Perfect Nightmare

by John Saul

  And it didn’t smell good, like when the cleaning lady came.

  No, it smelled like people.

  People she didn’t know.

  “Mom?” she called. “I’m home.” The clothes washer was going, but her mother didn’t answer. Lindsay dropped her backpack on the kitchen counter and ran up the stairs.

  Her room smelled wrong, too, but not like the rest of the house. It smelled different.

  There was a musky odor, and there was something about it that made her skin crawl.

  Lindsay opened the window wide, and as she did, noticed that her stuffed animals had been moved. Why would anybody touch the stuffed animals she’d lined up on the sill?

  “Mom?” she called out again, almost unconsciously.

  She looked around. Everything else seemed to be in the right place. A fresh breeze came in through the window and some of the musky odor went away.

  But not all of it.

  And it was going to be even worse on Sunday, when dozens—maybe even hundreds—of people were going to go through the house. How could her parents stand it?

  Lindsay hated the whole idea of it. Hated it.

  “Hi, honey,” Kara said from the doorway, startling Lindsay out of her reverie. “I was just on the phone with Mark Acton. He said he had twenty-eight people through and thought maybe we’d get an offer or two even before Sunday.”

  “Good,” Lindsay said, feeling a surge of relief.

  Kara leaned against the doorjamb and cocked her head quizzically. “That’s a change of tune.”

  Lindsay shrugged. “I just don’t want any more strangers in my room.” Her eyes met her mother's. “They touched my stuff, Mom, just like I knew they would. They moved things around.”

  Kara sighed heavily. “Nobody touched anything, Linds. Besides, how could you tell if somebody moved something?”

  “I just can,” Lindsay insisted, and wrinkled her nose at the musky odor that still hung faintly in the air. “And it stinks in here. Can’t you smell it?” When her mother only offered her the kind of indulgent smile that told her she was being humored, not taken seriously, Lindsay felt her face getting red. She wasn’t a child anymore, and her mother shouldn’t treat her like one. But before she could say anything, her mother seemed to sense her mood and quickly changed the subject.

  “Dad’s coming home tonight. And we saw some good places today.”

  “I guess that’s good,” Lindsay sighed. She flopped on the bed, and the strange musky smell grew stronger.

  It was on her pillow!

  She jumped off the bed as if it were on fire. “Mom, somebody was touching my pillow. My pillow!”

  “Honey—” Kara began, but Lindsay didn’t let her finish.

  “I’m telling you,” she said, snatching up the pillow. “Smell this!”

  Kara took a quick sniff of the pillow, then shrugged. “Sorry, honey—it just smells like pillow to me. Old pillow, maybe, but just pillow.”

  When her mother went downstairs to start dinner, Lindsay ripped the pillowcase off and threw the pillow in the corner.

  But it didn’t matter. Everything had changed.

  This room, she knew, would never feel the same again.

  Maybe it might be a good idea to move after all.

  Chapter Eleven

  Why she woke up, Lindsay didn’t know. All she knew was that one moment she’d been sound asleep and the next wide-awake.

  Wide-awake and listening.

  But for what? The silence of the night was almost palpable.

  And then she heard it.

  The sound of breathing. She relaxed, certain it was her mom or dad checking up on her. Then she realized the door was closed and the room was dark. Faint light came in around the edges of the closed curtains, and that—along with familiarity—illuminated her room just enough so she knew the room was empty.

  And yet she could still hear it: raspy, and uneven.

  And now she could smell something, too, and as the scent filled her nostrils, she knew what it was: the same musky odor that had hung in the room when she’d come home this afternoon.

  And now someone was in her room.

  Stay still, she told herself. Stay still and maybe he’ll just go away. She tried to regulate her breathing, but her heart was pounding so hard it was all she could do to keep from gasping for breath.

  Though she still couldn’t see him, she felt him move closer, and as the smell grew stronger, she could feel the warmth of his breath on her arm.

  He was going to kiss her!

  She wanted to scream—wanted to turn on her bedside lamp and flood the room with light, but she couldn’t.

  She couldn’t move at all.

  The hot breath moved up her arm to her neck, then something touched her hair.

  The musky aroma was so heavy she wanted to gag, but even that was beyond her. She felt paralyzed. She tried desperately to move her mouth, to move her hand, but her lips were numb and her arms had become so heavy that her muscles didn’t have the strength to lift them.

  She was going to faint! But if she fainted, she wouldn’t know what was happening.

  What he was doing to her?

  She had to know. Had to!

  Now she felt a hand snake up under the covers, and she struggled with her paralyzed body to shrink away from it, to strike out, to hit him, to sink her fingernails into his face and rip the skin from his cheek. But her body wouldn’t obey her commands. She lay frozen as the strange aroma filled her nostrils and the hands roamed over her body.

  How had it happened? How had he gotten in? But she already knew—he’d been there all afternoon, hiding, waiting. . . .

  A tiny, helpless whimper finally crept from her lips.

  One of his hands caressed her cheek and then covered her mouth while the other hand covered her breast, and once again she willed her body to respond. Once again she tried to struggle, tried to scream, and again succeeded in making a tiny sound, but it was no more than a pitiful gurgle in the back of her throat. Yet somehow it was enough to break the paralyzing fear, and then she took a deep breath and found her voice.

  She sat straight up screaming.

  The hands vanished.

  Then her parents were there, and the light was on, and her mom was smoothing the hair from her sweating forehead.

  What had happened? He was there—she knew he was there! She’d heard him and smelled him and felt him touching her! But now her parents were with her and she was afraid she might throw up.

  “Honey,” Kara said, perching on the edge of the bed and gently drawing a strand of hair away from her face. “It’s all right—it was just a bad dream.”

  A bad dream? She rubbed her face. Smelled her hands.

  The aroma was gone; all she smelled was the almond lotion she’d used before going to bed.

  Her gaze shifted from her mother to her father, who stood at the foot of her bed, wearing his pajama bottoms and a white T-shirt, his eyes clouded with concern.

  “Daddy?” she squeaked out.

  Her father came around, sat on the bed next to her mother and rubbed her hand as gently as her mother had eased the hair from her forehead. “It was just a nightmare, kitten.”

  Her eyes darted around the room as if they were unwilling to accept her father’s words, but everything looked normal.

  So it had been a dream—a nightmare. But she hadn’t had one since she was little. And it had been so real.

  She took a deep breath, embarrassed now that she had yelled in her sleep and awakened her parents. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Kara smiled and kept smoothing her hair. “Nothing to be sorry about, darling—everybody has bad dreams.”

  Lindsay managed a smile. “I feel so stupid. I—”

  “Would you like some warm milk?” her mom asked. “That always cured the bad dreams when you were little.”

  Lindsay shook her head. “I better just go back to sleep. I’ve got a science test in the morning.”

  “
We’ll leave the hall light on,” her father said.

  Lindsay nodded, and snuggled under her covers, which smelled just fine now. No strange aroma—just the scent of her own lotion.

  Her parents kissed her, then turned out the light and left the room. The hall light went on, and her father came back to close her bedroom door. But he left it open a couple of inches, without her even asking. “Wrap yourself in the wings of your guardian angel, kitten,” he said. “She’ll hide you from the nightmares.”

  “Thanks, Daddy.” He hadn’t said that to her in years—not since she was in third grade, at least. But tonight the words gave her the comfort she needed.

  Her father’s shadow vanished from the crack in the doorway, and a few seconds later she heard the master bedroom door close.

  She tried to relax, reminding herself that nobody was in her room. Yet she was sure she wouldn’t go back to sleep, even with her parents in the next room, because despite their reassurances, she knew that even though her room was empty now, it hadn’t been earlier in the day.

  Someone had been in her room—someone evil—and he’d left something behind; something more than just the vestiges of his strange aroma.

  And she knew that no matter what she did, she would never be able to rid her room of his presence.

  Suddenly, in the darkness of the night, she wished the house would be sold tomorrow and they could move away. Far, far away, where the man who had been in her room could never find her.

  She lay quietly, staring at the silhouette of the stuffed elephant on her windowsill—the stuffed elephant the man had moved.

  Getting out of bed, she picked the elephant off the sill and put it in the hall outside her door. She felt better with it gone, just as she’d felt better after she tore the pillowcase off earlier. She got back into bed and again told herself that she was safe.

  But she still couldn’t sleep.

  “I knew it,” Kara said as she and Steve got back in bed. “I woke up about ten seconds before she screamed, and I knew something was wrong.” Steve put his arm around her and drew her close, so her head lay on his chest, and she fell gratefully into the luxurious feel of his warmth. “Remember when she fell off that horse at camp and broke her collarbone?”

  She felt Steve’s chest move as he nodded.

  “I knew then, too. Remember? We were at the Billingslys for dinner, and suddenly I knew I had to get home, even though we’d barely been gone an hour. And by the time we got home, there was a call on the machine. Remember?”

  “I remember,” Steve said in a tone that told her she’d told the story a few times too often.

  But it wasn’t just the story that Kara remembered. It was hearing the terrible words: Lindsay . . . accident . . . hospital . . . on the message machine. “A mother knows these things,” she said. “This move is even harder for her than I thought it would be.” She put her arm around Steve and clung to him. “I feel so guilty.”

  “Hey, it was only a nightmare,” he said, pulling her closer. “It’ll all be over soon.”

  “It wasn’t ‘only’ a nightmare,” Kara said. “She’s upset. She’s upset enough that she was absolutely terrified.”

  “And this afternoon she’d convinced herself that someone moved things around in her room, too,” Steve said. “And went through her drawers and rubbed his face on her pillow, and even took her underwear.”

  “You think any of it could have happened?” Kara asked, her voice sounding to her as young and as vulnerable as Lindsay's.

  “Not a chance,” Steve replied. “There was no one in the house but a bunch of real estate people. I think she talked herself into that nightmare. You watch—she’ll be fine.”

  “I guess,” Kara sighed. “At least she will be once we’re out of here and into the city and you can be home every night to take care of your wife and daughter.” She snuggled against Steve, and a short while later his regular breathing turned into a light snore.

  But there was no sleep for Kara; though Lindsay only had a nightmare, she wasn’t prone to dramatics or hysterics. If her daughter said someone had been in her underwear drawer, she believed that someone had.

  Chapter Twelve

  I believe I dreamed of this morning every moment that I slept. I’ve slept a lot since Wednesday—after being in her house—being in her room—feeling her presence—filling my nostrils with her sweet aroma—being awake without her seemed too painful to bear.

  So I slept. Hours? Days? I really don’t remember.

  But I remember dreaming of Sunday morning, and when this morning finally came, I think I knew it even before I awoke.

  I felt it—a thrill surging through every vein and every nerve of my body. I savored the feeling, delaying the moment when I finally rose. I donned my favorite robe—a black one with a bloodred lining—and my outside slippers before going down to retrieve the paper from the spot the boy always leaves it. It was quiet—I saw no one else, nor even heard a car.

  I liked that.

  Not that I was the least bit concerned, let alone actually worried—I believe I looked as casual as anyone could look, bringing in a Sunday newspaper. But once I was back inside, I had the paper torn open before it reached the table.

  And there on the front page—the front page!—of the Real Estate section was the open house ad. It was a good-sized ad, too; this agent had spent some money to attract a good group of prospects.

  And all of this—the placement, as well as the size of the ad—works in my favor.

  Not that it was perfect. The photograph of the house was taken from an awkward angle, so it didn’t look its best, but there was an intriguing description, the kind that would attract a lot of curious people.

  The more the better.

  I circled the ad with my red felt-tip pen and felt the excitement and anticipation building inside me.

  It is a feeling of which I never tire.

  Still, I need to rein it in. I need to be patient.

  I need to keep control.

  I sipped a cup of coffee while I planned my day. The open house begins at 1:00 p.m.; I would arrive about two hours later, just when the most people would be there. Earlier, people will still be digesting their lunch, and later it will be nothing but the last minute stragglers with an agent trying to shoo them all out.

  But not right at 3:00 p.m., either. People tend to be aware when it is an even hour, and remember things more clearly. Perhaps thirteen or fourteen minutes before three would be appropriate.

  Yes, I believe that will be perfect.

  I’ve already charted out what time to bathe, what time to dress, and the route I shall take to get there, of course.

  And the place to park. I know the garages of the neighbors. I know the alleys that the service people use, and I also know that those alleys are blissfully deserted on Sundays. I can idle quietly down the alley, park, walk around the block, and enter the house as invisibly as pollen on the breeze.

  I did all that on Wednesday, and I think I’ve done it dozens of times since in my dreams.

  It is all imprinted in my memory, and nothing will go wrong.

  My clothes have been laid out since yesterday morning. I shall wear brown corduroy slacks with a brown and blue plaid shirt. In those colors, I will blend right in with the look of the house—and all the other lookers.

  I think of it as camouflage. No one will even notice me.

  And with luck, it will rain! Rain means more activity at an open house. Rain means that the agent hosting the open house will spend more time looking at the carpeting to make certain that people are wiping their feet or wearing those stupid little booties than who is coming and going. (Perhaps I should add a brown sweater vest to my costume—it may be spring, but there can still be a chill in the air.) But most important, rain means the house will be gloomier and I will feel more at home.

  More at home.

  Now why did I say that? After all, I already feel at home in that house.

  In that bedroom.
r />   That sweet, virginal bedroom.

  I can’t wait. . . .

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Please?” Lindsay pleaded. “I went with you last weekend and it was awful. And I was awful! I was rude to that real estate lady, and I hated everything, and I almost threw up in the lobby of that one building. Why would you even want me to go?” She saw her father glance uncertainly at her mother, and decided to play another card. “Besides, I have cheerleading practice.”

  Kara shook her head. “We want to make sure we buy something we can all live with, honey. That’s why we want you with us when we look—you need to help us decide.”

  “But it was all so awful last week,” Lindsay repeated.

  “I know it was, but today it will be better, and we really want you to spend the day with us in the city.”

  “With you and the Raven.”

  “C'mon, kitten,” Steve said. “It’ll be fun.” He wrapped his toast around two pieces of bacon and bit off half of it, washing it down with coffee.

  “You think that’s fun?” Lindsay asked incredulously. “Well, it isn’t. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be looking at in those places—all they look like to me is a bunch of empty rooms that don’t seem like anyone could ever live in them. Can’t you guys choose?”

  Kara shook her head again. “We are not going to buy a place without you seeing it first. We’re a family, remember? And I’m afraid I don’t really see the point of you going to practice, either, since you’re not going to be on the squad here next year.”

  “You don’t know that,” Lindsay said, a note of desperation coming into her voice. “I mean—not for sure. Maybe the house won’t sell, and I’ll at least get to graduate with my friends. Or maybe you can move to the city right away, and I’ll move in with Dawn or something.”

  Kara looked at Steve, and he could see that she was wavering. “What about that nightmare you had the other night?” he said to his daughter. “I’m not sure what time we’ll be back, and you don’t want to come home to an empty house this afternoon, do you?”