Her terror mounting once again, and wishing she could just turn away, Kim reached out and pulled open the door.
The music blared.
She stepped through the door so she was standing on the landing at the top of the stairs, gazing down into the darkness.
The darkness, and the faint point of light that leaked through the keyhole of the door to Jared's room.
Just like in the dream…
Don't, Kim told herself. Just don't go down there.
But even as the words filled her mind, her feet began carrying her down the staircase. With each step she took, the rhythms of the music reached deeper into her, and the point of light drew her steadily onward. At the bottom of the stairs she stood before the door to Jared's room.
She paused, listening.
Now she could hear more than just the music itself.
Whispered voices, and faint, mocking laughter.
And moans.
Moans of ecstasy.
She was in Jared's room! Sandy was in Jared's room!.
Kim's hand reached for the knob, but she stopped herself as the memory of the pagan cathedral she'd seen in her dream-the cathedral that had turned into a chamber of horror-rose in her mind. What if it wasn't a dream? What if everything she'd seen were somehow real? What if Sandy really was-
Unable to finish the thought, Kim turned away from the door and hurried back up the stairs, then shut the basement door behind her and leaned against it.
What should she do?
Should she wake up her parents?
Sandy would never forgive her!
But if she was with Jared and Luke-
Kim felt as if she were caught in another nightmare, but this time she knew it wasn't a dream. This time it was real. From behind her the music reached through the door, and she could almost feel its tentacles sinking into her once again, as it had in the nightmare, trying to draw her back down into the basement.
Just as in her dream, her fingers closed on her aunt's tiny cross, and as she felt it in her hand, her resolve strengthened. She left the door to the basement and made her way back to the entry hall.
As she started up the great staircase toward the second floor, the waves of music receded, loosening their grip on her.
At her parents' door, she hesitated.
Whatever was going on in Jared's room wasn't any of her business.
No one had forced Sandy to go down there.
And if she told on her, Sandy would never speak to her again.
Silently, Kim made her way around the mezzanine to her own room, easing her door open just far enough to slip inside, praying it wouldn't creak. Just as she was closing it behind her, she realized her room wasn't empty.
Kim froze, listening.
Breathing! She could hear the sound of breathing!
Once again her heart began to race, but even as her fear built, she moved her hand slowly toward the light switch on the wall. When she finally felt it beneath her fingers, she drew in her breath and held it.
She flipped the switch, and the chandelier in the middle of the ceiling glared into brilliant light, washing the darkness from the room.
Sandy Engstrom sat bolt upright in Kim's bed, clutching the sheets around her neck. For a long second the two girls stared at each other in shock, then Sandy collapsed back against the pillows, giggling. "What are you doing?" she asked when she finally subsided. "You scared me half to death!"
"I didn't even know you were up here," Kim began. "I thought-" She was about to blurt out the truth when she caught herself. "I woke up, and you were gone, and I thought you must have gone home or something. How come you didn't wake me up?"
Sandy rolled her eyes exactly as Kim had when she herself had been frightened by watching Scream. "I tried," she said. "When the movie ended, I tried to wake you up, but finally I just gave up and came up and went to bed." She looked at the clock. It was just past three A.M. "Do you always sleep that hard?"
Kim shook her head. "I thought-" She hesitated, then shrugged helplessly. "I don't know what I thought," she finally finished.
She got undressed and slid into bed next to her friend.
Should she tell Sandy about the nightmare?
No. She didn't even want to remember it herself.
But long after Sandy had fallen back to sleep, Kim lay awake as the details of the dream came back to hang in the darkness in front of her.
Over and over, she witnessed the wanton scene on the bloody altar, saw over and over again the face of the demon that had reached out to her. As the night crept on, she tried to banish the visions, but failed.
It was only as the rising sun drove back the dark that the demons finally released Kim from their grip and let her sleep.
Even then she could still feel the throbbing rhythms from the basement as the tentacles of Jared's music reached out to ensnare her.
She slept, but she didn't rest.
CHAPTER 27
It was a dream. It had to have been a dream. Yet even now, with the morning sun flooding through the windows, Kim could remember every detail. She lay staring up at the ceiling while the horrifying images-the impossible images-she'd seen last night recurred in her mind like some insanely repeating videotape, endlessly replaying the same sequence.
Beside her, Sandy Engstrom stirred, then sat up, rubbing her eyes. Seeing Kim was awake, she pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, then eyed Kim warily. "If I tell you about a dream I had, will you promise not to tell anybody?" she asked, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I mean, not a soul!"
A flicker of foreboding flashed through Kim, but she nodded.
Sandy's eyes gleamed, and even in the warmth of the morning she shivered with remembered pleasure. "It was about Jared."
Kim's stomach knotted as she was consumed by a terrible feeling that she didn't want to hear what Sandy was about to tell her. But she heard herself say, "I promise. I won't tell a soul."
Sandy hugged her legs more tightly to her chest and sighed. "It was really weird," she began. "I was sound asleep, and then I started to wake up. I could feel someone touching me, but I wasn't scared at all. It felt really wonderful. And when I was wide awake, he took me somewhere. It was the most beautiful place I've ever seen. Oh, God, Kim, you should have seen it! It looked kind of like a church, but a lot more beautiful than any church I've ever been in!"
No! Kim thought. It's not possible!
As she listened to Sandy, Kim recalled the details of her own dream, in which she'd watched Luke making love to her friend.
Could it be that she hadn't been dreaming at all? Her mind reeled as she tried to make sense of the possibility that it had all really happened. But that made no sense, either. The house was big, but none of the rooms was anywhere near as large as the one Sandy described.
The one she herself had seen in her own dream.
Could she have been sleepwalking? Had it been some strange hypnotic state? If not a dream, then what?
"Kim?" Sandy said. "Kim, what's wrong? You look white as a ghost. Are you okay?"
Jerked out of her maelstrom of thoughts, Kim nodded mutely. Should she tell Sandy they'd both had the same dream-exactly the same dream?
No way. Sandy would think she was crazy. Besides, they couldn't possibly have had exactly the same dream, so there must be some other explanation.
Something that made sense.
"I-I'm fine," she stammered at last. "I just didn't sleep very well, that's all."
Sandy cocked her head, and for a second Kim had the strange feeling that somehow Sandy was looking right into her. But then the color drained from Sandy's face, and she scrambled out of bed and hurried toward the door.
"Sandy? What is it?"
"S-Sick," Sandy blurted, clapping her hand over her mouth as she rushed out into the hall. Moments later Kim heard the muffled sounds of Sandy throwing up in the bathroom next door.