60
Will spent a quiet evening at home, sharing warmed-up pizza with the cats in front of the television, then flipping through magazines with one eye on the TV, trying to distract himself from thoughts of Maggie.
He wanted to call her. He wanted her to call him. Neither happened.
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Maggie, in her own home, mirrored Will's actions and thoughts. She shared leftover oven-fried chicken with her pets, topping it off with a green salad dressed in red wine vinagrette. Zoltan, a fat black-and-white short-hair, licked the dressing out of the empty bowlâwhy he liked it, she couldn't fathomâthen had a sneezing fit. He always did after licking vinegar and oil dressing, so Maggie foresaw it and managed to snag the plate of chicken and hold it above sneeze-level until the cat got over the fit.
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Like Will, she watched a
Simpsons
rerun while dining, and after, scanned a magazineâ
Entertainment Weekly,
she was done thinking for the dayâand half watched the television, multi-tasking to get her mind off Will.
Why doesn't he call?
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Kevin and Gabe ate in the kitchen with the pocket door closed, busily telling each other that they knew the ghosts couldn't hurt them, but who needed to deal with those awful images. They went to bed early, put in a porno tape, and wore each other out. Gabe told Kevin at some point that it was nice that the gruesome twosome in the living room at least improved their sex life.
61
Pete Banning ate dinner at home with his wifeâgive her a little thrill, he figuredâthen called Jennifer Labouche and told her to meet him on Felsher Hill for a dose of breast enlargement medicine.
She was waiting for him when he arrived, and she was eager as hell, especially after he locked them in the dish enclosure and he examined her bazongas in the shadows and declared that he was sure they had grown a tiny, tiny bit. Reliving old times, he had her turn around so he could fondle and squeeze them while planting hickeys on her neck. Her boobs were much bigger than young Maggie's bee-stings were so long ago, but that was all right, because he was imagining Jennifer as a grown-up Maggieâafter all, he was no child pervert.
On the beach, Maggie's had looked adequate, but definitely in need of some growth medicine. In the cove, he'd become incredibly turned on, could barely keep from jumping her on the sand. She wasn't his type, exactly. It was knowing that she and Baby Brother wanted each other that made him fantasize that Jennifer's breasts were hers. Possessed by lust, he wanted to do Maggie, squeeze her tits, fuck her mouth and maybe make her take it up the ass, taping the whole thing so he could send it to Will. Then he'd watch Will watch the tape and that would be even better.
She doesn't know how lucky she is that Jennifer's standing in for her
. It was true. Over the years, especially while in black ops programs, Pete had raped dozens of women, always getting off best by humiliating them. That's why he choked himself down their throats, pinning their heads against his crotch. Eventually, they all stopped gagging and gave in. Sometimes he'd sodomize them first, just to hear them scream and then watch their faces as he squeezed their noses shut to make them open their mouths and swallow his dick while gasping for air.
“Ouch,” Jennifer moaned. “You're hurting my boobs. Stop it! Pete!”
“Shut up, bitch. Take off your panties. I want your ass.”
She turned, upset. “What about my medicine, Pete? I want my boobs to grow.”
“Oh, don't worry, you'll get your medicine. We're just gonna take a little detour first.”
Obediently, she slipped off her panties and handed them over. He shoved them in her mouth in case she screamed, because when he said ass, he meant ass, whether she realized it or not. He hoped she didn't. Forcing her down on all fours on the hard-packed earth, he took her dry. She went rigid with shock then her body began shaking hard, and she whimpered around the panties. It was fantastic. When he couldn't hold off any longer, he shoved her over and sat on her precious boobs, knocking the wind out of her. Without looking at her faceâthat would ruin the fantasyâhe yanked the panties from her mouth and as she gulped oxygen, he drove in, as far and fast as he could. Her throat constricted around him. He started coming and, through gritted teeth, cried a name. When he was done, he stood, leaving Jennifer on the ground to clean herself up.
A loyal assistant, she didn't complain, but as she put her underwear back on, she asked, “Who's Maggie?”
“Just some bitch I fucked when I was a kid. You remind me of her,” he lied.
He waited until she drove off then called in a report to Nedders. Finally, he drove down the hill and, before going home, cruised past Maggie Maewood's isolated home. Labouche had tamed the monster for the moment, but Maggie was going to stay on his mind. He wondered idly what he should do about it.
62
Will awoke suddenly from a sleep so deep that his body panicked and his mind did the same, tripping back and forth, trying to figure out where he was,
when
he was.
Then he became aware of the whispers coming from beneath the bed, and knew that he was in his own house, in his own bed, at the blackest time of night, and that Michael was with him. Michael, dead and gone so many years, was back.
“You're dead,” Will whispered. “You're dead.”
“Will, I'm here. Will, can you hear me? It's Michael.”
Dreaming, Will told himself,
I'm only dreaming. I can wake myself up.
Michael's voice continued to whisper, but he couldn't understand most of the words. He concentrated instead on bringing himself to consciousness by picturing himself taking over the dream and moving his arm to the nightstand and turning on the lamp. As soon as he was in control, he could do anything he wanted, from simply banishing the nightmare to creating a dream he wanted to experience to making himself wake up. That was the theory, anyway. He'd only done it a few times, years ago. It took practice, but he had no time. He had to stop the nightmare before he went mad from the whispers of his dead brother.
This is hypnogogia,
he told himself.
The voluntary muscles are paralyzed in this stage of sleep. This is when the boogeyman scares children and people see aliens coming to experiment on them. My boogeyman is Michael, and he's under the bed. I am taking charge by moving my dream arm and clicking on the light. The light will make the whispering stop. Michael will go away. He will rest in peace.
Will continued the litany of the lucid dream, refusing to listen to the constant whispers, paying attention only to his own voice as he visualized his dreaming body obeying his command to turn on the light.
It wasn't working. He heard Michael whisper, “You're already awake, Will. You're awake. I'm here. Listen to me.” The voice softened, returning to murmurs Will couldn't understand.
Maybe I'm imagining him because of what I remembered. Because I killed him. How could I have forgotten that? How
? He still couldn't make his dream body obey his orders.
Whisper, whisper, whisper, whisper, whisper.
It was unbearable.
Stop it! Be quiet! Go away!
The clinical part of Will's mind clicked in and he realized he had probably created the whispering ghost to make peace with it. The clinical part was amused at what the human mind could do to itself, but the rest of him took the advice, knowing it would work.
“Michael?” he whispered. “Michael?”
“Will. Will. Will. Listen to me, it's Michael.”
“I know it's you,” he murmured. The skeptic in him was having difficulty playing along.
I can't believe you're doing this,
it told him. He thought back,
Shut up!
“Michael?”
“Will, I have to show you something.”
“Michael, I know what I did. I know I killed you. It was an accident. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”
“Will, listen to me.”
“Listen to
me!
” Will countered. “I'm sorry for shooting you. I never meant to. If I could trade places with you, I would. I'm so sorry. So sorry. Please forgive me, Michael. Please forgive me!”
Whispers surrounded him, many whispers, all Michael's, filling the room, urgent and undecipherable.
“Michael!” Will shouted. “I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me!”
The bed began to shake, and the air seemed to change, growing thick and heavy in a syrup of urgent whispers.
“Stop it!” Will cried. “Stop it!”
He sat up and grabbed for the lamp, found it. Light bloomed in the room. The whispering ceased, the air thinned. The cats weren't there, and he could feel tears sliding down his cheeks. The alarm clock claimed it was nearly five
A.M.
“I'm awake,” he said, looking around the room. He pinched himself. It hurt, but some people, he knew felt pain in their dreams. Some people even died in their dreams.
The disorientation he felt now was nearly as fierce as that he'd experienced when he first became aware of the dream.
Was I awake the whole time? I couldn't have been.
But he remembered everything from the time he first awoke. He remembered it straight through, as if it had all happened.
Did it happen? No. You're fully aware of how powerful hypnogogic experiences can be. You've done research. Don't fall for it. Go check on your cats. You scared them. Only you.
He climbed from bed, still not completely sure he was awake. After turning on the overhead, he got down on his hands and knees and looked under the bed. Except for a couple of Ping-Pong balls, the bat, and three fur mice, there was nothing under there.
He wondered if a ghost would notice the cat toys, then stood up.
And saw what lay on the bed, on the sheet where he'd slept only moments before.
The world reeled in and out of focus, but he barely noticed because all he could see was Michael's battered old baseball. He recognized the ancient smudges and stains, the missing stitches. Will reached down and touched it.
It was ice cold.
63
For Will and Maggie, Gabe and Kevin, the rest of the weekdays passed in a frantic haze of patients, most of them new. For Gabe and Kevin, the nights weren't so bad; though they avoided the living and dining rooms studiously, they were happy together in their bedroom. In an odd way, the second honeymoon they were experiencing more than made up for staying out of half their house. Though they had a TV set in the bedroom, they used it only to run an occasional video; they were enjoying life without sitcoms.
For Will, nights were hell. He had put the baseball back in the car trunk and it had not reappeared a second time, but every night was filled with whispers now. The cats refused to enter the bedroom, and were spending less and less time in the living room, preferring his office or the kitchen or small dining room to all else. Will, in the habit of leaving doors to the other bedrooms closed, tried leaving them open, but while the cats would enter if he was in one, they were uninterested otherwise. The last few evenings, he'd spent mainly in his office after eating at the dining room tableâthe felines had stared balefully at him from the doorway when he'd eaten at the coffee table.
He still slept in the bedroom, even though he wanted to blow up the air mattress and toss a few blankets on it and sleep in the office with the Orange Boys. He could also sleep in the guest bedroom, which contained a comfortable bed, ready for use.
Refusal to give in to his fears, to admit that the whispersâthe ghostâwas real, made him return every night to the bedroom. Each night, when he awoke to the whispers of a dead boy, he considered, in the darkest hour, that Michael might be real, but he always ended up discounting the idea in favor of his own guilt over Michael's death being the cause of the sounds. If so, it was another reason to continue to spend nights in the bedroom. Until he could find forgiveness within himselfâin the guise of Michaelâthe voice would continue to haunt him.
Now, at quarter to eleven on Friday night, he considered facing the voice again. He was exhausted, though, and thought it might be a good idea to attempt to give himself a night off, to try for an entire night's sleep. He could laze in the morning, having given permission to Kevin to refuse Saturday appointments this week, for the sake of his own health.
Rorschach slept in his lap, Jung was draped on the catpost at eye-level, and Freud was stretched out behind the laptop on the desk, one eye on him. They didn't want him to leave the room. “Okay, another hour. Then maybe I'll sleep in here with you guys.”
Freud's rumbling purr filled the room so suddenly that Will almost believed he understood what he'd said. “Mysterious little creatures, aren't you?” he murmured as he reached over and turned on the radio. He'd unwind by surfing the Net and listening to Coastal Eddie, who tended to yammer on about government conspiracies and other things that might be highly amusing at this point in time.
“Join us in ten minutes for a special hour-long interview with our own bestselling horror novelist David Masters on the Coastal Eddie show!” an overly excited announcer cried. Rorschach dug his claws into Will's legs in alarm, and the other two glared at him, furious at the disturbance.
Will quickly turned the sound down to a reasonable level. “Sorry, guys, but one of you must have turned up the volumeâand I'm talking to you, Freudâwhen you stretched.”
The disturbingly smart cat stretched again and let his right front paw rest on the volume knob as if to prove Will's point. “What's next, buster? Going to start making prank phone calls?”
Freud purred madly, eyes inscrutable, and as if to prove his point again, the phone began to ring. Will gave the cat another look, thinking about coincidences and picked up.