'Yeah. But it's not a feeling. It's a sound.'
'What sort of sound?'
'Whispers.'
'You mean that you wake up and imagine that you hear people whispering?'
'That's right. Whispering, whispering, whispering. All around me.'
'Who are these people?'
'I don't know.'
'What are they whispering?'
'I don't know.'
'Do you have the feeling they're trying to tell you something?'
'Yes. But I can't make it out.'
'Do you have a theory, a hunch? Can you make a guess?'
'I can't hear the words exactly, but I know they're saying bad things.'
'Bad things? In what way?'
'They're threatening me. They hate me.'
'Threatening whispers.'
'Yes.'
'How long do they last?'
'About as long as the ... creeping ... crawling.'
'A minute or so?'
'Yes. Do I sound crazy?'
'Not at all.'
'Come on. I sound a little crazy.'
'Believe me, Mr. Frye, I've heard stories much stranger than yours.'
'I keep thinking that if I knew what the whispers were saying, and if I knew what was crawling on me, I'd be able to figure out what the dream is. And once I know what it is, maybe I won't have it any more.'
'That's almost exactly how we're going to approach the problem.'
'Can you help me?'
'Well, to a great extent that depends on how much you want to help yourself.'
'Oh, I want to beat this thing. I sure do.'
'Then you probably will.'
'I've been living with it so long ... but I never get used to it. I dread going to sleep. Every night, I just dread it.'
'Have you undergone therapy before?'
'No.'
'Why not?'
'I was afraid.'
'Of what?'
'Of what ... you might find out.'
'Why should you be afraid?'
'It might be something ... embarrassing.'
'You can't embarrass me.'
'I might embarrass myself.'
'Don't worry about that. I'm your doctor. I'm here to listen and help. If you--'
Dr. Rudge popped the cassette out of the tape recorder and said, 'A recurring nightmare. That's not particularly unusual. But a nightmare followed by tactile and audial hallucinations--that's not a common complaint.'
'And in spite of that,' Joshua said, 'he didn't strike you as dangerous?'
'Oh, heavens, no,' Rudge said. 'He was just frightened of a dream, and understandably so. And the fact that some dream sensations lingered even after he was awake meant that the nightmare probably represented some especially horrible, repressed experience buried way down in his subconscious. But nightmares are generally a healthy way to let off psychological steam. He exhibited no signs of psychosis. He didn't seem to confuse components of his dream with reality. He drew a clear line when he talked about it. In his mind, there appeared to be a sharp distinction between the nightmare and the real world.'
Tony slid forward on his chair. 'Could he have been less sure of reality than he let you know?'
