The son of a bitch wasn’t even listening anymore, just… sitting there like a lump, his eyes closed, shaking his head like a damn baboon. Liar, cheat; pathetic gutless coward!
Janice didn’t even know what she was saying anymore, her voice distant and disembodied, functioning of its own accord. The words were nothing but noise; white static or animal chatter, pouring from her like poison from a lanced boil.
Her focus blurred, her sense of orientation faded. She felt drunk, far more than she should have been on only two scotch and waters.
Where… where was she? What had she been doing… ?
She opened her eyes, finding herself in the entrance to a large motel room. The carpet was white and thick, the lights low, with a soft pink cast. She heard the distant strains of lounge music, and low voices, whispering nearby…
Bill was somewhere else too.
It might have been his office building. It might have been his doctor’s office. It was a room, a place, but nothing looked familiar.
A sharp pain in his chest forced his head back. He felt himself falling, from a chair perhaps, striking the hard floor. There were explosions in his head—white fireworks—an outrageous roaring in his ears, like he was standing in front of Niagara Falls.
Janice crept toward the bedroom, making no noise on the thick carpet. Now she could discern two distinct voices—a man and a woman. They were talking low, and giggling. Obviously enjoying each other. There was also the sound of clinking glass—a bottle of champagne being poured.
She peered around the corner of the bedroom door and was not at all surprised at what she saw:
Bill was in bed, nude from the waist up. Sitting on the edge, a glass of champagne in her hand, was a blonde. She was nude, buxom; no older than 22. The woman took a sip of champagne, turned to Janice, licked her lips and smiled.
He felt and heard movement all around him, but he couldn’t see it. Those damn white fireworks were still going off like a thousand fourth of Julys in his head.
Bill heard the clank of metal, the excited voices of men working. They were speaking in technical jargon—medical, perhaps—that he couldn’t understand.
He felt himself being lifted and then slid, or wheeled, into a small space. He still couldn’t see, but he could smell—antiseptic, medical, sterile.
The pain in his chest was now intolerable. He would have screamed, if only he could.
She was suddenly calm.
She knew what to do now.
Somehow, the blonde no longer existed. There was only Bill, lying luxuriously in the ridiculous heart-shaped bed with an obscene mirror high above it. He looked at her smugly, as if daring her to do something about it.
She felt something in her hand. She had no idea how it got there; long, cold, and very sharp, matching the smile that spread across her face.
Bill was suddenly able to see. He saw the technicians tearing open his shirt, rudely applying some sort of device to his chest, smelled the rubber of the oxygen mask covering his face. He saw the lurid red glow of the ambulance lights outside the tiny window on the back door as it hurtled through the night.
Then pain.
The earlier pangs had been mere hints of this. Paralyzing, indescribable agony, all thought and personality swept away beneath it.
Real. This is real.
And not only reaclass="underline" reality, the same reality whose revelation he’d so long feared. At last, it had made itself known, and now, there was nothing to obscure or deny it.
Shuddering, he let it take him, sinking into a condition where all notions of his former life dissolved, where self was picked apart by cold surgeon’s hooks and scalpels. Death, once the ultimate terror, became something prayed for; the only desire, or hope of salvation.
Be quick, be quick! He begged.
But it was not.
All was quiet in the Sloanes’ flat.
Aside from a few broken plates and overturned glasses, the dining room almost appeared normal.
Janice crossed her legs, sipping her scotch and water, and leisurely lit herself a cigarette. She was smiling.
Across the table sat her husband. He was sprawled back in his chair, hands clutching his chest, open eyes staring at the ceiling. A large carving knife protruded from the left side of his chest. A stream of blood dripped from the wound, down his white shirt to the floor.
On the kitchen counter, a red light—strangely reminiscent of an ambulance—suddenly stopped flashing. The device began, once again, to tell time.
The Exeter
Everything was red.
The shapes below screamed in fear. It surrounded them, engulfed them; clouds of shrieking, searing red.
First the vibrations were soft and then grew in force. They grew until they hurt, until shapes flew through the air and became smaller shapes. They grew until one form struck another. Then the vibrations climaxed, as if everything that surrounded the forms were focused on one point. And that point was red.
At that moment, on the shiny surface of a shape that flashed across the vague light, there was a reflection. A reflection of the self.
Beyond terrifying.
After this, the vibrations slowed. The forms came to a stop.
All came to a stop, except for the knowledge that this had been seen before. It was not at all understood, but it was known—all this had been before.
The terror of that knowledge was deep. It was necessary to be away from this place. Surfaces and barriers were passed through, unknown distances traversed.
A corner was found, in which to cower.
9
Laura Bostick, in Apartment 108, was awakened early Saturday morning by the cries of her infant son. The disturbance was unusual; little Matthew usually slept well past seven in the morning. She nudged her husband Greg. Characteristically, he declined to respond, simply grunting and rolling over.
She stumbled toward Matthew’s nursery, just off the dining room, and turned on the light. She comforted the baby and soon he was back asleep.
Laura stepped into the dining room, turning on the light. Everything looked normal.
Until she looked up.
She wasn’t sure at first what she was seeing. The otherwise pristine crystals were dark. Looking closer, she saw that something had seeped through the ceiling from the apartment above; an expanding patch that had dripped down over the chandelier.
She ran a finger through the film coating one of the lower crystals. It came away sticky. And red. She sniffed it.
Then she screamed.
It was deja vu for Detective Maudlin.
“Long time no see,” he quipped to Cantrell at the front door of the Exeter.
Cantrell did not have a quick one-liner in response. He merely exhaled and stood clear of the door, making way for the small army of police technicians who followed in Maudlin’s wake.
Parked in the circular drive before the building was a host of police cruisers, a sinister black van marked “Coroner,” and a trailer marked “Crime Scene Investigation.”
After curt commands to key members of his crew, Maudlin took Cantrell aside. He was all business. Cantrell was clearly upset.
“Who found the body?”
“Technically, I did,” Cantrell replied.
“Technically?”
“I heard her scream. Laura Bostick, the tenant in 108. Her chandelier was covered with blood.”
“Really?”
“Her flat is immediately below the Sloanes’. It must have dripped through the floor.”
The old cop rubbed the back of his ear. “Don’t see that one every day. Okay, what then?”