“You’ve got to get treatment,” she said.
“That won’t help. If I repress this, I risk cutting myself off from my creative flow, the thing that makes me able to do my work. My mind has to break out somehow. My sleep disturbances are the expression of—”
“I don’t care what they are! It’s got to stop!”
“I have a problem I’m trying to solve, and you’re only making it worse. You’re disappointed in me, you think you made a mistake, and I’m picking that up.” He got to his feet slowly. “You could ease me, but you don’t really want to help—you’re just thinking of yourself. You’d rather blame me for what’s wrong with you.” He turned off the light, stumbled back to bed, and lay down next to her; within moments, he was snoring softly.
She looked down at him, appalled. His unconscious had clearly spewed out that nonsense and had done so without a single cryptic word or demented shriek. His lips moved, as if he were confirming her suspicions.
Carla managed to catch up on some of her sleep that weekend during the day, while enduring Ted’s restlessness at night. Feeling somewhat restored, she decided to take Ted—or his unconscious—at his word. She would solve the problem by trying to soothe him before he slept.
Their evening routine changed. Ted was often home late, but she forced herself to greet him cheerfully and prepared foods that would not give him indigestion. She offered him Ovaltine or brandy before he slept and gave him alcohol rubs before helping him on with his pajamas. She brought a cassette player and tapes designed to produce soothing sounds for insomniacs. She had sex with him even when she wasn’t in the mood in the hope that this might drain some of his nocturnal energy.
Yet after a week, she saw no results. Ted cried out and sleepwalked through the house as much as before. She not only had the task of getting him up in the morning, but also the additional work of preparing him for bed, with nothing to show for her efforts except her own increasing fatigue. Her resentment blossomed, flowering fully inside her while she lay at his side, and somehow he sensed it. She would expect him to jump from the bed and he would leap to the floor; she would wait for his shrieks and incoherent babbling and then hear them. She was afraid of her own thoughts, fearful that the undercurrents in her mind were washing over him in spite of everything she did.
His unconscious, it seemed, was not going to let her off so easily. He had enslaved her, had her tied to a leash. She was exhausted by the effort of catering to him in the feeble hope of winning just a few uninterrupted hours of sleep. She had been making more mistakes at the bank and worried that she might finally lose her job. Maybe Ted secretly wanted that; if she were unemployed, she could sleep during the day and have more time to tend to him.
Her experiment ended nine nights after it began, when Ted leaped out of bed, picked up the cassette player emitting the calming sounds of a seashore, and hurled it against the wall.
This can’t go on, Carla thought as she crept into the guest bedroom, feeling like a traitor. She had barely enough energy to set the alarm clock before she collapsed on top of the bedspread. She could get up and have Ted’s juice ready before he awoke, and he might not notice that she had abandoned him. She no longer cared what he thought about separate bedrooms; it was time for drastic measures.
They could, of course, separate. The problem was that she didn’t want to leave him. She still loved him, she supposed; she also did not care to give his mother the chance to say that she had been right about Carla all along. Her enemy wasn’t Ted, but whatever was buried inside him; she had to find a way to fight it.
On the other hand, she thought sourly, maybe she was simply going crazy from lack of sleep, was beginning to believe he could pick up every angry, unspoken thought. She curled up, already missing his presence at her side.
Feet pounded down the hall; the door was abruptly flung open. “What?” Ted cried out. Carla sighed; she should have known she wouldn’t escape him here. “What’s going on?” He leaped toward the bed and hovered over her.
Her mouth was dry, her eyelids gritty; she could barely lift her head. You won’t beat me, a voice inside her whispered; I won’t let you.
Ted cocked his head, as though listening to someone.
You won’t make me give up, the voice continued. If you break me, or force me to leave, Ted will deal with you. He’ll get depressed, and he’ll probably start drinking or taking tranquilizers just to put you in your place. You’ll be sorry you ever started this, and he’ll begin to hate you. And don’t think you can send him after me, either—I’ll hide out if I have to. See how you like sending him across town in his sleep.
She was surprised by the forcefulness of this internal voice; it hardly seemed part of her. Go to bed, she thought fiercely, if you know what’s good for you.
Ted suddenly turned and left the room.
She recalled what he had said about repressing what was in him, but barely had time to consider that, or to savor her triumph, before falling asleep.
Carla started at the sound of the alarm. She stirred, realizing that she had actually slept. She shut off the alarm before creeping silently down the hall.
Ted lay on their bed with one arm around her pillow. She touched his shoulder. “Ted, wake up.” She remembered how he had left her the night before, as if responding to her unspoken command, and shook her head; that had probably been a coincidence.
When she returned with his orange juice, he had actually opened his eyes; he almost seemed alert. He grabbed the juice and drank it in one gulp, then reached for her arm; his brown eyes gleamed. “We’ve got time,” he said. “How about a quickie?”
She was too startled to protest.
Her apprehension returned that night as they were preparing for bed. Ted had been unusually pleasant that evening, had even suggested that he might give up his football game that Saturday to view fall foliage with her and to take her out to dinner. The offer made her suspicious; perhaps his other self was simply setting her up, preparing to retaliate.
But she had a plan of action now. Her suppositions about the cause of his disturbances had seemed ridiculous during the day, but darkness gave them more credibility.
Ted pounded at his pillow, then stretched out next to her. Carla waited until she was sure he was asleep before summoning her thoughts. You’ll sleep soundly, she told him silently; you won’t be restless, and you are not going to disturb me.
He moaned, as if trying to fight her; she seemed to feel his resistance. You’re going to stay still, she thought firmly, or you know what will happen. I won’t let you ruin my nights any more; you’ll only hurt Ted, and then he’ll do something about you. See if he finds anyone else who’ll put up with this. It’s time you found out who’s in command, and it won’t be you. Wake me up once more, and I walk.
Ted moaned again, but more softly. He was struggling against her; she felt him straining at her thoughts. Lie still, she ordered. His head jerked, as though she had pulled an invisible leash, and then he was still.
Carla opened her eyes. Ted wasn’t next to her. She sat up and noticed that it was nearly time to get out of bed; as she shut off the alarm, Ted walked into the bedroom with a tray. “Good morning,” he said cheerily as he set down the tray next to her. Before she could speak, he had entered the bathroom. She stared at the tray in amazement; he had not only made juice and coffee, but had provided hot cereal as well.
By the time she had finished her breakfast, Ted was getting dressed. “Good thing I got up early,” he said as he buttoned his shirt. “I’ll have time to make some notes before I go. Listen—instead of staying home tonight, why don’t we go over to the mall and see a movie?”
She blinked. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”
“Never felt better. Maybe we can go to Chase’s after the movie—I heard the new band’s pretty good.” His brown eyes seemed alert—almost manic, in fact—yet his mouth hung open a little; she had seen similar expressions only when he was sleepwalking or babbling at her in
the night. He pulled on his jacket. “Got to make those notes!” He bounded toward the door in a leap that made her think of one of his nocturnal jumps. She suddenly wondered if he was awake at all.
Doubt clouded her mind for only a moment. If Ted were going to sleep peacefully, it was only natural that he would be more lively during the day. Chances were that his problem had disappeared by itself; it was silly to think that she had caused this change.
She picked up the tray and walked down the hall to the kitchen. Ted sat at the counter with a note pad and a mug of coffee. As he looked up at her, she had the feeling that someone else was peering through his eyes. She recalled that he was going to have some sort of meeting today and that he was planning to ask for a raise. It had better go well, she thought idly; we can use the money.
“I’m pretty sure I’ll get that raise now,” he said, “and we can use the money.”
She started, then steadied herself. Something tugged at her mind; she felt herself gripping her mental leash. I’ve won, she thought. It didn’t matter how, as long as they were both happy. She had what she wanted, didn’t she?
He bolted up from the counter and grabbed her around the waist, swinging her across the floor with one arm. “Ted!” she cried.
“What?” he responded. “What?!” She heard the voice she had listened to so often during the past nights. “I think it’s time to cut loose a little, don’t you?”
She knew she should feel grateful for the victory, but as she thought of the energetic Ted who was likely to greet her that evening, she was already feeling exhausted.
Outside the Windows
A diner next to a gas station was the small town’s only bus stop. John gazed out of his window as the driver paced near the bus. No passengers had boarded here. The driver stomped out his cigarette, then climbed back inside.
Three boys raced across the two-lane road, followed by an unleashed collie. There was little traffic here; John had seen only three cars and a panel truck moving along the street. People, he thought, should be more careful anyway. Letting dogs off their leashes was risky, and lots of children had never been taught to cross roads safely.
A white Victorian house marked the edge of the town. The bus rolled on, then passed a sign marking the way back to the interstate. John was sure the driver usually took that turn, but instead the bus continued along the narrow road. He had not taken this particular bus in over a year, but couldn’t see why the company would change the route. The interstate would get the bus to its final destination in two hours; this old road would add at least one more hour to the trip.
“Don’t know the way,” a stocky gray-haired man sitting across the aisle muttered. His companion, an old bald man in a plaid shirt, nodded glumly. The stocky man leaned toward John. “That driver don’t know the way,” he continued. “Missed his turn.”
“Are you sure?” John asked. “Maybe they changed the route.”
“Make no sense to change the route.” The man leaned back in his seat and folded his arms; the bald man next to him scowled. Apparently neither of them was going to alert the driver to his error, however annoyed they might be. This road would get them to where they were going, and they did not look like men with pressing engagements. John peered up the aisle. A big auburn-haired woman was the passenger nearest the driver, but from the way her head was lopsidedly resting against her seat, he guessed that she was asleep.
The driver probably was lost. It wouldn’t surprise him; the company had been bringing in drivers from other parts of the country to take the places of those still on strike. John was fairly certain that they would soon come to another sign directing them to the interstate, and that the driver would realize his mistake then.
The sun was dropping toward the western hills; the trees were beginning to show red and orange foliage. A wooded slope suddenly blocked his view. On the interstate, the countryside had seemed spacious, the towns only distant clusters of buildings nestled in hollows. Along this winding road, the hills were barriers hiding what lay ahead.
Air travel was bad enough, John thought, but buses were much worse, and that damned strike hadn’t helped. This trip was too short to justify a plane ticket, and the train had been discontinued some time back. He hadn’t expected much comfort, but this rattling bus with its lousy shocks should have been retired long ago. People were forced into driving cars, with so few other ways to get to where they were going. Sometimes it seemed to him that vehicles operated the people behind their wheels, rather than the other way around, that the metallic beasts had claimed the world.
The bus suddenly swerved; its horn blared. John clutched at his armrest as the trees to his left swelled; their leafy limbs reached toward him as an invisible hand threw him back. He heard a loud, wet smack against the front of the bus before the horn sounded again.
“For crying out loud,” the gray-haired man across from John shouted. The bus hurtled on for several yards, then slowed as the driver pulled over and parked along the shoulder of the narrow road. John looked down at his hands, surprised to find that they were shaking.
The driver opened the door, got up, and left the bus. The other passengers were silent. The big woman near the front of the bus was awake now, leaning across the aisle to say something to the boy in the next seat. John recalled the wet, splattering sound and closed his eyes for a moment.
“What happened?” a voice said behind him. John moved to the seat on the aisle and looked back. A young woman in a down vest and jeans was getting up from her seat; she shook back her long blonde hair. “What’s going on?”
The big auburn-haired woman rose slowly to her feet. “He hit a dog,” she announced in a hoarse voice as she turned toward the back of the bus. “A big black dog—looked like a Lab to me. Run right into him.”
“Is he hurt?” A young black woman wearing a Cornell University sweatshirt was speaking; she was sitting next to the blonde. “Is he dead?”
“I don’t know,” the big woman replied. “The way we hit him—I don’t know. He just run right out in front—didn’t look like he even saw us coming. I’ll go see.”
“I wanna see, too,” the boy near her shouted.
“Then come along.”
The boy followed the woman off the bus. The child, who looked about nine years old, was traveling by himself; John had seen a wan brown-haired woman hug him, then press a luggage claim ticket into his hand. The big woman had been keeping an eye on him since then.
“Gross,” the blonde college student murmured. John assumed that she and her sweatshirted companion were students, with their duffels, jeans, and thick economics textbooks. “Why would he want to see something like that?”
“Good thing the driver stopped,” the stocky gray-haired man said. “I thought he was just going to barrel ahead.” The bald man next to him nodded. “If he had, the state troopers would have radioed ahead and pulled him off at the next stop and we’d be sitting around for God knows how long. Guess he thought better of that. This way, we might lose an hour, maybe.”
A young man in a leather jacket came down the aisle and left the bus. “We’re going to lose more than an hour,” John said, “if that driver doesn’t get back to the highway.”
“Could be. I meant we might lose an hour on top of whatever other time we lose.”
John stood up, stretched, then decided to go outside. At this rate, he wouldn’t have time to do more than call the district manager before he went to bed. John’s supervisor sometimes kidded him about his eccentricity, as did the others in the home office. Luckily, he did not have to take that many business trips, and usually went by air when he did. It gave his co-workers something else to gossip about: his insistence on cabs rather than rented cars, the apartment he had moved into so that he would no longer have to drive to work.
John stepped down to the ground, then took a deep breath of the cool autumn air. The three passengers who had already left the bus were standing by the rear of the vehicle. Farther down the road, the bus d
river stood near a fence talking to another man. A long driveway wound up a hill toward a large gray house; John glimpsed a woman and child on the porch.
He walked toward the other passengers. “I don’t see the dog,” he said.
“He got drug off the road.” The big woman pointed. “That must be the owner. He came and drug the dog off the road—he was a Lab, sure enough.” She pulled her long brown coat more tightly around herself. “That dog’s dead.”
A gray car with emblems on its doors passed the bus, then pulled up next to the two men in the distance; a uniformed man got out. “There’s the cops,” the boy said as he tugged at his baseball cap. “What’ll they do?”
“Probably not much,” the young man in the leather jacket replied. “Ask questions, maybe write out a report.” His mouth hung open after he stopped talking, as if he had simply forgotten to close it.
“It weren’t the driver’s fault,” the woman said. “I woke up just before he hit. That dog was standing by the road, and then he run right out in front like he didn’t even see us coming. The driver tried to miss him, but he run right out in front. Must of killed him right away, the way we hit, but it really weren’t his fault.”
“He was going kind of fast.” The young man brushed back a strand of his long brown hair, then thrust his hands into his pockets.
“He weren’t going over the speed limit.”
“He was going the wrong way, though. Why didn’t he head back to the highway?”
“I would of told him to, if I’d been awake. Why didn’t somebody else pipe up?”
John wandered away from the others and their pointless discussion. The policeman was writing in a notebook; the bus driver shifted from one foot to the other as he spoke to the dog’s owner. The trees near the house swayed as the wind picked up; the woman and child who had been standing on the porch had gone inside. The child would be crying, his mother trying to console him.
Eye of Flame Page 16