Even so, the day wore on without my experiencing anything that I couldn't have brought on myself just by looking for it, even without the aid of a slight cold in the head. I was restless, jittery, and slightly feverish, but I didn't hallucinate and I didn't feel stoned. I wasn't hungry, but I raided the refrigerator at irregular intervals and made half a dozen cups of coffee, just for something to do.
In the evening, I wished time and time again that I had a TV set, because I couldn't concentrate on reading and the radio couldn't provide anything like the level of stimulation which I needed. I went to bed ridiculously early, and tossed and turned for at least two hours, wondering whether I was going to lose myself in the most spectacular nightmares of my life. In one way, it was strangely exciting, but in another it was a real bummer.
In the end—in spite of the fact that I'd resolved not to take anything that might interfere with the experience—I got up and took a couple more aspirin to soothe my unsteady head. When I finally went to sleep, the time slipped by as staggeringly as time always does when you've got a feverish cold.
I dreamed. I know that I dreamed, endlessly and luridly. I think I remember telling myself over and over that I had to remember my dreams, and had to try to write them down, because they were of great significance—but somewhere en route I lost my way completely, and when I finally woke up, properly and fully, the next morning, the details leaked into the crevices of forgetfulness, and were gone before I could recover the intention to grab a pen and start recording their substance.
As I staggered out of bed, I felt far worse than I had done the previous day, but only physically. I didn't feel spaced out, high, or even hung over. My senses were behaving as well as could be expected, given that I was aching in my head and my limbs, and still slightly feverish. I felt a little better after a cup of coffee, and even better after two more aspirin, but I still felt bad.
On re-examining my situation from a scientific point of view, I concluded that I most certainly had a virus. I also concluded, yet again, that it could easily be any common or garden English virus, and that I'd probably spoken more truly than I intended when I had assured Anne that it was just the kind of cold that any visitor from foreign climes might be expected to pick up in the course of an English December.
Anne came much earlier that second day, and when she called out, ‘Gil, it's me, let me in,’ I really wanted to. I held out for a minute or two, telling her I wasn't better yet, but I couldn't have stalled her for long, even if she hadn't said: ‘It doesn't matter—I've got it too.’ I didn't open up immediately, but I gave in soon enough.
After I'd made her a cup of coffee, I said: ‘Is there an epidemic on campus? Is everyone coming down with it?'
She half evaded the question, and I knew I'd have to talk it through with her, to soothe her fears. I had the arguments all ready, but I already knew they probably wouldn't work because I'd tried them all out on myself, and I knew they hadn't worked on me. I was worried that she might get really frightened, but she didn't. We talked about it at some length, and she didn't show any signs of alarm. In fact, she seemed even calmer and more controlled than usual, although the mark on her neck was still clearly visible, advertising the fact that she wasn't yet firmly set on the road to recovery.
I was really surprised when she suddenly said: ‘I can make you feel better.'
I'd been trying to persuade her to leave, to let things rest until we were both feeling better. ‘I really don't feel up to it,’ I said, maybe a little too quickly.
'That's not what I mean,’ she said, but not as if she blamed me for misunderstanding. It was as if she had expected to be misunderstood—as if she'd been teasing me. She stood up and came over to the chair where I was sitting, and looked down at me with her intense blue eyes.
'Trust me, Gil,’ she said. ‘Don't do anything—just trust me.'
And that was when the virus hit me. That was when it reached out from the depths of my brain, where it had been lurking for days, and hit me with everything it had.
Everything went haywire inside my head, and I simply lost it. I lost my grip. One moment I was okay, and the next I was out of it. Way out of it. The psychotropic samurai sword cut me clean in two.
I wish I knew what I said to Anne, or what I did. I'm almost sure that I didn't say anything at all, and didn't do anything either, but almost isn't quite enough, in the circumstances.
The next time I saw her—the next time I remember seeing her—she was lying in the intensive care unit of the county hospital, in a coma. And in spite of what I told the detective who questioned me, I couldn't be absolutely certain—not absolutely—that it wasn't me who had put her there.
4
I think Anne leaned forward, bending over me, but I don't know for sure. Maybe she kissed me, maybe not. I didn't immediately lose consciousness, but I was overtaken by an extraordinarily acute impression of falling, similar to that which I'd experienced after we'd last made love, but much more intense. It was as if my mind had been plucked out of my body by a force stronger by far than gravity, and dragged precipitously downwards. The fall seemed to last for seven or eight seconds, but how much time passed in objective terms I can't say.
At the end of it there was a kind of whirling effect, and suddenly I was back inside my head again, looking out. But I must have been looking out all the time, without being aware of it, because there was no sensation of light returning after a spell of darkness.
I felt drained of all my strength. I felt incredibly heavy, the way I sometimes did when I became half-conscious that I was dreaming, and tried unsuccessfully to move my dream-body in response to some impending threat. I tried to lever myself up with my arms, intending to stand up, but I couldn't even muster enough force to shift my position in the chair. I was pinned down there, unable to struggle effectively against the burden of my own weight.
More time passed. Maybe minutes, maybe hours. I closed my eyes for a while, but I didn't sleep. I couldn't.
When I was finally able to open my eyes again, Anne was gone.
I wasn't alone. Standing over me, where Anne had been, maybe only a few objective moments before, was something straight out of a lurid comic book. It was a man, but his thin, gaunt face was uncannily pale and weirdly contorted, and there were smudges of what looked like blood at the corners of his mouth. He was dressed in some kind of thick black cloak, which hid his arms and hands, so that the only part of his flesh that could be seen was his face. His eyes were bloodshot, and the irises were nearly as dark as the pupils. There was such an expression of malignity in his stare that I longed to be able to turn away, but I couldn't do it.
I couldn't turn my head, or move my eyes within their orbits. I met his gaze, helplessly, and felt as if my flesh were melting under the pressure of his hostility.
He leaned forward slightly, and said: ‘You must live. You must live.'
I wanted to speak, if only to ask him who or what he was, but the effort I made to force air from my lungs was pathetically inadequate. No matter how I exerted myself, my intentions were quite impotent. It was as if my mind had been dislocated from my body, unable any longer to initiate signals in my nervous system.
As if he'd read my aborted intention, the comic-book vampire said: ‘I am Maldureve.'
His voice was strange, almost as though he were speaking over a telephone link. He pronounced the name to rhyme with ‘deceive', but I knew enough French to figure out that the virus was making play with the ideas in my head, pulling stupid puns out of the deep recesses of my consciousness.
Evil of the dream, indeed!
The realization that it was something in me that was projecting the image—that this perverse vaudevillian was a product of my own subconscious, kick-started into apparent existence by something too small to be seen without an electron microscope—made me feel better; but I still couldn't move.
'She loves you,’ said the monster, earnestly, as though he thought that I could understand perfectly well what h
e meant. ‘She doesn't want you to die. She wants you to live. She wants you to be together.'
His gaze flickered very briefly, as though his purpose had been momentarily clouded by uncertainty. He leaned even further forward, and his right hand emerged from the folds of his dark cloak. He laid it on top of my own right hand, which rested palm down on the arm of the chair. His fingers were unbelievably cold, and I felt the communicated chill travel along my nerves, striking rivulets of pain into the neighbouring tendons and veins.
'Feed the hunger,’ he said, insistently. His weird voice had taken on a slightly higher pitch, as if he had now cottoned on to the fact that I didn't know what the hell he meant but was determined to make sure that I couldn't forget his words. ‘When the hunger comes, feed it. I will come to you again. I will guide you until she returns. Trust me, and I will show you how to feed. I will show you what you must do.'
He stepped back, relieving the pain in my hand. Then he stepped further back, pivoting on his heel as he did so and was suddenly gone. It was as if he had turned into a shadow, and vanished by means of some casual trick of the light.
At first, there was no change in my own condition, but after a pause of several minutes I began to feel lighter, and I felt the power of my will flow back into my body. At last I was able to clench the fingers of my paralysed hand, and shift myself within the armchair—but several more minutes passed before I had the strength to raise myself up, and when I had done that I still felt as weak as a kitten, hardly able to walk.
There was a pattern of bruises on the back of my hand where the apparition's fingertips had rested, which stubbornly refrained from fading with the last sensations of the hallucination. I had to admit, in the end, that I'd actually inflicted a psychosomatic injury upon myself, and I felt a thrill of fear as I wondered what else I might do if the virus took hold of me again. I understood that if and when more and worse nightmares were to come from the dark depths of my being, they might actually have the power to hurt me.
It was only with considerable effort that I made it to the bathroom, and as I leaned over the lavatory pan I had to support myself by placing the palm of my uninjured hand flat against the wall. I felt that I might faint at any moment, but I knew that I had to get back to the bed.
I made the journey three steps at a time, pausing twice to take a deep breath and gather my strength. When I finally got to the bed I just collapsed, falling asleep the moment I had drawn my legs up to lie down.
I must have slept for nearly twenty-four hours.
I was out cold. If I dreamed at all, the dreams fled far beyond the reach of memory before I began to wake.
The sound of knocking which eventually woke me seemed to be sounding in an infinite black vault, calling me back from oblivion.
It wasn't easy to wake up, and it was hard to get off the bed and stand up, but I managed it. I wasn't as weak as I'd been before. Once my head was reasonably clear, I managed to walk all the way to the door without stopping for a rest. By that time, the person knocking on the door must have beaten his impatient tattoo four or five times.
I opened the door, and leaned against the jamb. I found myself looking into the curious blue eyes of a thickset man with short-cropped hair. In spite of its shortness the hair had been greased with some sort of oil. He looked like a mobster or a con artist.
'Mr Molari?’ he said.
'Yeah.’ I was slightly surprised to discover that I was able to speak.
He produced some kind of card with his photograph on, and flashed it briefly before my eyes.
'I'm Detective Sergeant Miller, Thames Valley Police. I'm sorry if I ... woke you up, sir. May I have a word?'
The calculated hesitation in the middle of the apology was a ritual signal of surprise, to tell me that he'd observed that although I appeared to have recently awakened I was fully dressed.
I moved aside so that he could come in.
'I'm sorry,’ I murmured. ‘The mess ...’ There wasn't that much mess, but there was enough to make me feel that the ritual apology might be called for.
'Perhaps you'd like to sit down, sir,’ he said. His politeness seemed almost sneeringly insincere.
I sat down in the armchair where I'd had the hallucinatory interlude the day before. Because so little had happened in between, it seemed frighteningly recent, but I sat down in it reflexively. He sat down in the other one, about six feet away.
'I believe you know Anne Charet,’ he said.
I nodded.
'May I ask when you last saw her?'
'Yesterday,’ I said, slowly putting two and two together. ‘Yesterday morning. Why—what's happened?'
He was studying me carefully, almost making a pantomime of it. ‘Miss Charet's in the county hospital,’ he said, blandly. ‘She's not seriously hurt, so far as the doctor can tell, but she was still unconscious when I last saw her. She was attacked last night, on the campus. Her attacker ran off when she shouted for help, but he had a knife and he wounded her. She needed a blood transfusion and some stitches but she'll be all right.'
I felt suddenly sick. I couldn't help but wonder whether the virus had anything to do with what had happened. She had to be infected; she'd told me that she was feeling the other symptoms. I knew that I had to be careful what I said, until I'd thought the situation through—until I'd seen her and talked to her.
'I'd better go out there right away,’ I said. ‘Thanks for coming to tell me.’ I knew it wouldn't be as simple as that, but the way he was playing his part somehow made me respond in kind. We were both pretending that everything was perfectly straightforward.
'There's no rush,’ he said. ‘How long have you known Miss Charet?'
'A little over two months. We met at the beginning of term. The first week in October.'
'Do you know her well?'
'Yes,’ I said. ‘Quite well.'
'Would that be an American quite, sir, or a British one?'
Clever bastard, I thought.
'She's my girlfriend,’ I said. ‘I know her well, okay?'
'I'm sorry, sir. I do have to ask you these questions. I'm investigating a serious crime. It's necessary. Please bear with me.'
I tried to meet his placid stare, wondering what an innocent party was supposed to look like in this alien land, and how I ought to behave in order to diffuse whatever suspicions he felt compelled to harbour. Can he really think I did it? I wondered. Would he like me to have done it?
'Yes,’ I said, after a brief pause. ‘I see that. But you don't think I did it, do you?'
He shook his head. ‘We've no reason to think that, sir. Just for the record, where were you last night?'
'Here. In bed. Alone.'
'All night, sir?'
'Yes. I came down with a virus a couple of days ago. It knocked me out a bit. I don't have any immunity to your local bugs, you see. I'm from California. I haven't been out of the flat for three days.'
'You haven't seen a doctor?'
'No. Hell, it's only a heavy cold—maybe flu. It just knocked me out a bit. Anne came round yesterday—and the day before, though I wouldn't let her in then, because I didn't want her to catch it. Yesterday she told me she had caught it, so I let her in ... but then I sent her home, to rest.'
'And that was in the morning, was it?'
'Yes. I don't know exactly what time. Ten, ten-thirty. That's the last rime I saw anyone.’ I was telling the truth. The comic-book count didn't count. He wasn't real. ‘Other people must have seen Anne after that time,’ I added.
'Oh, yes,’ he confirmed, offhandedly. ‘She had a tutorial in the afternoon, and she was working in the university library for most of the evening. It was while she was returning to her hall of residence that she was attacked. It wasn't very late—there were still people around. It's lucky there were, or the incident might have been even more serious. It's not the first time there's been an attempted rape at that particular spot. There ought at least to be railings round that little wood, and better lighting
.'
'Yeah,’ I said. ‘It's too dangerous to let places like that run wild in the middle of a university campus.'
'Did you ever meet Miss Charet in that patch of woodland?'
'We walked past it dozens of times,’ I told him. ‘We never went into it.'
'You didn't ever meet her there, in the early hours of the morning?'
'Of course not. Why the hell would I?'
'One of Miss Charet's neighbours in the Hall told me that she'd seen Miss Charet leaving the Hall on more than one occasion, after midnight. She said she got the impression that Miss Charet was going in that direction. Perhaps she was on her way to some other meeting place?'
'I never met her after midnight,’ I told him, with entirely unfeigned astonishment. ‘Not in that lousy wood, nor anywhere else. I walked her back home plenty of times, and then I walked back that way, but the only time we were together near there later than midnight was the first time we met. Maybe I've left her room once or twice in the early hours—maybe it was me the neighbour saw.'
'The girl was quite certain,’ he countered. ‘I've no reason to doubt what she said.'
'I can't believe that she'd go out on her own at that sort of time,’ I said firmly. ‘She's nervous of the dark. I mean, she likes that damned ruin where she has her tutorials, but only by day. She's nervous walking there at night, even when I'm with her. At least ...'
He let a few seconds go by before saying: ‘At least what, sir?'
'At least, she used to be,’ I said. ‘Maybe lately ... she'd got accustomed to it, I guess. It had become familiar. Too familiar, maybe, if she was willing to walk that way alone after dark. But it wasn't late, you say? There were people about.'
'One too many,’ he observed dryly. ‘Nobody saw him, I'm afraid—except Miss Charet, of course. With luck, she'll be able to give us some sort of description when she comes round. She may well have seen him by the light of the lamps beside the path, if he came out of hiding to drag her into the trees. With her help, we might well be able to clear this one up without too much difficulty. The doctor says that she'll come round any time now.'
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