The Dreamstalker (10 page)

“Yeah. Jesse and I only had one fight the whole time we were going together. And I can't even remember what it was over. Something silly.”

“You sure Bill will call me tomorrow?”

“Promise. He's probably at home right now, bawling his eyes out.”

“Guys don't sit and cry over girls.” Alysia smiled.

“I'll bet they do. They can't let us know they do. They hide in a closet and cry. Afterward, they punch out everything that gets in their way.”

The idea of Bill squeezed in his closet crying set both of them to laughing. When they'd recovered, they talked for a few minutes, but Alysia's voice kept getting weaker and weaker. She dropped off to sleep in mid-sentence.

She looked so vulnerable, eyes closed, dark hair spread over her pillow. “Darn you, Bill!” Karen beat her fist on the edge of the bed. She felt like punching him out herself.

She read for a short time, then slipped down under the weight of blankets and a fluffy comforter. She dozed, tossed and turned, dozed again, then sunk into a deep sleep.

Alysia is riding on the back of a killer whale. Never has she looked so happy or so beautiful. Her long black hair is loose and trails almost to her waist. She is dressed all in white except for a black cloak. Pulling the hood up over her hair, she grabs the reins on the whale and holds on tight
.

The whale makes small leaps across the top of the ocean, following a path of moonlight. Their movement undulates like the rise and fall of the waves. The pair seem to be a part of the ocean, not separate, but one with the dark water, the foam-laced spume, as they splash lightly up and down
.

The orca joins a family pod, whistling and squeaking her greetings. Alysia imitates the voices, calling them around her. They flock to her like subjects to a queen. Her ebony wrap slips open just enough to reveal her white undergarments. Her clothing echoes that of her companions, except that hers does not glimmer wetly like the sleek skin of the whales
.

Reaching out, she strokes each broad back in turn, clasping each black dorsal fin like a handshake. One ocra, a young male, spits water at her, playfully. She leans to the side and laughs, then strikes the water, splashing back
.

Suddenly all the killer whales shriek and whistle in shrill, discordant voices. They seem to be fearful. They circle around Alysia and her companion. The entire pod races forward
.

Behind them a mass of sharper fins slice the water. They pursue the pod silently. As they approach, they chase and divide the killer whales. Fighting back, the orcas plunge forward, attacking their enemies, the great white sharks
.

The surface of the ocean is churned into a froth of foam. The dark water ruptures into choppy waves
.

Valiantly, the whales fight, while Alysia and the female she rides try to escape. But it is not the whales that the sharks seek. They want the lovely young queen who leads them, frolicking across the azure waters
.

They pummel the whale, causing her to leap and turn, trembling in fear. As she spins, she shakes her rider loose. Alysia tumbles into the ocean. She is immediately surrounded by the great white sharks, their glassy eyes all staring at her. A huge black shark with a razor-sharp smile seems to be their leader
.

The scene has been a monochrome of black and white and silver. An added hue stains the dark ocean palette. Scarlet ribbons float across the surface. Blood-red life fluid spills across the moonlit waters
.

Karen turned and tossed. She fought to wake up, to stop watching the picture before her. When she surfaced, she raised herself on her elbows and shook her head. She was short of breath and sweating. Her whole body felt wet and soggy, as if she had been swimming in her nightclothes.

She drew in several pulls of air, filling her lungs, exhaling with audible sighs. Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply again. She felt as if she'd been holding her breath forever. Her lungs ached and burned.

Wide awake now, she remembered the dream. Alysia! She snapped on her bedside lamp and swiveled around toward the twin bed not four feet away from her.

Alysia's covers were tossed on the floor. She wore a jet-black cloak over her white nightgown. Her black hair swirled like strands of shadows on the cape. Across her chest was a bright splash of color—scarlet ribbons of color. Her wide blue eyes stared at the light. Her face was a mask of pure terror.

Chapter 12

Karen finally realized the screams ripping the air and bouncing off the bedroom walls were hers. But she couldn't stop. The overhead light blazed on as Alysia's parents ran into the room.

“Karen, what's wrong? Oh—” Mrs. Holland collapsed beside Karen, automatically gathering her into her arms. She stared at Alysia as if she couldn't believe her eyes.

Mr. Holland dashed to Alysia, searched her throat for a pulse. He stared at Karen and his wife, who was now deadly quiet.

“Is she—is she—” Karen couldn't say the word.

“She's dead.” Mr. Holland's voice held a note of astonishment. Picking up Alysia's phone, he dialed the emergency number, gave directions to the house, then collapsed, seated at the foot of Alysia's bed. He touched the splash of red across Alysia's chest. “It's not blood, it's paint. What happened here, Karen?”

“I don't know.” Karen found her voice. “I don't know. I had a terrible dream. Alysia was—she—sharks—” She started to sob. Mrs. Holland held her closer.

“Did you hear anything?”

“No, I was really sound asleep.” Because she was at the Hollands, and not alone, she had relaxed and gone to sleep easily and deeply. The idea that someone had come into the room while she slept was almost more frightening than the dream.

“Where did she get that coat?” Mrs. Holland was still sitting on Karen's bed, staring at her daughter. “Did she go to bed with it on?”

Karen answered again. “She—she just had her nightgown on. She said she was cold, though. Maybe she got up and put it on.”

“That's not her coat. It's more like a cloak.” Mrs. Holland, in a state of shock, was speaking in a perfectly normal voice, sitting there talking about the way Alysia was dressed.

“The police and the ambulance should be here any minute.” Mr. Holland came and pulled his wife to her feet. He circled her shoulders with his arm and led her from the room. “Get dressed, Karen. Come into the living room. Don't touch anything.”

Karen pulled her wool skating slacks on quickly. She kept on the pink sweatshirt top: Turning away from Alysia's bed, she tugged on thick socks, then padded from the room without looking back. The house was quiet, too quiet.

She sank into a chair in front of the cold fire. This was not real. She was still dreaming. Alysia was not dead. She couldn't handle Alysia's being dead. So she wasn't. She'd come in here in a minute and say it was a joke. But Alysia had never been a practical joker. She was serious most of the time, sometimes too serious. Karen would work to make her laugh.

It was cold in the living room. There were huge picture windows looking out at a mountain meadow. Karen couldn't see it in the dark, but she could imagine it. She and Alysia used to play there. They'd run and chase each other. They'd look for the first wild flowers of spring. They'd sit very still and watch deer nipping off new shoots of grass.

The police arrived, along with an ambulance. Karen could see the light swirling when the front door opened. All those men wearing boots and parkas trooped into Alysia's bedroom. They were going to wake her up. They'd come out and say, “She was just asleep. I don't know why you thought she was dead. I don't know why you bothered us in the middle of a stormy night.”

They stayed in there a long time. Karen was cold, so cold. She got up and pulled an afghan from the couch. It was brown and green and tomato red. Karen remembered when Mrs. Holland was knitting it. Alysia could knit. She liked to knit socks. She had knitted Karen's skating socks for her last Christmas.

She curled back into the chair, shaking out one foot that had gone to sleep, then wrapped the woolly blanket around her and waited again. She was not sleepy. She might never want to go to sleep again.

“Karen.” Mr. Holland looked old. She had never noticed that he had so much gray hair. “Captain Martin wants to talk to you.”

“You were asleep in the same room as Alysia?” Martin was young and really handsome. His voice was soft, soothing. He pulled up a straight-backed chair and looked at her sympathetically. But there was something else on his face. Curiosity? Disbelief?

Karen nodded, not trusting her voice.

“You didn't hear anything?”

They couldn't believe this had happened and she had slept through it. Neither could she. “No. I had a bad dream. It woke me up. The dream was about Alysia.”

“Another of your dreams, Karen? This is a bit unbelievable.” The look of sympathy disappeared. “Can you relate the dream to me?” He took out a notebook.

Slowly, Karen recalled the dream in detail. It was so real, so vivid, and she remembered everything. “In the dream, Alysia was wearing that cloak.”

“Had you ever seen the cloak before?”

“No.”

“It didn't belong to Alysia? Or Mrs. Holland?” Captain Martin studied his notebook page. “Had you and Alysia ever played dress-up in the coat?”

Dress-up? “We're not children, Captain. I said I've never seen it before.”

“I know you aren't children, Karen. I mean, years ago. I understand you've been friends for a long time. Maybe when you were a child you saw this cloak. It was in a trunk here someplace.”

You're leading the witness
. She had seen that on TV once. A lawyer said it. It didn't matter. “No.”

She and Alysia had never played dress-up. She didn't know why. They just never had. They played outside most of the time, except in the winter when they played games—Monopoly and Risk and—and—They played cowboys and Indians some, hiding in the big rocks on the edge of the meadow, riding imaginary horses through the meadow. Kerr played with them. He always liked being the Indian, so she and Alysia would be cowboys. Kerr liked painting his face and—

“The red—the red—Was that really paint?”

“Yes. I guess it was supposed to look like blood. But there were no wounds. We can't determine how she died.”

“She was scared.” Karen said that without thinking.

“What do you think she was scared of?”

“The sharks. She was always afraid of sharks. She had to leave the room when we watched
Jaws
that time. She couldn't sit through it. She got really scared, just like last night.”

“Karen, you aren't making sense. How could you know that Alysia was scared?”

“I just know she was.” Karen knew. “She was scared in my dream.”

“What did you talk about before you went to sleep? Did you talk about sharks or whales?”

“No. We talked about how mad Bill was.”

“Who's Bill?”

“Her boyfriend. They had a fight.”

“Would he be angry enough to hurt her?”

“Bill? No, of course not. Bill wouldn't hurt Alysia. He liked her. He would have apologized tomorrow. Now he can't. He can't ever tell her he's sorry.”

Another policeman interrupted them. “There's no sign of a break-in. We can't find any way the killer got in.”

The killer? Karen became alert for a moment. “You think someone came in here and killed her?”

“It looks that way. What do you think, Karen? Can you think of anyone who would want to kill Alysia?”

The room was full of shadows. The heat clicked on, water gurgled in the pipes. She shivered. She was cold, so cold. She sank down into a waking dream state. “She was scared. Alysia was so scared.”

“Carter, have Dr. Longly come in here. I think this girl's going into shock.”

Before the doctor could come, Captain Martin asked a few more questions. “Karen, don't you think it's strange that three people that you know have died recently?”

“Yes, that's very strange. Gordon was scared, too. I don't think Jesse was. He was used to having tigers run toward him.”

“What do you mean? Why did you say that? Did you dream about Jesse the night he died?”

“I dreamed about Jesse. I fell asleep while I was beside his bed. I shouldn't have done that. But I thought he was going to be all right. They all ran at him, but the black tiger killed him.”

“Can you tell me that dream about Jesse, Karen?”

He talked to her as if she was about five years old. She wasn't. She was seventeen. She was a senior in high school. She was going to graduate and go to college next fall. But Jesse wasn't going to get to go with her.

“Jesse can't go with me. To college. Neither can Alysia now. I'll have to go by myself. Or maybe I'll let Kerr come with me after all. I wanted him to go to a different college.”

“Kerr is your brother?”

“Yes, we're twins.”

“Do you think she's hallucinating, Doctor?”

“I'm not sure. Let's keep her covered up.”

Karen could hear everything that was said around her. She just didn't care. She felt something cool on her arm, smelled a hospital smell, felt a slight prick on the inside of her arm.

Captain Martin asked one more question before she started to feel sleepy. “Do you know how someone got in here tonight, Karen?”

“No.”

“Do you know how someone got into Gordon Anderson's house?”

“I told you once. Through the window.”

Voices all mumbled together. The faces before her blurred. She wasn't going to have any trouble falling asleep tonight. Sometimes she had trouble falling asleep, but not tonight. It would be nice to get a good night's sleep—without dreaming.

She wasn't going to dream anymore. She didn't like dreaming. Dreams were too frightening. She was never going to dream anything again.