Nightshade

by John Saul

  Checking them against what?

  In all the years she’d lived in this house, even though it stood alone, surrounded by the forest, she had never felt frightened. Yet tonight, as she moved from room to room, she felt uneasy.

  Exposed.

  As if there were someone — or something — lurking in the darkness outside.

  Looking in at her.

  Watching her.

  There’s nothing, she told herself. There’s never been anything out there to worry about, and there still isn’t! Yet as she turned off the last light, plunging the downstairs into a darkness that no eye could penetrate from outside the house, the uneasiness refused to leave her, and as she started up the stairs, it grew worse.

  She paused at the top of the stairs, listening.

  All around her the old house creaked and groaned.

  Like it always does, she reminded herself. Nothing’s different tonight.

  Nothing!

  She started toward her own room, but paused at the door to Cynthia’s room. Though it was closed, she could almost feel a presence behind it.

  Her sister’s presence? Of course not — her sister was dead!

  But she’d heard her sister’s voice, heard her laughter.

  Seen her.

  Memories, she reminded herself. The voices and laughter she’d heard were nothing but memories! And it’s not Cynthia’s room! It’s a guest room. My guest room! But still, her hand closed on the doorknob, twisted it, and pushed the door open.

  The room was empty.

  Joan stood just outside the doorway, staring into the darkness at her sister’s dimly perceived things. But they weren’t her sister’s, not anymore. Her sister was dead, and the dead couldn’t own anything. But as her eyes fell on the shadowed portrait of Cynthia, she heard her sister’s voice, as she had before.

  “They’re still mine, Joan. Everything you have is mine.”

  “No,” Joan whispered, unaware that she’d spoken aloud.

  “It is, Joan. You know it is. I’m taking it back, Joan. I’m taking it all back!”

  “It’s not true,” Joan whispered, snapping on the light and scanning the clutter in the room.

  The pictures on the walls.

  The makeup on the vanity.

  The small bottle of Nightshade, its powerful scent hanging in the air, even though its stopper was in place.

  Junk, Joan told herself. It’s nothing but junk, and tomorrow — first thing — she would rid herself of it all, empty the room of everything that reminded her of Cynthia, get it all out of the house.

  Get it out, and burn it.

  That was it — she’d take all her sister’s things, along with all the terrible memories they were kindling, and burn them in the old incinerator behind the carriage house.

  Her hand still gripping the doorknob, she scanned all her sister’s belongings once more, but now she saw them in flames, the dresses burning on the hangers, smoke curling from the robe that lay across the chair next to the bed, the makeup on the vanity charring into gray ash. Just the vision of it in her imagination added to her resolve, and she pulled the door closed, turning her back on the room.

  Ten minutes later she was in her bed, the lights off, the door closed, the window open to let in the cold autumn air and the sounds of the night. For a few minutes she lay awake, her eyes open in the darkness. The house creaked around her; she could hear the breeze soughing through the trees beyond the window. For a moment she felt the comfort she’d always felt in this bed, in this room, in this house.

  She was almost able to convince herself that in a moment the door would open and Bill would come into the room, and a moment or two after that slip into the bed beside her and take her in his arms. Then reality crept in.

  Nothing in her life would ever be as it had been only a week ago. Everything had changed — everything had been shattered. And there was nothing she could do — nothing anyone could do — to put it back together again. Her eyes stung with tears, but she refused to give in to them.

  Matt, she thought. I still have Matt. Forcing herself to turn away from her grief, her worries, and her fears, she conjured an image of her son — her perfect son who, no matter what anyone else thought or said, could never have done any of the things of which he was being accused. Not Matt.

  Not her perfect Matt.

  Clinging to the thoughts — and to the image — Joan finally drifted into sleep.

  * * *

  WHEN SHE AWOKE again, the blackness of the night still surrounded her, but its sounds — the faint murmuring of birds and insects, the soft whisper of the wind, even the familiar creaking of the house — had fallen silent.

  Then, as the silence seemed to close around her, she felt it.

  She was no longer alone in the room.

  But that wasn’t possible — of course she was alone. Who would have come in? The doors and windows downstairs were all locked — she’d checked them herself.

  But as she tried to reassure herself, her heart began to race. She could hear it throbbing in the silence, feel it pounding in her chest.

  And whatever had crept into her room drew nearer.

  Matt! It had to be Matt!

  “Matt?” she whispered, her voice preternaturally loud in the silence. “Is that you?”

  It was as the echo of her words died away that she heard it.

  Laughter.

  Cynthia’s laughter, barely audible, but coming from everywhere. Everywhere and nowhere.

  She tried to reach for the light, but it was as if her limbs had frozen, and she lay helplessly where she was, unable to move.

  The presence was close to her now. She could feel it all around her, reaching out to her, groping for her in the darkness.

  Her skin tingled with anticipation, and her body grew moist with a sheen of sweat. Then she felt it.

  The first caress was feather light, almost as if she hadn’t been touched at all. But then she felt it again, this time like the touch of a lover’s fingers, stroking her limbs, tracing strange patterns on her skin.

  Hands were moving over her, exploring her.

  “No,” she whimpered. “Don’t . . . please don’t . . .”

  She squirmed, writhing her body in an effort to escape the strange sensations, but no matter how she moved, the touch followed her. Followed her, and found her, reaching deeper and deeper within her.

  “No,” she whispered again. “No . . . oh, please, no . . .” But it was too late. Whatever had come for her, whatever had her in its embrace, held her firmly in its grip, and she knew there was no escape. Now a new blackness began closing around her, a blackness far deeper than that of the night.

  The blackness of unconsciousness.

  She reached out to it, embracing it. As she let herself fall into its welcoming arms, she heard Cynthia whisper, “Go to sleep. Just go to sleep. . . .”

  Her sister’s voice echoing in her mind, Joan let herself fall away into the blackness.

  CHAPTER 21

  NOT DEAD.

  At first, the words seemed to have no meaning at all.

  It was as if they’d been spoken in some foreign language and were emanating from some unseen place.

  But then she heard them again, and this time they were more than mere sounds.

  This time they had meaning:

  Not dead!

  The words resounded around her, but very slowly — so slowly that it took Kelly a moment to realize they weren’t coming from some unseen place, were not echoing out of the darkness around her. Instead, they were coming from within her own mind, and as the last tendrils of sleep released her from their grip, their meaning sank in.

  She had survived.

  Her body was cold with a chill that seemed to penetrate to the marrow of her bones. Her muscles ached with a pain that had moved beyond the level of the unbearable into another realm; it was as if her mind had come to accept that the pain could be neither alleviated nor controlled, and so must therefore be ignored. Oth
erwise the agony in her joints, the numbness in her hands and feet, the spasms in her muscles, would render her completely helpless.

  For a moment she lay perfectly still. The impenetrable darkness still cloaked her like a shroud, but while she’d slept — or fallen into the sanctuary of unconsciousness — it, like the pain, seemed to have lost some of its power. It no longer ignited panic within her, and when she opened her eyes she had no expectation — not even any hope — that she would find so much as a glimmer of light to reveal her surroundings.

  But she was not dead.

  How long had she been here?

  She had no idea — it could have been hours; perhaps days.

  Her stomach ached with hunger; her throat was parched with thirst. How long had she given herself up to the escape of sleep?

  She’d had no dreams — none, anyway, that she could remember.

  Nor had she rested, for her body felt exhausted, as if its battle against the pain had drained it of all its resources.

  Yet she was still alive.

  Her lungs were still functioning.

  Her heart was still beating.

  She could hear it in the silence of the darkness, thudding almost below the threshold of her hearing.

  Feel it, throbbing inside her, driving blood through her tortured limbs, refusing to give in to the pain that all but paralyzed the rest of her body.

  Then, through the throbbing, she heard something else.

  Her mind suddenly went on full alert, ignoring the pain in her body, filtering out the sound of her heartbeat.

  She held her breath to concentrate on the sound that had come from the darkness around her.

  There!

  There it was again! The same sound she’d thought she heard when she first found herself in the prison of darkness, but that had faded away as quickly as it had come, as if it hadn’t been there at all. But this time, with her mind focused perfectly, she knew it was real.

  And she knew it had come from somewhere behind her.

  She was still lying on her side; her hands still bound behind her back.

  Her knees were bent.

  But she had to roll over.

  She stretched her legs out, then twisted her body, ignoring the agony that shot through every muscle. For a moment she lay facedown, her neck twisted sharply to keep her face from pressing into the dirt beneath her. Then she twisted again and was lying on her other side. Her lungs heaved as her body struggled to replace the oxygen she’d expended in her efforts. As her breathing returned to normal, she heard it again. But this time the sounds formed a word, then another word.

  “Help . . . help me . . .”

  The words were uttered in a voice so soft — so weak — that it seemed as if the darkness itself had whispered them. But then Kelly heard them again: “. . . help me . . . please . . .”

  A sound reflexively formed in Kelly’s throat, but as before, was abruptly blocked by the tape over her mouth. This time, though, she didn’t fall victim to the panic that had overcome her the last time her scream had been strangled.

  Calming herself, she eased the pressure through her nostrils.

  She wasn’t alone! Somewhere in the darkness — somewhere close by — there was someone else.

  Someone who was alive, and awake, and able to talk.

  Forcing herself to stay calm despite the excitement raging inside her, Kelly made the same humming sound as the last time she thought she heard something in the darkness. Even to her own ears, it sounded pitifully faint, pathetically weak.

  She resisted the urge to repeat the sound, and instead listened for a response. At first there was nothing, but then she heard the voice again.

  “Cynthia? Help me . . .”

  As the sound was swallowed up by the darkness, Kelly had a feeling she’d heard that voice before. Her pulse quickening, she made her muffled humming moan again, and this time the answering words came almost immediately.

  “Help me . . . help me, Cynthia. . . . Please help me. . . .”

  Then Kelly knew: it was Matt’s grandmother! It was Emily Moore. So she wasn’t dead! She hadn’t wandered off somewhere and gotten lost! Matt’s grandmother was here, only a few feet away, trapped in the same darkness as she. Kelly felt an overwhelming need to communicate with Mrs. Moore, to speak to her, to let her know that she was there. She knew she had to find a way to talk, to rid herself of the tape covering her mouth so she could call out.

  Kelly twisted her body until she was again lying facedown, ignoring the pain that shot through her. But this time she didn’t turn her face away from the hard-packed earth on which she lay. Instead, she pressed the right side of her face into it, scraping the tape hard against the floor, trying to get a single corner of the tape to catch on something, to snag on some unevenness in the floor that would allow her to work it free.

  But there was nothing. Nothing at all.

  * * *

  MATT COULD HEAR Kelly whispering to him. the words were indistinct at first, muffled by the darkness that kept him from seeing her. But though he couldn’t quite distinguish the individual words, there was a yearning in her voice that stirred something deep inside him.

  He felt a burning heat spread through his loins.

  He reached out in the darkness, searching for her.

  Her words became clearer:

  “Matt? Where are you? I need you, Matt.”

  He called out to her, but his words were no more than a whisper, and when he tried to call again, his breath caught in his throat, his words dying before they could be formed. He struggled to fill his lungs, but his chest felt bound by steel straps wound so tight his ribs ached and even the slightest movement sent stabs of pain shooting into his body. Then, as he reached out to her again, he felt her.

  His fingers touched her flesh, and a new sensation flowed through his body.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Oh, yes, Matt.”

  Though he still couldn’t see her, he could feel all of her now, feel her body pressed against his, feel her fingers exploring him, feel his body responding to her touch.

  She was whispering to him again, her lips pressed against his ear, the words nothing more than sounds that penetrated deep inside him. The pain in his chest eased, and his breathing grew stronger, more rhythmic.

  He could feel her tongue now, flicking over his skin, tracing the curve of his ear, then creeping over his cheek. Her lips touched his eyes so gently that almost before he was aware it was happening, they had moved on to his lips.

  Now he felt her tongue again, slipping through his lips, probing into his mouth. He breathed deeply, sucking the air from her lungs into his own and sending it back, his body writhing against hers as their breath mingled. Then his body felt as if it were burning; her touch traced patterns of fire on his skin, and just as he thought he could stand no more, her mouth left his and her tongue began moving down, flicking over his chest, moving down his stomach.

  He moaned, partly from the pleasure of the sensations coursing through his body, but partly from a deep sense of guilt that was welling up within him. “No,” he whispered, his body writhing as her lips and fingers caressed him. “No, Kelly, we shouldn’t — ” His words died as her lips closed and for a moment he wanted to give in, to let the wave of pleasure crash over him and carry him away. But he pulled away, his hands moving Kelly up, and then rolled over until he could feel his body pressing down on hers. Her arms wrapped around him, pulling him even closer. Her legs opened, then they too were wrapped around him. Her body began to twist and writhe beneath him, and again he felt himself sinking into a bottomless morass of pleasure.

  Once again he was on the brink of giving in, of hurling himself into the joys of the body beneath him.

  And again he veered away.

  “No!” he whispered. “Don’t! Don’t do this!”

  Her legs only wrapped tighter around him, and Matt felt the terrible straps tighten around his chest once again. But now he knew they weren’t steel at all — they we
re flesh and bone, muscle and tendon. And they were twisting more and more tightly around him, until he knew that if he didn’t escape in the next instant, he would never be able to free himself at all.

  His hands closed around Kelly’s neck, and his fingers began squeezing.

  She continued to cling to him, but as his hands tightened around her throat something in her moaning changed. The ecstasy began to fade, and a new note crept in.

  A note of fear.

  He squeezed harder, and slowly the grip of her arms and legs around his torso loosened.

  Now, through Kelly’s moans, he heard another voice, a familiar voice, whispering to, him in the dark.

  The familiar, musky scent filled his nostrils.

  “That’s right,” his aunt’s voice whispered. “Do it, Matt. Do what you need to do . . . do what you want to do. . . .”

  Kelly was thrashing against him now, but no longer writhing with passion and pleasure. She was twisting first one way, then another, her legs kicking, her arms lashing, as she struggled to escape his grasp.

  He was killing Kelly!

  He tried to let go, to release her from his grip, but another force — one far stronger than himself — seemed to have taken control of him.

  “Do it, Matt,” he heard his aunt whisper. “Kill her, Matt. Kill her for me. . . .”

  He felt Kelly’s fingernails dig into his back and rake through his flesh as she struggled to escape his grip, but his fingers only squeezed harder, crushing her throat until her terrified moans were cut off.

  “Yes!” he heard his aunt cry out. “Yes, Matt! Yes!”

  As the heat in Matt’s loins built, his body trembled with the sensations that flowed through it. Then a howl erupted from his throat, the heat in his groin exploded, and for a few seconds — seconds that seemed like hours — he lay gasping and panting, his body shaking, his skin clammy with sweat.

  And slowly — very slowly — the dream faded away.

  It wasn’t Kelly Conroe he was clutching, but his own pillow, knotted in his hands.

  The impenetrable darkness in which he had reached out for Kelly had lifted, and he could see the window of his room.