The moment I thought that this environment could get no more freakish, I noticed a fog beginning to roll in. Real fear, which I’d successfully staved away thus far, finally began to grip me. Even though intellectually I knew that I was in Rochere’s realm, I’d kept up my hope that it might at least contain some occupants other than myself. What if I was wrong? I might be nowhere with nothing to guide me, nothing to look forward to, nothing to find and nothing and no one to help me on the other end if and when I ever got there. What if there was no one here except for me and I was only on a hellish road to nowhere? What if she’d brought me here only to have me die of abandonment? I suddenly realized that ever since I’d entered into this world, I had seen no evidence of animal life. I’d heard no birds, no frogs, no cicadas or crickets; as humid as it was, there weren’t even any mosquitos or tree roaches. I was terrified, I was alone, I was helpless. It was getting darker by the minute, day turning to night at least six hours prematurely.
The fog began to thicken, but I had to keep walking. I walked for what seemed like an eternity, exhaustion settling deeply into me. I walked until I had to force myself to walk; I was dead on my feet, but I was afraid to stop. If I stopped to rest, if I stopped to sleep, I would probably never get up or even wake up again. Rochere most likely would kill me in my sleep. I couldn’t die here. I couldn’t face the thought of staring at death when I was so completely lost, so entirely alone in this strange dimension so foreign to the one in which I was born.
Putting one foot in front of the other became the entire focus of my life. Nothing seemed to be changing. While I was afraid of night falling, the half-twilight that had come upon me so quickly didn’t seem to be getting any darker but seemed instead static. However, the thickening fog made it harder and harder for me to see where I was going and soon I could not see beyond roughly twenty feet, although I was so tired that I kept my head down most of the time anyway. Whenever I felt strong enough to look up, while I could still see a little way up the road, it was never far enough to tell whether I was nearing a town or an encampment, if one even did exist. I wondered again if this world without color had any other occupants. What if there wasn’t any life other than plant life here? My exhaustion forced these questions to loom ever larger over me. Was I really as alone as I felt? Had Rochere already found an easier way to capture the amulet and did she bring me here just to die? Or was fear rather than death the effect she was really trying to engender?
Just as I began to sink further and further into despair, I looked up just in time to notice that the dirt road upon which I traveled now forked into two separate directions.
“Oh, crap!” I said aloud with the most energy I’d been able to muster in at least three miles. I didn’t even know where I was. How was I supposed to know which fork to take? Why now I was being forced to make a choice in my exhaustion? I decided to go left, for it was slightly straighter route. It seemed like a little less work; it probably wouldn’t matter anyway.
I had not quite reached the fork when I heard the sound of dull scuffling on the dirt road. I had prayed for signs of life, but this was not a noise signaling any life I wanted to meet. It didn’t really sound human, so my mind went into overdrive trying to imagine its source. I stopped and listened carefully. It didn’t sound much like an animal either. I wanted to run but I couldn’t figure out yet which fork from which it was coming. I realized that sound was somewhat muffled in this realm as well.
I listened hard, mustering up my last reserves to run, if I had to, away from whatever was making that noise. The choice of which fork I should take seemed to have been made for me. I stood still, straining to hear which direction to avoid. The sound repeated. Was it coming from the right fork? Yes, I decided, it was definitely coming from there. I began to gather my energy to run past the fork and down the left road, but before I could, a shape emerged from the mist. It was a man. I wasn’t alone here after all. I didn’t know whether to be afraid or relieved, for I did not know if he was friend or foe. As he came nearer, I noticed that he was even weaker than myself, barely hanging on and walking with a scraping, shuffling motion. He seemed quite hurt, without the strength even to pick up his feet as he walked. He was in bad shape and I felt sorry for him.
“Hello?” I ventured timidly, still very apprehensive.
“Help me.” he murmured weakly.
“I don’t know how to help you. I’m completely lost. Do you know where we are? Is there help somewhere near? I can’t help you unless you can tell me.”
He kept shuffling toward me. I could barely see him because of the fog; I had little to help me judge whether I should help or run.
“Help me,” he said again.
“I’d like to but I don’t know where I am. I’m lost,” I reiterated. “Are you lost too?”
He didn’t answer but instead staggered closer until he was only a couple of yards away, close enough now for me to see more of his face through the mist. I searching for an expression, a clue to see whether he was dangerous or not, whether I should run or stay, but there was none. His face was vacant. I knew he could see me, because he had spoken to me and was walking in my direction, but his eyes were dark and lacked focus as he kept shuffling toward me in his stumbling motion.
“Help me.”
There was something about his limp, lifeless stagger and his old, torn, frayed clothes that frightened me horribly but there was a sincere, pathetic tone to his weak, raspy voice that made me believe that he was truly in dire need of help. Perhaps he also was one of Rochere’s victims, stranded here the same way I had been. He was moving slowly enough that I would have time to make it past the fork and run if he threatened me. I was afraid, but I didn’t know whether it was he that was making me skittish or whether it was the atmosphere and the situation. I edged away from him anyway, to the other side of the road and past the fork, my instincts torn between trying to do something to help and running away. He slowly came closer. Deciding to take no chance, I was poised to run.
“Who are you, sir?” I asked, inching away. “I told you that I don’t think I can help you, since I don’t know where I am. Sorry, I really wish I could.”
“Help me,” was all he said as he came nearer. I began to walk away, not turning my back on him.
“Help me,” he repeated over and over as he continued walking toward me, shuffling so very slowly.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up as he came close enough for me to see him really clearly for the very first time. There was something extraordinarily unhealthy about him. His eyes were glazed over, his eye sockets and his cheeks were sunken, he had open sores in his flesh and when he opened his mouth to speak his only words “help me”, his teeth were rotten. My nerves immediately jumped to red alert, shrieking in danger. I turned to flee, but before I could actually break into that run, he sprang at me with more speed than I would have thought possible, touching my right forearm lightly with his index finger, the spot turning cold immediately. While I’d never touched liquid nitrogen, I could imagine that it would have much the same effect upon my skin. The spot was beyond cold, it was completely frozen. The cold spread quickly to my surrounding skin and my entire right hand went numb. Stunned, I looked at the man. His head was tilted back and his eyes were rolling up into his head. A lazy, erotic smile crossed his ugly mouth, a blackened tongue licking his lips as drool seeped from the corners. A grotesque “Ahh” sound issued from his throat. If I hadn’t known better, I would have taken him to be a long-time junky in the grip of narcotic euphoria, the aftermath of a hit that he needed more than life itself.
I had barely enough time register what had just transpired when I heard more scuffling sounds coming from the same direction that he had. “Help me,” came more cries from more mouths. Terror seeping into my heart, I quickly realized that there was more than just one “me”. The first man was still in the throws of his obscene ecstasy, but more were coming. I broke into a run, racing as fast as I could, my tiredness left behind as self
-preservation kicked my adrenals into high gear. I hoped all the while that whatever these creatures were, they would be confined to the right fork in the road and that I would encounter none of them up ahead. The fog got even thicker, until I could see less than four feet in front of me. All I could do was to keep running because I could hear the discordant chorus of the creatures behind me, who were turning out to be, while not swift, certainly faster than I’d expected. I ran as fast as I could, stumbling through the fog as tree limbs grabbed at my hair and forced me to stop for the few precious seconds that it took to rip my hair free with my good left hand. No matter how fast I tried to run, I could still hear them behind me, their faint groans of “help me, help me” taunting me, knowing that if they ever caught up with me, I would be dead. At one point, I stumbled over a log left in the middle of the road and went tumbling. Under any other circumstances, I was so spent and so exhausted that I would have just stopped and not been able to get up again, but knowing what was behind me supplied me with a fresh dose of sheer adrenaline. In the minutes that it took for me to scramble to my feet, aided by my good arm, I could hear the parasites coming closer and closer; they seemed to be right behind me. Again I bolted, not running toward anything, only away from the terror that lurked behind me. Eventually, exhaustion triumphed and I began to slow down. While the creatures were relatively slow and, under normal circumstances, easy to outrun, their persistence was relentless, for they showed no signs of slowing down or giving up on their single-minded pursuit of me, their prey. I was hurt, my legs were giving out and my efforts to escape were becoming increasingly useless. I knew I had little left to give and I wondered how much my body would take until they froze me to death from the “hits” they took from my life force.
Eventually I could run no more and was forced to slow to a walk. I heard their voices growing nearer as they began to catch up to me. I pushed myself to go on, but I felt my body on the verge of giving into complete collapse. I walked as fast as I could, but it soon became only a slow walk, a stumble that probably looked quite similar to my pursuers’ scuffling movements. Eventually, I fell. Nothing tripped me this time, my legs simply gave out. As I could hear their murmurs of “help me” coming closer and closer, I realized there was nothing I could do this time except wait here and let them get me. I was the hunted; the hunters had won and the pack was getting ready to rip me to shreds. I looked up for one last glance at whatever world this was. The fog had lifted greatly and I realized that I was lying at the edge of the forest, right in front of a sprawling yard leading up to a large plantation home. Hope leapt into my heart. Maybe someone lived there! Maybe someone actually alive lived there! But what did it matter, for I was spent and didn’t have it in me even to rise from the ground. The little dragon on my necklace began to vibrate and I thought once more of Edmond and all the hopes he had pinned on me. I’m sorry, Edmond, I thought, giving up. I let you down. I let everybody down. As the sounds of the ghouls behind me came closer and closer, out of nowhere a last burst of survival energy shot through me and I managed to make it to my feet. To my left, I saw the hand of one of them out of the corner of my eye. I screamed as I put everything that I had left into gaining the speed I needed to elude the slow yet persistent pursuers. I ran, staggering up the stone pathway that led to the front door, not daring to look back or left or right, knowing that the creatures were close behind me. The mansion felt so far away and I felt as if I were running in a dream, my legs seemed to be caught in glue. I had almost no reserves left, but I had to make it. My life depended on it. Finally, after what seemed like forever, I made it to the front steps, climbed them, the four feeling like forty, crossed the porch and banged on the door.
“Help me! Help me!” I screamed at the top of my voice, pounding the door relentlessly. “Please, please let me in! Somebody, open the door! They’re after me! They’re going to kill me! Help! Please help! Please let me in!”
But there was no answer. The door remained shut.
“Let me in! Let me in! Please! Please! Please!”
I fell to my knees, leaning my face against the door, sobbing uncontrollably, seized by a terror beyond death. I looked behind me and there was a horde of the creatures, slowly, surely circling in on me.
“Let me in!” I screamed, an animal scream that didn’t even sound human. “Let me in! Let me in!”
I heard the boards of the stairs creak as the first of the ghouls made its way toward me. I felt the icy, freezing cold of its touch as my left leg went numb. A few moments later, a second ghoul touched my right leg. I surrendered to trauma shock.
Just then, the door that I’d been leaning against opened and I fell, face first, into a room and passed out.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I was greeted by a dark, frozen universe when I awoke. I was unbearably cold and more ill than I had ever been in my entire life, for this was worse by far than the even the vile after-effects of Rochere’s fluorescent poison. I had no idea of where I was or how I’d gotten here. I needed to get up, to examine my surroundings, to find out whether I was still in imminent danger, but when I tried, I found that I could not move at all, not even to open my eyes and look around. I struggled a second time, again with no success. It was then I realized that somehow I’d been paralyzed, a thought that terrified me beyond belief. I tried to comprehend my situation, my rational mind once again fighting to remain in control, noting that while my body greatly lacked feeling, it was not so numb that I could not feel the trickles of sweat running down the sides of my face. How I could possibly be sweating, I wondered, when I was freezing?
I then heard garbled sounds around me, followed by incomprehensible voices speaking only static. I listened hard, but could comprehend no words at all; I supposed that my ears must be frozen along with the rest of my body. There were obviously other people in the room with me now, but who were they? A horrible thought crossed my mind. Could it possibly be those terrible creatures returning to finish me off entirely? Or had Rochere come back to gloat at my misery? I panicked. The necklace! Was I still wearing the necklace? Or had someone snatched it from me while I was unconscious? I was helpless; I couldn’t even move to check for it. If I still had it on, why wasn’t it making me feel stronger and helping me heal like Edmond said it would? I missed him terribly. I knew that if he had been able to enter into this twisted realm, he would have visited and healed me in my oblivion. More than ever, I grasped the dismal reality that I was completely on my own in this malignant realm.
Before I could dwell on the situation any longer, something wet was put to my lips. It felt incredibly good and my body longed to take it, but I knew I had to resist. In so doing, I found that I could move the tiniest bit, because, without effort, I was able to close my lips tightly enough to keep the liquid out. The wet object was taken away, followed by more unintelligible voices. My previous thoughts returned to bother me but for only a moment more because my illness mounted; copious sweat poured from my pores as I became even colder than I’d been before. Without Edmond here to help me, I wondered if I would soon die. Fortunately, I did not have to endure my suffering long, for exhaustion overcame me and I fell back into unconsciousness, too sick to remain awake, too sick to care about anything.
After a dreamless sleep, how long I did not know, I reawakened. I was still frozen and could not move, I still felt sick, but I no longer felt terminal. One part of my body had begun to thaw almost imperceptibly: the top of my chest where the little dragon lay. I knew now that I still wore the necklace; I could be thankful at least for that. Edmond was right after all, it did help me when I needed it. I gradually became aware again of the low, rustling sounds around me and the soft murmurs of the voices but now they were more than static. This time I could make them out and, with effort, I could understand.
“Do you think she’ll live?” the voice, so far away I could barely hear it, sounded female.
“I don’t know,” a male voice said. She’s really bad off and I don’t know what’s wrong
with her. She’s cold as ice and extremely dehydrated. It’s been three days already and she’s still not coming around. I don’t know what else to do. She needs the water. If she would just take the water, I know she would get better, but she keeps resisting.”
I’m here, I can hear you, I said in my head. I tried to open my mouth to speak, but couldn’t. I tried to open my eyes or move my head, but I had no more luck at that than I did before. I’ve been turned to stone, I thought, somehow, I’ve been turned to stone.
The man spoke again. “Here, you must take some of this,” softly, gently, he implored. “Just a little. It will help you, it will heal you. It’s water, please take some.”
A wet cloth was put to my lips which were so parched that some of the liquid soaked immediately into my skin. It felt wonderful. I was so thirsty, so incredibly thirsty. Nevertheless, I had to keep resisting. My body might be frozen, but my mind was still aware enough to remember who I was and why I was here and that I needed to avoid drinking anything at all. I clung to the hope that all I needed to do was to be able to stay put for a few more days while not ingesting the liquid these people were trying to give me. It would be hard to turn it down because I was so dreadfully parched, but Edmond had promised me that the amulet would give me the strength and sustenance I needed. If he was right, I did not have to surrender in order to survive. An unwelcome sliver of uncertainty crossed my mind because I wondered if that sustenance included my current situation. I seriously doubted that Edmond had taken into account the creatures that attacked me. If he had known about them, I was sure he would have warned me of their existence and to run if I saw them. I was sure that their creation must have been one of the new surprises that Rochere had kept hidden from him. I pushed this thought aside because it frightened me. The only way I could keep going was to hope that the damage these new creatures had inflicted upon me was not beyond the scope of the talisman’s ability to heal. I had to trust that it would appease my thirst as soon as it could because their water, any water, was becoming harder and harder to resist. I could resist it this time, I could remain stalwart this one time, I convinced myself, recognizing that I would have to tell myself this very same thing each and every time any liquid was put to my lips. If these people would simply leave me alone for just a little while longer, I was confident that the necklace would have a chance to cure enough of my paralysis to enable me to talk, to communicate to them that I was getting better on my own. I also had to believe that the amulet would assuage my thirst once that task was done. Then I heard a door open; someone new had entered the room.
The Nightmare Game Page 21