Ghouls

Melissa’s cheeks drew in to black pits when she sucked her cigarette; the tip burned furiously for a second, increasing the orange tint on her tiny, starving face. Then she said, “Fuck her, Kurt. Fuck her.”

“Shut up!” he shouted.

“Fuck her, fuck her, fuck her! I wanna watch!”

Joanne’s grin seemed on the verge of splitting her face. She slithered off the bed and began to crawl toward Melissa.

“Stop! No, please!” he bellowed. “I’m begging you to stop!”

Joanne continued to grovel forward, the insides of her thighs slick with shine. She had something in her hand. “Forget him, honey,” she said to the girl. “Let’s do like we did before. Remember what we did before?”

“Uh huh,” Melissa answered.

“You liked that, didn’t you?”

“Uh huh.”

“It felt good, didn’t it?”

“Uh huh.”

Joanne knelt upright, looking down. Her eyes were black now, and the irises white. The thing in her hand was a massive black rubber phallus with hip straps.

The black eyes glittered; she fastened on the straps. The mock penis stuck out at an angle, hideously veined.

She continued toward Melissa.

Kurt’s shouting brought blood to his face, and heat. His throat felt scorched raw. In the dream, he wished he could die, anything to avoid witnessing this.

Melissa lay back then, frail and shiny-eyed. She began to lift her nightdress!

“And it won’t hurt at first this time,” Joanne promised. But as she spoke, her voice lowered to an unearthly suboctave, phlegm rattling deep in her chest. “Now we can see how far it’ll go in.”

Kurt’s bones bent against the wall of his paralysis. He felt a tendon pop.

But next his feet came off the floor, as some abrupt, snapping force yanked him out of the room and into the hall. The sudden inertia made him shriek. He landed on the floor.

Melissa’s door slammed shut on its own. Squeals rose and fell from within the room, like a tape on fast forward. Then the final scream burst forth.

And the door was gone.

Kurt struggled to stand, every muscle in his body fat with pain. He walked back down the black hall, toward the light.

“It’s only a dream,” he said to himself. “Why should I care? It’s only a dream.”

Cold air whipped circles through the hall. It hadn’t been there before. Sparked, he dashed to the foyer and saw that the front door had been smashed apart from the outside.

Footsteps padded quickly along the upstairs carpet. Kurt turned, slowly, grimly. Looked up. And saw a gaunt, sticklike figure walk across the landing. It moved stiffly but with great speed. It seemed to be carrying something in its arms.

The house lights dimmed, turning red. The figure went into Kurt’s bedroom.

“Wake up, you son of a bitch,” Kurt muttered to himself. “This dream’s got to end soon.”

A second later the figure came back out, its stick feet hushing over the rug. A hinge keened, the door snapped shut. Then, arms straight at its side, the thing on the landing walked rigidly to the top step. It stood very still and looked down at him with no face.

“Up yours,” Kurt said to it. “You’re wasting your time. I’m not afraid of a dream.”

“What if it’s not a dream?” the figure croaked. Its voice was shredded and bubbly, yet strangely familiar. “What if you’re wrong? What if this is real?”

“Fuck you.”

“See? You are afraid. You’re afraid to even go and see what I’ve left. It’s very important, but you’re too afraid.”

“Why should I be afraid? Whatever it is, it can’t be any uglier than you.”

The figure began to shiver, then convulse. It laughed fadingly and dissolved amidst the red, dark light.

The nerve of some people, Kurt thought. I guess this won’t end till I see what the fucker put in my room. He resigned to it. He walked up the stairs and opened his bedroom door.

A damp, meaty smell blew into his face. He traced his hand up the wall to find the light switch but found instead a worm-filled hole where the light switch used to be. He gagged, wanting to vomit. But even in the pale moonlight, he could see the long, bulky object lying on his bed.

It looked like—

“Oh, Christ.”

Behind the window, clouds lowered. More moonlight spilled into the room, and Kurt’s vision became acute. The object on the bed was a body bag, obviously complete with a body.

Kurt knew what the dream meant for him to do. “I’m not opening it!” he yelled aloud. “I’m not!”

The phone on the nightstand rang, as loud as a blast from his siren. It rang again, and again.

He knew he would not wake up until he had at least answered it. But when he went infuriated to the nightstand, he noticed that the phone was dusted over by some faint, white powder. It reminded him of chalk. Or talc.

He picked up the phone. “Pizza Wheel. May I help you?”

There was no answer at first, just layers of muttering. But then a voice said: “Who were they? I didn’t know them. Why did they do those things to me?” The voice was a young woman’s. She was sobbing.

“Who is this?” Kurt demanded.

“They did…awful things.”

“Who are you?”

The muttering rose, enlaced by moans and a sound like people marching through dense woods. Then the young woman’s voice answered, “You know me, I know you do. I’m…”

“Who are you!”

“I’m dead.”

Kurt’s blood lost all its heat at once; he couldn’t move. Why did the voice, or what it stood for, affect him so gravely? He felt sure he didn’t know the person. Had he forgotten that this was still just a dream?

“Open the bag,” the voice said.

“No.”

“Open it.”

“I’m not opening a goddamned body bag!” Kurt shouted.

“Open it,” the voice repeated, but now it was fading away. “Open it. Open the bag.”

Suddenly Kurt’s hand and ear and chin were wet. The phone was oozing blood. He threw it down in disgust, frantic to wipe off his face.

The dream had seeped into him now. He knew what he must do. He turned to the bed and looked down at what lay there.

“It’s Vicky,” he whispered to the dark. “I know it is. Stokes has murdered her.”

Trembling, his fingers touched the zipper’s metal tab. Again he was aware of the mad, rapid ticking he’d heard earlier in the den. With a gentle rasp, the zipper parted smoothly, and the sides of the bag fell away.

“Please don’t be Vicky,” he said. He shone his flashlight into the bag.

But it wasn’t Vicky at all. The gray, dead face which looked back at him was his own.

««—»»

Kurt felt blasted through layers of another dimension. The soaring motion shook him, threatened to shake him apart; but then as the velocity increased, his consciousness emerged, as if from a lake of sludge.

Gaseously, a face formed. It was small. He heard: “Kurt! Kurt!” and knew that the face belonged to Melissa. The real Melissa. At last, the nightmare was over.