The house lights dimmed, turning red. The figure went into Kurt’s bedroom.
“Wake up, you son of a bitch,” Kurt muttered to himself. “This dream’s got to end soon.”
A second later the figure came back out, its stick feet hushing over the rug. A hinge keened, the door snapped shut. Then, arms straight at its side, the thing on the landing walked rigidly to the top step. It stood very still and looked down at him with no face.
“Up yours,” Kurt said to it. “You’re wasting your time. I’m not afraid of a dream.”
“What if it’s not a dream?” the figure croaked. Its voice was shredded and bubbly, yet strangely familiar. “What if you’re wrong? What if this is real?”
“Fuck you.”
“See? You are afraid. You’re afraid to even go and see what I’ve left. It’s very important, but you’re too afraid.”
“Why should I be afraid? Whatever it is, it can’t be any uglier than you.”
The figure began to shiver, then convulse. It laughed fadingly and dissolved amidst the red, dark light.
The nerve of some people, Kurt thought. I guess this won’t end till I see what the fucker put in my room. He resigned to it. He walked up the stairs and opened his bedroom door.
A damp, meaty smell blew into his face. He traced his hand up the wall to find the light switch but found instead a worm-filled hole where the light switch used to be. He gagged, wanting to vomit. But even in the pale moonlight, he could see the long, bulky object lying on his bed.
It looked like—
“Oh, Christ.”
Behind the window, clouds lowered. More moonlight spilled into the room, and Kurt’s vision became acute. The object on the bed was a body bag, obviously complete with a body.
Kurt knew what the dream meant for him to do. “I’m not opening it!” he yelled aloud. “I’m not!”
The phone on the nightstand rang, as loud as a blast from his siren. It rang again, and again.
He knew he would not wake up until he had at least answered it. But when he went infuriated to the nightstand, he noticed that the phone was dusted over by some faint, white powder. It reminded him of chalk. Or talc.
He picked up the phone. “Pizza Wheel. May I help you?”
There was no answer at first, just layers of muttering. But then a voice said: “Who were they? I didn’t know them. Why did they do those things to me?” The voice was a young woman’s. She was sobbing.
“Who is this?” Kurt demanded.
“They did…awful things.”
“Who are you?”
The muttering rose, enlaced by moans and a sound like people marching through dense woods. Then the young woman’s voice answered, “You know me, I know you do. I’m…”
“Who are you!”
“I’m dead.”
Kurt’s blood lost all its heat at once; he couldn’t move. Why did the voice, or what it stood for, affect him so gravely? He felt sure he didn’t know the person. Had he forgotten that this was still just a dream?
“Open the bag,” the voice said.
“No.”
“Open it.”
“I’m not opening a goddamned body bag!” Kurt shouted.
“Open it,” the voice repeated, but now it was fading away. “Open it. Open the bag.”
Suddenly Kurt’s hand and ear and chin were wet. The phone was oozing blood. He threw it down in disgust, frantic to wipe off his face.
The dream had seeped into him now. He knew what he must do. He turned to the bed and looked down at what lay there.
“It’s Vicky,” he whispered to the dark. “I know it is. Stokes has murdered her.”
Trembling, his fingers touched the zipper’s metal tab. Again he was aware of the mad, rapid ticking he’d heard earlier in the den. With a gentle rasp, the zipper parted smoothly, and the sides of the bag fell away.
“Please don’t be Vicky,” he said. He shone his flashlight into the bag.
But it wasn’t Vicky at all. The gray, dead face which looked back at him was his own.
««—»»
Kurt felt blasted through layers of another dimension. The soaring motion shook him, threatened to shake him apart; but then as the velocity increased, his consciousness emerged, as if from a lake of sludge.
Gaseously, a face formed. It was small. He heard: “Kurt! Kurt!” and knew that the face belonged to Melissa. The real Melissa. At last, the nightmare was over.
“You can stop shaking me now,” he said. He didn’t know whether to hug her or kick her in the behind. He lay in the bed as if dropped from a great height. “I’m awake, or at least I better be.”
“What happened?”
“A real brain-broiler of a nightmare, that’s all.”
Melissa crouched by the bed. He felt relieved; she wore a dumpy pair of pajamas rather than the nightdress of the dream. And he was pleased to see she didn’t have a cigarette in her mouth.
“I’ll bet they heard you all the way from here to Bowie,” she told him.
“What?”
“You were screaming.”
“Come on, I was not.”
“You were screaming bloody murder. I was almost afraid to come in. It sounded like someone was doing a number on you with a blowtorch.”
Kurt refused to believe it. “I wasn’t screaming—men don’t scream. You’re lying, as usual.”
“Believe what you like.” Now she was giggling at him. “I told you those Mexican TV dinners give you bad dreams. But do you listen?”
“What time is it?”
“Way past two.” Grimacing, she looked at her hands and wiped them on her pajamas. “Gross. You’re all icky.”
“I probably lost ten pounds in sweat.”
THUNK, THUNK, THUNK
Kurt and Melissa looked at each other.
“Someone’s at the door,” she whispered.
This was too much, too soon. The thunking was the same. “Be a sport and—” but he stopped short. He would not recite the dream verbatim. “Go see who it is,” he said.
“No way. I’m not answering the door in my pajamas.”
“Please. As a personal favor to me, just go answer the door. I’ll give you a dollar.”
“Forget it. Only nuts knock on doors at this hour. It could be some escapee from St. Elizabeth’s… It could be Hinkley.”
“You’re the nut,” he concluded. “I hope it’s the stork, coming to take you back.”
She gripped his shoulder, fretting. “But it could be one of the vampires!”
Kurt got out of bed. “Do they make corks big enough to fit your mouth?” He headed for the hall.
“You’re not going to answer the door in your boxers, are you?”
“Why shouldn’t I? It’s not the pope or the President. They came last week, didn’t they?”
“What are you taking that for?”
“Taking what?” he said. He was holding his service revolver; he’d taken it off the nightstand without even realizing it. “Impulse, my dear. If you’d had the dream I just had, you’d understand.”
Kurt went out and down the staircase, thinking that the only thing funnier than a man walking down the stairs in his underwear was a man walking down the stairs in his underwear with a gun.
In the foyer, he held the pistol behind him. He could feel the steel’s cold through his shorts. He opened the door a crack and wilted.
Chief Bard walked in. He held a large carry-out coffee and wore clothes that looked slept in. “Don’t dress up on my account,” he said.
“Sorry, Chief. If I’d known it was you, I would have put on my polka dots.”
“Quit yammering and get your suspended ass in gear. We’ve got to hustle.”
“Hustle?” Kurt said. “To where?”
“South County General. We’re meeting Glen at the body shop.”