Waking Nightmares (14 page)
Authors: Christopher Golden
The goddess clings to the face of the clock, insectlike. Her three pairs of breasts dangle, full of poison milk that trickles out and mixes with the rain. The indigo flames of her hair whip around her face in the storm. Her black lips peel back from her rows of jagged teeth in a lascivious grin. She is terrible and beautiful and repulsive all at once, and when she begins to chant, it is the sound of drums beaten in prayer and in bloody, barbaric victory. An ancient sound.
The goddess points a gore-encrusted talon into the crowd, and the darkness of the bell tower unfurls, shadows taking shape. The Reapers spring from their perches even as others fly down out of the storm, and she cannot decide if what flutters around them is fabric or skin, black ribbons of nothing that move of their own accord. Their limbs are sticks, bone piping. They are scarecrow things, clutching the curved blades with which they do the bidding of their goddess.
The Reapers sweep down into the crowd and begin their harvest, slashing and tearing, cutting the worshippers open to reveal a golden light within. The light streams into the Reapers and they consume it greedily, then jet back toward the clock tower to feed the goddess. She opens her thighs and her mouth and the Reapers pour the stolen light into her.
A man rises from the waters, somehow above the crowd. He stands atop the flood, a scroll open in his hands, and he begins to read. The goddess and her servants and her worshippers all fall silent, as though chaos itself is taking a breath, and then the goddess screams and leaps from the church, falling toward the man with the scroll, trailing poisonous mother’s milk and indigo fire in her wake.
Amber feels the water rising. She weeps and cries out. Something moves under the water, touching her, and she hears it whisper in her ear.
Navalica,
it whispers.
it whispers.
And she turns to find the Reapers all around her, eyes lit with ghostly blue, carapace faces brittle and blank, sharp proboscises probing the air, all pointing toward their goddess, their anticipation palpable. They gaze at their goddess, stroking the small scythes in their hands.
One of them caresses her beneath the water, its probing touch cold as ice. But then her skin feels brittle and stiff and she glances down. It’s difficult to see through the dark water and so she raises her hand, lifts it to her face, and instead sees the black, bony claws of a Reaper. Amber shakes her head, backing away from the killers, the Harvesters, who have now all begun to whisper the same thing.
Navalica.
Amber finds she cannot breathe. But it is not the water suffocating her. Shaking, she reaches brittle shell fingers up to touch her face and finds a carapace there, a stingerlike proboscis, the face of a Reaper.
She screams, and her voice is a shriek. Another dying gull.
Navalica.
AMBER
jerked awake, heart pounding in her chest. Her cell phone flew from her hands and landed on the floor as she held her hands in front of her eyes. In the light from the television, she saw that they were ordinary hands. Woman hands.
Her
hands. Foolish as she knew it was, she touched her face, felt the familiar contours there, and wanted to weep with relief.
jerked awake, heart pounding in her chest. Her cell phone flew from her hands and landed on the floor as she held her hands in front of her eyes. In the light from the television, she saw that they were ordinary hands. Woman hands.
Her
hands. Foolish as she knew it was, she touched her face, felt the familiar contours there, and wanted to weep with relief.
“What the hell?” she whispered, sitting up quickly, afraid of what she would see inside her mind if she fell back to sleep.
She sat on the edge of the sofa and tried to sort out what she’d seen in her dream, knowing it hadn’t really been a dream. There were too many elements that she had also seen in her vision, which came back to her now much more clearly than it had earlier in the day. Falling asleep had triggered something in her mind. Even as she considered this, the memory of this new dream vision began to blur.
“Jesus,” she whispered.
Her Gran snored loudly just then and Amber flinched, startled. Then she laughed softly, amused by her own skittishness. Gran continued snoring, but more softly. The rain pounded the roof and the wind made the house creak. For a moment, Amber wondered why her parents hadn’t woken her and Gran and ushered them both off to bed, and then she looked at the television and saw that the same stupid movie was on. She felt like she’d been asleep for hours, but it had been only minutes. A quick look at her phone and she discovered the time. 10:27 P.M.
Navalica,
she thought.
she thought.
Then she remembered the man in her vision. The one reading the scroll.
She knew him.
Professor Miles Varick.
Amber held her cell phone in her hand, stroking the screen with her thumb, worried about the lateness of the hour but far more worried about her own sanity. She glanced at Gran, at the peace on the old woman’s face, and envied her.
A scratch on the window behind the TV made her jump. Her heart raced again, though she knew it had to be the ash tree out there, branches swaying in the wind. It had to be, because bone-thin Reapers with scythes would have just crashed through the glass and torn her apart.
Funny, she chided herself. But even though she thought her fears were absurd, she didn’t go any nearer to that window.
Instead, she found Professor Varick’s number in her contacts list and hit the
send
button. The rain drummed on the roof as she listened to the ringing on the other end of the line. Though Gran was in the room with her, and her parents were both presumably still awake elsewhere in the house, Amber felt more alone than ever.
send
button. The rain drummed on the roof as she listened to the ringing on the other end of the line. Though Gran was in the room with her, and her parents were both presumably still awake elsewhere in the house, Amber felt more alone than ever.
MILES
Varick stood in his mother’s kitchen, rinsing out coffee cups and wiping crumbs off the table. He washed the cups—and the small plates they had used to share the cappuccino cheesecake he had brought her—and put them away. Over the past few years, Toni Varick’s vision had been deteriorating rapidly. She could still see the shapes of things, but her vision was blurry and indistinct on the best days. At seventy-one, she knew a number of people who had begun to lose their sight or had had surgery to correct problems with their vision. But she refused to talk about blindness, or to accept that there would come a time in the not-so-distant future when even blurry and indistinct would seem like a fond memory, bad eyesight a luxury.
Varick stood in his mother’s kitchen, rinsing out coffee cups and wiping crumbs off the table. He washed the cups—and the small plates they had used to share the cappuccino cheesecake he had brought her—and put them away. Over the past few years, Toni Varick’s vision had been deteriorating rapidly. She could still see the shapes of things, but her vision was blurry and indistinct on the best days. At seventy-one, she knew a number of people who had begun to lose their sight or had had surgery to correct problems with their vision. But she refused to talk about blindness, or to accept that there would come a time in the not-so-distant future when even blurry and indistinct would seem like a fond memory, bad eyesight a luxury.
Though she was stubborn, Miles had been starting to edge his mother slowly into a mental place where she would be willing to accept help. Every Wednesday night, and on the occasional Sunday, he would visit and read to her. Toni loved books, but even the large print gave her trouble now. She resorted to audiobooks most of the time, but often enough there were things she wanted to read that weren’t available in that format. Given her insistence on doing things for herself, it said a great deal about her love of reading that she would never fight him over these times, pretending that they were just mother-son bonding opportunities, and that she could have read for herself if she wanted to do so. Miles let her go on pretending.
She drew the line at Scrabble, though. For as long as he could remember, it had been her favorite board game, but in order to play she would have to rely on him to read the spaces on the board that indicated multiple letter or word scores, and sometimes she had difficulty making out the letters on the tiles. He had bought a Braille Scrabble game, and his mother had sniffed at it like a child at strange vegetables.
“I’ll let you know when I need the blind people version, Miles,” she had said.
But he doubted she ever would.
So he read to her—right now they were halfway through a Clive Cussler adventure—and they played chess. Toni could feel the pieces to make sure she knew which one she was moving, but she had to bend down and stare at the board as if concentrating very hard to have any idea where the other pieces were. Miles didn’t let her win as often as he could have, but he played poorly on purpose. His mother had raised him on her own from the time he was four years old, making a living as a high school teacher in Hawthorne. Those years had made her tough and proud, and he never wanted to take those things away from her.
He dried the last of the cups and put it into the cabinet in the corner. He had to be careful to put everything away precisely where it belonged so that his mother could find it when she needed it. At some point, she was going to need more help than having her son over to read to her once or twice a week. Fortunately, she’d at least had the good sense to give up her driver’s license. She had friends who would take her on any errands she needed to do, and Miles helped out when he could. Her life would have been much simpler if she would agree to sell her house and move in with him, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Miles would leave it alone for now, but not for long.
He stepped back, took another look around the kitchen, and pronounced it clean. Sliding the chairs up to the table, he picked up the chess set and carried it into the living room, returning it to its usual place on an end table to await their next game. From somewhere in the house he heard water running and knew that his mother was getting cleaned up for bed. He had sent her off, insisting that he would clean up for her. She had agreed reluctantly, claiming that she allowed it only because she was so tired. Miles didn’t challenge her. Toni could hold on to the strength she had for a little longer.
Patting his pockets to make sure he had his keys, he grabbed his light brown canvas jacket from the back of a chair and slid it on. He just needed to say good night and let his mother know he was leaving, and then he could head home. His first class in the morning wasn’t until half past nine, but he wanted to relax a bit before bed, and he knew his mother needed her rest.
“Mom?” he began, not sure if she could hear him over the running water. She must have been brushing her teeth or maybe washing her face.
He was about to call for her again when a strange sound disturbed him. The rain had been a constant hard patter on the windows and the roof, but this was different, almost like something being dragged across the shingle siding outside the house. Miles frowned and started toward the window. He peered out, forehead pressed against the glass, but couldn’t see anything but darkness and rain and the glow of a streetlight.
His cell phone buzzed, making him jump.
“Dumbass,” he muttered, pulling out the phone and looking at it. The number wasn’t one he recognized, but at 10:30 on a weeknight, he figured it must be important, so he answered. “Hello?”
“Professor Varick?”
“Yes?”
“It’s . . . I’m sorry for calling so late, Professor. It’s Amber Morrissey.”
Miles glanced out the window again, but the sound had not returned. “Amber? Are you all right?”
The girl had had a seizure in his classroom that morning, and now she was calling him after hours. His thoughts raced with a hundred variations on the terrible news he was sure she must be about to deliver. He had been getting sleepy, but now he felt fully awake.
“I’m not sure, honestly,” Amber replied.
Miles sat down, rubbing one hand on the leg of his jeans, barely aware of how often he needed that friction to soothe his nerves. Hints of his childhood OCD slipping through.
“What did the doctors say today?”
“It’s not that,” Amber said. “It’s just . . . Well, it’s been a wicked strange day, Professor.”
Not that?
Miles thought.
Then why are you calling me, Amber?
He hoped it wasn’t some kind of teacher crush. A situation had developed several years previously with a lovestruck, delusional student, and he didn’t want to deal with that kind of stress again.
Miles thought.
Then why are you calling me, Amber?
He hoped it wasn’t some kind of teacher crush. A situation had developed several years previously with a lovestruck, delusional student, and he didn’t want to deal with that kind of stress again.
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