thing, a movie zombie. His mouth hung open and a steady, raspy hiss emanated from his throat. His flaccid cock dangled from the open fly of his jeans, and one of his dead hands stroked it to no effect. He came after her with it, and she ran. She ran and ran, tripping and stumbling her way through a phantasmagoric wilderness filled with screaming vampire bats and wolves with luminescent yellow eyes.
Then the scene shifted.
She was in a bed. The bed was her own, but in the dream it was in Shane’s apartment. His bedroom. She was naked. A faceless man loomed over, fucking her, grunting and cursing her. And she loved it. It was so great. She clawed the phantom lover’s back and cried out. Shane was in the room, too, standing clothed next to the bed, watching the primal rut with an empty expression.
He was holding a gun.
His Glock.
The gun hung limp in his hand, aimed at the floor. But now his arm moved, raising the gun, pressing the muzzle against his temple.
She laughed at him. “Do it. I’ll come so hard if you do it, Shane.”
Shane’s empty expression never changed. His finger squeezed the trigger, there was a momentous explosion, and her boyfriend’s brains splashed the window blinds behind him. Karen awoke with a gasp, her eyes blinking against the wall of darkness, the final grisly image from the dream imprinted indelibly on her brainpan.
She felt sick, disgusted at the imagery conjured by her traitorous mind. The dream’s meaning couldn’t have been more clear. She’d killed Shane with her betrayal. But it was just a dream, random brain blips, the unconscious mind’s bent way of processing the shame filling her conscience. The crude mental shorthand couldn’t be taken seriously.
She knew that.
So why was she suddenly crying again?
Because it was all too much. The grief washed over her again, drowning her in sorrow. She was so preoccupied with her guilt, she didn’t initially realize something was very wrong. Then she felt it.
The restraint.
Something cold and metallic encircled her wrists.
Handcuffs?
And all at once there were no more feelings of guilt, no more bottomless depths of grief to plumb. Panic, hot and galvanizing, spread through her like a wildfire. Her hands yanked against the restraint, and she heard a faint metallic clank.
Shit!
Her hands were cuffed to the headboard rails. Before she could scream, she heard a faint creak-then she saw a sliver of yellow light. The bedroom door slowly opened, and a lithe figure stood framed in the light from the hallway.
The figure chuckled.
Fear seized her heart like a cold hand.
The figure closed the door. There was a click, the sound of the door being locked. Then she heard heels clicking on the hardwood floor. The figures face wasn’t clear yet, but a sudden certainty gripped her-she knew who it was.
The figure clicked on the lamp next to the bed.
And Karen trembled.
Her suspicion was validated.
Ms. Wickman smiled at the cuffed girl, licked her thin lips, and said, “What a naughty little bitch you are. Killing your boyfriend that way.”
She made a tsk-tsk sound and shook her head.
Karen whimpered. “Don’t hurt me … please.”
Ms. Wickman threw her head back and laughed heartily. She looked again at Karen and said, “Oh my, I haven’t laughed that hard in …” She pursed her lips, cocked an eyebrow, and appeared to think it over.”… oh, since the last time I punished a lying little whore like you.”
She pulled the comforter down, cast an appraising glance at Karen’s exposed body-nude except for white cotton panties-and opened the nightstand’s drawer, from which she extracted a cat-o’-nine-tails. It was black with a braided handle, nine knotted cords with metal tips, and a wrist loop for better handling. Karen shuddered. She’d played with such things before-in controlled situations with partners she trusted.
Ms. Wickman’s demeanor was not that of one who wanted to play.
And there was the matter of the woman’s devastating accusation…
… killing your boyfriend that way…
Could she see into her mind?
It wasn’t possible.
Was it?
Ms. Wickman smiled and flicked the whip at her.
Another room, dark and quiet.
The figure on the bed sleeps fitfully. Tortured dreams abound in this place tonight. They always do. The house is a vast repository for nightmares. The very air is heavy with the trace remains of agonies past. …
Alicia’s eyes snapped open in the darkness. She sensed something in the room with her, an unnatural presence leering at her, and the perception caused her heart to do a pretty good imitation of a jackhammer. She sat up in bed, gasped, and cast her gaze quickly about the dark room.
The terrain of the room was alien, disconcerting, its dark corners impenetrable in the gloom. A ripple of fear made her teeth chatter. She flipped the covers off her body, snapped on the bedside lamp, and saw …
Nothing.
She was alone in the room.
She put a hand to her breast, breathed deeply, and tried to relax. The perception of a menacing presence faded. More deep breaths. She worked at regulating the out-of-control rhythm of her heart. Her nerves were on edge, a condition she attributed to the creepy surroundings.
Goddamn you, Dream, she thought.
But Alicia was angrier at herself. She should never have acquiesced to Dream’s strange desires to stay in this place. Her friends were distraught. Their judgment wasn’t to be trusted. That being the case, she should have been firmer in her resolve.
Alicia breathed a sigh of frustration.
The truth was, there was little she could have done. The Accord was so low on gas it might not have gotten them back to the paved road, much less all the way back to the interstate. And the prospect of sleeping in the Accord after all those cramped hours on the road was only marginally more enticing than an invitation to sleep on a bed of nails. Therefore, they were at King’s mercy.
Alicia didn’t like that.
Not at all.
This house was a few very small steps removed from being a prison. She was here against her will, and she couldn’t leave. The stark reality of it shook her. She wished she’d probed King for personal information when she’d had the chance. They’d all been too wrapped up in their own problems to give him much thought, but it suddenly seemed very important to know who he was and what he did. Why, for instance, did he live in such isolation? He was a man of obvious wealth, given the size of his home and the fine furnishings in evidence throughout its interior, but how did he generate the money?
But the isolation bothered her more than the mystery of his wealth.
A person with certain inclinations, a fondness for the taboo things civilized society shunned, would find it easy to indulge those appetites here, far from the prying eyes of law enforcement and media.
A disturbing thought sent a chill through Alicia. He could kill people and get away with it. Take the case of Alicia and her friends, for instance. Days had passed since they’d communicated with anyone back home. Nobody knew where they were, a situation exacerbated by the unplanned detour from the interstate and the subsequent bewildering path they’d taken through the winding back roads. If anything happened to them, how would anyone ever find them?
