by John Saul
There were people in Laurie’s room.
But that wasn’t right. It was her room, and nobody was supposed to come in unless she told them it was all right.
And the light was on.
Except there was something about the light that was different. It wasn’t the bright light the chandelier cast, or the even brighter beam of her new halogen lamp that stood on the nightstand.
Or even the glow from the streetlights outside.
No, this light was different, filling her room with a strange misty glow like nothing she’d ever seen before. It was as if it were foggy, but the sun was out.
And from out of the mist the voices came.
The same voices from last night?
She couldn’t be sure.
They seemed to be much closer than they were last night, but she couldn’t quite make out the words. Then, right next to her bed, a figure appeared.
A figure she recognized.
Helena Kensington!
The old woman was bending toward her, reaching out with her gnarled fingers, and a moment later she could feel their touch playing over her face. Closing her eyes, Laurie tried to pull away, but couldn’t.
It was as if she was bound to the bed, neither her arms nor her legs obeying her mind. But neither could she feel anything tying her down.
She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out and her mouth felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton.
She tried to twist away from Helena’s touch, but there was no escape from the twisted fingers.
Now more fingers were touching her, and suddenly Laurie could see more faces gazing at her through the glowing mist. Dr. Humphries was there, and Tildie Parnova, and George Burton, and some other people she recognized, but whose names she couldn’t remember. They were all talking, but Laurie couldn’t tell if they were talking to her, or to each other.
She felt someone pulling the blanket and sheet back, and now she was lying on her bed, covered only with her nightgown.
Suddenly she felt cold, even though the room had been warm a minute ago, and her skin went all clammy.
She felt something on her leg now, underneath her nightgown.
A hand?
She couldn’t quite tell.
Now she felt a pain in her body, as if someone was inside her, and trying to cut their way out with a knife.
She wanted to cry out against the pain, but the terrible cottony stuff in her mouth still choked her words, and suddenly she couldn’t breath, either.
What was happening?
The voices were louder, but still she couldn’t understand what they were saying. More hands were touching her, exploring her body, reaching under her nightgown, pinching her flesh. And every instant, the pain in her body grew worse, until she didn’t think she could stand it anymore.
Then, as the pain finally exploded inside her, she felt a terrible gushing sensation between her legs.
Blood!
It was pouring out of her, soaking her nightgown, spreading across the bed. The babble of voices grew, and now she could see fingers being dipped into the blood—her blood—then raised to drooling lips, licked off.
Her blood! They were drinking her blood!
She tried to twist away, but the bonds that held her to the bed were too strong.
She was dying, bleeding to death, and even though she was surrounded by people—people she knew—no one would help her. The pain wracking her body grew along with the panic that was quickly invading her mind.
Then, out of the morass of babbling voices, a single voice emerged, a voice she recognized speaking words that she could understand: “Her eyes. Let me have her eyes. I need her eyes!”
It was Helena Kensington, and suddenly she was reaching toward Laurie’s face again, her fingernails cracked and yellowed, coming closer and closer to Laurie’s eyes.
As the old woman’s fingers sank into her face, pain and terror finally overwhelmed her, and a howling scream burst from her throat.
Laurie woke up.
The dream—all of it—vanished in a flash, and all Laurie could remember was the terror, and the pain.
She reached out and switched on the lamp by her bed, and the beam of light washed away the terror.
But not the pain. That was still there, twisting in her abdomen, as if someone had plunged a knife into her.
A knife!
Blood? Had there been blood?
Then she felt it—a warm stickiness between her legs. Her heart pounding, Laurie pushed the covers back, and looked down.
Her nightgown was stained with crimson.
Caroline’s consciousness emerged almost reluctantly from a dense fog of sleep. At first she felt oddly disoriented, as if her mind had somehow been separated from her body, and was now drifting in some featureless morass of not-quite-time, not-quite-space, not-quite-reality. But slowly the gray veil began to melt away, and she remembered: she had been in bed, her head resting on Tony’s broad chest, his strong arms wrapped protectively around her, the deep rhythm of his breathing imbuing her with a peace that had made her sleep utterly dreamless. But now—how much later?—she was awake, sitting up in bed, the covers clutched in her hands.
Her heart was pounding, as if she’d just emerged from some terrible nightmare. But there had been no nightmare—no dream of any kind at all.
So what had awakened her?
A scream?
Could she have heard a scream?
But from where? Outside on the street? Or inside the apartment?
The last of the mist in her mind cleared away, and she listened, concentrating, but all she could hear was the faint sound of a car passing on the street below.
Then what had happened? She’d been sound asleep, safe in Tony’s arms—
Instinctively, she reached out to his side of the bed.
Empty!
“Tony?” she called. She reached out and fumbled with the light switch by her bedside, and a second later the chandelier hanging in the center of the ceiling came on, its brilliance blinding her. “Tony?” she called out again, a little louder. She was just getting out of bed when the door to the bedroom opened, and a moment later he was back in bed and pulling her back into his arms. “Sorry,” he whispered, his lips nuzzling her ear as he reached for the light switch. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“You didn’t,” Caroline told him. “I thought—I don’t know. Something woke me up. I . . .” Her voice trailed away as she tried to identify whatever it was that had awakened her.
Tony’s hand fell away from the switch, and he propped himself up on one elbow, frowning. “Are you all right?”
“I—I’m not sure.”
Tony frowned uncertainly. “Did you hear something?”
“I don’t know.”
He got out of bed, went to the window and pulled the heavy roman shades up. “I don’t see anything down in the street.”
Now Caroline was out of bed, too. “I probably dreamed it, but I’m going to go check on the kids anyway.” Pulling on a robe, she went out into the hall. The night-light cast a glow just bright enough for her to see that there was nothing there. But then, as her eyes adjusted to the dim light in the hallway, she saw a glow coming from under Laurie’s door. Pulling her robe more snugly around her, she went down the corridor. “Laurie?” she called out softly.
There was no answer.
She put her hand on the doorknob, turned it, and pushed the door open just wide enough to peer in, almost certain she would see her daughter sound asleep, probably with a book lying facedown on her chest.
But Laurie was not asleep at all. Instead she was huddled against the headboard, her arms wrapped around a pillow, her face pale and stained with tears, looking utterly terrified.
“Laurie?” Caroline cried, pushing the door open and hurrying to the bedside. “What is it? What’s—” Her words died on her lips as she saw the bright red stains on Laurie’s sheets and nightgown.
Laurie peered up at her, her
eyes wide, and when she finally spoke, her voice shook with terror. “There were people in my room,” she whispered. “They were all around me, and they were touching me, and it hurt, and—” her voice choked off in a broken sob, but then she went on. “It hurt so much Mom, and when I woke up, there was blood all over me, and—”
As she listened to her daughter’s frightened words, the memory of Tony coming through the bedroom door a few minutes ago rose in Caroline’s memory. Her hands closed on her daughter’s wrists, and her eyes locked onto those of the terrified girl. “Was it Tony?” she asked, her voice so low as to be almost inaudible. “Did Tony—” She hesitated, then forced herself to finish. “Did he do something to you?”
The fear in Laurie’s eyes slowly gave way to uncertainty, and as the last of her terror lost its grip, she began to understand that it must only have been a dream. “No, not Tony. It was like lots of people were in my room,” she said. “All the neighbors.” Now she looked beseechingly at her mother. “But it was just a dream, wasn’t it? I mean, they couldn’t have really been here, could they?”
Caroline said nothing as she tried to put the scraps of what had happened into some kind of cohesive whole. The pain—the blood—
And suddenly it all came together and she understood. “Your period,” she breathed, relief flooding through her as the pieces fell in place. She drew her sobbing daughter into her arms, and rocked her gently. “It’s all right,” she said. “Nothing’s wrong, honey. It’s your period and all the rest was just a bad dream.”
“But it wasn’t like a dream,” Laurie wailed. “They were sticking things into me, and I’m bleeding, and—”
“It’s all right, darling,” Caroline broke in. “You just had some cramps, and now you’re having your first period.”
Laurie gazed down at the bloody stain on the bedclothes. Suddenly, with her mother here, it didn’t look quite so bad.
And the pain in her belly—the pain that had seemed like it was going to tear her apart only a few minutes ago—was almost gone. Suddenly she felt so stupid, she wanted to cry all over again.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to wake you up. But I was so scared, and—”
“Of course you were scared,” Caroline said, putting a finger on her daughter’s lips to silence her apology. “Why wouldn’t you have been?”
“But I feel so stupid,” Laurie wailed.
“Well, you shouldn’t,” Caroline reassured her. “Actually, except for the scare it gave you, it could have been a lot worse. I got my first period in a swimming pool. I got to the girls’ room, but just barely, and my friend Emily Peterson had to go buy some pads while I hid.” Laurie stared up at her mother, uncertain whether to believe her or not, but Caroline was already disentangling herself from her daughter. “Tell you what. You just stay here. I’ll get you cleaned up and make sure Tony doesn’t come poking around trying to find out what’s going on.” She winked at Laurie. “There are some things men don’t handle all that well. Be back in a minute.”
Half an hour later, it was over. The bed had been changed, the soiled linens and nightgown were in the washing machine, and Laurie was back in bed.
“No longer my little baby girl, I guess,” Caroline said almost ruefully as she leaned over to kiss Laurie goodnight. “You going to be okay?”
Laurie nodded. “I’m sorry I acted like such a baby.”
“You didn’t. You had a perfectly natural reaction to something that’s perfectly natural, but can also be perfectly terrifying because no matter how many times you talk about it with your mother, it still takes you completely by surprise. I thought I’d hurt myself diving into the swimming pool, and even though Emily Peterson was there when I had my first period, she thought she was bleeding to death three months later when she had hers. So stop worrying about it and start worrying about this: you’ll be going through this every month for the next thirty or forty years, and believe me, it can get really tiresome. But it’s not the end of the world, and we all get used to it. All it means is that you’re growing up, and your body is changing. Nothing to worry about. Okay?”
Laurie nodded. But a few minutes later, when she was once more alone in the darkness of her room, memories of the nightmare began to creep once more around the fringes of her consciousness, and she could almost hear the voices whispering once again.
Hear the voices, and feel the terrible touch of fingers pressed against her body, prodding her, exploring her.
But it had only been a nightmare.
Hadn’t it?
“Everything all right?” Tony asked when Caroline finally slid back into their bed.
“Everything’s fine,” Caroline replied. “She just—” She hesitated, the memory of Tony coming into the bedroom just as she was awakening looming in her mind once again. “What were you doing?” she suddenly asked. Tony looked at her without comprehension. “When you got up tonight?” For just the tiniest fraction of a second she thought she saw a flicker in Tony’s eyes, a strange hint of something that was gone so quickly she wasn’t certain she’d seen it at all. And there was something about the way he looked—the healthy tan he’d developed in Mustique was all but faded away, and the skin beneath his chin seemed to be starting to sag.
But then he smiled at her, and laid a gentle finger on the tip of her nose. “Hungry,” he said. “I guess the fish wasn’t enough, so I sneaked into the macaroni and cheese.” He slipped an arm around her. “So the kids are all right?”
Caroline nodded, and a moment later Tony switched the light off, plunging them into darkness. A few minutes later she heard his breathing fall into the steady rhythm of sleep, but she herself lay wide-awake. Of course Tony had told her the truth—he’d simply gotten hungry and gone to get something to eat. If anything else had happened, Laurie would have told her.
But if Laurie had screamed, why hadn’t Tony heard her?
He was downstairs in the kitchen, and in this building, the soundproofing must be nearly perfect. He’d heard nothing, and certainly he’d done nothing.
But even as she told herself there was nothing more to it than her own paranoia, she kept seeing that strange look in Tony’s eyes—that look that was gone almost before it was even there—that somehow belied his words.
And the unhealthy look to his skin.
There was something, she was certain, that he hadn’t told her.
But what?
CHAPTER 19
Nate Rosenberg glanced worriedly at the clock in the lower right-hand corner of his computer screen. 8:32, which was precisely two minutes since the last time he’d looked. Then he stood up and peered over the partition separating his cubicle from Andrea Costanza’s.
Her chair was still empty.
Which is not a problem, he told himself. There were any number of reasons why Andrea might have been late. She could have overslept, she could be sick, she could have had a doctor’s appointment, or a hairdresser’s appointment. She could be out in the field, checking on one of her cases. The problem was that in the six years in which he’d occupied the cubicle next to Andrea’s, neither of them had ever been late. Not because of sickness, appointments, oversleeping, or any of the other reasons he’d thought of. It had actually become a competition, but only the kind of competition two hopeless bureaucrats would indulge in. “Bet I end up with a better record than you,” Andrea had said over lunch a couple of years ago when they’d realized that they were the only two people they knew of that had never missed a day of work. “Bet you don’t,” Nate had shot back. “My record is spotless since kindergarten, right through grad school.” Which hadn’t bothered Andrea, who’d retorted that she still had measles and chickenpox on her side, since she’d had them and he could still get them. And now, this Monday morning, she was late.
Nate had already ruled out oversleeping and illness—he’d called her apartment, and the answering machine had picked up on the eighth ring, just like it always did. A recorded voice answering her cellphone number had
informed him that “the customer’s phone is either off or out of the service area.” He’d also ruled out appointments by checking her calendar, which was even more meticulously kept than his own. The last appointment was her visit to Dr. Humphries yesterday afternoon; the next was a case-management meeting at two o’clock this afternoon. No doctors, no hairdressers, no nothing.
Which left the things Nate hadn’t wanted to think about, and still didn’t want to think about. Things like mugging and rape.
Not Andrea, he told himself. She’s smart, and she can take care of herself. And after what had happened to her friend’s husband almost a year ago, she’d gotten even more careful. “I’m done running in the park, I can tell you that,” she’d told him, still shuddering at the thought of what had happened to—
The name was gone, if she’d ever even told him what it was, but it didn’t matter. The point was that Andrea was determined to be even more careful than she’d always been. And nothing had ever happened to her.
And nothing’s happened to her now, Nate insisted to himself. She’s just late, that’s all. And what was he going to do? Call the police because one of his co-workers was half an hour late for the first time in history? They’d probably lock him up!
At noon, when there was still no sign of Andrea, he took his bag lunch, eating his sandwich on the subway while he rode up to 72nd Street, then walked the three blocks to her building. He leaned on the buzzer to her apartment, and when he got no answer, rang the bell for the super. A surly voice demanded to know what he wanted, but when he explained who he was and that he just wanted to make sure Andrea Costanza was okay, the super only snorted a humorless laugh.
“You think I’m crazy? I open it up and she’s there, she can sue me. I open it up and she’s not, and she finds out, she can sue me. I got orders from the management—I don’t open no apartments without no court orders. So get’cha self a court order, okay?”
When Nate pressed the bell again, the super’s voice turned ugly. “I don’t wanna have to come out there an’ kick your ass, buddy.”
