Happy Valentine's Day

     Some of you may have noticed my absence this past...has it been a week?  I'm not really sure.  It's been surreal; time has been passing as if in a dream.  The rest of the comic will be posted tomorrow and the days following; I have been delayed in drawing them due to my new hectic schedule. 
     When I last posted, I was staying at a motel around Larkspur.  It was a decent place, but the light switches never worked when I tried to use them.  I stayed there a short time only, wanting to stay ahead of my paranatural pursuer.  I didn't get very far.  I started receiving the "gifts" the morning after arriving at the  second motel.  Little bags of gore, dead rats mostly, tied sometimes with the sinew of the unfortunate doner. Each one was gutted completely, no intestines. They would be on the nightstand when I awoke.  No matter where I fled, they would always be there in the morning.  It has been busy moving about, and I do hope you will forgive my silence. 
     There was a special "gift" today, albeit I doubt it had relation to the holiday.  Upon waking, I was relieved to find no trace of a bag in my room.  My mood changed when I opened the blinds.  As it is February, the trees outside had yet to put on the trappings of spring but they were not naked.  The collective intestines of each small animal I had been sent festooned the branches.  It is interesting to note that I have not seen him since my unfortunate departure, the details of which I'll present through the comic.  Suffice it to say that I did a stupid thing, and...I suppose I'm marked now, not that I wasn't before.  But since then, I have had no respite from the oppressive sensation of being watched, especially when I sleep.  The dreams are almost too much to handle.  I don't want to hear her scream any more, nor feel the long-dead grasp of her small hands at my throat.  I've finally refilled my medication.  It's a type of anti-hallucinogen that suppresses my dreams and balances out my serotonin levels to reduce the anxiety that causes the hallucinations.  I'm not pleased with the results.  Everything, wake or sleep, moves at the pace of a rosy fever-dream.  I think I've been loosing time.  I should call my doctor and see what to do about that side effect...
     Today was the day Margot died, ten years ago.  I think that was the occasion for the "gift".  It was her voice on the phone, and I've been getting calls over the hotel lines...
     I think...I think there is something I am not remembering, something buried under a protective layer of ice in my subconscious, something churning just beneath the surface now.  Should I try to remember?  Is that what he wants?  Maybe it's better if I just let it drown in the deluge of years...

     It's funny.  None of the light switches work here, either...

Playdate

     0-737-2867 Called again.  I thought I'd blocked the number yesterday, but it still got through.  Checking the numbers against the corresponding letters on my cell phone gave me a chuckle.  But the message is worrying; the little girl's voice almost definitely belongs to Margot.  How is that being achieved?  I'm going to guess an excellent bit of mimicry. 

There is a tone of tense apprehension to this day.  I am waiting for the other shoe to fall.

Dial 0 for Operator

     Somebody left this message on my cell phone.  The number was 0-737-2867. 

     I had a nightmare last night.  I was in the small patch of trees in the middle of the fields outside my childhood home.  The trees were a lot closer together, and didn't seem to end no matter how far I walked.  As I tried to find my way out, I began to hear children giggling.  I walked faster.  From all around, snapping twigs, that incessant giggling, and the sound of something dragging through the bracken.  I ran.  I did not get far; I was soon surrounded by high deadfalls.  And they all came from between the trees.
     When I was growing up, occasionally there were stories of some of the local children dying.  There were even a few disappearances.  In my dream, I saw what became of them.  Maddie was there, her head split open all the way to her right eye.  Part of her cheek was missing, exposing the grim mirth of her mandible.  She disappeared back in the 90s.  It's rumored her abusive father pushed her down the stairs and hid the body somewhere in the fields.  Gage was there, and he was a tiny broken thing; he was hit by an Orinco truck out on a lonely farmland road.
     There were a few others, but the worst was Margot.  Margot was my friend when we were seven.  We had been up in the mountains sledding.  She wandered off into the snow, and I told her not to go but she said he was calling her.  I told her her dad couldn't be calling her, he was back in the car getting the camera, but she went off into the woods and there was a frozen pond hidden in the snow and, oh God, I remember the tiny unobtrusive crack of the ice and oh god we couldn't pull her outandohgodIrememberthescreams.
     And there was poor drowned Margot, back to play.  There she was, her skin pale as a dead fish, her arms black to the elbows, body swollen almost beyond recognition.  Her eyes were the worst, swelled and bruised, but they were still her eyes and they smiled out at me like they used to whenever I came to visit.
     They were all laughing and lurching towards me, arms outstretched, hands hooked into tiny claws in expectation.  I scrambled to overcome a deadfall.  The children climbed too.  At one point I slipped and Margot's icy hand  snatched at my foot.  I recovered and made it over the pile of fallen logs and branches.  There was a frozen lake on the other side.  Before I could react, Margot's long-dead hands encircled my neck in a clammy embrace and we both tumbled headlong into the icy water.  She dragged me down, down into consciousness.  I woke wrapped in my blankets from thrashing, and still I was not warm.
     I believe he's trying to get at me through my subconscious.  Those memories are dead, and sometimes dead is better.  I won't let myself be frightened so easily. 

The police are asking everybody in the dorm about Delia, and it's almost my turn.  I'm planning to run afterwards.