Incarnate (58 page)

There were no walls, nor was there a street. The door gave onto the beginning of an avenue. Here and there between the trees she glimpsed stone lions and ornamental urns, while at the far end of the avenue she saw a country house with a wide stone porch, long windows splashing lawns with light. She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t think except to realize that the dream had come true. They had been tricked into letting it in.

It was Stuart who broke the silence. “My God, it’s Norfolk. It’s the mental hospital where Guilda Kent is.”

Speaking released him from looking, and he swung round. When he read in their eyes that they were all seeing it too, his face wavered, but only for a moment. He threw up his hands as if he could block their view. “Listen, it isn’t real. We’re sharing a hallucination, that’s all. It isn’t the first time for you.”

He glanced back hopefully over his shoulder. While he had distracted them, the hospital appeared to have moved closer. It must have, because now they could see a face at a window, glaring out at them. He turned away quickly, his hands at his eyes. Molly had the impression that he couldn’t close them.

“That isn’t Guilda Kent.” He’d lowered his voice as if that might convince them. “You’re only seeing her because I have. There’s nothing out there that shouldn’t be. Come out with me and I’ll show you.”

His hands were faltering again toward his weeping eyes. He couldn’t close them, couldn’t stop seeing. Of course, that had been in the dream eleven years ago—and suddenly, hopelessly, Molly realized something else. Sage had been waiting for him.

He had been waiting for Stuart to take them to Guilda. Of course both Stuart and Guilda had been touched by the dream in Oxford; they must have shared it even if they had never admitted it to themselves. The dream needed them as much as it needed the others, and she had realized too late.

Perhaps Guilda had realized too, for her eyes had filled with terror. She appeared to be struggling to turn away so as not to see them in the doorway, so as to be able to believe they weren’t there. Stuart was still trying to believe the same of her. He’d turned his back on her again and was waving his hands near his eyes. “Come out with me,” he said, low and intense. “It’ll go away, I promise you. All we have to do is show we don’t believe in it. It can’t last, these things never do. So long as we stay together none of us will be in any danger. Trust me.” Perhaps it was only fierceness, at them or at the way the sight beyond the doorway was persisting, that made his voice waver as he beckoned to Danny. “You too,” he said, “whoever you are.”

Danny had been leaning against the post at the foot of the banister, grinding his spine against it as if the pain might restore reality. “No, you don’t.” he snarled. “You and your friend there want to get me into the nuthouse. You can’t trick me anymore. Don’t try.”

Even if he hadn’t been nodding his head viciously at her, Molly would have known he was accusing her. Stuart went toward him. “Please trust me. Nobody wants to harm you. It isn’t real, it can’t be. Come with us and you’ll see.”

Danny lurched aside. He was performing a grotesque dance to keep his armless body from losing its balance, and Molly could hardly bear to watch. “You got your hands on me once,” he screamed. “You won’t this time. You leave my mind alone.”

Stuart faltered, staring at his face, his armless torso. “You can’t be Danny Swain.”

“Can’t I? Thought you’d destroyed my mind already, did you? I’m still here and still sane too, and you’d better give up. You’ve been trying to drive me crazy for eleven years, but you never will. Don’t close that door!” he screamed.

Molly had been reaching for it, in case closing out the sight of Guilda might weaken the dream, even a little. She dodged as he came lurching toward her, for he looked capable of falling on her, tearing at her with his teeth, since that was all that was left to him. But he tied out of the doorway, onto the avenue.

For a moment he glared wildly about, almost falling headlong. Perhaps he had been hoping Stuart was right after all. He lurched between the trees, away from the hospital. “Come back,” Stuart cried. “It isn’t real. My God, we can’t let him go out there alone, he must think that’s where he is. Anything might happen to him.” He was looking to the others for support, but nobody moved; Molly couldn’t have. With a despairing gesture, he ran out after Danny.

They heard his footsteps on the avenue, which sounded nothing like the pavement that ought to have been there. A breeze swayed the trees, dislodging a few trapped raindrops. He shook his head impatiently as a drop fell on his scalp, and peered between the trees. He must have seen Danny, for he ran between two of them, thumping his elbow against the right-hand trunk.

He faltered and stared at the tree, then he began to shake his head. Molly knew instinctively that he was telling himself whatever it looked and felt like, it must be something else or not there at all. He ran between the trees, out of sight. “Wait, Danny,” he was calling, as reassuringly as he could. “Don’t run. We can deal with this together, trust me.” At intervals they heard him calling, more and more distant, eventually so distant it made Molly catch her breath. His voice was at the limit of audibility when, without warning, both men began to scream.

Even at that distance their terror was unbearable. Molly would have blocked her ears if she had been able to move. It seemed a very long time before the screams became inaudible. But their inaudibility was no relief. There was still Guilda’s terror, so intense it felt as if both it and her glaring eyes were inside Molly’s head. The hospital was much closer. Soon there would be no avenue at all.

Then Joyce stepped forward, her face red with anger. “No you don’t,” she cried fiercely at Guilda. “Not this time.” She slammed the door with such force that Molly felt the house shake.

65

M
OLLY
stared at the front door, wondering what closing it could have achieved. Joyce had shut out the sight of Guilda, but hadn’t Guilda already completed the dreadful reunion? Could Joyce really have broken the dream? Opening the door would answer that, but Molly stepped back to make sure she wasn’t tempted to try.

There was one other way to find out. Eventually she made herself go to the foot of the stairs. Joyce was staring at the front door as if she could hold it shut by the force of her gaze, Freda was leaning exhausted against the wall and looked unable to take any more, Helen seemed utterly bewildered. Doreen had closed her eyes for what appeared to be a silent prayer, and Molly could only will it to come true, whatever it was. She gripped the post at the end of the banister, which surely had always been real, and looked up. Her fists clenched, she let out a shuddering breath. The multitude of floors was still there, the soft footsteps were descending.

Sage watched her from beyond the staircase. His faint smile looked sympathetic, a shade pitying—the smile of someone watching a child who had to learn for herself. She turned on him. “You’re doing all this. You’d better stop it right now. There’s several of us and only one of you.”

“I think you understand that I could not stop it now even should I wish to.” His face was growing calmer, as if she were helping him somehow. “That moment passed eleven years ago.”

“You’ll never make me believe that,” she said, but what was the use? Of course she was helping him, by believing in him, since he was part of the dream. How could she not believe in him? How would it be to their advantage to try? He looked as if he were following her thoughts, waiting for her to agree with him. “Open the door and see what is there,” he said gently. “There is nothing to fear unless you make it so.”

She was struggling to believe the street would be out there, but she knew it was the last thing she would find. Refusing to believe hadn’t helped Stuart. All the same, remembering Stuart gave her the strength to hate Sage. “If you’re real,” she said desperately, “you can feel pain. Maybe that’ll make you change your mind and stop this.”

His eyes told her to try if she felt she must. At least that helped her hate him, and she was stepping forward, with no idea of what she meant to do to him or even if she could, when Freda cried out inarticulately. She was gazing at the stairs.

Molly forced herself to turn to see at last what Freda was afraid of. The man who had almost reached the hall didn’t look in any way frightening: high forehead, strong chin, deep brown eyes—he looked almost too good to be true. It was that thought, not his babyish complexion, that made Molly shiver.

Freda drew herself up straight, though she had to lean against the wall to do so. She took a deep breath and stared levelly at him. “Stay away from me. You aren’t Timothy,” she said.

“Don’t say that, old girl.” He looked determined not to be hurt by her rebuff. “You haven’t been well, you don’t know what you’re saying. Let me take you up to your room for a bit of a rest.”

“You won’t be taking me anywhere. Just lay a finger on me and see what happens.” Freda laughed bitterly, near to hysteria. “You can’t. You’ve been dead for thirty years.”

“I can’t blame you for feeling that way, Freddy. It must seem like that to you.” He came to the foot of the stairs and lifted his hands toward her, let them fall. “I’d have come to you sooner if I could have.”

“That isn’t it, and you know it isn’t.” Freda faltered, just as Molly urged her silently to go on. There was something wrong with the man’s soft skin and unblemished complexion, something horrible about it that made Molly want to reach out and tear. Freda knew what it was, but now she was hesitating—because she must have realized that perhaps he didn’t know there was anything wrong about him.

He stepped forward a pace, and Freda stiffened. “Timothy was burned alive in the war,” she said as if each word hurt her throat. “If you’re Timothy, you can’t look like that. That isn’t the way you are.”

“All sorts of rumors came out of the war, old girl. If you heard that about me—”

“No, that wasn’t a rumor. That was the truth.” She shook her fist at him. “How dare you pretend you’re my Timothy! You ought to suffer what he suffered, that’s what you deserve.”

“You shouldn’t say things like that, Freddy.” He frowned as he held out his hands. “I know you don’t realize what you’re saying. ‘Let me take care of you. Just let me—”

“I’ll let you nothing.” She’d seen what Molly had: the hint of fear in his eyes. “My God, when I think of what I’ve already let you do, you—you
thing.”
She was growing incoherent, but Molly was nodding wildly; if Freda ran out of words, she’d take over if she could, for she had glimpsed the most hopeful development of all: Sage was growing uneasy. “What are you?” Freda cried. “I’ll teach you to pretend you’re Timothy. Let’s see how you like being burned alive. Go on, you fake, you dummy, be what you’re pretending to be. Burn!”

She screamed the last word with such hatred that Molly shuddered, even as she willed Freda to succeed. Doreen was staring aghast at Freda. Helen and Sage were converging on her until Molly stepped in Helen’s way. Only Joyce watched Freda as if some of the truth was beginning to filter through to her, and even she flinched back as the face of the man at the bottom of the stairs began to smoulder.

His eyes glazed almost at once. When he opened his mouth to scream, smoke poured out with a stench that made Molly’s stomach heave. He fell back on the stairs, writhing and shriveling and blackening. “My God, my God,” Freda sobbed, “die, just die.” Suddenly the parlor door opened beyond the stairs.

Three men and Susan crowded into the hall. The child ran to Helen and clung to her, dragging at her as if she were so desperately frightened she couldn’t put her plea into words. Molly noticed this only peripherally as she shrank away from the three men, their soft tread, their faces that were too pink. They looked frantic, and were almost running. Not until they surrounded Freda did she realize they weren’t fleeing the house.

At first she thought they meant to suffocate her, they were pressing around her so closely. The charred shape on the stairs was dwarfishly shrunken now, but it was still writhing. Freda cried out with disgust and tried to push them away as they clustered softly about her, while Molly dragged vainly at them, at their shoulders which gave like putty inside their clothes. Without warning they abandoned whatever they were trying to do to Freda and ran instead to Sage.

His calm wavered as they closed in; he tried to ward them off. “Trust me,” he murmured, “you are in no danger,” but his voice wasn’t quite steady. He’d begun to back away toward the parlor when Susan let go of her mother and ran to him. As she grabbed his arm and hung on desperately, the three men reached him.

“No,” Sage said in a last attempt at calm, and then he shrieked it. In a moment Molly saw why he was screaming, saw and tried not to believe what she was seeing. She was grateful for the distraction, however brief, when a woman came running out of the parlor. “What’s wrong, Doreen? What’s going on?” she demanded, and dodged aside, her face crumpling with disbelief as Sage and the others crowded past her toward the parlor. Sage was being forced backward by what they were doing to him and he could do nothing but scream.

Molly watched as the mass of bodies squeezed through the parlor doorway. They were achieving what they hadn’t managed to achieve with Freda, what the thing that looked like Susan hadn’t been able to get from Helen. They were surrounding him like terrified animals burrowing into their mother. Pressing close to him wasn’t enough. They were merging together, merging with him.

Molly listened to the sounds from the parlor as long as she could, then she made herself go to the doorway. She had to see what happened, to be certain. It was the parlor she remembered from the dream—heavy curtains, antimacassars, a gas fire parching the air—but there was little further similarity to the scene she’d feared for eleven years, though there was something quite as terrible. Something large and pale with several faces was struggling on the floor.

She made herself watch while it heaved and mouthed and tore itself apart into pieces that no longer resembled bodies, and merged again. She was willing it to finish, and eventually it did. There was one last violent merging, mouths gaping like lockjaw, and it burst, strewing the floor with a soft substance that gradually seeped into the carpet. Until they vanished, the fragments were still twitching and struggling. One of them almost reached her.