Sunglasses After Dark

by Nancy A. Collins

  What now? He couldn't hold her until the dayshift showed up. And if he let go, she'd be on him before he could make it to the door. His arms ached as if skewers pierced his biceps.

  A white-sleeved arm snaked around his left shoulder. Light glittered off glass and sterile steel as the syringe punctured the straitjacket and the flesh underneath. The woman shrieked, then went limp. Claude stepped away and allowed her to drop to the floor. She looked like a mistreated rag doll.

  Dr. Wexler pushed Hagerty aside, kneeling beside the straitjacketed patient. Her head lolled back and for one brief moment Claude found himself looking into the eyes of an animal with its leg in a trap. Then he saw the blood on her mouth. As he watched, her tongue wriggled between her bloodied lips and licked them clean, like a cat grooming itself after the hunt.

  Wexler glanced up at him. "Good job… Hagerty, isn't it? Good job." As he stood, Wexler wiped the palms of his hands against his pant legs. "Of course, none of this happened."

  Wexler wasn't really looking at him. Claude turned to see two young men in dark suits and sunglasses dragging Kalish's body from the room by its ankles.

  Wexler cursed out loud. He was staring at the drugged madwoman in undisguised disbelief. "She's coming to."

  A high-pitched whine came from the woman in the straitjacket. Rocking from side to side, she rolled onto her stomach. Using her head for a prop, she inched her knees forward, looking like a Muslim at prayers. She turned her face toward Wexler and growled. Her upside-down grin was enough to make Claude back away.

  The heavy door slammed behind Hagerty. He felt very cold, despite the sweat running down his back.

  Something thudded against the door from the other side.

  Time melts and he's sitting in an all-hours joint near his house, trying to blot out sounds and sights. An old man hawking newspapers moves from table to table, selling the morning edition. Hagerty buys one and reads about Kalish's second, official death.

  LOCAL MAN FOUND BURNED TO DEATH IN CAR

  I am drowning in the dreams of madmen.

  I can feel them pressing against my brain, a dozen insistent ghosts with empty eyes and prying fingers. For the first time since I've reclaimed my flesh, I realize the extent of the Other's evolution. If I had remained doped any longer it would have been too late. I would never have found my way back and everything would be lost. Now I have the ability to shape nightmares. It is a power I do not want or relish, but the Other loves it.

  I do not have the strength or the knowledge to block their dreams. The Other knows I can't—I won't—let it surface long enough to control the problem. I'm being pulled down by the undertow.

  A smiling young man with the face of a bible student and the eyes of a reptile puts out a cigarette on the naked crotch of a four-year-old boy whose screams are warped and swallowed by the vacuum of dream-time… I am surrounded by twisted mountains and weirdly sculpted buttes; the earth is a cracked spider-web of baked red clay, where animals and people are staked out on the desert's floor. Horses, pregnant women, men in business suits, dogs, old ladies—they're all doused in kerosene; a man stands in the middle and laughs as he clicks his Zippo over and over and over… Walking through an empty house, where the doors are ajar and I can see things crouching in the dimness, waiting for me to make the mistake of entering, but I'm afraid to stay in the corridors because I know something will jump out and grab me if I don't hide… Tied to an iron bedstead, hands manacled above my head, there is a figure made of leather standing at the foot of the bed; the leather demon is covered with zippers and spikes. As it lifts a hand to caress my face, I see the scalpels growing from its knuckles… and I start to laugh because I know I'm in a dream, but it's not me who is laughing; it's the Other. I try to run away because the Other is coming and I need to escape the dreamtime before it gains full control, but I get lost… Explosions of lava… animals that speak… letters in wax melt into walls of blood… the sound of the Second Angel crying like a hungry child… cadavers smeared with quicklime and cinders… burning dogs hanging from lampposts… I'm standing in a barren room, staring at a tall, thin man dressed in institutional pajamas. He looks pissed.

  "Get out of my head, bitch."

  I've got to get out of here. The Other is free.

  How pathetic. Minor-league monsters strutting and performing in their private Grand Guignols. How fucking lame. You want fear? You want terror? You want to see what it's really like?

  You used to know, before they caught you and threw you in this playpen. Now you have to dream about blood and pain instead of living it out. You're no longer free to actualize the perfection of your private hells on the flesh of your victims. But that's the way life is. Once you're caught, assholes, you're at the mercy of others. Welcome to your nightmares.

  The leather demon moved to strike the woman manacled to the bedframe. Laughing was not allowed. Screaming and begging for mercy, yes, but laughing was strictly forbidden. It raised its bristling fist in anticipation of slicing through unresisting flesh. The woman shrugged, indifferent to the threat, and the manacles fell away like cheap plastic toys. The leather demon faltered, realizing for the first time that the course of the dream had been altered. The woman was on her feet, and her hands attacked the demon's shiny black leather shell.

  The face mask was a mass of fetish zippers. She ignored them, digging her fingers into the top of its skull and pulling downward with the ease of a woman peeling an orange. The leather demon started to struggle as its head split open, the husk parting to reveal empty air. There was no blood, no flesh. It raised a groping hand to where its head should have been. The scalpels and bits of jagged metal grafted to its knuckles began to rust away, turning into oxidized flakes of corrosion. Its body jerked erazily as the dream thing died, spurting invisible blood.

  The Other strolled into the next dreamscape. At first there was only fire, then the inferno lessened and she could see the things that were burning.

  A wino dressed in rags and doused in kerosene rolled on the ground, clawing at the flames that ate his hair and skin. His face was a riot of heat blisters and broken capillaries. A dog, its tail alight, raced madly from place to place, howling in dumb, uncomprehending pain. A curtain of flame parted to reveal a family of Puerto Ricans crouching against the red earth. The parents had the children clustered around them, and although their mouths never opened, the Other could hear the wailing of frightened infants and violent coughing.

  The Other found the dreamer squatting in the heart of the fire. He was dressed in white and there wasn't a drop of sweat marring his linen suit.

  The Other smiled at him and laughed even louder when he recoiled. He tried to squirm away by shifting dreams, but the Other was too fast for him to escape her so easily. She clamped her hands around his wrists, pulling him to his feet. She felt him shiver in revulsion as she pressed her mouth to his.

  The dreamer began to sweat. The first beads broke out on his forehead and upper lip. Within seconds he was soaked in perspiration, his lips cracking from dehydration. A wisp of smoke rose from his collar. His pant leg ignited with a polite cough. He struggled desperately to free himself. The Other shook her head as if admonishing an unruly child. His hair ignited with a dry crackle and blisters rose on his face with the speed of time-lapse photography.

  By the time his eyes boiled in their sockets, the Other had grown bored and was looking for fresher game.

  She walked into Malcolm's dream, trailing shreds of black leather and the acrid odor of smoke in her wake. She knew what she'd find Malcolm doing. He'd become her favorite over the past few weeks. Malcolm possessed a surprising wealth of fear and evil. More than enough to go around.

  Malcolm was putting alligator clips on a nine-year-old girl's nipples. She was sitting upright, her girl-scout uniform hanging in tatters about her waist. He'd bound her hands behind her back with the badge sash and stuffed the beret in her mouth. Her face was made up like a Vogue model's.

  The Other placed a hand on Mal
colm's shoulder, easing herself into the rhythm of his dream.

  Malcolm began to dwindle. He whimpered, trying to shield himself, and prayed he would wake up soon. The Other's laughter grew deeper as her features flowed into coarser, far more familiar contours. The Other towered over him like a mountain; its voice was thunder, shaking him to the marrow.

  "Come on, Malcolm. Time to play with Daddy."

  Claude was still in the after-hours joint, staring at Kalish's death notice. He was startled when a sixteen-year-old girl popped into existence in the chair opposite him.

  "Are you awake?" was the first thing she asked him.

  Taken aback, Claude had to think about it before answering. "No, I don't think so."

  "Damn! Then I'm still dream-walking. I need to get back before she gains control." The girl got to her feet and began to pace the confines of Hagerty's dreamscape. She turned and stared hard at him. "You're not one of the patients, are you?" It wasn't a question.

  "No, I work here… I mean, at Elysian Fields. Hell! Why should I bother explaining myself to a dream?"

  "Am I?"

  "What else could you be? You're not that god-awful nightmare. At least I don't think you are."

  The girl stopped smiling. "She's been here? In your dreams?"

  Claude felt his conscious mind starting to rebel. He didn't want to dream anymore, but his subconscious was forcing the issue. The walls of the club began to melt. The girl drew her legs under herself and floated in midair, hands locked across her knees. There was something familiar about her, but Hagerty couldn't place it.

  "Pretend you never saw us. Pretend we never existed. Leave this place and go somewhere nice and peaceful, Claude Hagerty…"

  "How do you know my name?"

  "You created me, didn't you? I'm your dream, aren't I?"

  She fell silent, as if listening to something far away. Hagerty thought she was beautiful. "I'm afraid I can't stay. She's in control now. And she's decided it's time to go." The girl unwrapped herself and kicked upward, soaring through layers of dream with the ease of a championship swimmer.

  Hagerty moved to follow, but his feet were mired in syrup. "Wait! Tell me who you are! Are you the woman in Room 7?"

  She did not pause in her ascent, but her voice sounded as if she was standing beside him. Or in him.

  "My name is Denise Thorne. Her name is Sonja Blue."

  Time to go.

  She'd had enough of this place, with its endless drugs and intravenous feedings. Her defenses against the narcotics were complete. The madhouse was not without diversions, but they did not justify delaying her departure.

  Time to go.

  She stood up, tossing matted hair out of her eyes. She felt the drugs as her system purged the intruders from her bloodstream, reducing them to phantoms. Her mind was clear and her body her own. She could hear Malcolm as he wept in his sleep. She smiled and shrugged her shoulders once. Twice. The canvas fabric fell away, revealing naked white flesh. She lifted her arms, studying the scars studding the inner forearms. They had not bothered to trim her fingernails during her imprisonment. Good. She'd need them.

  Moonlight limned her in silver and shadow, beckoning her to leave. She sank her nails into the padding of the wall and chuckled as it tore in her grasp. Lizard like, she scaled the wall of her prison until she was level with the window. It was three inches thick, interwoven with wire mesh, designed to withstand repeated blows from a sledgehammer. It took four blows from her right fist for it to break, although every finger in her hand shattered on the third try. She pulled herself through the narrow window into the darkness, midwife to her own rebirth. Her ribs groaned then snapped as she forced herself through the opening, spearing her left lung. She spat a streamer of blood into the night air.

  She clung to the brick face of the building, luxuriating in the feel of cold air rushing past her naked flesh. For the first time in months, she was alive. The wind caught her laughter, sending it across Elysian Fields' grounds. Behind her she could hear the Danger Ward's inmates shrieking and wailing as their nightmares dumped them back into the reality of their madness. Her right hand was beginning to burn, but she was used to pain. It would pass.

  Sonja Blue began to crawl, headfirst, down the wall of the madhouse.

  Claude Hagerty woke to find himself standing outside Room 7, the keys in his hands. He came to his senses with a startled intake of breath. A wave of disorientation struck him and he reached for the doorframe to steady himself. Looking down the corridor, he could see the security gate standing open.

  Then he heard the patients. How could he have slept through that, much less sleepwalk?

  The dream was still with him. He could see the young girl with the honey blonde hair, dressed in clothes that were just coming back into style. He saw the sadness in her eyes and heard the weariness in her voice. What was it she had said?

  She's decided it's time to go now.

  Hagerty unlocked Room 7 and pushed the door open. He wasn't concerned about the patient escaping or worried about getting hurt. He already knew what he'd find.

  The straitjacket lay on the floor like an empty snake skin. He tracked the vertical rips in the canvas wall padding. Cotton ticking oozed from the rents. Cool air gusted into the room, dispelling the closeness. Even in the half-dark he could make out the jagged teeth of the broken safety glass lining the window. The blood drying on the wall was the color of shadow.

  * * *

  Chapter Three

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  Affidavit of William "Billy" Burdette, Night Manager of Hit-n-Git #311

  Burdette: Look, I told you guys this shit five times already. If you don't believe me why don't you give me one of them lie-detector tests?

  Officer Golson: It's for our files, Mr. Burdette. We have no reason to doubt your account of what happened. We just simply need to have it transcribed by a departmental steno, that's all. It'll save you from coming back downtown should we have any further questions…

  Burdette: Oh… all right! So where do you want me to begin?

  Officer Golson: Start from the beginning, Mr. Burdette.

  Burdette: Huh? Oh, okay. Uh, my name is William Burdette, I work at the Hit-n-Git over on Claypool. I'm the night manager there and I work the graveyard shift—that's from eleven at night to seven in the morning—by myself. It's a rough part of town. Lots of street people and junkies. I've been held up a couple of times before this. This morning, I guess it was around four a.m., I was in the back of the store, near the canned-food section, when she comes in. We've got one of them chimes that goes off when someone comes through the doors. So I look up and sees this bag lady come in. I think, Oh, great! That's all I need is some old scuzz coming in and tracking up my store! So's I put up my mop and go behind the counter so I can keep an eye on things, right? But when I get up front, I sees she's no bag lady. At least I don't think so. She's real young—early twenties, maybe—and she's wearing these grungy clothes that look like she took them off a wino or something.

  Officer Golson: Could you describe what she was wearing in more detail, Mr. Burdette?

  Burdette: Uh, sure. Let's see… Well, the shirt was a long-sleeved flannel jobbie, like they give out at the mission. It was three sizes too big for her and she had the sleeves rolled up over her elbows. That's how I seen them marks up and down her arms…

  Officer Golson: Marks? You mean the type left by hypodermic needles?

  Burdette: Yeah, I guess so. I didn't get too good a look. And she was wearing a pair of tan workpants a size too big for her. They were seriously gross… smeared with mud and God knows what else. I noticed she weren't wearing no shoes. Her hair was hanging down in her face and it was real long and dirty, like it hadn't been washed in a month of Sundays. She was one fucked-up chick, I can tell you. I'm used to the junkies wandering in at all hours. But what was weird about this chick was what she didn't do. Most junkies usually head straight for the snacks and load up on Cheetos, Chocodiles, Suzy Qs, Popsicle Bombs… tha
t kind of crap.

  But this one went to the far aisle, where we got this carousel rack full of sunglasses, and started trying on shades. She had her back to me and hair in her face, so I never got a real good look at her head-on, but I watched her try on a few of them. She moved kind of jerky. Real weird. I knew she was going to try to steal some shades. Didn't have to be Sherlock to figure that one out. I was so busy watching her, I didn't notice the guy who walked in at, oh, I guess it must have been around four.

  I heard the door chime and glanced up long enough to see it was some white guy. I was keeping an eye on the junkie when the next thing I know there's this sawed-off staring me right in the face. The white guy says, "Hand over what's in the register." I forgot ail about the girl. All I could see is that damned shotgun.

  So's I open the till. I got forty bucks and some food stamps, and that's about it. I give it to the holdup man and he says, "That's all?" I know right then he's going to wipe me. I can hear it in his voice and see it in his eyes. He was going to blow me away because I didn't have enough money. I had this picture of my brains getting splattered all over the cigarette display and dripping off the funny-book rack.

  Then I hear this… noise. Sounds like cats being boiled alive. For a minute I think the cops are coming. Then I realize it's coming from inside the store! I remembered the junkie was still there. I don't think the holdup guy even knew she was in the store. He turns around and shoots blind, blowing hell out of my Dr Pepper display. That's how I got this cut on my cheek, from flying Dr Pepper glass.

  Anyways, the junkie chick runs at the dude like she's going to tackle him, and all I can think is that she's going to get us both killed. She's screaming her head off when she plows into him. Now you got to understand, this guy was big. An ex-jock or a biker or something. And she takes him out! Drives her left shoulder blade into his gut and grabs his gunhand at the same time and forces it back. That's when the second barrel went off, knocking that damn big hole in the ceiling. Damn thing went off inches from my head. Felt like someone up and hit me with a two-by-four! Guess that's when I blacked out, because the next thing I know there's a cop bending over me asking me if I'd been hurt. My ears were still ringing pretty bad and it took me a while before I could hear good enough to understand what people were asking me. I guess I was in shock or something, because I kept asking the paramedics about the girl. They didn't know what the fuck I was talking about.