Banquet for the Damned

Taking careful sips from her coffee, Kerry stares across the room and beyond the far wall, her eyes unfocused, looking inward. 'Is it nightmares you study?' she says, breaking from the daze, suddenly uncomfortable with letting herself drift in front of a stranger.

'Yes, that's a significant part of the whole deal. I'm an anthropologist and I've been studying occult beliefs in primitive or isolated societies — from what we call an ethnographic perspective. I study people and why they believe in the supernatural. Not whether magic works or not, but why some communities still maintain occult practices. This took me down the avenue of primal fears in a wide range of cultures and night terrors became a by-product of my original thesis. Something I picked up along the way. It interested me and I saw my chance for original work.'

'Tell me about the nightmares,' she says, staring right at him now.

'Well, when a locale has a long tradition of superstition, and if the roots of that history are deeply entrenched in the occult, sleepers often suffer the same nightmares for generations.' He feels himself light up inside and, despite his reticence at becoming an academic bore with such a pretty girl, his enthusiasm carries him along. 'You know, the bad dreams last for years, even centuries, like a kind of echo. I've travelled to Newfoundland, South America and Africa chasing this pattern for my book. I want to collect data reflecting how, inexplicably, a haunted past can become locked, like an energy, in a specific area, and affect the sleep of even those people who are otherwise oblivious to the history of the place in which they live.'

'How do these night terrors affect people?' Kerry asks, her voice sharper.

'Well, some of the good people who have confided in me have had the same dreams since they were kids, and want to know why they go to the same place every time they close their eyes. Others are too afraid to sleep, or find their dreams affect the way they behave. In some extreme cases, well, folks do unusual things. They become volatile, or unreasonable. They can sleepwalk too.'

The girl's eyes widen and her body stiffens.

'But it's usually just the sleeping consciousness, and night terrors are a universal phenomenon. There is no need to —'

'Sleepwalk, you say,' Kerry interrupts. 'How extreme does sleepwalking get?'

'Well, it varies, from strolling around the house to incidents of amnesia. In extreme cases —' he pauses '— well, it seems to be the start of something more complicated.'

Kerry closes her eyes and covers them with a slim hand, pressing her varnished nails into her cheek, just below an inflamed scratch. He hears her say 'Shit' under her breath.

'Kerry, I'm sorry. I don't want to frighten you. Girl, that is a very unlikely scenario.'

When she removes the hand from her face her eyes shine with tears. Hart swallows. 'Listen, Kerry, I think we should start. Just lie back there on the couch and relax. If you want another drink or a smoke just holler. That's it, get comfy. Don't worry about your boots, just relax. I'm going to ask you a few questions and I want you to be as candid as you are able. I'm not an analyst, but I believe talking about it, to someone who knows what's going down, will take the world off your shoulders. Clean off, honey, where it hadn't ought to be.'

She reclines on the couch and sinks into the cushions and throwrug. She dabs at her eyes with a white tissue she has kept tucked up her sleeve. Hart stretches his arm across to the tape recorder and indents the RECORD button as quietly as possible. 'This is Doctor Hart Miller on August 25 at 11:00 a.m., speaking with Kerry Sewell, a fourth-year student on the Art History honours degree programme, at St Andrews University. Kerry, I would like to ask you a few frank questions about your general wellbeing and state of health.'

'OK.'

'Are you taking any medication, or have you been over the course of your troubled sleep?'

'No. Wait a minute. Yes. Some hay-fever tablets. And I had a really bad flu. Like a forty-eight-hour thing. I took antibiotics.'

'Have you suffered unduly from stress or depression?'

'I'm not depressed, but I have been working hard. I had final exams and still have my thesis to finish.'

'So you often work late?'

'I would say so.'

'How much do you drink a week, on average, in terms of units of alcohol?'

'Umm, I don't know. Wine sometimes with a meal, or in the evening, and at the weekend I go out with friends, but I rarely get drunk.'

'OK. Is there a family history of mental illness? Schizophrenia, to be precise?'

'No. Grandma's a bit scatty, but she is nearly eighty.'

'Right. Have you ever had any psychological problems?'

Kerry looks away.

'Kerry, I am not asking for specific details, but generally have —'

'I saw a psychiatrist during my A-Levels.'

'A-Levels? What are those?'

'Exams you take before university.'

'Oh, right. So you needed counselling for something?'

'Yes. I had a few problems in my teens. Nothing major.'

'That's all right, honey, I —'

'Sorry, but it was very painful. Can we talk about the dreams now?'

'Sure, sure. I was just establishing a bit of background.'

'And you think I'm a nut already, because I saw a psychiatrist?' Her words come quickly and her face hardens with annoyance.

Still smiling and keeping his voice steady, Hart says, 'Kerry, there is no taboo in counselling. I think everybody should have an analyst. I spent most of my youth on a couch talking about my mother to some dude in a check jacket and brogues.'

Anger changes to relief, and her face softens with a smile. 'I'm sorry… for snapping. But everything is difficult for me at the moment. I'm not sleeping and I think I should leave St Andrews.'

'Kerry, I hear you, but I think you should start at the beginning. You mentioned your nightmares on the phone. Just give me what you can remember about when and how they began.'

She folds her arms across her chest, as if for warmth, clasping the top of each arm with a hand. 'It started about two months ago, when a student called Ben Carter killed himself. At first I thought it was a reaction, like delayed shock. I didn't know him that well, but when someone your own age dies, it's terrible. You just don't expect things like that to happen.'

Hart nods his head. 'It was awful. Did you and Ben take the same courses?'

'No. Ben and I were part of a group. I knew him from there.'

'What kind of group?'

'Umm, a paranormal society, run by a lecturer in the divinity department. Eliot Coldwell. Lots of people went, but it was all quite harmless.'

Hart frowns.

'Most of the people there went out of curiosity. Mr Coldwell has quite a reputation for being weird. Bit of a giggle, really. That's why my friend Maria and I went along.'

'So this lecturer, what did he do?'

'Oh, gave talks and things. Like the stuff you see on those Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World programmes. I heard he conducted experiments with some people who thought they were psychic as well. But I dropped out early. I had too much work to do.'

Hart squints and tries to remember where he's heard the name before. 'Eliot Coldwell. The name rings a bell.'

'He wrote a book. Some of the boys in the group kept asking questions about it. Because of the drugs in it.'

'Yeah. Can't remember the title.'

'Banquet for the Damned.'

'That's right. I've read about it. Started a few cults in Britain and some of those heavy metal bands went for it in a big way. Led Zep, I think. Maybe Sabbath too. He was into the whole Eastern thing. Kind of like a minor-league Crowley or Huxley.'

Kerry nods. 'It's in the library. I never read much of it. Found it a bit heavy going.'

'Did these group meetings start your nightmares?'