“I know. Maybe you ought to turn around.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
He shrugs. “It’s over with.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Jack, she’s dead.”
“But I just—”
“Cancer.”
“—saw her, for Christ’s sake.”
“Horrible way for such a lovely young woman to die.”
“This isn’t happening.”
“Imagine being alone through such an ordeal.”
I run my hands through sweat-drenched hair. “I didn’t mean for her to…”
“Of course not.”
“What happened back there at the store was like déjà vu,” I tell him. “I saw Darcey several years ago in that exact setting.”
He nods. “And you didn’t speak to her then either. How cruel. Shame on you, Jack.”
“Jesus, I couldn’t stop and talk to her, I—”
“Why?”
Colossal blue veins crackle violently through the night as unexpected chills dance the length of my spine. “Because you weren’t in the car with me.”
“Who was?”
I struggle to correct a sudden shortness of breath. “None of this is happening.”
“Who was in the car, Jack?”
“None of it.”
“Who?”
Gazing into the endless ocean of black that surrounds us, I am certain all sanity has abandoned me. “My wife.”
For a time, we drive without further exchange.
He eventually asks, “Why would your wife’s presence prevent you from speaking to an old girlfriend you hadn’t seen in years, someone you’d once been deeply in love with?”
I light another cigarette. “She gets terribly jealous at times.”
“We both know that’s not true. At a minimum it’s not the real reason.”
“Why are you doing this to me?”
He smiles. “What am I doing?”
I draw smoke deep into my lungs, hold it there for a moment before releasing it through my nose. “Get me out of here.”
The night shifts, envelopes me like dense drapes of black velvet, swallowing all light, sound, sensation. Submerged in a fluid tomb, I kick and thrash about in blind panic, my limbs meeting resistance as my lungs fill with the gelatinous slop, severing my air. Tremors wrack my body as I buck against the intrusion and struggle for oxygen.
And then it is quiet.
Vague traces of light bleed through the now serene darkness. I am covered in a thin film of perspiration, lying on my back in a room that seems familiar peeking at me through scant light.
And I am not alone.
Soft hands caress my thighs, warm breath tickles my neck, and Darcey blends into focus just above me. Sad blue eyes blink slowly, cradling history—our history—as her body brushes mine, our skin hot, damp and eager. Her tongue flicks across my cheek, slides into my ear and I feel the shivers, my arms wrapping around a supple and healthy figure, fingers kneading firm buttocks, slinking gradually across her back and onto her shoulders.
I feel myself harden between her legs, parting a tuft of soft hair there as she moves to meet me, raising her hips, her mouth now pressed to my nipple, head down, the black roots of her dirty blonde hair staring back at me.
As she arches her back, drawing me deeper, she snaps her head up and our eyes lock. She slithers closer, heavy breasts crushed against me, her body moving like a python as she straightens her spine and lies atop me. I feel her feet touch, tangle with mine just before her knees slide higher and clench either side of my waist.
Bracing herself with hands on either side of my head, she rocks, head now hung but eyes still looking directly into mine, warms bursts of breath pulsing against my chest hair matted with sweat.
And when it is over, she is by my side, her heart beating against my own. Without a word she pushes her hand between my legs and slowly strokes me, patiently; fingertips barely making contact until I rise and swell and fill her hand, tight and pumping in time with the rhythmic motion of my pelvis. Again and again she brings me back, grants me life just when I am certain I have nothing left to give, and in that niche in time, I see what lies behind the mask.
“I love you,” I say quickly.
But it does not prevent the vivacious woman beside me from becoming something else. Her flesh now transparent, it reveals a network of muscles and tendons and veins against a backdrop as black and diseased as my mind. “I need you,” she says, the same black sludge vomiting forth, spilling from her mouth and dripping onto my skin in heavy dollops. “I need you.”
* * *
Through an initial haze, I bring my wife into focus. Her soft face, framed with curtains of silken black hair, hovers over me, watching in anxious silence through almond-shaped eyes.
“Joan?”
She sighs. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, what—what time is it?”
“Almost nine. You were sleeping so soundly I didn’t want to wake you,” she explains. “How are you feeling?”
“Slight headache.”
“You’ve got to get yourself together, Jack.”
I swallow with difficulty. “I know.”
“You can’t keep doing this.”
“Was it bad last night?”
Joan sits next to me on the edge of the bed. “You had nightmares again.”
“I dreamt an old girlfriend of mine died. It was so real I nearly believed it.”
“Darcey?”
I struggle into a sitting position. “How did you know that?”
“Oh, Christ,” she says, fighting emotion.
“What is it?”
“Darcey Wilkens has been dead more than two years.”
Still groggy, I fight for clarity of mind. “How?”
“Cancer.”
“My God, it’s just like he said.”
Joan arches an eyebrow. “Just like who said?”
“Why didn’t I know about this?”
“You did know,” she snaps. “You’ve forgotten.”
“Forgotten? How could I forget such a thing?”
“The booze. It’s rotting your goddamned brain.”
I brush a bead of sweat away from my cheek, focus for a moment on the hum of the ceiling fan. Despite the early hour the air is thick, humid. “I need you to tell me about it.”
Joan bites her lip. “Why do you keep putting us through this?”
“I don’t remember any of it, I swear to God I don’t.”
“You need a doctor, Jack.”
“Tell me what happened.Please.”
Joan stands, nervously pulls a cigarette from her purse and lights it. “You and Darcey were high school sweethearts. You continued dating after graduation and eventually moved in together. You broke up about a year before you met me.”
“Do you know why?”
“Darcey became ill.”
“The cancer?”
Joan nods, exhales a stream of smoke into the path of the rotating blades above us. “When Darcey was diagnosed they gave her less than five years. You didn’t handle it well, apparently, couldn’t deal with it at all. So, you ran.”
I stare at my wife, unable to recognize any truth in what she has just told me. “I would never do such a thing.”
“We’d been married about a year when Darcey died,” Joan says. “A few months before we moved to the city we ran into her outside one of the convenience stores in town. They had just released her from the hospital, sent her home to die. We parked right next to her, but you never spoke to her or acknowledged her in any way. You even ignored her parents when they tried to talk to you inside the store. At the time I had no idea what was going on, and you refused to explain things until I became angry.”
She moves to the window, continues. “A few weeks later, Darcey’s mother called. It didn’t look like Darcey would last the night. She’d been asking for you for days and couldn’t understand what she’d done to make you ha
te her so. The woman begged you to come, and you finally agreed. But it was storming that night, torrential rains, and by the time you got there, Darcey was gone.” Joan looks over her shoulder at me tentatively. “You haven’t been sober since.”
“Two years,” I mumble.
“Happy now?”
“I’m sorry. This can’t be easy for you.”
She crushes her cigarette in a glass ashtray on our bureau. “I’m going to miss my train.”
I notice Joan is dressed in a business suit, heels and a dark stockings. Her figure is petite but shapely. For some reason, she seems somewhat indistinct to me, vague. But she’s my wife, why should she be anything but thoroughly familiar? “You’re gorgeous,” I tell her, as if realizing this for the first time. “Absolutely stunning.”
A slight smile twitches along her thin lips. “I’ve got to get to work, Jack. I’ll phone the doctor during my lunch break and see if he can get you in tonight or tomorrow, all right?”
“Okay,” I answer, wanting desperately to trust her.
“Don’t leave the apartment,” she says firmly. “And lay off the fucking bottle.”
“Joan?” She hesitates at the door. “I love you.”
“I know you do,” she says, and slips quietly from the room.
As I stagger from bed, a sudden boom of thunder startles me. Clouds burst, shower the city with heavy downpours. I stand at the window, watch the streets below through wet, blurry glass, and wonder how long the rain might last.
“For quite a while yet,” the man says. “Yes?”
Peripheral vision allows me to see him standing beside me but I restrain myself from looking directly into his eyes. “You’re not real.”
“Come on, Jack, let’s go for a ride.”
“Where?”
“Darcey wants to see you.”
I press my palms against the cool pane of glass and wish I could dissolve through it. “I want to see my wife again, I—I want to talk to Joan.”
“You still don’t get it, do you?”
“Where is she, you sonofabitch?”
He shrugs, starts for the door. “I’ll wait for you in the car.”
My knees slowly give out, and I sink to the floor beneath the window. The room, the rain—everything is real.
“I won’t go,” I sob. “I won’t go.”
“Sure you will,” the man says through a smile, ignoring my screams for help. “Nobody sleeps forever.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Called “One of the best writers of his generation” by both the Roswell Literary Review and author Brian Keene, Greg F. Gifune is the author of numerous short stories, several novels and two short story collections (Heretics and Down To Sleep). His work has been published all over the world, consistently praised by readers and critics alike, received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and The Midwest Book Review (among others) and has recently garnered interest from Hollywood. His novels include Children Of Chaos, Dominion, The Bleeding Season, Deep Night, Blood In Electric Blue, Saying Uncle, A View From The Lake, Night Work, Drago Descending, Catching Hell, Judas Goat, and Long After Dark. In addition to working as a full-time author, he also serves as Associate Editor at Delirium Books. Greg resides in Massachusetts with his wife Carol and a bevy of cats. Greg can be reached online at: [email protected] or through his official web site at: www.gregfgifune.com.
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
DarkFuse is a leading independent publisher of modern fiction in the horror, suspense and thriller genres. As an independent company, it is focused on bringing to the masses the highest quality dark fiction, published as collectible limited hardcover, paperback and eBook editions.
To discover more titles published by DarkFuse, please visit its official site at www.darkfuse.com.
Table of Contents
OTHER BOOKS BY AUTHOR
WEBS
CHASING MOONLIGHT
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
STOPOVER
THE RAINCATCHERS
DARK HALO
CUTTING SLACK
HOAX
OBEDIENT FLIES
MALEVOLENT NIGHT
MAN ALIVE
FORGET-ME-NOTS
DOWN TO SLEEP
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Down To Sleep Page 15
