And there was a dark stain on the pavement, from the car to the communal entrance. As if someone had spilled something there. From this distance, it looked horribly like blood.
I squinted at my watch. I’d lost about nine hours.
I braced my hand on the window sill and shook my head. When I turned and looked around again, I expected somehow that everything would have changed; that this strange dream would take a different turn. But the living room was just as I’d left it that morning before heading off to the beach. I suddenly felt nauseous and took a step back towards the bathroom. Fear cramped my stomach with the sudden knowledge that Amy. she. whatever. was in there. It acted like an inner safety valve, preventing me from throwing up then and there.
What was in there?
“Amy.?”
When the telephone rang, it was like some kind of electric shock. My teeth clamped shut so hard that I nicked my tongue, and my mouth filled with blood. With the second ring, I realised that I wasn’t going to have a heart attack. By the third, the fear had returned with a sickening intensity. It suddenly became important that whoever or whatever was in the bathroom not be disturbed by the sound. Staggering across the room, I snatched up the receiver.
“Dean?”
It was Lorna.
“Yes. ”
“What the hell are you playing at?”
“Sorry?”
“We’ve been worried sick about you. What happened to you? Where did you go?”
“Go? I’m not sure what… I mean. ”
“You ran off to the pool to get that poor bird, and then you just vanished from the face of the earth. Have you any idea what trouble you’ve caused? When you didn’t come back we went to look for you and you were nowhere. nowhere . to be seen. Christ, we’ve had the coastguard and the police out. We thought you’d gone into that fucking pool, or something. They’ve sent people down to drag the bloody thing. So what happened.?”
“I’m sorry, Lorna. Something. something happened. and I had to leave and. ”
“You had to leave? I mean, without saying anything to anyone? Without telling any of us? You. you shit! We’ve been worried sick. Well. .” Unmistakeably, anger building out of control, “look. look. you can telephone the fucking police and the coastguard and tell them to call off the search, and while you’re at it you can tell them why you. ”
“Goodbye, Lorna.”
I put down the receiver. My hand was shaking badly.
Beyond the bathroom door, the sound of the shower had suddenly ceased.
It had been turned off.
I stood there, looking at the door. A part of me knew that I should just turn and get out of that apartment as fast as I could. But I couldn’t move. I tried, but I was rooted to the spot.
Something was going to happen.
And there was nothing I could do.
I tried to speak, but my voice choked in my throat.
My heart was hammering. I could feel the blood pulsing in my temples.
And that’s when I heard the singing again. So low as to be almost inaudible. Sly, and hideously mischievous.
“Ain’t. she. sweet?”
“Oh Christ, Amy. I didn’t mean to leave you in the pool.”
Somehow, my voice sounded like the voice of the nine-year old I’d once been.
“I…ask…you. Ain’t…she…neat?”
“It can’t be you. Is it you? Amy, I’m so sorry. ”
The sorrow erupted from me. Thirty years of contained grief. The tears flowed down my cheeks to mingle with the blood in my mouth. It was the salt taste of the sea.
“Dean,” said that voice, with a sibilant echo that must surely be impossible in there.
“Yes?”
“Come and open the door, Dean.”
“Oh God, Amy. I can’t. ”
“Come and open the door!”
“I’m afraid. ”
There was laughter then. Girlish laughter; low but still somehow echoing, and with a terrifying sense of intent.
“Come let me taste your tears.”
Suddenly, I was moving. There was no conscious effort on my part. The voice was drawing me to it, and there was nothing I could do.
Through the blurred vision of my grief and my terror, I saw my own hand reach forward for the bathroom door as I stumbled forward.
The telephone began to ring again. It sounded thin and distant, nothing to do with me at all.
I watched my hand turn the handle, saw the door swing open.
Beyond, I could see only steam from the shower. Some inner and distant part of me knew that there shouldn’t be steam in here at all. There was never steam when I showered. But it was there, and all the details of the bathroom were shrouded in that swirling, undulating mass. Ragged wisps and rapidly dissolving tentacles swirled over the threshold into the living room, dissolving before they reached me.
“Come here, Dean,” said something hidden from sight.
In terror and grief, I stepped into the bathroom and felt the warm embrace of the steam.
And that’s when everything becomes fractured again.
Something happened in there, but it’s as if my mind is either incapable of comprehending it, or that the horror was so great that it shuts off every time I try to understand what was being done to me. I’m trying to think of it now; trying to get impressions, but nothing will register. I know it’s in there, locked in my head, but nothing will come.
When it ended, the nightmare had changed location again.
The first thing I became aware of was the wind. It smelled of salt and seaweed, and when my vision cleared I could see the sea. I was standing on a beach, and moonlight was shining on the water. When I looked down, I could see that I was standing on shale, not sand. I’d spent enough time on the north-east coast to know that I was a great deal further south than Tynemouth or Whitley Bay. There was no oil on the water.
I turned to look away from the sea and to the ragged cliffs behind me. The movement was too much for me, as if I’d been standing in the same position for hours and my limbs had frozen. I fell to my knees, retching. When I’d finished, something made me look back to the sea.
She was standing in the water, silently watching me.
I knew that she hadn’t been there before, that there was no way she could have suddenly appeared like that. But there she was, the water troughing around her naked legs. The moonlight silhouetted her from behind. I could see no details of her face or, thank God, those eyes.
“Please…” I began.
I knew that if she began to sing that song again, I must surely go mad.
But she didn’t say a word. She just stood motionless, watching me.
I lowered my head once more, feeling the nausea swelling within me.
When I looked up again, she had moved closer. But it was as if she hadn’t moved at all. As if she had somehowfloated closer to shore. The water foamed around her shins, but she was still in the same motionless position.
“Dean.”
The voice echoed impossibly once more. I moaned and waited for the end.
“Stand up.”
I staggered to my feet. I had no will to resist.
“Come closer.”