The Nightmare Game

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The Nightmare Game Page 3

by Martin, S. Suzanne


  Then I heard a little bell ring. The tiny portion of my brain that could still think as I writhed in place, trapped, fighting for air, wondered if it was yet another cruel trick or if there really was someone at the door. Please be somebody, please! I prayed. I tried to call for help, but the strong rope of wood, tightening about and squeezing my windpipe, silenced me as it attempted to crush my throat. I could feel my eyes bulge from the strangulation as I closed them and willed for help as hard as I could. Help me, please help me, I thought with all my might. Rescue me! I’m in here! I’m in here! Help! Save me!

  “Hello, is anybody here?” Thank God. He’s real! I thought as I heard a man’s voice yell from the front room. The wood enclosing my neck tightened further as if in an attempt to finish me off before anyone could make the quick trip from the front office down the hall.

  “Hello?” the voice got louder. He was coming down the short hallway. I could hear his footsteps. The pressure on my neck lessened. I could feel my bonds fall away in seconds. The room returned to normal. The death flower scent was gone.

  “Hi!” A young man peeked timidly in the doorway.

  I looked at him, relieved beyond measure. I rubbed my throat, then my arms and legs. I looked around the room where everything seemed to be the same as it was when I first walked in. Had I hallucinated the whole experience?

  “May I help you, young man?” Rochere asked coldly, visibly annoyed at being disturbed.

  “Yes, does a Gilda work here?”

  “No one by that name works here. Whatever would make you think so?”

  “It’s just that I ran into her last week. She told me she was working here.”

  “Last week? Oh, yes, I did have one of those ‘temps’ here helping me part-time then. I never bother to learn their names.”

  “I’m a friend of hers from high school, you see. I’m in town for a just few days. I heard she worked here and just thought I’d look her up. I …”

  “This is a place of business, young man, not a high school reunion.”

  “I know that,” he said, still smiling, apparently unscathed. “It’s just that I’m only in for the weekend and I thought she might want to get together later.”

  “Well, you’re too late. I suppose that Gilda will have to live at least a little bit longer without the pleasure of your company. I’m afraid you’ve missed her.”

  “Bummer,” said the young man, his high spirits flagging somewhat. “Think she’ll ever come to work for you again?”

  “I seriously doubt it. In all these years, I rarely see the same temporary worker a second time,” said Rochere, harshly. “Now, you will excuse me because, as you can see, I have a client with me.” I was surprised she had actually remembered me.

  “Okay,” he said, still standing in the doorway.

  “So I guess you’ll be going now then,” Rochere replied irritably.

  I was not about to let him go out without me, but before I could say anything he looked at me and said, “Hey, ma’am, you look a little green around the gills. Are you okay?”

  “Not really!” relieved I didn’t have to bring it up myself. I needed to say something that would make him stay. “I think I may have eaten something that didn’t agree with me at the airport before I left home.”

  “Pity,” said Rochere, as if she didn’t think it was a pity at all.

  “I’m not sure I can make it alone to the apartment I’m renting,” I said to him in a weak voice that was more imploring than I had intended. “Would it be too much bother for you if I asked you to help me?” I knew it sounded desperate asking a complete stranger to walk me to my rental apartment. While I was recovering very rapidly from the worst of the attack, I still felt delicate and somewhat sick, as if I were getting ready to come down with a bad flu. I didn’t trust myself to be able to walk the few blocks alone. I still could not absorb what had just happened.

  “Sure, glad to,” he said.

  I looked down at my arms and legs to see how bad the bruising was, but there was no sign of my having been trussed so tightly. I must have been hallucinating, I thought to myself, as my skin, which marked so easily, showed no evidence of trauma. What was going on? I had to get out of here. I refused to be left alone with Rochere again.

  “Can you wait here for me to finish?” I asked him. “It shouldn’t take long.

  “Take your time, ma’am. I’m in no hurry.”

  “Thank you.” There was no way for him to know just how truly thankful I was.

  “There’s no need for that,” Rochere replied, sounding for all the world as if she were someone whose opinion counted to me. “I close early on Fridays. I will walk you there myself.”

  “No, I’ll take this gentleman up on his offer.” I told her. I turned to him and said, imploring, “Can you please wait for me?”

  “Sure,” the young man said cheerfully, not budging an inch. “I don’t mind helpin’ at all.”

  “You don’t know where it is,” said Rochere, almost grating her teeth.

  “Hey, I grew up in the city,” he replied. “Just give me the address and I can find just about any place.”

  “Surely, you don’t trust a complete stranger…” Rochere said to me in a tone of voice that implied he would strangle me the minute we turned the corner.

  “He looks trustworthy to me,” I snapped back at her. Having almost been strangled once, I figured the odds of it happening twice in one day were pretty slim.

  “I suppose some people would trust almost anyone these days,” she admonished me in a voice that implied I would be rubbish if I were to trust a strange man.

  “I know him as well as I know you,” I said edgily, “and frankly, I like him a lot better so far than I do you.” The long wait, the hallucination and feeling ill had taken all the patience I had out of me. “Now, I’ve been here long enough. Let’s say we get this show on the road and you give me the key.” I wiped sweat off my forehead, which was hot and clammy. I was running a fever and I had to lie down soon.

  “You’ll have to wait awhile for her while I get the paperwork done,” she pointedly told the young man. “I’ll understand if you prefer not to stick around.”

  “Not a problem,” he said unflappably, “Happy to wait, happy to help.” He grinned and winked at me with an expression that read that he wouldn’t want to be left alone with Rochere either.

  “Very well, then,” she looked up at me, with forced politeness. “You will excuse me for making you wait as long as I did, I needed to write some information down,” she pointed to her ledger, “while it was still fresh in my mind. I’m not as young now as I once was and I didn’t want to forget it.” Her words sounded false and too practiced, as if this was an act that she’d used too many times before. She looked up at me with a smile that sat alone on her face, her eyes were cold and hard. She opened a folder that was lying on her desk and pulled out some papers. “So, you must be Carolyne Shea,” she said, reading off a sheet of the paper she had just pulled out of the file.

  “No, I’m Ashley Adams, Carolyne’s friend,” I corrected her.

  “And where is Miss Shea? The reservation is in her name.”

  “She couldn’t make it.”

  While Rochere looked at me even more severely than before, there was a slight smile at one corner of her mouth that made her expression almost vile.

  “Oh, really? But the reservation is in her name. There is no Ashley Adams listed on the reservation. I’m sorry, miss, but I can only rent the property to parties that I have listed on the rental agreement.” She was practically licking her lips in telling me this news.

  Dammit! I cursed silently. Why couldn’t I have just stayed in a hotel? My skin, now drenched in an icy sweat, was starting to feel waxy, I could feel my hands shaking and I badly needed to lie down.

  “What’s this then?” the young man, who was now staring over Rochere’s shoulder, pointed to the paper.

  Rochere, who did not see him walk up behind her, jumped.


  “Young man! Don’t ever walk up behind me like that! You startled me!”

  “Sorry,” he said, obviously not sorry.

  “Oh, yes, now I see. Ashley Adams, you were to be co-renters,” she seemed regretful that he had found her mistake. “I must have overlooked your name. Sad to say that my eyes, along with my memory are not what they once were.”

  Yeah, right, I thought, try that on some sucker who believes you. “Can I have the key now?” creaked out of my dry, tight throat. I was starting to lose my voice and I needed a drink of water. I ran my fingers through my hair and it was nearly soaked.

  “Of course, just sign here,” she motioned, “and here.”

  Not trusting Rochere at all now, I tried to take a minute to read the lease agreement but my head was starting to swim again and my focus was poor. For all I knew, I could have been stupidly signing my life savings over to her in the fine legalese print at the bottom of the page, but to be honest, I was feeling so horrible that the only thing of which I made certain was that I was not signing over my soul. Weak and shaky, I signed the document.

  “The key now.”

  “You’ll need to leave a key deposit.”

  I felt like slapping her. “Lady, you already have my key deposit. You can check it. The whole damn trip is pre-paid and you have a full security deposit. Just give me the key. Now.”

  “Very well,” she said resentfully, opening a drawer and pulling out a key ring with two keys on it. “Here we are. The larger key opens the front gate. The smaller key is for the front door. Please keep these doors locked always, and if you should decide to lose these keys, try not to do so except during office hours, as you’ll have no way at other times to receive a replacement. If you should lose them, it will come out of your deposit.”

  “Fine, no problem.” I answered edgily.

  She handed me the key ring and continued, “We do provide a maid service. We have a woman who comes in once a day in the afternoon and tidies up except for Sundays. Sunday is her day off. The apartment which you have rented and the courtyard are yours to enjoy; however, do not attempt to stray into the rest of the house. It is locked with a different set of keys and,” at this point her gaze pierced into me, “there will be dire consequences should you ignore this and attempt in any way to gain entrance.” She laughed a small, hollow, emotionless laugh. “Legal consequences, of course.”

  “Of course!” I said, straining to keep my composure. I was feeling worse by the minute and I wasn’t taking kindly to her threats. “What other kind is there? I mean, what are you going do? Send a couple of thugs after me to break both my legs?”

  I knew my feeble attempt at sarcasm had failed when she looked at me with dead cold eyes and said, dryly and deliberately, “Oh, my dear, you would be quite surprised at what I would be willing to do,” and then smiled, a cold, heartless smile that made me realize once and for all that the discomfort she had caused me had not only been deliberate, but that it had given her an enormous amount of pleasure. The immediate, irrational hatred I felt upon first meeting her was beginning to make sense now. “The security deposit you and Miss Shea sent in will be refunded to you by mail to the address you have on file with me after it is ascertained that you have done no damage to the apartment.”

  “I should think so,” I said in as nasty a tone of voice as I could muster.

  “Goodbye, Miss Adams.”

  “Yeah,” I answered back, stuffing my copy of the rental agreement into my purse and rising, with some difficulty, out of my chair. More than ever I regretted that I wasn’t staying in a hotel. I made up my mind then that, after resting a bit, I would call around and see if I could get a room elsewhere on such short notice.

  ***

  My hero took my carry-on satchel and suitcase and we walked out of the building together. Once we got out onto the street and into the fresh air, I began to feel a little better, realizing how lucky I was that he’d inadvertently intervened to save me.

  “It’s this way,” he motioned to our left. “And then in a few streets we turn up there on Toulouse. It’s not too far.”

  “Thanks for taking my bags,” I said. “I really wasn’t up to carrying them.”

  “That’s fine, ma’am, don’t worry about it. My momma raised me to be a gentleman.”

  “It looks like she did a great job. You have no idea how grateful I am that you came in when you did and that you stayed,” I told him. “Something – and now to think about it must have been something in that office – was making me really sick before you walked in. I just had to get out of there. And that nasty woman was making me wait way too long.”

  “Yeah,” he said, agreeing whole heartedly, “She sure is a piece of work, that one. You feelin’ better now?”

  “A little. I hope I didn’t catch a bug on the flight. That would ruin my trip.”

  “Nah, I think you were right the first time, probably just somethin’ in that office that got to you. Maybe that ol’ witch put a hex on you or gave you the evil eye or somethin’.” He squinted one eye and made the other as large as he could, squishing the rest of his face over to one side. I realized then how cute he was with his tousled sandy hair and sparkling blue eyes, making me wish for the first time in a long time that I was still twenty.

  I couldn’t help laughing at the face he made. “Charming woman, wasn’t she? I wouldn’t put it past her!”

  “Yeah, she probably put a hex on me, too!” he laughed. “But really, I bet if you take a rest, you’ll be all ready to party tonight. Like sleepin’ off a hangover.”

  “Maybe,” I said, unconvinced.

  We walked a few blocks and he pointed, “Here’s where we turn. This is Toulouse Street.”

  We continued walking down a few more blocks. Even though the air had done me good, the short walk had tired me out far more than it should have and I was looking forward to flopping down on a nice, comfortable bed. I really needed that nap after this afternoon’s mishap.

  “I think this is it,” I said, eyeing an old red brick wall with a solid black iron privacy gate, both about ten feet high, that guarded a townhouse. “This looks like the picture in the ad. Yep, the street number’s right.” Turning to him as I stopped before the gate, I said, shaking his hand, “Thanks again for the help. By the way, my name’s…”

  “Ashley,” he finished my sentence. “Yeah, I remember from the office. I’m Troy, Troy Broussard.”

  Pulling out the keys, I said, “I hope you still get a chance to run into Gilda while you’re here.”

  “Well, if not, I’ll look her up if I’m ever back in town again. Listen, I gotta run, but I’m gonna be out partyin’ tonight, so maybe I’ll see you in a club later.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t think so. I’m still feeling a little rotten. I’ll probably just get something to eat around here later and turn in early.”

  “Naw, that’s no way to do it! Like I said, sleep it off. I bet you’ll be ready to hit Bourbon Street later on tonight.”

  “I hope so. And thanks again for your help. You have no idea how grateful I am to you for rescuing me from that horrible woman.”

  “I’m glad I could be there, ma’am. And don’t mention it. I just spent about ten minutes with that old harpy and I couldn’t wait to get outta there. Hey, listen, I’ve got an appointment in about five minutes that I’ve gotta get to, but before I get going, why don’t we make sure that gate key of yours works. I still don’t trust that old witch.”

  “I’d appreciate it,” I told him, inserting the larger key into the gate’s lock and turning it.

  Troy placed my bags beside the gate and said, “Hey, it works! Is there anything else I can help you with while I’m here?”

  “No, that’s okay. If this key works, I’m sure the other one must, too. I don’t want to make you late for your appointment and besides, you’ve already gone far above and beyond the call of duty. It was very nice to meet you, Troy, and if I do make it out later, I hope I run into you.”

&nbs
p; “I’ll be out there. If I see you, I’ll buy you a drink. And it was good to meet you, too, Ashley. Bye, now.”

  “Bye.” What a great guy, I thought as I watched him turn and half walk, half bounce off.

  After all of the turbulence, I was now finally here, ready to start my vacation in earnest. Alone, I walked through the gate with suspicion, wondering what kind of a deal this would turn out to be. Gripping my bags, which felt a lot heavier than they had before I’d entered Rochere’s office, I walked though the high, large gate, wondering what lay inside. For my first really good surprise of the day, the courtyard on the other side transformed my apprehensions into delight.

  I found myself standing before a house and courtyard that embodied the essence, strange beauty and sheer romance of the French Quarter. Putting down my bags, I closed and locked the heavy gate behind me. It had been far too many years, I thought, since my last trip to the Crescent City and I pledged to myself now that I would never again go so long without a return visit. As I stood motionless, soaking in my surroundings, my heart sang out, I’m finally home now; I consciously had to remind myself that this was just a vacation and that I was here for less than a week. In front of me and to my right, a small garden containing a fountain was lush with banana plants, elephant ears, palm trees and bamboo, alive with the colors of blooming irises, dahlias, crocuses and gladioli. Flowering Azaleas and split leaf Philodendrons thrived in clusters in huge red clay pots on the red brick courtyard floor and ivy covered the blank brick wall of the rear of the house next door. The somewhat tattered three-story antebellum town home of French design displayed on the web site that Carolyne and I had investigated just before we rented the apartment had been replaced by an immaculately maintained structure. Apparently, the owner had done massive renovation job on the house and the courtyard since the fish-eye photo used on the internet had been taken. This was all so much nicer than anything I expected. I could only assume that the building received enough flooding during Katrina that it needed to be restored and that the courtyard was probably thrown in for good measure.

 

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