The Nightmare Game (14 page)

Yes, that’s what I’ll see
,
I told myself.
I’m just so tired that I’m dreaming
standing up. When I open my eyes, I’ll just see the tub, the shower curtain,
the water, the bathroom
. Reason within me said,
That’s all that’s here, Ashley. That’s all that’s really
here. You know it and I know it and that’s all you’ll see. There’s nothing,
absolutely nothing, that will come out of the dark and frighten you. You’re an
adult, you’re not afraid of the dark, there is no boogie man. OK, Ashley, let’s
do it now
.

Then I opened my eyes. Instead of going away, the
red hell still lay before me, available now in much greater detail and clarity
than it had before. Whenever I opened or closed my eyes, each time it was made
worse. At last the damned of the inferno, while still there, began to recede
away, as if my viewpoint were a camera that was panning out for a far shot.
Soon there was nothing in front of my eyes except for the red murk, heat waves
slithering snakelike through the scarlet and black mire. The cries and moans of
the doomed souls were the only evidence of their presence that remained behind.
I now saw something new. It was a dividing line – no, not a line, but a plane –
between my world and the hell right in front of me. Not a straight plane,
though, it rapidly evolved into the entry to a gaping pit, an irregularly
shaped hole within the space of the bathtub that undulated in a primitive,
sexual, almost reproductive way. It surged at me aggressively then retreated in
a coquettish, seductive manner, creating an energy force that drew me in, an
force that I knew was trying to suck me into itself. I had to get out of here.
With my leg, I felt the edge of the tub and tried to step out of it, but I
couldn’t. Every time I made an effort to leave the bathtub, the vortex seemed
more able to suck me into it as my balance shifted to one leg in order step
out. Unable to escape, I moved out of the stream of the water, holding on
tightly to the shower rod with one hand, the pipe to which the shower head was
attached with the other hand and planted my feet as solidly as possible on the
non-skid surface decals of the tub. I wasn’t going into it, this tunnel into
the underworld. I couldn’t let it get me. I would stand here, naked and wet and
wait for this storm to pass, fighting it until I escaped or it died out.

Its fury showed no signs of passing, however; it
only became more and more violent. I could feel a hot wind whipping about me,
trying to push me into the vortex as its undulations tried to suction me into
itself. I clung as best as I could to the shower head and shower rod. Flimsy
lifelines, indeed, they were, for they shook intensely, each trying to work its
way out of the ceramic tile that held it into place. Finally, the shower head
gave way and the water, with full intensity, began to spray out violently in
all directions, no longer guided or contained by its nozzle. The force of this
liquid explosion almost caused me to lose my grip on the pipe. I could feel the
pipe itself now pulsating, vibrating, trying to rip itself out of the shower
wall by the violence of its unrestrained flow, its water drawn now into the
vortex, water that evaporated with a hiss as soon it entered this hellish
dimension, water that now came out with a power seemingly in league with the force
that was trying to draw me into itself, trying to entrap me with those poor,
captured souls whose cries for rescue from their hideous prison I could still
hear.

I held onto the pipe that was once attached to the
shower head with all my might. I clamped my eyes shut from the strain, but
again it did not shut out the scene before me. If anything, any changes I made
caused the panorama to become even more clear, for it was in sharper focus now
than it had been when my eyes were open. My viewpoint was once again panned
back to the hopelessly imprisoned souls, although they were in the background
now, crying “save me” as they pleaded even louder than before.
This has to pass
, I thought to myself,
it has to. It can’t go on forever
. As I watched the
poor beings writhe in front of me, however, the unthinkable suddenly became
thinkable. Oh, my dear God, what if it doesn’t end? What if I become one of
them? This thought terrified me beyond belief. My heart began to beat rapidly
in my chest and I knew I was on the verge of losing all reason. I had to get
out of here, I had to.

Perhaps I could kneel down. Balancing myself in a
kneeling position to crawl out of the tub would provide me more stability than
standing. I managed to force my view away from the vortex for a split second to
look around and orient myself on whatever fixtures I could grasp for support,
but my choices were very limited. Two water taps and a faucet were the extent
of my life lines. Maybe I could crouch down far enough to reach the tub faucet,
which looked sturdier than anything I was holding onto at the moment. If I
could get a firm enough grip on it with one hand, maybe I could latch onto the
cold water tap with my other hand so I could get down and kneel. Once there, I
could wrap my right arm around the outside of the tub for more support and
hopefully crawl or fall out. I prayed I wouldn’t be sucked into the vortex
during this attempt and I prayed it wouldn’t follow me outside of the tub, but
as far as I could tell, this was my only chance.

 Before I could make a move, though, my
concentration was broken when, amidst the wailing of the lost, I heard a baby
cry. It was the intense, desperate cry of a child in great pain, a cry so
hoarse I knew immediately that it had been screaming for a long, long time,
unheard, uncared for, ignored. I looked down into the vortex, towards the
direction of the cry and there, in that other world too close to me, lay an
infant, naked, at my feet. My heart broke. It was weakly thrashing about with
its tiny arms and legs, trying so hard to get someone, anyone, to help it. It
was emaciated, almost a skeleton, with the bloated stomach of a child in a
famine dying of starvation and thirst. I panicked, not only for myself now, but
also for this child, a girl, who was scarcely more than a newborn. I would have
to make an attempt to rescue not only my own self, but hers as well. My hold on
reality was tentative as it was and I was in no position, quite literally, to
reach out and grab hold of that baby. The weak lifeline of the shower pipe was
not nearly strong enough to support that much stress, especially in its present
state. A plan to place myself into a stable position on my knees was even more
urgent now, lest I be pulled headlong into the void during my attempt to rescue
her.

Holding onto the shower pipe with all my strength,
I let go of the shower rod. Even leaning backward as I was, I had to fight the
forward pull of the vortex as I bent to one side first and grabbed the cold
water tap as quickly as I could with my left hand. Crouching, I then released
my grip on the shower pipe, and quickly snatched the thick tub faucet with my
right. Clumsily, I knelt down hard, my knees smarting as I used all my strength
to resist the whirlpool-like pull. I got as firm and stable a grounding as
possible, holding fast onto these slightly stronger, lower bathtub fixtures,
grateful that this was an older, larger bathtub, for at least there was enough
room between myself and the sucking pit to make some maneuverability possible.
I then released the cold water tap and hooked my left arm around the side of
the bathtub, clinging onto it as firmly as I could. The tub was the strongest
thing to grasp because it was set into the wall as one solid piece. My stance
more stable, I felt stronger here, more able to resist the vacuuming action of
the pit. I hoped against hope that the void would at least remain stable and
not get any larger or any closer.

I took several deep breaths, braced myself as best
I could and slowly, carefully began to insert my hand and arm into the orifice
of the vortex. I expected to feel intense heat. After all, this was Hell,
wasn’t it? As I broke into the membrane that separated the nightmare plane from
reality, the fury of the maelstrom ceased and immediately became calm. Curiously,
there was no heat to it at all. Instead, there was the strangest kind of
nothingness, not really a feeling, but rather a total lack of feeling. There
was no heat, there was no cold, there was no breeze nor wind, no humidity,
nothing. The lack of feeling was so strong that first I wondered if my hand had
entered a vacuum, but then I quickly realized that conjecture was wrong, for
had it been, my hand and arm would have exploded upon entry. And since this
other plane of existence, despite all of its seeming fury, wasn’t sucking me
into it at all any more, I summoned up the courage to reach more and more of my
arm into this mysterious world. Nothing cataclysmic was happening and my
outlook upon being able to rescue the infant was growing more optimistic, since
she was right in front of me. But the visual perceptions of this other world
seemed to be more than a little out of sync with the normal one, and I realized
the baby was a little further away from me than I thought, forcing me a little
bit further into the void. Still, I felt positive that I would finally be able
to reach her, an opinion I soon altered, because in this other dimension,
distances were vastly deceiving. No matter how close I tried to get to her, no
matter how far I reached into this dismal plane, the baby was always the same
distance from me, no closer, no farther. She was always just out of my range.
My right arm now totally engulfed in this other dimension, I realized I could
go no further without losing total control. I was into it all the way up to my
shoulder and any optimism I had harbored vanished completely and the
unthinkable option of having to leave her behind became a terrible reality,
because if I could not reach her, I could not rescue her. I’d reached my arm
into this other dimension as far as I possibly could without putting my own
stability in severe danger and I was still no closer to the child. No sooner
had I made the horrible, yet unavoidable decision to abandon the attempt, than
the sensory input from this other world abruptly changed. Instead of the
nothingness to which I’d now become accustomed, a pulsing, drawing feeling that
felt alarmingly good flowed around and into my right arm. All tension, stress
and general stiffness flowed out of it, as if it were being expertly massaged
from both within and without. It was a disturbingly relaxing sensation and,
without my permission, my entire body began to unwind, to succumb in response.
My mind snapped to attention as I suddenly realized that I had been, for a
split second, relaxing my grip on the side of the tub.
Clever, very clever
, I thought, trying to avert yet
another surge of panic that was on the verge of overcoming me. I tightened my
grip and returned my focus to retrieving my arm, aching with impotent regret at
my inability to rescue the pitiful infant into the real world, into a safe
world. As if it sensed my intent, the forces within the red dimension changed.
No longer seductive, it began to feed on more than just my tension. Not only
were my stress and tension being sucked out of me, I felt now that my entire
life force was in danger. In a matter of moments, I felt very little life or
strength left in my arm and I knew that soon the rest of me would not be far
behind. My hung over brain and body’s nerve endings began their edgy tingling
again. My attempt at rescuing the baby had put me into extreme danger.

Suddenly she stopped crying. Could it be that on
some level she realized that someone had finally come to her call, someone had
finally, at long last, come to help her?
Poor little
thing
, I thought. I had failed, and my heart was breaking behind my
desperation to save myself. No longer crying now, she began to coo and giggle.
It was then she began to change. She seemed to be getting fleshier, visibly
gaining weight as, still fighting to retrieve my arm, I watched her. Her
bloated belly disappeared, her thin little arms and legs fattened up, her
sunken face plumped up in time lapse fashion and color came to her cheeks and
lips. It was impossible, but she seemed a little older, too, still an infant
but no longer a newborn. She continued filling out until she was now a plump
little thing, laughing and gurgling as she stared at me. Then she aged from an
infant into an older baby, able to sit up. She started to laugh again, but this
time it was not the sweet, joyful glee of a baby but instead a mocking,
ridiculing one.

She frightened me now for I realized at last that
this was no real child, only a ruse to trick me, to draw me into this red
nightmare dimension. With all my might, I began to withdraw my arm from the
pit, but it wouldn’t come out. I leveraged myself with the side of bathtub to
which I clung furiously and pulled again, as hard as I could, but to no avail.
My right arm was stuck in the void up to my shoulder. Panic ripped through me
as, futilely, I tugged and pulled. From within the edge of the red and black
plane a thin, flexible object floated through the air toward me. Before I had a
chance to blink, it wrapped itself around my hand and, like a serpent, wound
itself around my arm. Once coiled around me, it made itself taut and metal
prongs like rose thorns sprung out of it, piercing the flesh of my hand and my
arm. I screamed. Blood began to pour from my punctures. The child, no longer a
baby but now a toddler, sat in her spot, still laughing cruelly as the other
end of the wire extended itself to her. She saw it not as a threat, but only as
another source of amusement, a brutal toy, and her laughter increased. She
expertly grabbed the wire between the barbs, tugging on it with the strength of
an adult. She tugged as I pulled in the other direction, desperately trying to
release myself from this hellish world as this tug-of-war caused the sharp
prongs of the wire to embed themselves even more deeply into my tender flesh.
The blood ran freely from my arm as she jerked the wire harder toward her with
wicked delight, staring at me with eyes that were not those of a child. She coolly
began to wrap the wire as if it were yarn to be done up into a ball. Then she stopped
laughing and her expression became inscrutable. She just stared at me, her eyes
never losing contact with my own. The wire, cutting deeper and deeper with its
prongs, began to get uncomfortably hot.