Carolina Moon

Chapter 1

Lucy

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Lucy Tifford preferred to drive at night, because everything felt...a little faster. Even if it meant one or two hallucinated monsters along the way.

The monsters were always different, and sometimes—depending on her mental state—outright ridiculous. But Lucy had a grip on her overactive mind and the crawly creatures it cooked up. She had taught her not to fear the silly things that appeared in the shadows of night.

She had always been a miraculously creative girl, but at some point in her physical development from a pubescent, naive fourteen-year-old, something in her brain tilted. She never really understood it as anything more than one of those weird teenage changes that occured simply to make your high school years more miserable. While other girls were busy filling their training bras, she was filling a psychiatrist's seat.

After years of physical evaluations and therapy, the figments of her imagine were chalked up to nothing more than a little childhood trauma. Which, she supposed was fair because she had a lot of it to spare. But those nifty hallucinations of hers never stopped—not for a single moment. Every night, she saw things. Things that couldn't possibly exist.

They were like dreams, cultivated from the shadows, entirely of her own creation. Things like giant snakes, with a million tiny little centipede legs. The strange kid from her computer sciences class, skating by in nothing but underwear and roller blades. An eight-foot-tall, purple antelope with the much-too human face of her uncle Gene, galloping in the rear-view mirror. Usually, she could determine a hallucination based on just how damn stupid it was.

Was it wearing a diaper? Speaking Mandarin? Eating mandarins? Then, it was probably a hallucination. Her mind had no limitations—except for one.

Lucy never, ever hallucinated in the light.

That was why, as she found herself standing at the threshold of her boyfriend's bedroom, Lucy couldn't stop herself from flipping the light on and off again. She hoped it would unplug her mind and reset the whole operating system, like restarting a computer. But no matter how many times Lucy flipped the light on, the naked woman stayed there. A physical manifestation of her worst nightmares, sitting on the edge of David's bed.

"Lucy, I'm telling you—" David was saying. It went through her ears like static.

Lucy flipped the light once more. Off and on again.

The blonde, who had managed to wiggle on half a bra, shot a look of venom over her shoulder at Lucy. "Make her stop, David."

David was standing there, just as nude, and desperately trying to capture Lucy's attention. She was too determined to rid herself of the hallucinated woman to pay him any mind. Again, she flipped the light. Off and on. Off and on.

Finally, David snatched her hand away from the light switch. "Lucy! She's real, alright?"

The world real cycled through her mind several more times and still didn't stick.

She couldn't be real. Because, if there really, truly was a naked woman at the foot of David's bed, it meant that he'd cheated. And under no circumstance would Lucy allow herself to be cheated on two weeks into a relationship. A prickle moved up her spine.

She finally took in the sight of David. He was a walking fluster. His hair stuck up in jagged patches that went this way and that, like someone had pushed it back with their fingers. Two red patches of skin on his neck were glowing, hot and angry. He smelled like a cologne that he'd never bothered to wear to a single one of their dates, and for once, he'd styled his hair instead of stuffing it under a baseball cap. Were those candles burning on the nightstand?