Night Conjurings: Tales of Terror

by Harvey Click

  “I don’t like it here,” she said in a soft cool voice. “Can I go home with you?”

  He said yes and couldn’t think of anything more to say because his brain felt weak and lifeless along with his body. He had to continue sitting for a few minutes before he found the strength to walk to his car. She walked beside him, and though he could faintly hear her breathing, her feet made no sound on the grass.

  He opened the passenger door, and she got inside. He kept glancing at her as he drove, and he thought she looked more tangible now, though he could see the car door and the seat through her slender form. He thought he should have many questions to ask her, but his brain felt so vacant he couldn’t think of them. It occurred to him, rather vaguely, that he was tipping over the deep end into serious madness, but he didn’t care. He felt happy.

  “Are you cold?” he asked at last, realizing he’d forgotten to turn the heater on.

  “No, I don’t think so,” she said.

  He turned it on anyway, and they didn’t speak any more on the way to his house. He pulled into the garage, and she sat in the car until he opened her door. Maybe she was used to being treated like a lady, he thought, or maybe she was unable to open doors. He opened the door to his house, and she stepped into the kitchen and looked around.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “No. Not yet.”

  He was, but he felt uncomfortable fixing a sandwich if she wasn’t going to eat. He got a beer from the refrigerator, opened it and offered it to her, but she shook her head no. She drifted into the dining room, glanced at its contents in the faint light coming from the kitchen, and went to the living room. He turned on a lamp and then wished he hadn’t because the light made her look less real. As she sat on the sofa and smoothed her long rose-pink gown, he noticed that the cushion didn’t sink with her weight.

  He sat in a chair across from her and sipped his beer. It tasted good, and though he still felt weak his head began to clear. Now he thought of all sorts of questions to ask her, but he didn’t because they’d be rude. Is that the dress you were buried in? How did you die, and what’s it like to be dead?

  After a minute he said, “You are Julie Long, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why are you here?” he asked.

  “No more questions tonight,” she said. “I’m still very weak, and you look tired yourself, so let’s rest. Is it okay if I sleep with you?”

  He smiled awkwardly and said yes, and she followed him upstairs to his bedroom. A weak glow of streetlight leaked past the edges of his drapes, just enough to keep them from bumping into things, and he decided not to turn on the lamp by his bed. He was used to sleeping naked and was wondering to what extent, if any, he should undress when he turned and saw that she had slipped off her gown, and it was lying at her feet like a pale pink puddle. She was naked and lovely, and her white skin seemed to glow faintly in the dim light.

  He smiled shyly, pulled back the covers for her, and undressed. She waited for him on the bed, crouched on her hands and knees like a cat waiting for a mouse, and the moment he lay down beside her she climbed on top of him. He couldn’t feel her body against his, only a strange coldness like an icy mist moving softly against his flesh, and when he tried to run his fingers through her long blond hair it was like running them through cool water. Her pale blue eyes were like chunks of ice staring down at him, and though he felt a deep chill through his entire body he became intensely aroused and soon ejaculated.

  He pulled the covers up to his shoulders, shivering, and quickly sank into a heavy sleep.

  ***

  He still felt cold and weak when he awoke, and was relieved when he remembered it was Saturday and he didn’t have to go to work. She wasn’t in bed beside him, and he half-believed it had all been some sort of fever dream, but then he heard the sound of drawers opening and shutting downstairs. Before long he heard soft footsteps coming up the stairs, and then she was standing in the bedroom doorway wearing a faint smile and nothing else. He looked away, embarrassed.

  “How do you feel?” she asked.

  “Not very good. I think I’m catching some kind of flu.”

  “It’s okay if you want to look at me,” she said. “I like to be seen.”

  He looked and was instantly aroused. He’d never before seen such a beautiful woman naked. His ex-wife had already been pudgy and frumpy at age eighteen when they’d started dating, and he’d had very little experience with other women. Julie’s body looked perfect to him, slim and sleek with pale flawless skin. Her breasts were small, just the way he liked, and when his eyes moved down to the golden triangle of her pubic hair he had to raise his knees beneath the covers to hide his erection.

  Julie smiled at his embarrassment and came over to sit at the edge of his bed. He realized something was different: this time the mattress sank beneath her weight.

  “You don’t have the flu,” she said. “I took something away from you last night, some of your vitality. I needed it to be fully alive. I should have warned you, but I was greedy and afraid you’d say no. You’ve given me flesh, and I’ve made you feel weak.”

  “Are you some kind of vampire?”

  “No, I can’t even stand the sight of blood. But what we did last night siphoned away some of your life-force.”

  “Will I feel sick like this from now on?”

  “No, you’ll recover. You’ll maybe feel just a little older from now on, but you’ll recover—mostly. Do you hate me very much?”

  “No. I wanted you to be alive.”

  “And I wanted to live again, very badly. I was cheated, you know. I died when I was just twenty-two. I was barely an adult, and then everything was taken away from me.”

  “Did somebody kill you?”

  “Cancer did. It started in my ovaries and then began to devour everything around them. That’s the way this world is, everything devours everything else. Are you hungry?”

  “Yes. Are you?”

  “Yes, very,” she said.

  He started to get up but felt dizzy, and she gently pushed him back down. “Get some more rest,” she said. “I’ll fix us some breakfast.”

  “There are eggs and sausages in the refrigerator,” he said.

  She went downstairs, and he heard soon the sounds of cooking and smelled the odors. He tried to think rationally about his situation, but his brain felt too tired for thinking. He only knew he was glad she was here, and he told himself the weakness would pass soon. He just needed some coffee to feel better, and he got to wondering if modern drip coffee makers were already on the market in 1972, when she had died. Probably she wouldn’t know how to use it, so he pulled on his clothes and dizzily made his way downstairs.

  She was standing at the stove scrambling eggs. The table was set and coffee was already brewing. She was still naked, and he asked her if she wanted him to go up and get her pink dress.

  “It’s not there anymore,” she said. “It…evaporated.”

  “I can get you a shirt or something.”

  “Don’t you like looking at me?”

  “Sure. I just thought…”

  She smiled and told him to sit down. A platter of sausage links was already on the table, an entire package of them seared just right. She stood close to him to scoop scrambled eggs from the skillet onto his dish, and the fresh smell of her skin aroused him so intensely that he squirmed in his chair. Last night she’d seemed to have no odor, but now he could smell shampoo and soap; she must have taken a shower while he slept. There was another smell too, her own sweet musky fragrance, and he didn’t think he’d ever smelled anything quite so enticing.

  She scooped the rest of the eggs onto her plate and sat across from him. She ate with great appetite while he slowly munched his food, hoping he could keep it down. It looked odd for such an attractive woman to eat so quickly and ravenously, more like a child than an adult. When she was finished she poured coffee for both of them and sat back down.

  “You’re di
vorced,” she said.

  “How do you know?”

  “There are signs all over the house. You still have her pictures on the mantle, and your bedroom’s pink. It’s probably not a color a man would choose.”

  “No. I’ve been meaning to repaint it, but…”

  “But you still miss her?”

  “I shouldn’t,” he said. “The divorce was her idea, and she wasn’t at all nice about it. She made up stories claiming I abused her. It was all a lie, but she set me up so everybody believed her. A week before she told me that she wanted a divorce, she happened to fall down the porch steps and bruise her face, so she called the police and claimed I’d hit her. After it was all over, I found out she’d been having an affair for at least two years. She’s married to him now.”

  Julie sipped her coffee and smiled faintly, which struck him as an odd reaction. “How long have you been divorced?” she asked.

  “Almost a year, though it seems much more recent. She took half of everything I owned. I inherited this house from my mother, and it was all paid off, but I had to take out a mortgage so I could pay her half its value.”

  “You must hate her.”

  “No. In fact I still miss her. She cheated on me and lied about me, but I still miss her. I treated her like a queen and gave her everything I could afford to give her, but I still keep thinking of things I maybe did wrong or things I should have done better so she wouldn’t have fallen for another man. I guess that’s pretty stupid, isn’t it?”

  Julie smiled and said, “Some people like to be used. Are you one of them?”

  “I guess I must be. I guess I’ve always been a sucker.”

  He finished his coffee and got up to refill their cups. He felt better now with some food in his stomach, though the carafe seemed heavier than it should. As he was putting it back in the coffee maker Julie said, “I saw something strange in one of the rooms upstairs. It has a TV screen, but I don’t think it’s a TV.”

  “You must mean my computer,” he said, relieved by the change of subject. “Come on, I’ll show it to you.”

  They went upstairs to one of the bedrooms, which he’d converted to a sort of studio-study with an easel, a drawing table, and a computer. He turned it on and pulled another chair up to the desk so she could sit beside him.

  She smiled at the bulge in his trousers and said, “I guess maybe you better bring me that shirt you mentioned. I think I’m making you uncomfortable.”

  Deeply embarrassed, he fetched a long flannel shirt from his closet. It didn’t help much because she buttoned it up only halfway, and her breasts were fully exposed whenever she bent forward to look at the screen. He tried not to look.

  She was a quick learner, and soon she was typing searches and pulling up sites. She showed more interest in new fashions and gadgets than current events. He pulled up a music video of a Rolling Stones song that been popular in the early 1970s, but she didn’t want to hear any of the old stuff, and before long the small room was blaring with rap and hip hop, which he hated. She slapped her legs to the beat like a teenager and laughed at the dirty lyrics.

  “You’re going to need some clothes,” he said. “Why don’t you make out a list with your sizes and whatever else you need, and I’ll go buy it for you.”

  As much as he wanted to be near her, it was a relief to get away. Her presence was too intense, like an addictive drug he couldn’t keep his hands off. At the mall he bought skirts, jeans, blouses, underwear, shoes, socks, a long pink dress, and some grooming items, and if his mortgage and car payment weren’t coming due he would have kept on buying. His flu-like symptoms seemed to be abating, and he felt nearly as strong as usual, though a dull headache sometimes blurred his vision.

  When he got home he found her downstairs watching TV. She was delighted with his purchases and tried on her new clothes in the living room, strutting like a catwalk pro as she modeled her lacy new underwear and sheer negligee. After many minutes of this, he gathered the courage to suggest, very meekly, “Maybe we could go up to my bedroom?”

  “Not yet,” she said, as she pulled on a new pair of jeans. “Not until you have your strength back. Right now I probably shouldn’t even touch you.”

  “You mean just touching would make me weaker?”

  “Yeah, it’ll take something out of you. That’s why I touched you in the cemetery, so I’d have the strength to come home with you.”

  He sat glumly in a painful state of arousal while she flipped though TV channels with the remote. It didn’t seem fair. He desired her more than any other woman he’d ever known, but she was poisonous to touch.

  He thought she’d be interested in news channels, but instead she kept flipping from movie to movie, sometimes pausing to snicker at a trashy reality show. She seemed to like violent movies the best, and for a long while she remained fixated on one of the Friday the 13th sequels. She laughed gleefully like a teenager at the gory scenes, and he had to remind himself she was only twenty-two, even though her birthdate was quite a few decades ago.

  He started feeling sick again and rested on the sofa while she fixed dinner. She was a good cook, and the T-bone steaks were done nicely, even if they were too rare for his taste. Again she ate like a starving child, her table manners rather crude, while he chewed his food slowly and without much pleasure. When they were done eating, she poured beer in their glasses and they drank.

  She had put on the bright lipstick he’d bought her, and whatever innocence he’d seen in her before was well hidden. His arousal hadn’t ebbed for a moment all day, except while he was away from home, and even then only slightly. Now it was a painful throbbing, and he didn’t think he could bear it much longer.

  He grinned at her and said, “Well, I’m feeling a whole lot better now,” though he really wasn’t.

  She licked foam from her upper lip and grinned back at him, tauntingly he thought. “Down, boy,” she said. “I told you we have to wait. I’ll have to sleep in the extra bedroom tonight. Maybe it’ll be safe to come to your room when I’m not feeling so hungry.”

  “Hungry? But you just ate.”

  “This isn’t the kind of food I’m talking about,” she said.

  He started feeling weak again, and as soon as he finished his beer he went to bed and fell asleep almost immediately. His dreams were troubled by ghostly presences swimming like horrible mermen in a dark void. He couldn’t make out their faces, but they frightened him terribly. One of them suddenly darted straight toward him, and he awoke with a sharp cry in the dark.

  His clock said it was nearly three in the morning. He went to the bathroom, and when he was done he padded barefoot to the door of the guest bedroom. He knew it was wrong to spy on her, but he desperately wanted to watch her sleeping for just a moment, catch just a brief glimpse of her face to soothe his desire. He opened her door very quietly and peeked inside.

  She wasn’t there. He looked in the studio, but she wasn’t there either. He got dressed, went downstairs, and found the house empty. Then he looked in the garage and saw that his car was gone.

  He fixed some coffee and sat drinking it in the dark living room, hoping she’d come back soon. About an hour later he heard his car pull into the garage, and he was waiting at the door when she entered. Her hair was disheveled and her lipstick smeared.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, but her lascivious smile didn’t look like contrition. “I should have asked if I could borrow your car.”

  “You know how to drive?” he asked, somewhat absurdly.

  “Of course I do. Cars haven’t changed all that much since I’ve been gone, though I did have some trouble figuring out the headlight switch. Don’t worry, I’m a very careful driver.”

  “Where’d you go?”

  “Just around. I’m not feeling so hungry now, so we can go to your room if you want.”

  He wanted. Questions could wait until later. She was already unbuttoning her blouse as they climbed the stairs, and they undressed each other as soon as they got to
his room. She was very wet when he touched her between the legs, and he suspected what he was feeling was another man’s semen, but he didn’t allow himself to think about it.

  Again she climbed on top of him like a cat, and when they were finished he was as weak as a kitten.

  ***

  He felt very bad in the morning, and when she called him to breakfast he had to hang onto the bannister to make it down the stairs. She saw how weak he was and said, “I’m sorry, did I make you feel sicker? I guess I still must have been a little hungry last night. You must hate me.”

  He sank heavily onto a kitchen chair and said, “Are you always going to have this hunger? I mean, will you always need to keep drawing off more of this energy?”

  “I don’t know. This is all new to me, remember? But right now I seem to need it. I’ll grow weak without it and become a ghost again. It’s not easy to stay in this world.”

  “And how do you plan to get all this energy?”

  “I’ll have to go out and find men and…you know.”

  He sipped his coffee, feeling weak and miserable. He didn’t want her to be with other men. He was the one who had drawn her, quite literally, back into this world, and he wanted her to be his.

  “You said just touching a person drains off some energy,” he said. “So can’t you just go out and touch some people? I mean shake their hands or something?”

  “No, that wouldn’t be enough to survive on. Maybe someday it will, but for now I need more. I need intimacy, if you know what I mean.”

  “You can use me again,” he said quietly.

  “Maybe after you’ve gotten some strength back.”

  “I at least want you to stay with me,” he said. “We can work through this.”

  She smiled and put some eggs on his plate, but he was too sick to eat them. He went back to bed, feeling chilled for a while and then feverish. He could hear the TV downstairs, but she came up every hour or two to see how he was doing. Once, when he was sweating with a fever, she gently wiped his body with a cold damp washcloth, wearing rubber kitchen gloves so she wouldn’t inadvertently touch him. He was hoping she’d use her hand to relieve his desire, but she didn’t.