The Nightmare Game (5 page)

A luscious fragrance wafted toward me from the
dripping blossoms of the wisteria vines that clung to the house, embracing it
tightly. Picking up my bags, I walked over to the sliding glass door, unlocked
it and let myself in. After only a bit of fumbling, I found the inside light
switch and turned it on. Not previously having seen any photos of the apartment
interior, I was rather disappointed. In complete contrast to and disregard for
the charm, grace and romantic majesty of the home’s exterior, the apartment
itself was sadly low-rent. It looked like a eccentric cross between a passable
vacation beach condominium and a room in a rent-by-the-hour motel with a
broken, flashing “vacancy” sign. Eclectically decorated in mixed styles that
were popular from the 1940’s through the 1980’s, it was cheerful enough not to
be depressing and strange enough not to be cheerful. Wicker furniture, lively
tropical print wallpaper and a glass and chrome dining table reminiscent of the
early 1980’s lived side by side with a ceiling-to-floor corner lamp from the
fifties. A cheery flowered sofa in the same room’s tiny “living area” was
flanked by a distressed World War II era end table topped with a large ashtray
in the popular kidney-shaped style that went out with the Eisenhower
administration, a plastic palm plant and a small table lamp that would have
looked at home in an old Havana nightclub. The crowning glory for me, though,
was the surprisingly well-preserved and clean looking wall-to-wall shag
carpeting held over from the late sixties in a bizarre bright burnt orange, a
peculiar shade whose popularity had not survived the decade. The haphazard furnishings,
the fact that so much reconstruction had been done on the rest of the building
and none here, combined with Rochere’s repellent attitude only to validate my
theory that vacation renters were, in her eyes, viewed as lower life forms.

“Well, at least it’s different,” I said to myself.

I peeked into the kitchenette. It looked efficient
and clean. It was nice to see that the stove and refrigerator were white and
not the avocado green or harvest gold that I was expecting. Then I walked into
the bedroom and checked it out. Shag carpeting aside, it looked much more
predictable than the dining and living areas, containing only plain, generic
motel furniture. Two double beds occupied it, along with a large dresser, an
armless chair and an end table holding a lamp, phone and clock that was placed
between the beds. A sliding closet door ran parallel to one of the beds and a
door leading into the bathroom was at the opposing wall near the other bed. I
kicked off my shoes, put my purse on the chair and put my bags down on the bed
nearest the closet, opening up my suitcase and unzipping my carry-on. I would
take the bed closest to the bathroom, I decided, keeping with my usual
rationale that it was more simply more convenient. Grudgingly, however, I had
to admit that having to sleep in a bed by a closet still, to this day, gave me
the heebie-jeebies, a hold-over from the horrible nightmares of my childhood.

I went into the bathroom to use the facilities and
to wash up from the trip. Standing at the sink, I was shocked at my reflection.
I had talked myself into thinking that what happened in Rochere’s office had
been some kind of severe and bizarre psychotropic allergic reaction, for all
the major symptoms disappeared as soon as that strange odor was gone. While still
profoundly exhausted, I thought the worst was over now. The mirror told another
story. White lips, a pale, dry, scaly complexion, large, dark, purple shadows
and sunken bloodshot red rimmed eyes stared back at me. Who was this strange,
sick woman, obviously so much older and dilapidated than myself? I looked
puffy, my normally grey eyes were watery. I actually seemed to have shrunk some
in height from my normal 5’5”. Even my recently colored, light brown hair
joined the damage and had the consistency of straw. This was not the reflection
that normally greeted me. I started shaking and backed out of the room with my
eyes still focused on the stranger in the mirror. I grabbed my purse and pulled
out the tiny bottle of Jack Daniels that I’d bought on the plane and was saving
for later. I slumped onto the bed, my hands trembling as I opened it and,
instead of sipping it slowly as I had planned, downed it all at once. Now
anxious and scared, I laid down, fully dressed, on top of the bedspread.

My mind kept going back to the events or
non-events in Miss Rochere’s office. What exactly had happened there? Was it
real? It couldn’t have been. Things like that didn’t happen in real life. But
if it wasn’t an hallucination or my mind playing tricks on me, if it truly was real,
why didn’t I have any marks on me? The super-fair Irish skin I’d inherited from
my dad’s side of the family welted fast, stayed red for a long time and bruised
easily; as I’d noticed when I checked earlier, the signs of any real attack
would still be quite evident, but there were none. Was it some kind of mind
control similar to hypnosis? I didn’t remember being hypnotized but maybe I
wouldn’t. And if it was only hypnosis, why did I still feel so unclean inside,
so incredibly tired and so troubled? Why did I look so sick?

I didn’t remember falling asleep. One minute I was
lying on the bedspread clutching the tiny empty bottle of whiskey and the next
I found myself on the foggy boulevard, the one I had seen so many times, over
and over again. But this time, instead of following my beautiful mysterious
gentleman, I was face to face with him. For the second time, I knew it was the
dream even while I was dreaming it. This time he pulled me toward him and
looked into my eyes, imploringly. My heart pounded wildly as I stared into his
beautiful warm brown eyes speckled with deep, rich gold. He took me into a
tight embrace and our bodies melted into each other. The beautiful music once
again flowed from the crystalline dragon’s mouth and I could see the notes of
its song wrapping around us protectively. My gentleman’s hand gently pushed
aside my hair as he placed his lips so closely up to the side of my throat that
I could feel his warm breath against my skin.

With an English accent, he whispered gently into
my ear. “Heed my friends, pay attention to what they say. They cannot help you
much, but they will do what little they can to guide you. And wear the necklace
always. Never take it off, not for any reason, not for anyone. If you take it
off, you will die.”

He held out a tiny, sweet-faced, winged dragon
which he laid upon my chest. As it crawled up, the fluttering of its wings
slowed to a stop, its long tail tenderly wound itself around my neck, and,
settling comfortably into position at my bosom, it sank its sharp baby claws
into my flesh. I gasped, finding this neither painful nor displeasing, but
incredibly exciting.

“You need strength now. The one you must fight has
taken much away from you.”

With one hand he then lifted my head up toward his
face and, while my breath quickened, brought me close to him. His lips were so
near to mine now and he was leaning in, I thought, to kiss me. I opened my
mouth to meet the open mouth of my dream lover, but instead of delivering the
kiss I thought awaited me, he began to exhale his breath into my mouth. As his
breath poured into me, a newfound strength surged there also. The more he
breathed into me, the stronger I felt, until, with a cry of joy, I awoke
suddenly in the bed, alone.

I felt refreshed, as if I had slept an entire
night, but when I looked at the clock, I’d been napping for less than ten
minutes. I stretched out on the bedspread, yawning, luxuriating for a while in
memories of this latest dream. The recurring theme had always tired me before,
but this time it had left me feeling more energized than I’d been in years.
Getting ready to rise, I sat up a little, propped myself on my elbows and
looked around. With a start, I noticed a figure standing in the doorway.

“Who are you?” I said, frightened. Was it a burglar?
Or worse? Not moving a muscle, I hurriedly glanced around the room to see if
there was anything I could use for a makeshift weapon just in case. The night
stand lamp was the closest thing to one that I could find. Before I could reach
it, the figure, a woman’s, entered the room, walking toward me without any
sound whatsoever.

“I said, who are you?” I was now even more
frightened from the stranger’s lack of response.

She walked toward me without menace, a tall,
elegant middle-aged black woman dressed in a long house dress and an apron.
When she reached the bed, she stopped and held her right index finger to her
lips for me to be quiet.

“A friend,” she said very quietly, “We don’ have
much time. You’ve gotta come with me now.”

“Why should I? And whose friend are you?”

“His friend.”

“Who’s ‘he’?”

“The dream man. And now I’m your friend. He told
you to expect me. We gotta go now, there’s no time.”

He told me? Yes, he had told me to heed his
friends, but it was just a dream. How could she possibly know about my dream?
It was impossible. She began to walk away, turned at the door and impatiently
motioned for me to follow her. I got up and walked over to her.

“Follow me,” she whispered. “Leave your shoes off
and don’ say nothin’ and don’ make a sound. She’ll hear us if you do.”

“Who will hear us?” I asked, also whispering.

She didn’t answer, she just put her finger back to
her lips, whispered, “Shhh,” and began to walk away.

This was just too weird, I thought. Common sense
told me that following a stranger that had just entered my apartment was not
the wisest thing to do, but the ordinary rules of common sense seemed to have
taken a holiday the minute I’d stepped into the realtor’s office. My instincts,
my gut, told me to go with her. Intellectually, I knew that I was now awake but
this felt as if it was still a part of my dream. I knew it was important that I
follow this woman and do what she asked me to do. Why, I didn’t know; I just
did.

 She turned off the lights in the living area and
courtyard, and we slipped outside. Hugging the building and keeping as much in
the shadows as possible, we moved silently toward the archway to the annex of
the building and made our way up the old wooden staircase onto the second floor
landing, which led to one of the ramps that connected the old servants’
quarters to the main house. We crossed over, where the mysterious woman
effortlessly opened the side door, a door that Rochere had insisted was locked,
and we walked into a narrow windowless hallway that ran the entire length of the
rear of the main house. On either side were doors leading into the home’s
rooms. As we passed these doors quickly, I peeked inside each one, seeing
nothing but ceiling chandeliers and the forms of furniture concealed beneath
the white sheeting of drop cloths, looking like misshapen, discarded ghosts.
Everything was covered with dust and cobwebs.

What the hell am I doing
up here?
I thought. The fogginess of sleep, with its feeling of still
being connected with the dream, was leaving and, wide awake now, I felt a
little stupid for tagging along with this stranger. Never one for venturing
into places where I was not supposed to be, Rochere’s stern admonishments rang
through my mind. The apprehension of getting caught was making my stomach grip.
But curiosity and an uncharacteristic feeling of rebelliousness spurred me
onward as I continued to follow this strange woman into parts of the house that
I had been strongly warned not to enter.

She led me to a room at the very end of the hall,
looking carefully inside before entering.

“Stay close to the walls & outta the light
comin’ in the windas. Be quiet. When we need to talk, we whisper.”

Tiny dust particles caught the light coming
through the windows as we entered an intimate, very narrow room, filled to
overflowing with furnishings covered with the same white ghostlike sheets
populating all the other rooms.

 “This was the private study of the owner of this
house a long, long time ago,” she whispered even softer than before, so quietly
I had to strain to hear her. Stepping over to one of the sheeted furnishings,
she pulled up the draping just high enough to retrieve something from a dresser
drawer, closing it quickly afterward and returning the sheet to its original
position.

“This is what I brought you up here for. This is
what you need.”

She handed me the object she had just taken. It
was an ornate crystal box, delicately carved and richly decorated in a design
so unusual that I had never seen anything like it in my life. A bizarre yet
elegant symbol as exotic as the rest of the piece topped it.

“This is beautiful, absolutely beautiful,” I said.

 “Open it. Go on, look inside.”

I tried to lift the lid, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Push this button,” she pointed to a symbol on the
back. “Then slide it open.”

I did as she instructed and on a hinge, the lid
slid open to the side without friction. The almost glowing inside revealed an
object that was set into the molding of the box, the object for which this box
had obviously been created. I gasped. It was a tiny crystalline dragon cast in
a style that reminded me of the one in my dreams. Its wings spread and its tail
curled, it was attached to a short, sturdy yet delicate, seamless rope-chain
made of what appeared to be white platinum. Its face, cute and ferocious at the
same time, had two small emeralds set into it for the eyes. The woman then
reached into the box, took out the necklace by its chain and placed it gently
around my neck, securing the clasp. It wasn’t heavy, but it felt substantial. I
could tell that it was an expensive, important piece of jewelry. I could have
sworn I heard it sigh as I absentmindedly positioned it into place at the top
of my chest.

“This belongs to you now, most probably for the
rest of your life,” she said in a tone of voice that implied that the rest of
my life might not be as long as I’d hoped. “You’re stuck with it, it’s stuck
with you and you’ve got to wear it from now on or you’ll be dead for sure.”