Dark Terrors 3: The Gollancz Book of Horror

of there. She bolted for the door, deciding she could live with the loss of her overnight bag and collided with someone else, someone too strong for her to twist away from, who struggled her back from the doorway, bruising her forearms with a hard grip, and forced her down on to the couch in front of the television set.

‘Jules! What—’

He grabbed the stool she had been sitting on and planted it just to her left, sat down on it and seized her arms again. ‘Shut up!’ he bellowed into her face, so close that she could feel how hot his breath was. It was that sensation more than anything that shocked her. She could not remember ever being that physically close to her brother.

‘Now, listen,’’ he growled at her and she was horrified to see tears welling in his eyes. ‘Listen and watch. The suffering is—’ He stopped, breathing hard and deep through his nose, glaring at her.

And again he left the sentence unfinished. At a time like this. Everything is so. The suffering.

Then her father was speaking to her from the television again, the live man performing the task that the dead man had delegated.

‘. to punish myself in more hideous ways than the state would, I think. I had thought of turning myself in, as a matter of fact, but your mother talked me out of it. She said that a man in my health, so many years later — well, the only thing that would really make a difference would be if we could — if I could, actually — try to make it up to you in some way. To get you the help that you’re going to need, for the rest of your life.’

Renata made a disgusted noise. ‘Oh, Christ, what is it? Was there a trust fund and he embezzled—’

‘Shut up,’ her brother warned her quietly.

‘—can never give you back those years of your childhood that I stole. Her father’s voice was beginning to sound whiny. ‘All I can do is tell you I was wrong, beg for your forgiveness from here, beyond the grave, and assure you that you will get only the very best counsellors, doctors, hospitalization when you need it—’

‘‘Hospitalization?’ Warning bells went off in her head to the point where she could not have told the difference if she had been hearing them outside. Abruptly she remembered a basic self-defence move Vinnie had taught her, a way to twist your wrist to get out of a man’s grip so that no matter how big and strong he was, he would have to let you go. My brothers taught me this one, Vinnie had said, they told me that if any guy was gonna beat me up, it would be them, not some stranger. Of course, they never did beat me up, not that I recall, anyway -

She pushed Jules away and stood up. To her surprise, Jules launched himself at her and pinned her down on the couch with his body. Renata cried out, more in anger than anything else. The worst part about it was that no one else in the room had moved, no one, not to help her, not to help Jules, not to do anything, and all the while her father’s voice went on and on and on, talking and talking and talking. Dead Man Talking, she thought, and bit her lip to keep from laughing hysterically.

‘. to treat my beloved daughter in such a hideous fashion. I don’t know what drove me to it, to act out my vile needs on your innocence, to soil and betray your trust in me as your father, your protector..’

‘What?’ Renata said, trying to push Jules off her. ‘What? Stop that! Turn that fucking TV off.’

But no one moved, and her father’s voice whined on, ‘. and you, so pure, so loving, so unwilling to believe that life would have such ugliness in it that you completely repressed all memory of what I had done to you. It was as if your sweet little mind said, “All right, then, if he won’t be a father to me out here, then I will create the loving father that he isn’t in my mind—”‘

‘What?’ She arched her back, trying to buck her brother off but he seemed to get heavier and heavier.

‘“—and if I can’t get anyone to protect me or help me out here, then I will create the support group that I need in my mind—”‘

Support group? Had her father just said support group? Renata was beyond disbelief. This was some kind of horrible joke, it had to be. Some kind of absurd practical joke put on by Jules and her mother. They had been driven mad with grief, they—

‘—hypnotic regression to recover my memories, we’ve determined that I’ve observed you displaying at least thirteen different personalities, just to help you cope with the terrible things I’ve done to you—’

‘What?’ Renata looked from her father’s earnest image on the TV, babbling away about abuse and multiples and recovered memories to Jules’ tormented, painful face above her. ‘Julio, what in God’s name is he talking about?’

He turned to look at Dan. ‘This must be the one Dad referred to as “Cleo.” She always denied all knowledge of anything that was going on.’

‘Who’s Cleo?’ Renata demanded. ‘What are you talking about now?’

‘Cleo,’ Jules said to her. ‘Short for Cleopatra. Queen of Denial?’ Pause. ‘You get it?’

‘No, wait a minute. And get off me, goddammit—’ Renata arched her back again, trying to throw him off.

‘Careful!’ Dan called. ‘Maybe that isn’t Cleo, it could be Lilith just pretending to be Cleo so she can molest you—’

Jules made a disgusted noise, started to get off her and then didn’t, instead planting his knee in the centre of her stomach without letting go of her wrists. ‘What do we do?’ he asked, frightened.

Dan was at his side in a moment. ‘Well, the first thing we do is, we keep our heads. Remember, I told you that doing an intervention can be an incredibly emotional experience. You can’t start panicking as soon as things get hairy. It’s going to get worse before it gets better, it’s going to get a lot worse, and Renata needs all of us to be strong and calm for her—’

‘Hey, asshole,’ Renata said angrily, ‘I’m right here, not in the next room. Now get my crazy brother off me and stop talking about me in the third—’

‘Should I call an ambulance?’ asked one of the twins in a tight, anxious voice.

‘Not yet,’ Dan said. ‘Some of these personalities can be incredibly strong, we don’t want any innocent paramedics to get hurt. As soon as she’s calmer, we’ll call a private service and have them take her out to Wood Grove.’ He knelt down beside the couch and brushed Renata’s hair out of her face. ‘I want to speak with Renata, please. Or The Boss. That’s what your father always called her,’ he added to Jules. ‘The Boss was the one who always took charge when things got a little loose around the edges and threatened to fall apart’ He turned back to her and spoke clearly into her face, over-enunciating as if she were stupid.

‘I said, send out Renata right now. We want to talk to Renata.’

‘Dan,’ she said, trying to sound calm but hearing the shakiness in her voice. ‘Dan, stop a minute. What are you doing? At least, tell me what you think you’re doing? We’ve known each other all our lives. We played together, went to the same school. Hell, you even took me to the Christmas dance one year when my boyfriend came down with shingles.’ She swallowed hard. ‘Remember that?’

Dan’s face took on an expression so sad that she wanted to cry for him. ‘You see, Jules? You see how insidious this thing is? She remembers going to a dance she never went to, because it’s far better than remembering what really happened that night, that her father forced me to bring her to that motel where he was meeting with that group he called The Sex Club—’

‘Dan, there are pictures, photos of us together at the dance—’

‘Faked,’ Dan said, with authority. ‘All faked. So you’d go on believing that you’d had a happy childhood and a good life, and not the horror that you really had to live with.’ He bowed his head for a moment. ‘And so I could repress the memory of my part in what you suffered.’

The rest of them had gathered around the couch now, even her mother, sniffling and dabbing at her eyes and clutching Mrs Anderson for support. They all looked down at her as if she were some kind of strange, unidentifiable creature that had somehow landed, injured and frightened, in the middle of an ordinary, suburban living room.