When she came to the top of the flight of stairs with the barely visible pinpoint of light at the bottom, she wanted to turn back, knowing what she would find when she finally came to the bottom of the stairs and entered the light.
Jared.
But not Jared.
Someone else, someone who looked like Jared but wasn't.
She tried to turn away from the stairs, but now she could hear the music, too, faintly throbbing rhythms that, though barely audible, insinuated themselves inside her like tentacles wrapping around every nerve in her body, taking over control so that she had no choice but to take that first step down into the abyss.
Kim's heart pounded with terrible anticipation as she descended the endless staircase, and when she finally came to the bottom, it felt as if all the energy had been drained from her body, and along with her energy, her will to resist had been sapped as well.
The music was louder now, and its hold on her stronger. The point of light stood in the darkness like a beacon, and despite her exhaustion, Kim moved toward it. After what seemed an eternity, she stood before the final door.
Don't, she told herself. Don't go through the door.
But even as the thought formed in her mind, her hand went to the knob, turned it, and slowly pushed the door open. It swung silently inward on its hinges, moving as easily as if it were floating weightlessly in the air. And as it opened, the strange cathedral appeared before her, its roof soaring so high it was all but invisible. Candles-millions of them-flickered everywhere, suffusing the vast chamber with a shadowless glow, and filling it with a sweet pungency that made Kim feel lightheaded. Straight ahead of her the altar was all but lost in the swirling smoke of the candles, but even from the doors she could see that something-something familiar-lay at the foot of the inverted cross that hung above the altar itself.
As the doors slammed shut behind her, the light of the candles faded into a stark white glare punctuated by pools of darkness, a darkness so black that Kim shivered with visions of the terrors those shadows might hide.
She wanted to turn, wanted to flee, but her will was not her own.
Slowly, inexorably, she began to walk down the aisle.
Like a bride. The manic thought seemed to come out of nowhere. That thought was followed by another: If I'm a bride, where is my groom?
And suddenly she saw him.
A tall figure, clad in a flowing robe of scarlet-the only splash of color in the surreal scene-appeared in front of the altar, facing her, one hand outstretched. As she moved down the cathedral's broad aisle, the face of the waiting figure came into focus. His features were strong and even; his eyes seemed to hold her own, drawing her toward him like a moth to a beacon of light.
Then she recognized him.
The figure was Jared.
Jared? she thought. It can't be Jared-you can't marry your own brother.
The figure drew closer.
No, not Jared. It couldn't be Jared. It had to be someone who looked just like him. Had to be!
The music, a cacophony of discordant shrieking, battered at Kim's ears as she approached the altar. The red-robed figure reached for her hand, and Kim watched helplessly as her own hand seemed to rise against her will to slip into his. Just as their fingers were about to touch, the face before her changed.
The skin, smooth and milky white only a moment before, turned scaly.
Pustules erupted from the suddenly sunken cheeks.
The clear eyes began to run with cloudy mucus, and the mouth opened to reveal a long, sharply pointed tongue that darted toward her, splitting in two, with each of the two points morphing into the twin heads of a pair of serpents whose mouths gaped open as they hung before her, their fangs dripping with venom, their forked tongues lashing out at her.
Her whole body spasming with terror, Kim jerked her hand back, and her fingers closed on the golden cross that still hung suspended on her breast where her great-aunt had placed it.
The face before her contorted with fury, and the figure twisted aside, screaming in rage, phlegm and bile erupting from its gaping mouth.
Sickened, Kim reeled away. As she turned to flee back up the aisle, she saw Luke Roberts.
Naked, he lay before one end of the altar, sprawled atop Sandy Engstrom, whose arms and legs were wrapped around his glistening torso as she writhed ecstatically beneath him. Stunned into frozen immobility, Kim stood rooted to the spot as her brother's best friend and her own twisted and flailed on the floor before the altar. Then, as if feeling her watching him, Luke looked up, and his eyes locked on hers.
He smiled.
Once again Kim saw the face of the demon-eyes running with mucus, skin turned into a reptilian hide erupting with pustules. Now the twin serpents burst forth from his mouth, along with a terrible, high-pitched laugh that crashed against Kim like shattering glass.
Her gorge rising, her throat filling with the burning fire of vomit, Kim turned away from the grotesque scene on the floor, and now the grinning visage of the demon loomed above her once more, both his hands outstretched, his fingers growing into curving talons that dripped with blood. Just as the creature's claws were about to sink into her flesh, she turned one last time and raced back up the aisle of the cathedral. The aisle seemed to stretch away from her as she ran. The taunting laughter she'd heard boiling from Luke's throat was joined now by other cackling voices, the peals striking her back like the stinging tips of a lash, driving her on despite the exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm her.
Finally she came to the doors and burst through, pulling them closed behind her. In an instant she was plunged into darkness, but she bolted ahead and a moment later stumbled headlong into the bottom of the stairs.
Screaming, she threw her hands out to break her fall and-
Kim jerked awake, a scream still rising in her throat. She choked it back just before it could smash the silence of the night, and then she lay still, her heart pounding, her mind reeling as the last fragments of the nightmare faded away.
She became aware of the faint throbbing of music then, and a glowing point of light in the darkness surrounding her.
Oh, God, was she still caught up in the nightmare?
But no-she couldn't be. If she were still in the clutches of the dream, would she even be wondering if it was a dream?
She must be awake!
She willed her pounding heart to slow, and as her pulse eased, so also the terror that gripped her began to ebb. Disoriented, she looked around.
The library! That's where she was! And the glowing point of light was nothing more than the stand-by indicator on the television set!
She sat up. "S-Sandy?" she stammered.
Silence, save for the muted rhythms of the music.
The music from the dream?
She got up and switched on the floor lamp at the end of the sofa on which Sandy Engstrom had been sprawled while they watched the movie.
The sofa was empty; Sandy wasn't there.
The details of the dream loomed once more in her mind, and she whimpered softly as she saw again the vision of her friend, her body glistening in the candlelight, her limbs entwined around-
No!
It hadn't happened! She hadn't seen it! It had only been a dream.
Then where was Sandy?
The question hanging in her mind, Kim moved out of the library and through the living room to the entry hall. The house seemed to have grown in the gloom; the huge rooms appeared more immense than ever. She crossed the entry hall, moved into the parlor and the dining room.
Nothing.
She was passing the door to the basement stairs when she paused. The music-the music she had thought was only another vestige of the nightmare-was louder now.