“Hello, Gaby,” he said.
Gabrielle turned back to her duties, murmured, “Hello.” She heard Dianna’s husband move a little closer behind her.
“You look as lovely as I remembered you. I missed you.”
Gabrielle said nothing aloud, but to herself she said that this was a mistake, her returning here, a terrible mistake.
“I know you’re hurt,” Wallace cooed. His soft voice at the back of her neck, though several feet away, felt like a dirty caress.
“I’m not hurt,” she replied coldly. “It wasn’t me you hurt, but your wife.”
“Di isn’t hurt, Gaby. At least, not by us. How could she be? She never found out.”
“If she knew, she’d hurt. And she’d hate me. As much as I hate you.”
“Well, that’s convenient, isn’t it?” Wallace said with amusement, sipping his drink. “You’re a victim, and I’m some evil seducer? I don’t recall raping you, Gaby. I seem to recall that you were quite...amorous toward me, at first.”
Gabrielle turned to glare at the man. “I was nineteen. I was stupid. I made a stupid mistake. I betrayed the best friend I had. I was sorry about what I did...I felt guilt, and pain. I still do. But you...you don’t. You betrayed your wife and you feel nothing. That’s why I hate you.”
“Oh come on, Gaby, you know it’s more complicated than that. You hate me because I didn’t give up Dianna for you.”
“I never wanted that!”
“You fantasized about it. You had to have.”
“Listen to me, Kevin,” Gabrielle hissed. “I’m here to help my friend. To make up for my betrayal, whether she’s aware of it or not. But you are not invited to make any attempts to seduce me again. I won’t stay here if you do...and you’ll only be hurting Dianna. You’ll only make it so that she has to hire someone else. Can you be that cruel to her?”
“Gaby,” Wallace said, drawing nearer, causing Gabrielle to back into the counter. “I never stopped thinking about you. To be honest, I would leave Dianna for you now. I should have done it three years ago, when I lost you and thought I’d never see you again.”
A sneer came to the young woman’s face. “You should have been an actor, Kevin. Of course you’d love to be with me now...now that your wife is paralyzed from the waist down. You’re vile, you know that? You’re absolutely vile.”
“Listen...”
Gabrielle took up the tray and whisked past him. “Don’t talk to me any further, Mr. Wallace. Unless you want some tea.” And with that she was gone from the kitchen.
Kevin Wallace watched after her, and sighed, smiling bitterly. “Coffee, tea or me,” he muttered, and looking up saw the black man Smith standing at the other end of the kitchen. He must have just come up from the cellar. Wallace hated the man; always sneaking around quiet as a shadow. Mockingly, Wallace saluted him with his drink. The black man only stood regarding him a moment, and then drifted out of the room as well.
“She sleeps a lot these days,” Wallace remarked, watching Gabrielle emerge from Dianna’s office the next day. She carried a tray containing a barely eaten meal. As Gabrielle walked briskly toward the kitchen he kept up with her, and went on, “Did she tell you about her new...research?”
“Not really,” Gabrielle answered, eyes ahead.
“I’m a bit concerned about her. I think she might be better off elsewhere, under more professional care.”
Gabrielle stopped to glower at the man. “You had better not mean institutionalized!” she snapped.
“You haven’t heard her mad talk. She’s afraid to disturb you with it, as she has me.”
Gabrielle glanced back at the closed office door, and then whispered, “Come into the kitchen...”
When both were well out of range of Dianna’s hearing, her husband explained, “She swears she’s exploring in dreams, Gaby...the world of dreams. I understand why she would be drawn to this notion. A woman who once traveled every corner of the world, and now can’t even cross the room easily, but that doesn’t mean it’s a healthy delusion.”
“You’re misinterpreting her! She must mean she’s studying dreams, interpreting them, like Jung...finding cultural similarity in dream symbology, or...or exploring the idea of the collective unconscious...”
“Ah, nnno. According to Di, there is something like a collective unconscious. But it’s a dream world, that most of us only glimpse, and not too clearly. But Di swears she’s taught herself to enter her consciousness into this world. To send her spirit, her astral self into this place to explore it. She says it isn’t so much a dream world, Gaby...as another dimension.”
Gabrielle gaped at the man, horrified that these ugly accusations might be true. She remembered the fanatical sheen she had witnessed in Dianna’s eyes. “She can’t mean literally,” she protested. “She must mean...”
“Quite literally. She says she’s been to a place called N’Kai, which is deep inside the Earth...or a variation on our Earth. She says she’s trying to find her way back again, to learn more, but her first trip took a lot out of her. And that much, at least, is true. One night I heard her gagging in her office, retching...being sick. I ran in and saw her on the floor, where she’d fallen out of her wheelchair. She was vomiting into her trash basket.”
“Did you call a doctor?”
“Yes. A doctor came out the next morning. She was all right, considering. But it was very alarming, Gaby. And her vomit...well, not to nauseate you, but it was black as oil. And when I tried to take the bucket to dump it out she wouldn’t let me. I persisted but she threw such a fit that I was afraid for her, so I left it alone. I don’t know what she wanted it for, or what became of it. Or what it was. I wish she had shown it to the doctor the next day, but...”
“My God ...”
“Yes. And shortly after that she hired that Smith person. I don’t know where she found him, and I took the liberty of checking our accounts to see what she pays him, and as far as I can see he works for nothing but a room to sleep in. He runs errands for her sometimes. He brought her those two purple stone tubs in her office.”
“Oh...poor Dianna.”
“So you understand my dilemma? Don’t be so quick to label me a fiend, Gaby. What would you consider doing, in my position?”
“I’d like to talk to her about all this...”
“To see if I’m telling the truth about her delusions?” Wallace swept his arms theatrically. “Be my guest. Maybe you can talk some sense into her, huh? Maybe you can get through to her. Myself, I’m at a total loss.” He touched his fingers to her arm. “I’d appreciate whatever you could do for her.”
Gabrielle slipped away from the contact. “I’ll do what I can. For her...not for your sake. You don’t deserve her.”
Wallace grinned. It was as repulsive to her as that icon in Dianna’s study. “I always had the feeling that Di liked you herself, Gaby. In much the same way I do, I mean. Is it possible that you feel the same way toward her?”
“You disgust me, Mr. Wallace.” Gabrielle again left him in the kitchen, and he smirked at her smartly moving buttocks as she headed for the office at a determined clip.
Through Dianna’s closed office door came a weird atonal piping, frenzied in pace as if part of some primitive ritual full of rapture and dance. A recording of something from her travels, Gabrielle decided, rapping on the panel. Somehow she was heard over the disturbing racket, which abruptly ceased. She heard the door unlock, and there stood the impassive Mr. Smith behind his impenetrable sunglasses. He let Gabrielle in, then departed.
“Come in, hon,” Dianna said from behind her desk.
Gabrielle did so, but froze after a step.
The idol of the Dreaming One, Tsathoggua, was missing from atop his stone base. In fact, the base itself was missing, replaced by another stone basin to match the empty basin on the other table. Except this tub was not empty. It was, instead, filled to the brim with an opaque fluid, dark as squid’s ink.
“Where’s the statue of our chub
by friend?” Gabrielle joked, gesturing at the receptacle.
Dianna seemed to hesitate, and then answered, “There was no statue.”
“Of course there was. You told me not to touch it.”
“That’s what you saw, there,” Dianna said, also gesturing at the basin.
Gabrielle approached to peer into it. It was indeed a vile-looking black liquid. As black and as shiny as the icon had been. It was as though the statue had been made of black wax, and then melted into this pool. As if this hollow tub, and not a solid base, had been below the statue all along.
“You must have heard it playing for me,” Dianna went on. “I’m its master, now.”
Gabrielle looked up at her friend, a weighty ache of compassion in her chest. Yes, that bastard Kevin was right; Dianna was insane...
“Whose master are you, Dianna?”
“The spawn serve me, now. The formless spawn of Tsathoggua. I brought that creature there back from N’Kai with me. I carried it inside my astral self...”
The vomit, Gabrielle realized with a woozy shiver. The basin was now filled with the black vomit she had refused to let Kevin dispose of. But how could there be so much? Had she been accumulating it over weeks?
“Kevin...Mr. Wallace told me you’ve been...you feel you’ve been exploring a sort of...alternative plane,” Gabrielle managed.
“Yes,” Dianna said, nodding eagerly to see that her friend was sympathetic to her, willing to listen. “I’ve seen...wonders...”
“You saw Tsathoggua.”
Dianna visibly shuddered, averted her gaze. “Yes. And I lived...” She intoned this last as if that in itself were the marvel. “He had his sleep imposed upon him by the other gods...the Elders. So, we who would otherwise be mere insects to him can instead serve him a purpose. We can be his eyes. We can be his consciousness in the waking world.” Dianna returned her stare to her young friend. “I serve him, Gaby, as you serve me. His followers in our world tried to kill me...but now I’ve become one of them.”
“This Smith,” Gabrielle said, trying to remain calm, “does he bring you drugs, Dianna? Does he...?”
“What I tell you is true, hon. Believe me. I know it isn’t easy. I stood before the Dreaming One. His mind spoke to mine. He sat dreaming on his throne of carven rock, miles below the surface. The bones of his sacrifices heaped all around him. The sacrifices sustain him in his long hibernation...
“To either side of him were great basins filled with his spawn. They’re amorphous...like protoplasm...primordial soup...primal clay. They are what you will them to be, taking any shape. He gave me my own, to take back with me...”
Gabrielle drew away from that inky pool in the basin. Had she heard it gurgle, softly?
“Gaby, I wouldn’t trust many people with this knowledge. I told Kevin, and it was a mistake. He thinks I’ve lost my mind. But I trust you...”
“Dianna...”
“I know you slept with Kevin. But I don’t blame you for it, my dear girl. You were young, he took advan–“
”Who told you that?” Gabrielle burst out in an angry, helpless sob. “He told you, didn’t he? To hurt you, and hurt me...to ruin our friendship!”
“Shh,” Dianna said soothingly, her smile maternal, “shh, baby. I told you. I forgive you. It isn’t important. And it wasn’t Kevin who told me, but Smith...”
“I thought...I thought you said he was mute,” Gabrielle sobbed, lowering her teary eyes in shame and self-loathing.
“It isn’t important. What is important is that Smith told me that he heard Kevin speaking to his brother on the phone. His brother is a clinical psychologist, Gaby. Kevin is talking about declaring me incompetent. About committing me to a hospital. You can’t let him do that to me, all right? I have so much else to learn! So much else to see! The Tower of Koth! Celephais! The castle of the Great Ones on the mountain of Karnath! You have to tell him I’m not mad, Gaby...you have to tell him you believe me!”
“But I don’t believe you!” Gabrielle blurted. “I’m sorry, Dianna, I’m so sorry for everything...but how can you expect me to believe any of this?”
“You have to believe me!” Dianna cried, her eyes bulging alarmingly. “You have to listen! Let me show you! I’ll show you what my spawn can do...” And with that she reached across the desk, pointing to the basin of fluid.
But Gabrielle could take no more, turned and darted from the room, sobbing even harder. Above her own sobs, however, as she dashed through the door, she could swear she heard a burbling sound rising from that faintly luminous basin.
Gabrielle remained in her room for several hours. She paced, biting her nails until the skin around them bled, expecting that at any instant Dianna would rap at her door. Or worse -- perhaps -- Kevin. But no one came to fetch her, no one called for her, and at last she stealthily cracked her door.
At the end of the hall was the door to Smith’s room. She paused, struggling with herself, and then crept down the hall to listen outside it. No sound from within, but then the man made no sound even when in plain sight. She drew a deep breath to steel her nerves, and then cracked the door as she had her own. Smith was not inside the small room, so she slipped through the door, eased it shut behind her. She prayed he would not return in the middle of her snooping.
He must have been part of the cult that had tried to kill Dianna, and had been brainwashing her either with drugs or otherwise, preying upon her vulnerability since her traumatic experiences in Tibet. Even though Kevin had said Smith arrived after Dianna’s strange behavior had already begun, Gabrielle could not rule out Smith’s silent influence over her friend.
His bed looked unslept in, as neatly made as if he had served in the military. The closet held a few more suits and ironed shirts, the bureau neatly folded underwear and socks, all identical. No personal belongings in the sense of photographs, papers. The only object that gave Gabrielle pause was a glass of water by the bed. It contained a full set of dentures. And then she noticed, folded beside the glass, Smith’s pair of dark glasses.
She stole from the room, having found no drugs, no weird literature. Despite how much her last meeting with Dianna had unsettled her, Gabrielle knew she must go look in on her. Dianna needed to eat. Dianna needed tending to. However frightening her ranting, Gabrielle must go to her, help her the best she could. It seemed impossible that she could salvage anything of the once brilliant woman before her husband could have her committed to some Dante’s purgatory of a psych ward, but she must try .
As she moved through the large house in the direction of Dianna Wallace’s office, Gabrielle once again heard that bizarre, distorted piping music. It seemed to be growing in volume until it was a maniacal shrieking, and Gabrielle wished the Wallaces had neighbors near enough to complain about the cacophony at this hour of the night. But they didn’t.
As Gabrielle put her hand to the knob, she thought she heard another shriek beneath the frenzied music. The shriek of a voice made unnatural with terror beyond mere panic. But as she turned the knob, the music died suddenly away, and she opened the door to a silent room.
That made the horror the room contained all the more surreal.
Dianna sat back in her wheelchair behind the desk, as if merely a spectator like Gabrielle. But where Gabrielle watched in stunned horror, Dianna was smiling faintly, calmly, her eyes alight.
Kevin Wallace struggled with Smith in the center of the room. Smith was larger, stronger, and Kevin’s efforts seemed futile. It was easy to understand that the scream Gabrielle had heard had been his...and easy to understand how it had been cut off. Kevin’s head was buried inside Smith’s mouth, buried to the neck as if in a lion’s maw, and that was how wide the black man’s mouth had opened, like a snake’s with its jaws unhinged. Perhaps without his false teeth it was an easier feat, part of Gabrielle’s mind considered with the blasé attitude of encroaching madness.
His false teeth must also give his mouth a bit of color, she realized, should he ever part his lips a bit. His o
nly color besides black. Because she saw that without his glasses, even his eyes were entirely ebon-colored.
From the cuffs of his expensive suit, his fingers had lengthened into smooth serpentine tendrils, which had wound themselves around Kevin’s arms and throat. Even as Gabrielle watched, more tendrils sprouted off and grew and twined around Smith’s prey, reminding that blasé portion of the young woman’s mind of a television program in which jungle creepers had been shown growing in stop-motion photography.
Then Smith’s head began to slip down over Kevin’s weakening, suffocating form, stretching impossibly, stretching out of human guise. As Kevin was consumed, absorbed, lost his form, so did the creature -- the mass -- that had been Smith seem to lose its hold on humanity. Soon all that was left of both of them was a black viscous ooze that poured out of Smith’s clothing, leaving it puddled but unstained on the rug. And then the ooze ran up the legs of the table nearby, coiling along them like a spill in reverse, up the sides of the violet stone basin. Poured inside. Until there were two basins filled to the brim with black ooze, that gurgled and bubbled softly like hot tar.
“My servants,” Dianna explained dreamily, “as you serve me. And as I serve Tsathoggua.”
Gabrielle backed into the door frame, did not have strength remaining to take a step to the left and back out of the room. Instead, she sank down the frame until she sat on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest like a child in its mother’s womb. Staring at Dianna, who had been like a surrogate mother to her.
“I told you he was trying to hurt me,” Dianna went on. “I was hoping you could dissuade him. But you didn’t believe me, Gaby. I had no choice. I’m sorry. I’m not sure whether you loved him or not, but I’m sorry.”
Unholy Dimensions Page 14
