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I’LL NEVER LEAVE YOU… EVER (PART 3)
The next day, after a fitful night’s rest, I went out for dinner with my 2 good friends, Kok Cheng and Jonathan, who also happened to be Jessica’s boyfriend. Jessica herself couldn’t join us because she had dance lessons. Over dinner, I told them about my repeated spooky encounters with Nicholas, but to my chagrin they didn’t seem to give any credence to my fears and neuroses. They seemed more inclined to agree with Jessica’s view that Nicholas was a stalker.
Though they could give no acceptable explanation for what happened last evening at the canteen, they offered to send me back to campus to allay my fears and at the same time keep a lookout for my potential stalker. Kok Cheng even made a joke out of it, saying that if we found Nicholas he could just flash his warrant card and put him under arrest (both him and Jonathan were in the police force).
I was feeling much more cheerful and much safer as the 2 guys escorted me through campus and back to my hall. But on the way there, as we were walking through a rather deserted stretch of the university, one of the shuttle buses that ply the campus routes rumbled past and stopped at a bus stop just slightly in front of us. As I watched a group of about 5 or 6 people slowly board the bus amid much chatter, some indefinable instinct made me look up into the bus. And that was when I saw Nicholas.
He was sitting with his elbow propped against the window and his chin resting on his hand. He was looking down at me, as if he knew I was there all along, with that sweet, pensive smile on his face.
I gasped and stepped backwards, fumbling for one of my friends. When I found Jonathan’s arm, I grabbed it tight and tore my eyes away from Nicholas just long enough to shout to him, “Come on! Get the bus! Nicholas is on it!”
I wasted no time in dragging Jonathan to the bus just as it had closed its doors was about to pull away, with Kok Cheng bringing up the rear. But the bus driver obligingly opened the doors again for us, and I dashed up the bus, my 2 friends following close behind, running down the aisle to where I saw Nicholas was sitting.
Then I stopped… and stared.
There was no one sitting there. None at all.
I shook my head in disbelief, choking back tears of fear and frustration as I stumbled backwards into Jonathan. He caught hold of my shoulders to steady me as the bus began its slow drive.
“Where is he, Sheryl?” I heard Kok Cheng ask from behind us.
I could not say anything. I simply pointed a shaking finger at the seat where he was supposed to be. Jonathan and Kok Cheng stared at the empty seat, faces darkening. Then they looked down at me, and I saw that they knew and understood my fears finally. We were not dealing with an ordinary human being. We were dealing with something which I had never encountered, or even stopped to think about. Yet I dared not think about it still.
“Maybe… he moved to another seat?” Jon tentatively ventured.
I took a deep breath and looked around. The bus was completely empty except for 2 girls sitting in the front seats, and the group of 5 students I’d seen getting up sitting right at the back. They were whispering to each other while staring at the 3 of us, standing stupidly in the middle of the aisle, staring blankly around.
I squeezed myself past Jon and ran unsteadily up front where the bus driver was, and asked him whether anyone had gotten off the bus at the stop where we boarded.
“Oh, no,” the driver replied confidently. “No one rang the bell to get off there, so I didn’t even open the back doors. And no one disembarked through the front either.”
“Let’s get off. We’ll walk instead,” Kok Cheng said heavily after he heard what the bus driver said.
We got off at the very next stop. The subsequent walk back is now a blur to me; I was shaking with fear, and crying so hard that I could barely even walk. I only have vague recollections of both the guys half-carrying, half-dragging me back to my room, where they roused Jessica from the next room. I remember ranting to her incoherently about Nicholas, ghosts, and spirits. I remember, too, that she soothed me and hugged me and mumbled comforting words which did not register while I cried, until I eventually fell asleep.
I woke up the next morning, to find Jessica sitting on my bed next to me. Jon and Kok Cheng were sitting in chairs on either side of my bed, their faces creased and their eyes puffy from lack of sleep. For a disorientated moment, I thought I had been injured somehow and I was in hospital; the scene was so surreal and I still felt quite woozy. But then the memories of the previous night came rushing back, and the fear threatened to swallow me up. I fumbled for Jessica’s hand, to reassure myself with the warm touch of a human being.
“Feeling better?” Jessica inquired soliticiously.
I nodded. “You mean… you didn’t sleep all night? And the guys didn’t go home?” They nodded.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” I stammered, sitting up. “I’m perfectly ok, all of you had better get some rest!”
“Not until we’ve solved this for you, Sheryl,” Jess said firmly. “In fact, we’ve discussed it all night, and we found someone who can help you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked fearfully.
“We’ve agreed that, well, don’t panic, but it’s quite obvious this Nicholas person, isn’t a real person. I mean, he’s, well, a spirit, obviously. But the point now is, we have to find out why he’s bothering you, and why he’s suddenly started to, well, haunt you. And Jon found out from his mother the address of a particular Taoist priest who’s apparently very skilled in performing exorcisms.”
She leaned close to me. “Sheryl, listen. We have to get rid of him. If this continues, you will never have peace. You will live in fear forever.”
I looked up at the expectant faces of my 3 friends. I knew that they were right. I needed to know why, all of the people in the world, Nicholas should have chosen to latch on to me. And deep inside, I wanted to know who Nicholas was exactly. How did I know him? How did he know me? Why did he only start appearing to me now? There were too many unanswered questions.
“All right. I’ll go with you,” I told her.