The Nightmare Game (65 page)

“She’s not a goddess, Ben, she never was. She’s
nothing but an evil entity that feeds off of other people’s life forces. She’s
nothing but an energy vampire, a succubus.”

“Enough of your blasphemy, woman!” Arrosha
shouted, enraged again. “Ben, convince her to take off that necklace and hand
it over to Geoffrey. That’s what you’re here for. It’s the only reason that I
haven’t killed you yet. Convince her and the two of you live. I’ll even throw
Illea and the others into the bargain. Fail to do so and you all die.”

“Ashley,” Ben said, “You’d better give her what
she wants. You know, live to fight another day and all that. Plus, Illea’s life
is at stake. You’ve got to save her. She’s like my little sister, Ashley.”

“I know that Ben. I wish there was another way but
my answer has to be no. When I say that this necklace is the only thing that
can stop Arrosha, I mean it. If it gets into her possession, she’ll be able to
get real power, rule nations, take over the world. I don’t want to be the one
responsible for that. Do you? I mean, look at her, Ben. Look at what she’s done
to your friends. She’s crazy.”

“But if you don’t, she’s going to kill us and kill
Illea. And then she’ll just have Geoffrey walk over to your dead body and take it
off of you anyway.”

“No, she can’t. I have to hand it over voluntarily
for Geoffrey to be able to take it for her. If she kills me or if she tortures
me into it, it disappears back into its box and she doesn’t know where that is.
I don’t know where that is either, so there’s no way she can get that out of
me.”

“Is it really that important, Ashley, that you’d
let her kill us all instead?”

“It really is that important. I’m sorry, Ben.”

He turned to Arrosha and said, “Arrosha, I can’t
talk her into giving you the amulet. I’m sorry, but after what you did to the
others, after I’ve seen what you’re really like, well, if it were up to me, I
wouldn’t give it to you either.”

“So that’s it? Oh, Ben, you disappoint me. And
you, Ashley?”

“My answer’s still no.” I knew I was doing the
right thing and I had no other real choice, but these words were still the
hardest words I’d ever had to say.

Arrosha sighed arrogantly. “I have to say, Ben,
that I really didn’t expect for you to come through for me. You always did have
such a hang-up about doing the ‘good’ and ‘decent’ and ‘honorable’ thing.
Honestly, sometimes it was hard for me to keep my lunch down around you. It was
worth a shot, though. But I do have something for you. Don’t think that your
work here today will go unrewarded.”

She beckoned Ben and he walked toward her.

“Ben, do you remember when we first met, when you
were dying in that horrible little small town hospital bed, so old, so frail,
so sick and so lonely?”

“Yes, Arrosha, of course. How could I ever forget?”

“When you looked up at me, what did you think?”

“That you were an angel sent to be with me in my
last moments, an angel sent to take me home.”

“Yes, and what else?”

“That you were the most beautiful sight that I had
ever seen in my entire life.”

“Yes, yes, that’s what I was going for. And do you
remember how I leaned over you to change you, to save your life, to make you
beautiful. Do you remember how I looked into your eyes and stroked your
forehead?”

“I’ll never forget that, Arrosha.”

“Would you like to know what I was thinking then?”

“Yes I would. Very much.”

“Well, Ben, I was thinking about what a hideously
ugly little man you were and how much you repulsed me.

“Arrosha, I – I’m sorry.” Tears had welled up in
Ben’s eyes.

“And it wasn’t just that you were ugly to look at,
Ben, you were hideous to the touch. Your skin was so clammy and damp. And your
odor! The stench of dying that came out of you was so strong that it clung to
the entire room. You disgusted me.”

Ben was quiet now. He just hung his head as big
tears rolled down his cheeks.

“You were always ugly, though, weren’t you, Ben? I
mean, if you hadn’t been, Geoffrey might not have ever left you. How he could
have stood touching you, kissing you, lying with you, even for your money, is
beyond me.”

Again, Ben only stood there, quietly weeping.
Geoffrey, on the other hand, was making mocking facial expressions and nodding
his head in silent, sarcastic agreement with Arrosha’s words.

“Of course, I’ve found that Geoffrey can do just
about anything if the price is right, because Geoffrey is nothing more than a
little whore,” she continued.

“Hey, now!” Geoffrey balked until Arrosha shot an
evil look his way. Geoff then said nothing more.

“He’ll take any harbor in a storm, Ben,” she
continued. “And that’s all you were, a safe harbor. He was sick, in trouble
with the law and out of money when he stumbled into you, a sad, lonely,
desperate old homosexual denying who he was and starved for love. What an easy
target you must have been, Ben. And you had a bank account to boot. You never
looked into his background. If you had, you’d have realized that he was wanted
for a slew of petty and not-so-petty crimes, that he needed a place to hide out
until things cooled off for him. You would have known that his was an assumed
name. You never even bothered to find out what Geoffrey’s real name was, did
you?”

“No,” Ben answered, pain in his voice.

“What did you do when you met Geoffrey, Ben? Tell
me, what did you do?”

“I couldn’t help it. I loved him. I trusted him.”
Ben said, his voice cracking.

“Yes, you trusted him, fool that you are. You gave
and you gave and you gave until you had nothing left. He rewarded you with
almost a full year of his ‘love’, didn’t he? Until that fateful Saturday
morning when you awoke to find him packing to leave you. You racked your brain
wondering what you had done wrong that made him leave, not able to believe his
explanation until you found out on Monday morning that your bank accounts were
overdrawn and you no longer had a penny to your name.

“But good, old, solid, dependable Ben. You still
loved that snake so much that you just took some sick time off until you had
none left and they threatened to fire you. You just quietly went back to work
after that. So there’d be no more questions, you told those very few souls that
bothered to ask that the two of you had just broken up, that it was one of
those things. You just resumed your little life, or tried to anyway, didn’t
you, Ben? You went back even deeper into the shell from which you’d so briefly
emerged, put your nose even more deeply into your books and your work and tried
to carry on. Then you started feeling bad, then you started being so tired that
there were some mornings at first, more and more as time went on, that you
couldn’t even get out of bed. You just told yourself that you were heartsick,
depressed over Geoffrey’s leaving you. You were so brokenhearted over that
little rat over there that it never occurred to you that you were truly ill,
that your beloved Geoffrey had given you a case of AIDs, until it was too late
and you found yourself dying in that hospital bed where I found you, gave you
back your life and made you young again and more beautiful and more handsome
than you ever could have imagined. And what did you do then, Ben, after I did
all of that and brought you to my plantation to live? Do you remember?”

“Yes,” said Ben feebly, no looking up.

“You sat there amidst luxury and splendor, pining
away for your betrayer, Geoffrey. You pestered me and pestered me to find him,
to bring him to you to live at my mansion. You were so young and beautiful by
then, Ben, you could have had anyone you wanted, and yet all you wanted was
that lying cheat so far below your station. After all that he had done to you,
you were willing to take him back as if nothing had happened.” Arrosha shook
her head. “Ben, how can someone as intelligent as you are be such an emotional
simpleton? I have to say that Geoffrey did play the good boy for many, many
years, though, didn’t he? But it didn’t say that way, did it? In his soul, he’s
a betrayer, Ben. He’s betrayed you again and now he’s betrayed me as well.”

“I did not, Arrosha! I was faithful to you always.
I swear it!” Geoffrey shouted out indignantly. Arrosha ignored him as if he had
said nothing, keeping her focus upon Ben.

“And for bringing him into the group, Ben, you
must be punished. Out of everyone in the group, you’re the one it pains me most
to have to punish. You were always such a true and loyal servant. I was so
hoping it wouldn’t have to come to this, that you would be able to convince
Ashley to hand over the amulet willingly, that I would be able to reward you
with the riches that you do, truly, deserve. But you’ve failed me, Ben, so I
must punish you instead.”

“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you, Arrosha?”
Ben said quietly. Arrosha’s brutal assessment had taken the spirit out of him.

“Oh, yes, Ben, I am. But not just yet. You’ll have
to suffer first. Don’t worry about death. When I finally do kill you, you will
welcome it.

“But what to do with you before then, that’s the
question.” She paced back and forth for awhile, thinking, and then she stopped.
“Ah, yes, I know. I have the perfect thing. How is it that you referred to
yourself in your previous life? A real gargoyle, wasn’t it? Well, then, that’s
it, Ben. That’s perfect. I will turn you into a real gargoyle.”

“No! Please, no!” cried Ben.

But his plea fell on deaf ears. Arrosha motioned
with her hand and Ben’s cries stopped as he started to change instantly. His
body thickened and began to stoop. His head, his hands and his feet grew
larger. His clothes seemed to melt off of him as he hunched over more and more,
no longer capable of standing upright. His fingernails and toenails became
thick, curved claws as his ears grew huge and pointed. His once handsome face
became unrecognizable as his eyebrows grew thick, his nose grew large, bulbous
and pointed, and his lips all but disappeared into a mouth more ape than human.
As he went to lick his lips, a huge, thick tongue, far too long, flicked out,
froglike, over sharp, pointed teeth. His skin grew thick as well, now the color
and texture of dark grey stone and lastly, a set of leathery batlike wings
emerged from his shoulder blades, growing rapidly until they were larger than
the rest of his body.

Geoffrey began to giggle meanly again. “Nice
wingspan, Ben. And that tongue! The boys are really gonna like you now!”

His giggling turned into full laughter as Ben
staggered around the room as best he could, unaccustomed to his unnatural body.
He flapped his new wings clumsily, losing his balance repeatedly in the act.

“Real graceful, Ben.” Geoffrey continued to taunt
him. “You’re a regular Fred Astaire now, old boy. Or, in your case, maybe
Ginger Rogers would be more apropos.”

But it didn’t take long for Ben to get used to his
wings. In minutes he was up in the air, croaking “Help me, help me!”

Geoffrey rolled his eyes again, as if he were
bored. “They are so pathetic once you change them, Arrosha.” He said. Then,
mocking Ben, he began walking clumsily around the room, flapping his arms like
wings. “All they seem to be able to say is ‘help me’. What a limited
vocabulary!”

Arrosha shut him up quickly. “This isn’t about
your amusement, Geoffrey. And Ben, you’re annoying me. Quit fluttering about the
room and go sit out on the ledge. You’re a gargoyle now. Start acting like
one.”

Ben obeyed her immediately and did as he was told.
I had the feeling that once a person was mutated they were at the mercy of
Arrosha’s will.

“And now, Geoffrey,” she said, turning to him. “We
come to you. It’s time for your reward, time for you to get what you so richly
deserve.”

Geoffrey beamed, quite proud of himself, excited
because he was convinced his reward was going to be something fabulous.

“Yes, Arrosha, my Goddess, my Queen.” he said
excitedly.

“Geoffrey, you remember that job I told you to do?
Tell me, did you do it? I mean, did you do it as I instructed?”

“Oh, yes, Arrosha. I did that job and more.” He
swelled with pride as he said this. At the same time he looked at me with
contempt, lording his answer over me.

“Did I ask you to do more, Geoffrey?” she said.

“No, my Goddess. But when I met her,” he said,
looking at me distastefully, “well, let me just say that I didn’t like her from
the very beginning. I thought it would be best for you if I exposed her to the
entire group for what she really was.”

“You thought it would be best? Tell me, Geoffrey,
did I ever tell you to think?”

“Why, why no, Arrosha,” Geoffrey’s mood began to
deflate and he began to stammer, aware for the very first time that Arrosha
might not be completely happy with him.

“No, Geoffrey, I didn’t. I asked you to be
watchful of what was going on and to report everything to me so that I didn’t
need to expend my energies actually at the mansion, hiding in the eaves,
listening in twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. That’s skulking,
Geoffrey and I do not skulk.”

“Of course not, my Queen. That would be beneath
you.”

“Yes, Geoffrey, it most certainly would be beneath
me. That’s why I needed you to be my eyes and ears and that’s all I needed you
to do.”

“But Arrosha, if I hadn’t intervened, Ashley would
have infiltrated our group, gotten off scott-free.”

“That’s what I was counting on, you idiot!”

“I don’t understand, Arrosha.” He said, now
cowering.

“You weren’t supposed to understand, Geoffrey! You
were supposed to watch and listen and that’s all! It was you job, your only
job, and you screwed it up royally!”

Geoff now said nothing. He was starting to
perspire profusely.

“You see, dear Geoffrey, the last group I had, my
followers before Ben, were corrupted by what Edmond calls his ‘champion’.
Because he wouldn’t take the water and the essence, this ‘champion’, Max,
managed to sway much of that group away from me.”

“Max?” he asked, laughing nervously. “Not Max, our
manservant? Not our creepy little monkey man?”

“Yes,” Arrosha said, smiling dryly. “That Max. It
might amuse you to know that Max was quite handsome back then, in a sort of
rough and tumble kind of way. He was the last champion of Edmond’s that made it
as far as the mansion. You see, Geoffrey, I didn’t have my little pets, the
zombies, back then because I didn’t know how to keep them around. As a result,
Max was able to resist the water and the essence. Therefore, he was able to
resist the offer I made him. The group was ruined as a result and then I had to
start all over from scratch with your group.

“So now along comes our little Ashley here. An ant
to Max’s lion, it surprises me that she has gotten this far. She has but one
thing and one thing only going for her that the others didn’t, and that is the
strongest psychic bond that my nemesis, Edmond, has ever been able to create
with any person before now. It’s an advantage that’s given her more protection
than anyone else to date. It’s allowed her to bounce back far too easily from
every attack I’ve been able to throw at her.

“After setting loose my brain-dead little pets
upon her, which put her into a position in which we could easily force the
water upon her, I figured that she would be a snap to seduce into the group.
That being done, she could easily have been talked into surrendering the
necklace amulet for our little ‘transformation ceremony’. But still I needed a
spy, someone to keep an eye on things and to report her goings on to me on a
regular basis.

“But who to get? I could have asked Ben, but there
would have too many questions. I couldn’t trust him because when push came to
shove, he would always do the ‘honorable’ thing. I couldn’t use Illea for the
same reason. Besides, she was my ace-in-the-hole, my back-up in the off-chance
that one of Edmond’s male ‘champions’ made it to the mansion, in which case I
would get rid of Ricky and make not only Illea but also the rest of the group
forget him. The others were all too new to trust. The men were still in the
formative follower stage and would have let the cat out of the bag the first
time Ben even came close to asking them what they were doing. And the Sisters!
That would have been nothing more than a bad joke!

“So you see, Geoffrey, that left only you. I
picked you for this task, decades before Edmond picked Ashley for hers and,
besides, you’d never let me down before. I trusted you because I knew that,
everything else aside, you could be bought. I knew you were slimy and
self-serving and that you would do anything I asked of you if a little
something extra was in it for you. Don’t you appreciate that for over thirty
years now, ever since I first asked you to be my mole when the time came, that
you’ve gotten extra perks and extra privileges that none of the others ever
knew about, let alone got? I always gave you extra essence, extra time in the
city on your own with lots of real money that you could spend lavishly on
whatever or whomever you desired. I did that because I knew you were the only
one I could trust to sell everybody else down the river if I asked you to. All
you had to do was to watch, listen and report to me. But you had to go off on
your own, didn’t you, ruining all of my efforts.”

Geoffrey was beginning to shake now. He looked at
me with hatred in his eyes, as if his shortcomings were somehow all my fault.

“Why did you even have to bring her to the mansion
in the first place?” he asked, his fear making him sound like a petulant child.

“Because, you idiot, I had to get her away from
Edmond’s protection. His thoughts, his help, could not reach her there. The
mansion, the shack, the carnival, this place we stand here now, they’re all in
different dimension, my special dimension that Edmond and his cohorts cannot
access. You have no idea of the safeguards he can afford her. The day after she
ingested the potion at The Crypt, the one I’d prepared just for her, Edmond was
able to rescue her. I was able to reach her through a vortex I’d created and
was confident that she would die, for I’ve killed countless of Edmond’s
‘champions’ that way. I knew that I had wounded her mortally and I thought that
she would perish from those wounds mere minutes later, but with his connection
to her, Edmond was able to revive her completely. Not only that, but he was
able to make her even stronger than she was before my attack on her and there
was nothing I could do about it because it had already taken too much out of me
and I needed to recover.

“It was at that point, I realized that it would be
easier for me to get the necklace and its amulet, my real desire, than it would
be to kill her, but in order to do that, I needed to get her away from his
reach, away from his influence and help. At the mansion, only Edmond’s helper,
Zachary, could reach her and then only through my mirror! And when Zachary was
calling to her through it, did you lead her gently away from the third floor as
I asked you? No, you grabbed her hand and pulled her into the storage closet
just down the hall from my sanctuary and confronted her, causing her memories
to return!

“I could have had her, Geoffrey, easily, if it
hadn’t been for your foolishness and ego! The water had nearly wiped her mind
clean and I knew she was bonding so strongly with Ben that she would gladly
have given him the amulet when he asked her for it. All I needed from you was a
progress report on her memory and for you to do
exactly
as I ordered. But you thought it would be more fun to alienate her. Had you
been doing your job, I would have held the transformation ceremony early the
very next morning, and I would have that amulet in my possession right now
instead of having this pointless conversation with you!

“I had it in the bag this time, Geoffrey. Almost
two centuries of putting up with this stupid game and I finally had it in the
bag! And what did you do, Geoffrey? You took what I specifically told you to
keep to yourself and you blabbed it to everyone, to Ashley even! You ruined it,
Geoffrey, you ruined all of my hard work single-handedly by not respecting my
directions!”

“But I was just trying to help you, Arrosha,”
Geoffrey was now shaking badly and his voice was quivering.

“Help? You were trying to help? Do you know how
Zachary was able to stay at the mirror long enough to tell her to use my
fountain, a doorway that not even my followers knew was an exit? Because your
‘help’ pulled me away from where I needed to be, guarding the mirror so that I
could make sure that exact thing did not happen. You have no idea how much it
takes out of me to play this game each time. As important as getting the amulet
is to me, why do you think that, whenever I can, I kill off Edmond’s people
right at the start before they obtain it?

“So what was it, Geoffrey, what made you do it?
Were you just so jealous of Ben’s position as the leader of the group? Were you
so hard up trying to get them to see you as a big, important man that you just
had to tattle? Or did you just let your meanness and pettiness override your
greed this time?”

“No! It wasn’t that!” he was pleading wildly now.
“It was her, it was all her doing! She – she was filth! She threatened to ruin
the purity of the group.” His pleading had turned into fast-talking. “She
wasn’t fit to be a part of us! I didn’t know you needed her to be a part of us
to get that necklace! I didn’t know that was what you were after! I would have
kept your secret if I had known!”

“My secret? Do you think I wanted you to know my
secrets? The information I gave you was on a need-to-know basis only. You
screwed up so badly with what I did tell you that I shudder to think what you
would have done if I had told you anything more.”

“But, but, Arrosha, I really was only trying to
help you! I thought…”

“You thought? You weren’t supposed to think.
That’s what the water was for! Tell me, Geoffrey, when did you start to think
for yourself again?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Arrosha,” he said,
confused.

“Oh, yes you do. I found out too late that you
were sneaking outsider water. When did that start, Geoffrey. When did you start
to undermine me deliberately?”

“A – a few weeks ago, maybe six. I didn’t think
you’d mind.” He was very frightened now.

“I see. And you hid it from me because you didn’t
think I would mind, is that right? I suppose that’s the very same reason that
you decided to pick the lock of my private storage area and my trunk. And don’t
look at me like that. I know it was you who did that. It was because I wouldn’t
mind, right? Good old Arrosha, she won’t mind if I just piss on her, right?”

“N-no, Arrosha, it wasn’t like that at all,”
Geoffrey whined as he started more desperate attempts to backpedal. “I was
trying to help you.”

“Trying to help me, you sniveling little idiot!
Since when do I look like I need your help! I asked you to keep an eye on her,
that’s all. Did I tell you to break into my belongings? No! Did I tell you to
expose her? No!

“I certainly wouldn’t have entrusted my
information to you, Geoffrey, had I known that you were thinking on your own
again, that you were on your way to becoming even worse than you were before,
and you certainly weren’t much to start out with. It’s interesting how success
affects people, don’t you think? Some it leaves even less than they were
before, if that was even possible with you, Geoffrey. You’re a loser, Geoffrey.
I gave you everything. All I asked for in return was your loyalty. All you did
with it was prove to me just how much of a loser you really are. I was right
when I called you a whore, Geoffrey. You act like a whore and you think like a
whore. The only difference between you and a whore is that a whore has more
moral fiber!”

She suddenly became calm as she glided without
effort over to Geoffrey, where she stopped just in front of him. She stroked
his cheek tenderly.

“Oh, Geoffrey, Geoffrey,” she said. “Whatever am I
going to do with you? I respected Ben the most, but in so many ways, you were
my favorite, my very, very favorite. Why did you have to betray me so?”

“I didn’t mean to, Arrosha!” he was in a mad
panic. “I swear to you, I didn’t mean to.”

“Of course not, Geoffrey. You really didn’t mean
it, did you? You were just being yourself, weren’t you? You were just being
your slimy, sleazy, con-artist, sociopathic loser little self, weren’t you?
Your urge to control a situation you knew nothing about was just too strong to
resist, wasn’t it?”

“No, that wasn’t it! I’ve explained! Please
forgive me! Please give me another chance!” He was crying as he begged her, but
unlike Ben’s quiet weeping, Geoffrey was whining hysterically.

“Ah, I have it. I know what I should do with you.
I overheard you telling Ashley how disappointed you were that the poster at the
carnival in your childhood over-promised, how you would have loved to have seen
the real thing. Be careful what you wish for, Geoffrey, for you’re about to get
it.”

Before my eyes, a side-show corral appeared.
Geoffrey was thrust into the air and into its midst.

“Arrosha, no!” he cried, clamoring to his feet,
trying to run out of the enclosure. Arrosha would have none of that, though, as
an invisible force pulled him back down.

“I think you should get your wish, Geoffrey, and
be able to see the real thing that poster promised.”

No sooner had she said this than a woman appeared
in the pen. Her skin was swarthy, her eyes were bloodshot red rather than
glowing red, and she was certainly not beautiful, but other than that, she was
the spitting image of Arrosha in the first nightmare after I’d gone through the
last door. She was eating away at the dismembered leg of another woman. When
she saw Geoffrey, the woman tossed aside the leg and let out a sickening laugh.
She licked her teeth, which were sharpened to points, and her fangs, which
ended just below her chin. When Geoffrey saw her, he screamed shrilly in bloody
terror and tried hard to escape, but Arrosha once again, did not let him.