Kiss of the Bees

He held out one trembling hand. Reluctantly, Candace put down the phone and grasped his hand. With a worried frown on her face, she settled back down on the bed beside him. For the next several minutes she leaned over him, murmuring words he could barely hear or understand but ones that somehow comforted him nonetheless. Eventually the terrified beating of his heart began to slow. When his breathing finally steadied, he was able to speak.

“I’m sorry, Candace. I didn’t mean for you to . . .”

Realizing that the immediate crisis was past, her solicitous concern turned to a sudden blast of anger. “So what are you on, David Garrison Ladd?” she demanded. “Crack? Speed? LSD? All this time you’ve had me fooled. I never would have guessed that you did drugs.”

“But I don’t,” David protested. “I swear to God!”

“Don’t give me that,” she snapped back at him. “I’ve been around enough druggies in my life to know one when I see one.”

“Candace, please. It’s nothing like that. You’ve got to believe me. This has been happening to me for weeks now, every time I go to sleep. First there’s an awful dream and then—” He broke off, ashamed.

“And then what?” she demanded.

“You saw what happens. My heart beats like it’s going to jump out of my body. I can’t breathe. I come out of it soaked with sweat. The first time it happened I thought I was having a heart attack. I thought I was going to die.”

“You should see a doctor,” Candace said.

“I did. He told me I was having panic attacks. He said they were brought on by stress and that eventually I’d get over them.”

“I’ve heard about panic attacks before,” Candace said. “One of the girls in the dorm used to have them. Isn’t there something you can take?”

“Nothing that wouldn’t be dangerous on a cross-country drive,” David told her. “All of the recommended medications turn out to be tranquilizers of some kind.”

“Oh,” Candace said. “And how long has this been going on?”

“For a couple of weeks now, I guess,” David admitted sheepishly.

“And why didn’t you tell me before this?”

David shrugged his shoulders. “I was embarrassed. I didn’t know what you’d think about me if I told you.”

“And it’s always the same thing? First the dream and then the panic attack?”

“Yes,” David said, “pretty much, but . . .” The rest of the sentence disappeared as he gazed off into space.

“But what?”

David swallowed. His voice dropped. Candace had to strain to hear him. “I used to dream about the day Andrew Carlisle came to the house and attacked Mother. But now the dreams are different.”

“Different how?”

“Different because Lani is in them. At the time all that happened, Lani wasn’t even born. This one was different, and it was the worst one yet.”

Getting up off the bed, David walked over to the window and stared outside at Chicago’s nighttime skyline. He stood there in isolation, his shoulders hunched, looking defeated.

“You said this dream was worse than the others,” Candace said. “Tell me about it.”

David shook his head and didn’t speak.

“Please tell me,” Candace urged, her voice gentler than it had been. “Please.”

David shuddered before he answered. “I was certain the first attack was over,” he said at last. “Mother was in the kitchen because I could already smell the bacon cooking. Burning, really. Then the door to the cellar fell open, just the way it always does in the dream, except this time, the room was empty except for Bone, my dog. He was there in the kitchen, licking up the bacon grease, but the house itself was quiet and empty, as though everybody had left.”

“Where did they go?”

Davy swallowed. “I’m coming to that. I called Bone to come, and the two of us went from room to room, trying to figure out where everybody had gone. I checked every room but there was nobody to be found, until the last one, Lani’s. They were in there, Lani and the evil Ohb. He had her on the bed and he was —”

Davy broke off and didn’t continue.

“He was raping her?” Candace supplied.

Davy shook his head. “I don’t know. I couldn’t see. All I know is he was hurting her, and she was screaming.” He put his hands over his ears as though Lani’s scream were still assailing them. “It was awful.”

“It was a dream,” Candace said firmly. “Forget it. Come back to bed.”

“But Rita, our baby-sitter, always said that dreams mean something. When I was a freshman in high school, I went out for JV football. One day Lani was taking a nap and she woke up crying, saying that I was hurt. Mom was trying to tell her it was nothing but a dream when the school nurse called to say that she thought my ankle was broken and that Mom needed to come pick me up.”

“You’re saying you think Lani might be hurt?”