the story.