by L. J. Smith
A cockroach, flat and brown. But it was huge, far larger than Jenny’s foot. It crawled languidly out of the floor vent, squirming through somehow, its barbed back legs catching on the metal louvers. Its feet made soft ticking sounds on the paper debris.
Summer gave a reedy shriek and pointed at it. Then another one came out of the vent, and another. Summer’s pointing finger became a shaky blur.
Jenny reached for a water glass to revive her and snatched her hand back. The glass was jam-packed with crickets, antennae twitching delicately.
Summer saw it. She stopped pointing and went still.
Smaller roaches emerged from a discarded candy box, the frilly paper cups crinkling as the bugs crept out.
Summer’s face was so white there were blue patches under her eyes.
Iridescent green beetles the size of footballs began to climb the walls. They flexed their chitinous outer wings, their membranous inner wings hanging out like dragging petticoats.
Summer stood like a statue of ice.
Jenny looked up. A dozen brown moths as big as small kites were clinging flat to the ceiling, their dark-spotted wings outstretched.
“Come on, Summer, help us!” Audrey said in a fear-clotted voice as she raked at the trash. Disturbed ants swarmed out of it, forming thick trails like black waterfalls over the debris.
Summer didn’t move. She was staring at one of the hard-shelled beetles like a witless rabbit caught in a headlight.
The ground rocked beneath Jenny’s feet.
At first she thought it was some effect of the garbage shifting. Then she remembered: “She said it looked like an earthquake hit it. . . .”
“We have to hurry!” she shouted at the same time as Dee yelled, “Go, go!”
They were clawing through the garbage now, tearing just enough away from the wall to reveal cracked and peeling wallpaper, to make sure there was no door. They climbed on the smaller mounds, wading through them.
The ground shook again.
The whisper of terror inside Jenny had become a scream.
“Hurry,” she gasped, clearing refuse with sweeps of her arms. “Hurry, hurry . . .”
The towering piles of rubbish quaked.
They were all working frenetically, even Michael. Only Summer stood rooted in horror.
“The door!” Dee shouted, from the top of a pile.
Jenny’s head snapped up. Relief flooded through her. Barely visible above a stinking pile she could see the rectangular molding of the door.
“It opens in,” Audrey said. “We have to get all this stuff out of the way.”
They scrambled over each other, ripping at the pile. A cockroach climbed onto Jenny’s foot; she kicked it off. Time to scream later.
The room shook again. Jenny looked up and her breath hissed in. There were ominous cracks in the ceiling.
At that moment Dee and Michael cleared the last rubble from the door.
With a thankful sob Jenny helped them pull it open.
Then she turned to look back.
What she saw wasn’t anybody’s room. It was Hell. There were huge cracks in the floor with monstrous, mutant bugs crawling out. The ceiling was buckling and plaster was filtering down. The moths, disturbed, were fluttering through the air, their wings making a sound like huge cards shuffling. And sprouting like grotesque anemones among the refuse were objects Jenny didn’t recognize. They looked like drooping sea cucumbers and they were green-gray.
Audrey and Michael had stumbled out into the hall of mirrors. Dee was holding the door. The earth rumbled again.
“Summer, come on!” Jenny shouted.
Summer turned toward her voice, her large blue eyes blind. She took a step toward Jenny.
One of the growths directly in her path straightened up. It became a column. At the top of the column there was an aperture that flared open and shut.
The aperture opened wide. A demented, obscene sound came out.
It was howling.
The other growths were straightening. The moaning siren sound doubled, tripled. They were between Summer and the door.
Summer turned and stumbled back toward the closet, shrieking.
“Summer, no! Come back!”
The ground heaved. The piles of garbage were toppling, falling into the clear path. The mutant bugs skittered around in a frenzy. They seemed to be heading toward Summer. The fungus howled.
Summer’s shrieks gave way to full-throated screaming.
“Summer!” Adrenaline kicked in and Jenny plunged into the garbage, trying to climb it.
“Jenny, come back!” Dee shouted. More rubbish fell. Jenny couldn’t see Summer at all. The screams were fading.
“Jenny, I can’t hold the door!”
The screams fell silent. Only the howling went on.
“Summer!”
The earth jerked violently.
“It’s coming down!” Dee shouted, and Jenny felt a hand grab her, pull her backward.
“No—we have to get Summer!”
“We can’t get anybody! Come on!”
“No—Summer! ” Jenny screamed, turning again.
Dee ducked and caught Jenny around the waist. Jenny found herself flying over Dee’s shoulders, out the door.
Michael and Audrey grabbed her. Through the open door Jenny saw the ceiling come down. Dee staggered out and fell beside them. Jenny didn’t have the strength to stand up.
Then the door slammed shut as the toppling piles fell against it.
“Look,” Michael said in a thick voice.
The door was disappearing.
It did a slow fade, like a still frame in a movie. It was a door, it was a slightly misty door, it was a transparent door with mirror showing through, it was a mirrored wall.
Jenny was staring wildly at her own image.
She could see the others in the mirror. Audrey was white as china. Dee’s face was gray. Michael looked numb. They huddled on the carpet, stunned.
It had happened with such terrible suddenness.
Jenny whispered, “When Dee was late coming out of Audrey’s nightmare, the door didn’t disappear. It stayed there—and she came out. But this time . . .”
“God,” said Dee in a very low voice.
There was a long silence. Audrey, finally, was the one to say the words.
“She’s dead.”
Jenny put her face in her hands. It was a gesture she would never have thought she’d use. At the moment it just happened. She wanted to hide from the world. She wanted to make everything that had happened unhappen.
“It’s not fair,” she whispered. “She never hurt anybody.” Then she was standing, shouting to the echoing hallway. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair, damn you! She didn’t deserve it! It’s not fair !”
“Jenny. Jenny, calm down—come on, now. Jenny, please—just sit down, okay?”
They were all trying to hold her. Jenny realized she wasn’t in control of herself. She was trembling violently, and her throat hurt from screaming.
As suddenly as it had come, the hysterical energy faded. Jenny felt herself falling.
They set her down.
“It’s okay,” Dee said, and Jenny felt a hand stroking her hair. At any other time it would have surprised her. Now she felt nothing. “It’s okay to be upset,” Dee said.
They didn’t understand. It was Jenny’s fault. She was the one who had gotten them into this. If she had kissed Julian in the Erlking’s cavern, she could have gotten Summer out.
As if to mock her, an unseen clock struck two. But Jenny could only sit.
CHAPTER 11
What’s taking them so long?” Dee said.
Audrey and Michael had gone off to see if they could find Zach, who they figured must be around here somewhere. Or if they could find water—or a blanket—or something—for Jenny.
Jenny was in bad shape. She was slumped against the slanting mirrored wall opposite Summer’s door—what had been Summer’s door. There wasn’t a trace of the exit
from Summer’s nightmare left, but Jenny wouldn’t leave this place.
Jenny ached. All she could think of, in between waves of grayness, was Summer. Summer had joined their group in fourth grade, after she, Tom, Dee, Zach, and Michael were already friends. Tiny, muddled, and very sweet, Summer had needed to be taken care of, and taking care was what Jenny did best.
But not this time. This time Jenny had screwed up. And Summer was gone.
Jenny still didn’t believe it had really happened. Summer would come walking out of that mirror any second now, all thistledown hair and dark blue eyes. Any second now.
Summer didn’t.
Jenny let her head drop back against the wall.
“I’m going to look for them,” Dee said. “They’ve been too long, they might be in trouble. You stay here, okay? Promise you’ll stay right here.” Her voice was slow and clear, the voice you’d use to talk to a child.
Eyes shut, Jenny made some slight motion with her head.
“Okay. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Jenny’s mind drifted back into a haze. Summer climbing a tree at camp, Summer at Newport Beach falling off a surfboard, Summer at school chewing on a pencil. Summer laughing, Summer puzzled, Summer’s blue eyes filled with tears.
She didn’t have a mean bone in her body, Jenny thought. She was a good person. Something like this can’t happen to a good person.
Can it?
She saw the flash even through closed lids.
Summer! she thought, opening her eyes. But the mirror in front of her showed only her own pale, anxious face and disarrayed hair.
Maybe it had come from the side. Which way? On her feet, Jenny looked to the right and left, dazzled by the multiple reflections. She didn’t even know which way Dee had gone.
She went right, veering back and forth around the zigzag mirrors.
Turning a corner, she saw dozens of reflections of a round blue lightbulb.
She caught her breath sharply. The blue light was on, the red button beneath it was depressed. Beside it was a dark rectangle—an open door.
Numb to caution, Jenny poked her head in. She could see only darkness inside. None of the light from the hallway seemed to penetrate.
Had Audrey and Michael gone in here? Had Dee? Could Summer—
With a click the button popped out, the door began to close. Jenny had an instant to choose: jump back or jump forward. She jumped forward.
The door slid noiselessly shut behind her, and she stared around, trying to see in the gloom. She could make out shapes like a row of shelves, something on a tripod, a tall lamp. Then she knew where she was. It was dim simply because the lights were off.
As her eyes adjusted she recognized a giant mural print on one wall. It showed cafeteria tables stacked in a glorious pyramid, one trash can on each end at each level—a marvel of engineering. Jenny knew that picture well. She, Tom, and Dee had spent an entire night stacking those tables and listening to Zach’s imperious demands for “one more shot.” It had been one of the more hysterical and terrifying adventures of their sophomore year.
This was her cousin Zach’s garage, converted into a studio. It felt almost like home—but there was no one in sight.
The darkroom, Jenny thought, and followed the special L-shaped hallway Zach had built—a light trap, he called it—to the little room nestled within the garage. She pushed aside the curtain at the entrance.
The amber safe light shone on a single figure’s back, on a flannel shirt and a casual ponytail.
“Zach!” Jenny ran to him, but he didn’t turn around. “Zach, it’s me, Jenny. Zach—what are you doing ?”
He was gently rocking a tray full of chemicals with a print in it. His body was stiff and resistant, but Jenny turned him by force. Even in this light she could see he looked—tranced. The look she’d seen first in the living room when he’d insisted on turning more game cards, and then in the parlor when all the rest of them were freaking out.
“Oh, Zach, what’s wrong with you?” she said and threw her arms around him. She’d been worried about him all night; she’d been planning to comfort him, to help. But now she didn’t have the strength. She desperately needed help herself.
He scarcely seemed to notice she was there. He pushed her away and turned back to agitating the tray.
“Zachary, did Dee come in here? Have you seen Audrey or Michael?”
His voice was slow, dragging, but matter-of-fact.
“I haven’t seen anybody. I was sitting out there. Where the mirrors are. Then I saw a flashgun go off. When I looked for it, I found a door. I pushed the button and went in.”
A flashgun—of course, that was how Zach would interpret the bursts of light in the hallway. “But what are you doing ?” Jenny said.
“It was all set up for me. The print was already in the developer.” Somewhere a timer went off, and he pulled away from Jenny’s reaching hand. “I have to rinse it now.”
Jenny blinked painfully as he turned the white light on. She watched his careful, clever fingers as he rinsed the print and plastered it wetly against the wall, standing back to evaluate it, frowning.
“Zach, please. You have to listen.” The numbness over Summer was wearing off. Zach was her blood relative, and right here, and in trouble. In this light she could see how pale his narrow face was. She could also see the fixed look in his clear gray eyes. “Don’t you realize this is your nightmare? We can’t waste time—we have to find a door to get out. Zach! ”
He pushed her away again. “I have to finish this job. I have to . . .”
She was barely in time to catch him as he collapsed. But when she did he didn’t push her away again. He clung to her like a frightened child.
“Jenny . . . sorry . . .”
“It’s okay.” She held him tightly, almost rocking him. “It’s okay, I’m here. That’s what cousins are for.”
After a minute he tried to straighten up, but she still held him, encouraging him to hold her back. She needed comfort as much as he did, and Zach had always been there for her. Before their families had moved out to California, she and Zach had lived next door to each other. They’d played Indians in the cherry orchard behind their houses. That was in the days before Zach decided he liked photographs better than people, when Zach’s gray eyes had been warm instead of winter-cool.
Her cousin’s mind was obviously following the same track. “Just like when we were kids,” he said with what was probably supposed to be a laugh.
“And you’d get all scraped up climbing trees, and we’d wash you with the hose so Aunt Lil wouldn’t get mad,” Jenny said. She laughed, herself, muffled against Zach’s shoulder. It was almost like crying. “Oh, Zach, I’m so glad I found you.”
“Me, too.” He sighed. “I’ve been feeling pretty weird.”
“Everything’s been awful,” Jenny said, and once again her voice was shaking badly. “I’ve been so scared—and now . . .”
She couldn’t bring herself to mention Summer. The words stuck in her throat.
“It’s okay,” he said. “We’re together now. We’ll make things okay.”
A hose and a Band-Aid aren’t going to help this time, Jenny thought, but it was easier just to hold on to Zach. Tighter and tighter. Exchanging comfort without words. He was stroking her hair and it felt good—soothing. She seemed to feel strength flowing from his body to hers.
And something else. A warmth that surprised her. Zach was usually so cool. Now he was holding her and caressing her almost as if she were some toddler that needed pacifying.
Or—as if he weren’t her cousin, but her boyfriend.
She pushed the thought away. Zach was just being kind. He wanted to help—and he was helping. She felt better, simply absorbing his sympathy, his affection. His—tenderness.
She leaned against him, letting him support her weight. Feeling secure. Cared for. Safe.
When he kissed the back of her neck, it was so tenderly it didn’t disturb the safe feeling. Zach was
nice. She loved him; she was happy to know he loved her.
When he kissed her again, an unexpected tremor ran through her.
Now—she wasn’t supposed to feel like that. Not with Zach. He shouldn’t—he really shouldn’t. . . .
But she didn’t want to pull away from him or spoil the moment.
His lips were warm on the back of her neck. A shock of sweetness passed through Jenny, this time too strong to be ignored. That felt—she knew she mustn’t feel that way. Her hands went up to his arms, to push at him.
“Zach,” she whispered. “I think we’re both—a little upset. We’re not ourselves.”
“I know,” Zach said, as if it hurt him. “I’m sorry—I . . .” He straightened, loosening his grip a little, but then he kissed her hair. She felt his lips moving, felt his warm breath there.
“Zachary,” she said. “It’s wrong. We’re cousins.” The problem was that although her words were strong, her voice wasn’t. She could barely breathe. And she didn’t move away.
“Half cousins,” he said. It was true, although Jenny seldom thought of it—her mother and his were only half sisters. “And besides, I can’t help it. I can’t help it.” His kisses were coming faster.
His urgency caught Jenny in a rush of elemental feeling. She kept thinking, but there’s something else—without remembering what the something was. Then she whispered, “But, Tom . . .”—and shock swept over her.
She hadn’t thought about Tom since—since—
She couldn’t remember when.
Zach was saying that he couldn’t help Tom, either.
“He doesn’t deserve you.” The words came on a warm wave of breath in her ear. “He doesn’t love you enough. I was always afraid to say it, but you know it’s true.”
Despite his slimness Zach’s muscles were hard against her. Jenny tried to protest, but the words caught in her throat.
“And now I know you don’t love him enough, either. You weren’t meant to be with him.” Zach’s voice was soft and reasonable, his words running together in a velvet sound.
Then he was looking down at her. A clear light seemed to shine through his intense face. His winter-gray eyes looked almost pale blue.