The Nightmare Game

by Martin, S. Suzanne

  “No, I haven’t been,” I said, hating to admit it to a stranger.

  She turned over the next card and said, “Ah,” in a tone that implied a mild revelation. “It’s not ya own loneliness and unhappiness to been dealin’ with at all.”

  “No,” I disagreed, a little disappointed. I guess maybe she wasn’t going to be that much help after all. “It has been mine. I’ve been dealing with it for a couple of months now. Everybody I know is doing better than I am right now. They’re all getting pretty sick of me these days and they all keep telling me to snap out of it.”

  “They’re wrong. This ain’t been ya personal unhappiness ya been dealin’ with, it belongs to someone else.” She turned over another card. “Ya got a man in ya life that’s got real misery. He been in great sorrow for a long, long time.” She checked out my left hand and finding no wedding ring, continued, “It mus’ be ya boyfriend for the bond here is very strong.”

  I let out a hollow laugh. “I don’t have a boyfriend. Haven’t had one in years, I’m afraid the cards are wrong.”

  She looked up at me and knitted her brows together, “No, no they’re not. They’re never wrong for me.”

  “Could it be a friend?” I offered. “Or maybe something’s wrong with my brother-in-law?”

  “No. No friend, no relative. Ya have a man in ya life, it’s a love bond and a strong one. He’s in great trouble, trouble that’s been around a long time.”

  “Could it be someone I haven’t met yet?”

  “No, ya know this man now.”

  The blank look on my face convinced her I had no idea what she was talking about. She looked confused herself as she turned over another card. “This is a bit confusin’. He’s younger than ya are, but yet he’s older than ya are. Does that make any sense to ya?” I shook my head no. “Well, anyway, he’s a very handsome man, very handsome.” My stare was still blank when she looked up at me for confirmation. She turned over the next card, “I’m seein’ a journey in ya life.”

  “I guess I did journey here. I’m a tourist, but that’s not unusual in the French Quarter.”

  “Ya not a tourist, ya only think ya are. Ya on a journey, a great journey. There’s somethin’ ya need to do, to accomplish, but it’s not here in the city. Ya journey, it begins here, but it’s not here.” Turning over another card, she continued, “It’s connected with ya young man. He needs ya to help him.”

  A man in my life, a journey connected with him, was I thinking too literally? She couldn’t possibly talking about the man of my dreams, the man in the portrait, could she? It didn’t occur to me because despite the portrait, despite my intense longings for him, he was only a dream lover, a fantasy. It couldn’t be the same guy anyway, since the portrait I saw looked really old and the man in it must be long dead by now. Was he a ghost? That couldn’t be. Ghosts didn’t exist.

  “Ya stayin’ with friends here, some very interestin’ people I see. Important friends.”

  “Actually, my friend couldn’t come, so I’m here alone.”

  Again, she looked at me with complete disbelief. “Ya here alone?” she echoed me.

  “Yes, in an apartment I’m renting. But I’m kind of scared to stay there now, especially by myself. I was thinking about moving to a hotel or maybe even just leaving altogether and going home, but these people, these two weird people, a woman and a man, keep warning me to stay put, that I’ll die if I don’t.” I was giving her too much information, I knew, but I couldn’t help myself. It just spilled out. “They’re the ones that are scaring me and then there’s this other woman at the real estate company that freaked me out this afternoon and these people told me that she, or at least I think it was she, tried to kill me. And the man and woman just keep disappearing into thin air. Do you think they could they be ghosts? I mean is this why I’m really here? I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to do. I’m scared and I don’t know what to do.”

  After I got through blurting all this out, I realized how bizarre and ridiculous it sounded out loud. She looked at me closely, studying me intently, probably thinking I was crazy.

  “Well, let’s see if the cards say anything,” she said as if everything I had just blurted out was nothing out of the ordinary to her and she turned over another card. “Ya not here alone, despite what ya say. The people that ya stayin’ with, they tryin’ ta help ya. Listen to them. Heed what they say.”

  Funny, those were the same words the dream man had used. I asked her, “Will I be able go home? I think I’ve been caught up in something I don’t want to be and I just want to go home now. But these people keep telling me that I can’t.”

  She turned over a few more cards. “Ya been warned wisely. Ya surrounded by danger, the only safety and protection is where ya at right now. Don’ leave, listen ta these people. The cards mention an amulet to guard ya from somethin’ truly evil.”

  “It’s this,” I said, pointing to the necklace.

  “That’s beautiful. I noticed it earlier, never seen nothin’ like it before. If that’s the amulet, ya got ta keep it on.”

  Her expression began to look worried as she continued turning over cards. “Wait. Not all the people aroun’ ya are lookin’ to ta help ya. There’s a woman. She’s bad, mighty bad. She’s dark an’ powerful an’ she means ya great harm. She’s the evil the others are tryin’ to protect ya from,” she continued reading, “But they’re weak, tiny, compared ta her. She got powers, strong powers.”

  “Have I’ve met her already?”

  “Yeah, ya have.” As she continued reading, her eyes showed disbelief. “Oh, this is bad. She don’ jus’ want to plague ya, she wants to kill ya.”

  “Is she one of the ones that don’t want me to leave?”

  “No, she wants ya to go. Leavin’ gets ya away from all protection, gets ya away from ya journey.”

  “What exactly is my journey?”

  “Not a good one,” she said, turning over all the cards but the last two. “Ya in a lot of danger, it’s everywhere, all aroun’ ya, everyplace ya turn. The dark woman, she’s a vile one, she’s the cause of it all. I see lots of tricks, lots o’ tricks, lots o’ darkness.” She looked nervous as she turned over the next to the last card, “Ya surrounded by evil. Potent evil.”

  “How does it end?” I urged her on, although her apprehension was growing. She was becoming visibly distressed.

  Before she could turn over the last card she jumped up suddenly and walked anxiously over to the door. “I feel it, it’s comin’. Ya must leave. Now.” She walked quickly over to the door, opening it.

  “What’s coming? How does this end?” I implored her. “What must I do?”

  “Get out! Leave before it finds me, before it gets here!”

  I grabbed my purse, trembling, and walked over to her. “But I haven’t even paid you yet.”

  “Leave!” she screamed, horrified, as she forced me out of the door, slammed it shut behind me and locked it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  From the sidewalk, I stared at the tea room’s closed door in shock. What I thought might be a vehicle for some advice to help guide me through the mire in which I’d landed turned out instead to be merely one more source of alarm. Even more frightened and confused than I was before I’d entered the shop, I began to meander the streets, heading nowhere, neither looking nor caring where I was going. I walked in a daze with nothing on my mind except the unreality of my circumstances and the bizarre, outlandish situation that had sought me out. I was consumed by the possibility that it might be true, that I really was under attack and that my death would most likely be sooner and more grizzly than I’d ever imagined. I didn’t realize that I’d been walking around in circles until I roused myself from this morbid preoccupation and found I’d taken a longer than necessary route to Jackson Square, for I had found my way to the Vieux Carré on autopilot. Crossing the pedestrian walkway portion of Chartres, I walked between the impressive St. Louis Cathedral and the gated park, heading toward the Frenc
h Market. My wits now returned to me quickly, as if I had just awakened from a fever dream. What silliness, I thought, to put such credence into the words of two odd strangers and a fortune teller. For the moment it was convenient for me to discount any events that I could not explain.

  For the first time today, I was aware enough of the real world to be able to take in some of the beauty that I’d come to the city to see. Life, in the Quarter, at least, seemed to have returned to normal, the devastation of Hurricane Katrina half a decade ago no longer visible to the naked eye. The sidewalk artists were out once again en masse with their city and bayou scenes, their portraits and caricatures. Very little seemed to have changed here, at least publicly, since I last visited, except that some of the art was a little bit more contemporary. At the far end of the Jackson Square fence, I turned left and crossed to the other side of St. Anne. At the light, I crossed Decatur Street, with its traffic of cars sharing the road with colorful horse-drawn carriages slowly going about their tours. I stepped up the steps and found solace in the shade of the awning of the Café du Monde. I’d had my heart set on washing down a plate full of powder sugar-dusted beignets with a cup of New Orleans coffee and chicory for so very long.

  No tables were empty but at least I was the only one in line. For this time of day, it was busy, much busier than I remembered from those family day trips so long ago. Soon, I spied a couple leaving a table near the street with a good view of the square and I hustled over to it just as they walked away. I suppose I should have waited for it to be cleared before being seated, for the dirty dishes they left behind undid what very little appetite I had. I needed to sit down, though, because my exercise in denial was beginning to wear off and the gravity of my current situation was reasserting itself. I needed a place out of the crowd to be able to stop and sit and think for a while and even though it wasn’t cleared, this table afforded me a perfect place to try to sort out today’s upsetting and bewildering events. It felt good to get off my feet and I realized that this was the first chance I’d had to reflect on anything since I got off the airplane. There’d been too many bizarre occurrences since I’d arrived. The ride on the plane now seemed ages ago: it was so hard to believe now that it had only been a few hours earlier. I needed to examine my own thoughts and instincts. I needed to try to figure out this insanity. In a few minutes a waitress came over after taking orders from several other customers, cleared off the table without really looking at me and wiped up the powered sugar from the tabletop.

  “So you know what you want?”

  I looked at the menu printed on the side of the restaurant napkin holder. “An order of beignets and a café au lait, please.” My voice came out sounding a lot more strained than I’d intended.

  “Be right back,” she said efficiently. Plates and cups on her tray, she hurried toward the kitchen.

  From my seat facing Jackson Square I looked over at the Vieux Carre, listening to the lazy hooves of its horse-drawn carriages and for a moment got a rest from my fears as I remembered how much I loved New Orleans and how much I had missed her. I was thankful that the French Quarter had escaped the brunt of the destruction that had taken other parts of the city, for it was good for my soul to be around such an old section of a city in a country that had spared so little of its history in favor of bland newness. I was grateful that some sections of New Orleans had returned to normalcy, even though I knew that the city as a whole, sadly, might never be the same again. If I ever made it through this nightmare, I vowed never to go so long again before coming back to visit. It bathed my spirit to see something normal and beautiful after the ordeal I had just been through. I took a few deep breaths and tried to gather my thoughts.

  The scenery helped me put my uneasiness aside for a moment, allowing me to analyze this insane scenario rationally, from all angles. The events happening my life at the moment were incredibly unreal. Unreal? Hell, why mince words? This whole mess was a freaking nightmare, wasn’t it, reaching out to grab me, trying to pull me into itself. Fear tried to take hold, but I managed to calm myself. Whatever it was, I couldn’t afford think of it in such extreme terms. I couldn’t give it the “nightmare” label. I knew I’d just freak out if I did and I had to keep some kind of control in a situation in which I seemed to have absolutely no control whatsoever. There simply had to be a rational explanation for it all, there just had to be. I couldn’t take anything that had happened today on face value; the implications were just too terrifying.

  Besides, things like this just didn’t happen in real life. There just had to be another answer, one that made sense. None of this madness could be real. It went against all reason. People just didn’t go on vacation and find themselves in the middle of some outlandish occult game, did they? Of course not. But it seemed to be happening to me, didn’t it? Nothing since my arrival in the Big Easy had made any sense, especially not the episode at the realtor’s office. The amazing disappearing people were none too normal, either. Who were those two anyway, the leaflet guy and the woman at the apartment? What did he say her name was, Virginia? The way they disappeared so quickly, could they have been ghosts? I’d heard that New Orleans had its fair share of ghosts, but I’d never heard of ghosts being quite so solid or quite so verbal. There had to be a logical explanation.

  Were those two merely illusionists using nothing more exotic than misdirection and magician’s tricks to pull some sort of scam? That didn’t make any sense, though, since scam artists stole things from you, they didn’t give you unsolicited jewelry and then disappear. I touched the necklace. It was real. I didn’t know much about jewelry, but this was no dime-store trinket, that was for sure. And what about the occurrence at the tea room, was that real, too? It must have been because I’d never heard of a fortune teller chasing off a customer like that, let alone before getting paid. All three people were scared away by something of which I wasn’t aware, something that was off my radar. Had they really been frightened or was that also just an act? Maybe the whole lot of them were connected, sucking me into some type of elaborate scam. But what would they have to gain? Maybe the necklace was hot and my only purpose was to get it out of the city; but the leaflet guy warned me not to leave the city, so that couldn’t possibly be it. Maybe I was supposed to get the necklace out of the apartment so that someone else could rob me of it later. That made more sense, in which case I should go straight to the police. However, that didn’t explain the card reader. Even if her prediction turned out to be a load of hooey, the fear that provoked her to kick me out of the tea room was very real. Besides, she didn’t know who I was; she hadn’t approached me, I had approached her. Even with that glitch, though, the logic that the fortuneteller and the others were con artists sounded much more sensible.

  Despite having come to a somewhat reasonable conclusion, I still wasn’t satisfied. The whole damn thing continued to dog me. My erstwhile explanation did not ring true in my gut. No matter how hard I tried to convince myself into thinking that my world was normal and I was just being upset by a gang of con artists, it didn’t feel right. I couldn’t shake off or explain the hallucinations that I’d had in the realtor’s office; they had been just too incredibly concrete. Maybe I’d been drugged. Unless I’d been hit by a dart from a hidden sniper’s blowgun in that office, a thought so unlikely that it made me laugh to think about it, I didn’t see how I could have been. I didn’t eat or drink anything there. And as intense as the hallucinations had been, I’d never heard of any drug that could have worn off so completely, been so immediately, when faced with the simple distraction of an uninvited visitor, Troy, in this case, entering the room. A horrible new thought entered my brain. I was assuming the drug had worn off. Maybe it hadn’t. I shuddered at the thought that maybe none of this was real. What if I wasn’t sitting here at all and I was still in Rochere’s office? What if everything since I had entered that office was all part of the same hallucination? Maybe Troy, the apartment, the woman Virginia, the necklace, the guy with the leaflets, the for
tuneteller, all of them, were still a part of the same hallucination. Maybe I’d been drugged and was still hallucinating. In actuality, that was the most probable rationale. None of this was real. It just couldn’t be.

  The waitress came back with my order and I paid her. She glanced at me and for the first time she smiled.

  “Wow, that is a great necklace. Where’d you get it?”

  “Here in the city.” I said, not knowing what else to say.

  “What shop?”

  “Somebody gave it to me.”

  “Nice somebody,” she said. “I wish I had a somebody like that,”

  Oh, no you don’t, I thought as she walked off.

  So she had noticed the necklace. That was interesting. Was she a part of my massive hallucination as well? If I was still hallucinating and if this was all an illusion, then I didn’t have anything to worry about. I’d just ride it out and eventually whatever drug was in my system would wear off and then I would call Carolyne to come get me and take me home if I couldn’t manage under my own steam. The other possibility was that it was a con game and if it turned out to be a scam, I’d just call the police. There now, both of these possible scenarios had a solution.

  Automatically, I poured sugar into my coffee and stirred it. Then I picked it up, took a large gulp, quickly grabbed a napkin and spit it out. That was scalding hot, that was real, my mouth was in real pain. No dream or hallucination that I’d ever had, not even the one in Rochere’s office when I was being choked, hurt that sharply. Only reality was so acute. Okay, so now this was either real or a con game. That was one option down.

  The third and last possibility terrified me so much that I didn’t even want to think about it. What if this wasn’t a snow job, what if it was all real? This hunk of jewelry around my neck was the only real proof that any of these events had actually happened. As I absentmindedly fingered the necklace while I thought, I could have sworn that I felt it move slightly beneath my touch, much like a sleeping dog responding to a caress without actually waking, almost as if to let me know that I was on the right track now.