Too late! She was paralyzed now, unable to move her legs or her arms, unable even to sit up. She was held tight by bonds she could neither see nor feel, but that held her immobile and helpless against the forces around her.
Now the beings were back, swirling around her, whispering amongst themselves.
Suddenly a stabbing pain shot through her chest, as if a needle had been jabbed directly into her heart.
Then another stab of pain, this time in her stomach.
She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. She tried to strike out at her tormentors, but not one of her muscles obeyed her commands.
The stabs came faster, jabbing her belly and her side, her groin, her neck.
The whisper of voices grew to an incoherent babble, then faded away until all she could hear was a strange sucking sound, like a cat lapping milk from a bowl.
It got harder to breathe then, and she felt her heart pounding, beating so hard she could hear it, then suddenly skipping beats, vibrating in her chest as she tried to catch her breath.
Dying!
She was dying!
What light there was began to contract into a pinpoint until she felt as if she were looking down a tunnel. Then she was suddenly free of the bonds that had held her paralyzed, and was running through the tunnel, racing toward the light. But the beings that had a moment ago surrounded her were chasing her, reaching out to her. If they caught her—
She plunged onward, her legs straining, her arms pumping. Her heart felt as if it were about to burst, and her lungs ached as she struggled to suck in enough air to keep going.
But she was getting closer!
The pinpoint of light was expanding.
But even as she came closer to the light, she could feel her pursuers gaining on her, coming closer and closer.
They were right behind her now, reaching out to her. Every muscle in her body was burning now, and for a moment she felt herself pulling ahead.
She was going to make it! This time she was going to escape into the light.
She was almost there! Just another step and then—
She tripped.
Her foot caught on something, and she lost her balance. Throwing her hands out, a scream of frustration and terror erupted from her throat and—
She woke up.
Her eyes opened.
Her heart was racing, her breath coming in gasps.
She felt as weak as if she’d been running all night.
Her body felt clammy, her pajamas were damp with sweat.
But it wasn’t real. It couldn’t have been real.
It had only been a dream, and she was back in her bed, in her room, and the first rays of the morning sun should be shining on the window shade.
It had only been a dream, and she was all right.
Except she didn’t feel all right.
The morning sun wasn’t shining on the window shade.
She wasn’t in her bed; wasn’t in her room.
Everything was different.
The light — the light she’d chased in her dream, the light she thought would save her, was a bare bulb, hanging above her.
The tormentors, whom she’d thought she left behind in the dream, were still here, lurking in the shadows, their presence more felt than seen.
One of the tormentors, clad all in white with a mask covering its face, drew closer, and she felt something. Something being pushed up into her nose. But her mind was so fogged, her body so weak, that she wasn’t quite certain of what might have happened.
But one thing she was certain of.
She was dying.
She was dying, and she wasn’t sure she cared.
Being dead couldn’t be any worse than living through the dream again.
Caroline Evans’s dream was not a nightmare, and as it began evaporating into the morning light, she tried to cling to it, wanting nothing more than to retreat into the warm, sweet bliss of sleep where the joy and rapture of the dream and the reality of her life were one and the same.
Even now she could feel Brad’s arms around her, feel his warm breath on her cheek, feel his gentle fingers caressing her skin. But none of the sensations were as sharp and perfect as they had been a few moments ago, and her moan — a moan that had begun in anticipation of ecstasy but which had already devolved into nothing more than an expression of pain and frustration — drove the last vestiges of the dream from her consciousness.
The arms that a moment ago had held her in comfort were suddenly a constricting tangle of sheets, and the heat of his breath on her cheek faded into nothing more than the weak warmth of a few rays of sunlight that had managed to penetrate the blinds covering the bedroom window.
Only the fingers touching her back were real, but they were not those of her husband leading her into a morning of slow lovemaking, but of her ten-year-old son prodding her to get out of bed.
“It’s almost nine,” Ryan complained. “I’m gonna be late for practice!”
Caroline rolled over, the image of her husband rising in her memory as she gazed at her son.
So alike.
The same soft brown eyes, the same unruly shock of brown hair, the same perfectly chiseled features, though Ryan’s had not yet quite emerged from the softness of boyhood into the perfectly defined angles and planes that had always made everyone — men and women alike — look twice whenever Brad entered a room.
Had the person who killed him looked twice? Had he looked even once? Had he even cared? Probably not — all he’d wanted was Brad’s wallet and watch, and he’d gone about it in the most efficient method possible, coming up behind Brad, slipping an arm around his neck, and then using his other hand to shove Brad’s head hard to the left, ripping vertebrae apart and crushing his spinal cord.
Maybe she shouldn’t have gone to the morgue that day, shouldn’t have looked at Brad’s body lying on the cold metal of the drawer, shouldn’t have let herself see death in his face.
Caroline shuddered at the memory, struggling to banish it. But she could never rid herself of that last image she had of her husband, an image that would remain seared in her memory until the day she died.
There were plenty of other people who could have identified him at the morgue. Any one of the partners in his law firm could have done it, or any of their friends. But she had insisted on going herself, certain that it was a mistake, that it hadn’t been Brad at all who’d been mugged in the park.
A terrible cold seized her as the memory of that evening last fall came over her. When Brad had gone out for his run around part of the lake and through the Ramble, she’d worried that it was too dark. But he’d insisted that a good run might help him get over the jumpiness that had come over him the last couple of weeks. She’d been helping Laurie with her math homework and barely responded to Brad’s quick kiss before he’d headed out.
Hardly even nodded an acknowledgment of what turned out to be his last words: “Love you.”
Love you.
