When I found Claudia I had no idea we would eventually wind up in bed together. It hadn’t been something I’d thought about or even wanted until that night, and I was certain she had felt the same. But here we were. And while I struggled with feelings of guilt and regret, there was also exquisiteness to it, a raw sensuality and honest affection existing for a time amidst a dreamscape of devils and nightmares, an oasis in a desert of shadow.
It ended with silent intensity while rain sprayed the windows. The candles had burned down to nearly nothing, but lightning still blinked, illuminating the room every few seconds. Exhausted, we drifted off to sleep, her body draped over mine, head on my chest, breasts crushed against my stomach, our nude forms slick with sweat, warm and wet, entangled from head to toe.
In the night I lost my way, wandered from our sanctuary to the murky borderlands of sleep, where all that was ghastly and unclean waited for me.
I groggily opened my eyes. Claudia was still wrapped around me, her breath hot and steady on my chest. The storm clouds had dissipated and the rain had softened, giving way to the moon. Shadows moved along the walls. The floor creaked. I sensed movement before I saw it sweep past the corner of my eye.
Blended with darkness, new moonlight revealed several figures shrouded in black silently circling the bed, dancing around it like part of some ancient ritual. My muscles constricted in terror. I tried to sit up but my body remained paralyzed, stuck to the mattress and pinned beneath Claudia. I tried to call out to her but the words stuck in my throat, and the harder I tried to speak the worse it became. The figures continued their dance, increased their speed and began to violently convulse.
Claudia’s head suddenly jerked up, her chin in my chest and her eyes alive and wild. “Ever wonder what happens when you close your eyes?” she giggled. “What comes awake once you go to sleep?”
I struggled to get her off me but my arms and legs wouldn’t respond, and the more I attempted to thrash about the harder Claudia laughed.
“Get… off,” I finally managed to choke out.
“Ever wonder what that odd feeling is you sometimes get in the night?” she whispered, looking over her shoulder only long enough to grin at the beings still circling the bed. “The feeling that you’re not alone, that there’s something in the room with you once the lights go down and it’s quiet? We all feel it sometimes. Like maybe somebody or something is standing right next to your bed? We all open our eyes and look even though we know we won’t see anything. But deep down you know you felt something, and it scares you. Know why? Because something really is there.”
Suddenly I was able to move, and my arms pushed her away with such force that she became momentarily airborne before crashing back onto the mattress beside me. I scrambled from the bed, swinging punches at the darkness and releasing a primal scream. But the shadows were gone.
I staggered across the room, still off-balance, and crashed against the wall.
Claudia remained on the bed, sprawled out on her back. Snarling whispers filled the room as smoke rose from her body and it began to convulse. The cottage followed suit, shaking as if from an earthquake. Terrified, I scanned the room and ceiling, half expecting things to fall on me from above. I clutched the gold crucifix hanging around my neck. It had been a gift from my mother just months before her death. I held it tight as tears filled my eyes. Do you still believe? My mother’s voice, from so long ago…
“Are you all right?”
The sound of Claudia’s voice stopped it all as quickly as it had begun. I traced her voice to the bed. She was sitting up, watching me with a confused look on her face. “Are you dreaming?”
“I don’t know,” I said, voice breaking.
“It’s OK.” She crawled to the edge of the bed and sat back on her knees. Her body was still damp. “Keep the evil in your dreams and nightmares, whether you’re asleep or awake, it makes no difference. As long as it’s there its bound and you can control it. If it gets in here,” she said, pointing to her temple, “it’s in control. Once you let it in your head, or it fools its way in, once it’s there for real, it can do whatever it wants.”
Slowly, I moved back toward the bed, still uncertain of who or what I was dealing with. “Am I awake?”
“Remember what I told you.” Claudia opened her arms. “It’s all deception.”
As I leaned in to accept her embrace I heard a strange cracking sound, like small bones or pencils being broken, snapped in half, cracked and splintered.
Before I could process any of it an appendage burst through her abdomen. Warm blood sprayed my face, and I threw myself backward to the floor as more jointed and furry appendages burst from her stomach and chest. Coated with blood and bodily fluids, her body glistened. With more cracking sounds her back arched and the spider-like legs clicked into position to support the weight of her torso.
I scuttled across the floor to the door, but it slammed shut before I could get to it. Behind it I could hear growling and scratching. On the other side of the room Claudia’s destroyed body had transformed into some bloody, writhing and macabre hybrid of human being and arachnid.
Flames appeared, encircled the bed and rose nearly to the ceiling. The thing that Claudia had become was gone. Her normal form had been restored, but impossibly, she began to climb the wall like an insect might, scaling it slowly, as if crawling across the floor. When she reached the ceiling she stopped and looked down at me.
Her eyelids were gone.
From the darkness behind me two bloody hands grabbed either side of my face and pulled me back. I fell against whoever was there, and their clutch tightened, the blood from their fingers sliding across my cheeks. In a voice that sounded like he had just gargled cut glass, he said, “Don’t you know who I am?”
I struggled to break free but couldn’t. The hands shook me, gave my head one quick but savage jerk, and I went limp. “Bernard,” I gasped.
“Wrong,” the voice whispered in my ear. Something wet touched the side of my neck. A tongue. Gliding upward. Hot. Moist. Fetid. “His father.”
It was no longer night, but not quite morning either. Dawn was moments away, and the rain had stopped. Though the sun had not yet broken through the darkness, in the distance I could hear birds singing, welcoming its approach. I was still covered in sweat and had come awake not with a sudden jolt, but gradually, the way one might emerge from a peaceful sleep. I slung a hand out for Claudia but found only mattress and pillow next to me. My heart still racing, I rolled over. She was sitting near the window in a small wooden chair, smoking a cigarette and watching the sky. Nude, with her tattoos and dark eyes, she reminded me of a vampire anticipating sunrise and contemplating her escape.
Without looking at me she said, “You were having a nightmare.”
“Yes,” I said quietly.
“You were thrashing around.” She drew on her cigarette. The orange tip glowed bright in the fading darkness. “Couple times you called out.”
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“It’s better to let these things run their course.”
My body was sore and despite the nightmare I could have easily gone back to sleep. “Been a long time since I’ve woken up anywhere but next to my wife,” I said.
She looked at me. “Is she coming back?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want her if she does?”
“We’ve been together a long time.”
“Do you love her?”
I nodded.
“Does she love you?”