A door pulsated like a heart at the end of a row of carts. Rubbery feet carried me through a sluggish stream of pink noise. Gnarled hands pushed the tables aside. I approached a massive blockade.
The door had a thousand locks on it, all covered with spikes. They smelled black all over. I stared for hours at them in an instant. Not knowing what else to do, I heaved my body against the barricade.
My skin broke open and splattered against the door. Locks and spikes dissolved into pools of noisy, noisome vomit. The stinking, vibrating mass flowed up the walls and away to reveal an open door and blinding bright hallway.
The hallway became a hole stretching down into white oblivion. I gripped fervently at the doorjamb. My fingers crumbled and split. Crickets and silverfish crawled out of the joints to jump and crawl over my arms.
I wasn't making much progress.
I let go and slid down the hole in a scream of lilac and ammonia. I shrieked all the way until I hit bottom. Panic bars reached out to pound me in the gut. A clear, white light surrounded me. It burnt my flesh, dazzled my eyes. Flakes of skin sloughed off like snow. Everything roared.
'Too loud!' I screamed. '
'
A hundred black and scarlet hands gesticulated in the sunlight, casting their own twisted shadows. Snake- tongued fingers pointed the way.
I looked in their direction. A lion crouched there, lurking in the distance. With a shattering growl it pounced and ran toward me. My feet sank into yielding pavement, holding me fast.
Soft brown paws burrowed up from the ground. They grasped my ankles. The lion raced nearer. As it did, its paws metamorphosed into hooves, its mane transformed into antlers.
A stag rushed at me, blood streaming silver and smoky in its path. In its eyes glowed fury and pain.
I stood my ground bravely-the paws and pavement that gripped my feet defied escape. Dust howled about me. The stag swerved at the last instant, pelting my body with gravel. Each rock cried out with indignity as it hit home.
'Get in!' The voice was an astonished, blurring rainbow. A white hand beckoned out to me.
I crawled my focus along the arm until I reached a face. Ann Perrine gazed at me, as clear as unaltered reality.
My hands groped for the smooth metal siding of the car that filled my vision. Suddenly I hung from it, dangling over an infinite, empty space. I screamed.
'Quiet!' a voice hissed. 'They'll hear you!'
Time flowed below me like a sewer. I tried to convince my rational, panicky mind that none of this was happening. It didn't do much good. I pulled myself up to her, never letting my million eyes lose sight of her. I clung. I inched.
I was inside.
'You're safe.'
I tasted her words-they felt good.
'It's me,' she said. 'Ann. What've they done to you?'
My voice rebounded with irritating volume. 'I've got more dope in my veins than half of Woodstock Nation.' That was all I could get past the clog of mealworms in my mouth. I stared down at my hands. The skin was blotched red and blue. The muscles palpitated erratically.
'You're safe,' she repeated. Her arms reached out to hold me.
All I saw were scorpion claws, sickles, razor-edged boomerangs. I pushed her away.
'No,' my voice fuzzed from somewhere. 'Fear imprint.' My mumbling sounded like waves of mush.
