The Ninth Nightmare

‘I love you,’ she said, turning around in her chair. ‘And I won’t allow myself to get too tired today, I promise you.’

‘OK,’ he said, kissing her again. ‘Just remember that you’re the most precious person in the whole of my life. And — since you asked — peduncular hallucinosis is a condition when a patient experiences highly-realistic hallucinations. The most common ones are scary or deformed faces, or strange landscapes, or people walking in a line, or people appearing to be unusually small. It’s usually caused by a variety of serious problems in the midbrain, including tumors and subarachnoid hemorrhage. So please understand why I’m concerned for you.’

‘You’re concerned? If that’s what I’ve got, I’m ten times more concerned than you are.’

David left, and she waved to him through the living-room window as he backed out of the driveway in his ruby-red Audi convertible. She cleared up the breakfast plates and stacked them into the dishwasher. Then she went through to the bedroom to get dressed. It was a warm, sunny morning, as it almost always was in Nautilus, and the French windows in the bedroom were open. Outside she could see their small red-brick yard, with its terracotta flowerpots and its sundial.

She had taken two sleeping pills last night and this morning she felt much calmer and more rested. All the same, as she sat in front of her dressing table, putting on her eye make-up, she couldn’t help thinking about the woman she had seen in that bloodied bed in the Griffin House Hotel. The woman must have been a hallucination, there was no other rational explanation for it, but she had seemed utterly real. And Katie couldn’t imagine why she should have hallucinated about anybody who had been so horribly mutilated.

She took out her coral pink lipstick and was about to apply it when the door chimes rang. She frowned at herself in the mirror. She wasn’t expecting any visitors, nor any special mail deliveries. She got up and went to the front door, peering through the peephole to see who was there. It was a young man in a light green linen coat, with a white rose in his buttonhole.

‘Yes?’ she called out. ‘What do you want?’

‘Katie? Mrs Kercheval? I need to talk to you. It’s important.’

She peered through the peephole again. As far as she knew, she had never seen this young man before, ever, although he strongly reminded her of her music teacher from junior high school. He had short reddish hair and a few freckles across the bridge of his nose, and pale blue eyes. He looked respectable enough, but maybe he was a door-to-door Bible salesman, or a Mormon, or a Jehovah’s Witness. But how did he know her name?

‘What’s it about?’ she asked him.

‘Something happened to you, Katie. Something bad. I really need to discuss it with you.’

‘Who are you?’

‘I’m somebody who knows what happened to you, and why.’

‘All right, then — what happened to me, exactly?’

‘Katie, I can’t discuss this on the doorstep. I need to talk to you face-to-face.’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to let you in. Not without some kind of ID.’

The young man turned away from the front door, with the his right hand cupped over his ear as if he were thinking, or listening. Then he turned back and said, ‘Your grandmother used to sing you a song whenever you came to visit. Do you remember it?’

‘My grandmother? What the hell do you know about my grandmother?’

But, very softly — so softly that Katie could barely hear him — the young man sang, ‘Fly, little falcon, fly high in the sky! So sharp are your claws, so sharp are your eyes! No one can escape you, because you will see, wherever they run to, wherever they flee!’

Katie stood behind the door for almost half a minute. Despite herself, despite her strong sense of self-control, she had tears in her eyes. She hadn’t heard that song for more than twenty-five years, when her grandmother had sung it to her in the living room of her house in Sarasota, overlooking the ocean. She could see her grandmother now, her white hair fraying in the warm Gulf wind, her blue eyes faded, her neck withered, but still beautiful, one hand resting on Katie’s head as if she were blessing her, a priestess passing on a benediction.

‘You will turn — yes, you’ll spin, and you’ll drop from on high! No one can escape you, however they try!’

She drew back the security chain and opened the door. The young man in the light green linen coat was standing on the porch, both arms held out wide, as if he were trying to show her that he was neither armed nor dangerous. He was grinning at her like a long-lost friend who had found her address on Facebook and turned up without warning to surprise her.

‘Katie!’ he said.

‘I don’t know you,’ said Katie. ‘Should I know you? How do you know my grandma’s bird song?’

The young man kept on grinning. ‘Is it OK if I come in? Then I can tell you all about it.’

Katie looked left and right, up and down the street. Only two doors away, Mr Tomlinson was outside in his front yard, trimming his hedges, so she guessed that she could always call out for help if this young man gave her any trouble. Besides, he didn’t give her the impression that he would. He was standing well back from her, giving her plenty of personal space, with his arms still spread wide.

‘All right,’ she agreed, ‘but any funny business—’

‘Katie, this is very far from being funny business. This is deadly, deadly serious.’

She stood back and allowed him to walk into the hallway. She noticed as he passed her that he was wearing a light but distinctive cologne, slightly lemony, with a hint of vetiver grass. He went through to the living room, crossed over to the white leather couch and said, ‘May I?’

‘Sure, sit down. Do you want coffee? I think it’s still hot.’

‘No, thank you,’ said the young man, raising his hand. ‘I never eat or drink during the hours of daylight.’

‘Oh, really? You’re not some kind of a vampire, by any chance?’

The young man smiled, but when he spoke he sounded completely serious. ‘There are no such beings as vampires, Katie. Vampires exist only in folk stories, and in nightmares.’

‘Well that’s good to know.’

‘Yes. But there are beings which are far more frightening than vampires, and they exist not only in nightmares, but in reality, too.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘Yes, really. We call them Dreads, because we dread them.’

Katie looked at him narrowly. ‘Dreads? Is this a joke?’

‘Do I look as if I’m joking?’

‘So what, then? Are you trying to scare me?’

‘Quite the opposite. In fact: I’m trying to reassure you. But after your experience at the Griffin House Hotel, I think you already know that nightmares can be much more than your sleeping imagination gone wild. Nightmares are another world. Of course we can only visit them when we’re unconscious, but then we can only visit the real world when we’re awake.’

‘You know about my nightmare? How?’

The young man hesitated for a moment, as if he were trying to think how to phrase what he was going to say next. ‘It’s what I do, Katie. You could almost say that it’s my job.’

‘Are you a cop?’

‘No.’

‘A private detective, then? No? Not that either? You’ve been talking to the Cleveland police, though, haven’t you? What did they tell you? That I was just some hysterical woman who must have eaten too much cheese before she went to bed?’

The young man shook his head. ‘I haven’t talked to anybody. There wouldn’t be any point. Besides, the police can’t deal with this. Only you can. Well — you and several others like you.’

‘You’re talking in riddles. If you’re not a cop or a private detective then what’s your interest in this?’

‘I told you, I know what happened to you, and why. I also know who you are, and what you can do about it. And — most importantly — how you can do it.’

‘All right,’ said Katie. ‘You tell me what happened to me, and then I might believe you.’