To Make Death Love Us (9 page)

That was only a
part of the horror she made him see.

For as Pepino lay
there, she made him feel, yes, hungry.

Ravenous.

And the dream
promised it for an eternity after death.

Pepino stirred, the
dream of only a few seconds' dura­tion, gleaming like summer lightning in his mind.

Gone was the
paralysis, the terror that had overcome mind and muscles.

In the same way,
with different dreams and promises, she touched Paulette and Colonel John. In Colonel John she
found the leader, the one they must obey if they were to escape.

Her dream washed
across the midget's mind, a tidal surge that moved deep inside his mind. Colonel John stiff­ened
suddenly in the dark, as if electric currents had passed through his body. He felt great things
suddenly astir in the night, things that swam in the flow of his own blood up the dark creeks of
his brain. He seemed to travel
elsewhere, to a land beneath a star-pricked sky. He put his head out into that night and
looked up at the sickle moon only to find two instead of one.

Comets of
iridescent red and blue flashed in the sky above him. Earthquakes rocked the ground gently
be­neath his feet in a strange, almost tribal, surration.

White rime spun a
delicate mist over the grass and, turning his head, he saw the great forest from which it seemed
he had just come. It was an enchanted land of silvers and golds and rich greens and towering
growths of crystal like great frozen fires.

And then ahead of
him, some great and wondrous beast moved and he turned to see it move past him in full flight.
And his eyes went wide in astonishment, in unabashed wonder, for it was a beast of fable, a night
legend, a uni­corn of silver and gray and beautiful in its being.

And as it passed
by, its silver mane brushed against him and burned his face, a delicious witch-cool heat. And the
legs that had been too short, grew.

The arms that were
like toy appendages stretched out. Like Alice, he grew and grew, each part of him advancing with
perfect symmetry, until he stood, a handsome, whole man in the glare of the two moons above his
head.

It was a wonder so
big his heart seemed fit to burst from his chest. And so he reached out, trying to move his body
to the rhythm of the dream. His body coursed with a new energy, a confidence regained. For him
the dream never withered, never died and in so doing left him changed, the leader, the decider of
their fate.

For Serena had
dreamed Colonel John into a giant and he now felt himself to be one.

Paulette was the
hardest to reach and the easiest to console. Serena smiled at her in the dark; her hands
trem­bled, her sightless eyes blinked with tears. The smile was replaced by a sudden look of
pain. The strain of the effort
Serena
was making was beginning to tell on her fragile little misshapen body.

Paulette gasped as
she sensed Serena's dream thrusting into her consciousness. The shock of it almost pushed her
into hysteria. It was so sudden, so overwhelming, she felt as if she was going mad.

But Serena, ever
soothing, ever gentle, with pleasing fragments of the dream, reached deep within Paulette and won
her over with a dream bigger even than Paulette herself.

Serena pushed and
pulled and delicately scissored at the dream until it most kindly reached Paulette's secret self.
Paulette was appeased and settled back into the beauty of the offered dream. It was a dream so
completely tailored out of Paulette's desires and inmost thoughts that it had a meaning only she
could embrace.

In this dream
Paulette dove into a dark pool. She went down deeper and deeper, toward death, it seemed, but the
farther beneath the surface of the water, the lighter she seemed to get, as if the mounds of fat,
the huge shiver­ing bulk of her, disappeared into nothingness. Less and less she weighed, until
she became something she had never been, until she became the girl she had always seen in her
eyes but had never found.

She was thin now,
with sparkling eyes and alabaster skin. She could dance and leap, and she could run faster than
the unicorn. Oh yes, he was there in the dream, too. And Paulette stood beside Colonel John, in
his dream a man now grown, and they held hands in the silver of the moonlight and her voice
joined his in calling for the ones they loved.

Escape. That was
the word that seemed to echo through the dream. The wind through the strange forest seemed to
whisper that one word.

Escape.

Glum Pepino, the
Romany who suffered for all, the Rubber Man, moved out of the forests of night and his voice
joined theirs, his mind sang in their hearts. It was a very real touching, this movement of dream
in the dark. Their minds, when seized, stirred as if prodded by elec­tricity. Their hearts raced
and sweat formed on their fore­heads. As gentle as their shared dream was, it somehow exacted a
terrible toll for their bodies, contorted in the grip of some great and terrible pain.

Escape.

And the dream went
ever on, changing. Now it was a part of Colonel John's dream and now it was a part of Paulette
the Fat Woman's dream. Pepino rushed into their dream night, his life spilling at their feet in a
pool of reproach and interrupted sleep. Always hungry, that had been Pepino's lot, hungry as much
in mind as in body, and in this shared dream world where they all traveled, Pepino found Eden. He
found a world where all he saw or touched could be eaten. The sky itself was candy. Pepino was a
black bear, fat in the beginning of winter, once honey-hungry, now sated because he had eaten the
au­tumn moon. Beside Colonel John the Giant and Paulette, a beautiful woman/girl, sleek and quick
as a gazelle, Pepino became full beyond measure because life came rushing at him in an
overwhelming swoop. He feasted in an instant on every bit and morsel of it. A bit of the moon, a
slice of the sky, all bursting with hunger, destroying beauty on his tongue.

Oh yes, and the
unicorn danced for him, too. And they were all joined in a dream until it reached back for the
loveliest one of them all, blind, horribly deformed, Se­rena. She moved in her own dream, and
even as she moved in it, she gave herself, out of kindness, a small portion of wishes she could
never have, her own, some­times terrible, needs.

The dream moved in
colors and hues that had long since left Serena except as memories. The unicorn came galloping
toward them from the emerald green forest. Its eyes were deepest sea blue, its mane the gold and
silver fire of the sun. On its back was a rainbow with colors the world had yet to see. All the
things in the dark that only her fingers had sensed, suddenly reemerged into a golden, shining
light. She saw through her eyes, many-eyed, many-sighted, and her heart was touched and she led
them through the dream.

Their bodies became
as one. To act, to do, to move as one, finally, to escape, to go to the dreamworld Serena
promised them life could yet be. That was the promise that grew and grew, getting so strong in
their minds that their bodies strained under the very weight of it. Their hearts raced, a fever
raged in their blood, hotter and hotter. The air rattled in struggling chests. The dream grew and
their own fears, their sense of helplessness, di­minished in its path.

The bright
dreamland beckoned them the last step, the final commitment to the dream of doing, acting as
one.

To escape the final
black oblivion of death.

Such glory they had
in this loving, this shared dream.

The Strong Man
moved, his elbow smashing heavily into the door panel, forgetting for the moment his great
strength. The truck shook with the sound of metal strain­ing against metal. The truck quivered
like some great wounded beast in its death throes. The dream deserted them like a light going
out.

Pepino, the dark
sentimentalist, stared in agony at the floor. "We must ... I feel a new life within our grasp. We
..." The import of the great dream still overwhelmed him.

They were all other
than they had been. Serena's pale hand sought and found Colonel John's shoulder. She
touched him gently. Her unseeing eyes were on
the midget, who was tense, almost in a benumbed state, a kind of awe at the awful power he now
felt thrust upon him.

Serena met Colonel
John's eyes. "I'm sure, if we wish it, we can all go to a new life, we can find a way out of
here."

The midget licked
his lips. He shrugged his shoulders, as if dropping a burden. "I'm sure of it," he told her,
telling all of them. "Now that I know the way. We
will
go!"

The colonel squared
his shoulders.

"Touch the window
again, Serena," he said, his voice booming authoritatively in the darkened van.

She did so, tapping
lightly on the pane.

Will cried out,
"Don't! Be Still! Don't you dare move back there."

Colonel John
laughed. "If that's the strategy of it, we might as well say the Requiem Mass right now because
the rain will soon wash us away."

"Wait!" Will Carney
was close to panic.

"What are you
planning to do?" asked Pepino.

"We've got to break
through the window," said Colonel John.

"No!" That was
Will.

"Nevertheless,"
said Colonel John. "Will, find me some­thing to hammer at the window with, something Marco can
use to batter at the glass with."

Will, never strong,
gave in. He looked at the opened glove compartment. He reached over and tapped Marco on the
shoulder. Marco opened his eyes, sighing with pain. Will gestured toward the screwdriver, then
panto­mimed a smashing action with his hand toward the win­dow behind his head. Marco nodded that
he understood and then reached forward. The screwdriver was hardly suitable. Still, it was the
nearest thing to a bludgeon they had. His arms were getting stiff. He tried to raise his
arm,
to swing the screwdriver back at
the window, but he was unable to move. The pain was terrible.

He handed the
screwdriver over to Will.

"Can Marco smash
out the window?"

Will held the
screwdriver tightly in his hand, his sweat making the wooden grip clammy. "Marco can't lift his
arms. He's been shot."

The group in the
back of the truck was stunned. They had not known, except for Serena. Serena had felt the gunshot
wound as deeply as if she herself had been shot.

"How bad is it?"
cried Colonel John.

"It's bad," said
Will.

"Is it . . . ? Does
he ... ?"

"You ask me, I
think he's dying," said Will. "There's a lot of blood. The poor devil's had it, I'm
afraid."

Colonel John's head
sank on his chest, his eyes closing and unclosing, a single tear edging his eye. Paulette, still
weeping softly in the dark, wept anew, a little this time for friend Marco. Only Pepino seemed
unmoved but that was only an appearance.

"Can you do it,
then, Will?" asked Colonel John, and his voice cracked with sudden emotion.

Settling himself
for the effort, Will tried to turn in the seat. The axle beneath them set up a slender rasp, as
if shifting, and Will froze in place.

He was paralyzed,
unable to think how to move or act. Serena felt this in Will and quickly, in a swiftly thought
dream, tried to image for him what he himself was too frightened to see.

His fear was so
great, and his mind, as always, so hard to reach, behind that ever-shifting mask of lies and
illusion, that little of what she thought at him seeped through to him. But a little did, enough
at any rate, that he lifted his arm, his hands clumsily holding the screwdriver.

He could not strike
over his shoulder with his right
hand.
He transferred the screwdriver to his left, to the maimed hand, and gripped it as best he could.
He struck tentatively, swinging across his chest. The handle of the screwdriver made no mark on
the window glass and the tool was wrenched from his hand. It fell upon the seat, bounced, and
landed on the floor.

Marco, sensing what
was needed, bent forward to re­trieve the screwdriver. The axle or some other part of the cab's
structure screamed again, metal grinding against stone.

"What are you doing
up there? What are you doing?" Colonel John yelled to Will.

"It's no use. I
tried to break the glass so I could pass the work lamp through, but we can't move up here. The
slightest move will send us over."

"Well, hold the
lamp up to the window, at least. Give us as much light as you can."

Will stared at the
work lamp fixed to the dashboard. It was only a bent waist and an arm's length away but he was
desperately afraid to reach for it. Marco watched him. Suddenly, casually and without any caution
at all, he reached over and took it. There was no further shifting of the rig. Marco smiled as he
handed Will the lamp, smiled as though he were telling Will he was a coward.

Will held the lamp
up to the window.

It offered light to
the interior of the van now. Colonel John could see how badly off they all were. Serena, against
the bulkhead of the cab, was the freest, though her tiny legs were encumbered by coils of tent
rope. Paulette shook, with the repression of her sobs, down near the tailgate. She was half
leaning upon, half supported by, a welter of tumbled boxes, footlockers, and bales of goods. The
extent of her imprisonment was still unclear in the feeble light.