Yumi and the Nightmare Painter(93)

“The bell!” Painter shouted as they burst out the other end of the alley. “Ring the bell!”

They crossed a street, entering a wide open place with smooth stone ground that held sections full of wood chips and strange erections of metal and wood. The first time she’d seen one of these, she had thought it might be some kind of art installation—and had laughed when she was told it was a sports court and playground.

Painter led them past some of the playground equipment, perhaps thinking it would slow the beast—but the nightmare ripped through the metal, tossing a jungle gym. Hopefully the noise would attract someone. Yumi added a belated scream to the cacophony, and almost pulled the bell free—but a chunk of metal hurled by the monster clipped her, knocking her to the ground. Her bag skidded out of her hands.

A crack followed, then ink stained the bag, flowing from the opening.

The beast hesitated, seeing that.

“Come on,” Painter said, hovering near Yumi, waving urgently.

She found her feet and turned toward the bag.

“No,” he said. “Leave it.”

Trusting his instincts, she ran with him across the playground.

“Head this way,” he said, pointing down another alleyway. “The nightmare can see me. I’ll lead it to the south. You curve around the block, then sneak up and grab the bell. Ring it. Don’t try to confront the thing. Understand?”

She nodded, too terrified to trust her voice. If she opened her mouth, she’d scream.

Out in the playground, the thing had given the ink a wide berth, but now came for them again. Painter took a deep, wide-eyed breath—even though he was a ghost—then ran back out. He didn’t wave at the thing to draw its attention; he just ran. The thing turned after him, and Yumi didn’t wait to see the result of their chase. She did as Painter had said, running down her own alley and ducking around the rear of a building, breathing heavily.

There, she stood trembling, spine pressed to the bricks, sweating and taut—every muscle like a rope trying to haul a tree from the sky. She knew she needed to keep moving. She needed to sneak back and grab the bell.

She should move. Painter was running for his life. Move!

Her body refused.

It’s difficult for one who hasn’t experienced it to understand how powerfully the body can react to trauma like this. Seeing something so terrible come for you—knowing it intends to not merely harm you, but likely feed upon you—goes against all rational experience. You end up reaching someplace deeper than your thoughts can go, sinking to instincts hard-coded into your very essence.

Overriding those is not simply a matter of willpower. It requires training and experience. So Yumi trembled there, huffing, dazed—and had to fight to keep herself from running away as fast as she could. It is to her credit, not her condemnation, that she remained frozen. The only viable alternative her body would accept involved mad, uncontrollable flight.

A hand grabbed Yumi on the arm.

She bolted upright, finding a large figure standing beside her that had approached completely unseen—not because it had been particularly quiet, but because she hadn’t been able to concentrate on anything other than her fear.

Hysterical, she swung her fist at it—and it grunted. Then…then said her name? Her eyes focused, and she saw for the first time that it was…Tojin?

Yes, the painter Tojin, sleeves rolled up, shaking her arm and saying her name. Again. Again. Finally she registered it, and emerged a tiny bit from her frenzy.

“I told you it sounded like her,” Tojin said over his shoulder. Calm. Too calm. He didn’t know.

Akane walked up, arms folded, painter’s bag over her shoulder. “Yumi,” she said. “You promised you wouldn’t go out anymore. We told you how dangerous this was.”

Technically, Yumi hadn’t promised she wouldn’t go back out. They’d just lectured her on it, and had assumed compliance from her contrite bows.

She wasn’t in any state to argue that point. “How?” she said, her voice hoarse. “How did you find me?”

“We tailed you,” Tojin said, “when you left the apartment earlier. We…well, I thought you’d go back to it.”

“I trusted you had more sense than that,” Akane added.

“We lost you for a while there,” Tojin said. “Did you go to the carnival specifically to lose us?”

“Tojin…” Akane said, squinting in the dim light. “Tojin, look at her. She’s terrified. Yumi, did you see another one?”

Yumi could only nod.

Tojin sighed. “This is why we said to not go out again. This is a duty for a painter.”

Painter.

The bell.

Yumi knew, even after one experience with the nightmare, that Akane and Tojin alone wouldn’t be enough to defeat it. They needed every painter in the region—hundreds, if she could find them.

And Painter, her Painter, was in danger.

“Bring your ink!” she said, then tore out of Tojin’s grip and went scrambling back down the alleyway. She didn’t see his bemused expression, nor the roll of Akane’s eyes. Because of course they didn’t recognize the danger. They’d done this hundreds of times. A nightmare, to them, was nothing terrifying.

Yumi reached the mouth of the alley and looked out at the torn-up playground—ghostly in the hion light. Still and empty. Several lights turned on around nearby buildings, then quickly shut off. This was painter business. Thank you for your service.