by L. J. Smith
“Zach, who’s after us? No, don’t stop, come on!” Panting, Jenny tugged at his elbow. He’d turned around to look thoughtfully behind them. He didn’t seem frightened.
“Me,” he said.
They reached the freestanding wall by the white floodlamp. Jenny felt somewhat safer behind it. She looked at her cousin. “You?”
“It’s me. It’s my hallucination and I’m chasing myself. Hunting myself.”
“Oh, Zach,” she said helplessly. Then: “Zach, it’s not a hallucination. The same thing is happening to all of us—we’re all here. Dee and Mike and Tom and Audrey and me. And Summer was here, but her nightmare killed her because she couldn’t cope. So you have to cope, because if you don’t . . .” Jenny’s eyes were wet.
Zach blinked. “We’re all here? It’s real?”
“It’s real. It really happened, the Game and the Shadow Man and everything. It’s not in your head. It almost drove me crazy, too, but you can’t let it.”
Zach blinked again, then looked through the empty window of the wall, out into the darkness. “If it’s real . . .” he began slowly, and continued in a voice with more strength, “If it’s real, then who’s that?”
Jenny inched over to take a cautious peek. A—person—was standing at the very edge of the light that went through the window. His crossbow was futuristic-looking—and so was he. Cyberpunk, Jenny thought. He was wearing black body armor that hugged his lean body sleekly, and he had one normal hand and one that was shining steel and cables. There was some kind of high-tech gun strapped to his thigh.
He wore a helmet with a mirrored face mask that completely obscured his features.
Jenny leaned back against the wall.
“Oh, terrific,” she whispered.
“I figured he was my dark side. The part of me that wants to destroy me,” Zach said reasonably.
A bolt came through the window—Jenny felt the wind of it—and shattered the white floodlamp.
“Come on!”
This time Zach ran without prompting.
The Cyber-Hunter got to the pink floodlight before them.
He couldn’t have, but he did anyway. He stood, backlit by the neon pink glow, a dark silhouette as they approached.
“This way! We have to get to the door!”
Jenny veered sharply, circling to get to the other side of the pink lamp. Zach followed her. But when she got to the place where the door should have been, it wasn’t.
“It’s gone !” Jenny turned to look back. The Cyber-Hunter was facing them now, facing the blazing pink glow.
And what on earth are we supposed to do with him? Jenny thought. Kill him? Bash him with the rock? I don’t think so.
One thing she’d learned—the nightmares were fair. There was always a chance, a way to get out, even when there didn’t seem to be. She supposed Julian considered that only sporting.
So what could they do with the Cyber-Hunter? How could Zach face his fear?
“Zach,” she said hesitantly, “you haven’t seen his face, right? You don’t know if he looks like you.”
“No, I just figured. He’s like the high-tech stuff in my photos—come to get me.”
And like some cyberpunk stuff I’ve seen, Jenny thought grimly. She said, “If you did look at him . . . If you pulled off his helmet, say—”
She could feel Zach recoil in the dark.
Jenny shut her eyes, feeling suddenly tired. “Then that’s what you have to do, I think. It’s your nightmare, and you have to face him. I’ll go with you.”
It was a risk. Whether the Hunter was Julian or just one of Julian’s dream-creatures, like the dark elves or the small Visitors, he might very well look like Zach under the helmet.
“Zach, I think you have to—or we won’t ever find the way out of here. I think, even if he looks like you, you have to know he’s not you.”
“But—if he is me . . . if you’re not really here and this is all my hallucination . . .”
“Then I’ll probably disappear or something!” Jenny said. “And then at least you’ll know you’re crazy. All I know is that Summer wouldn’t face her nightmare and she died.”
There was a silence. Zach turned toward her, but it was too dark to be sure of his expression. “Come on,” he said and started for the light.
Jenny’s heart rate kept accelerating as they got closer to it. The Cyber-Hunter could easily shoot them at any minute.
He didn’t. He stood as still as a figure in the Movieland Wax Museum. He was exactly Zach’s height.
Zach stopped when they were a few feet in front of him.
Jenny could hear blood roaring in her ears.
The Cyber-Hunter shifted the crossbow a little. Pink jewels of light slid up and down it, and over his black armor. Zach’s face was reflected in the mirrored faceplate.
“Go on, Zach,” Jenny whispered. “Take off the helmet. Tell him he’s not you, whatever he looks like.”
She wasn’t nearly as confident as she sounded. Was it Zach’s face under the helmet? Julian’s? Maybe it was some hideous android—some kind of killer robot. Maybe Zach would get shot before he could find out. Maybe . . .
The Cyber-Hunter stood waiting.
With a sudden gesture Zach reached out and grabbed the front of the helmet, pulling the face mask away.
There was nothing underneath.
No face, no head. Jenny, prepared for anything else, screamed involuntarily. The Cyber-Hunter’s black body armor fell down empty, the crossbow clattering on top of it.
A door appeared beside the pink floodlight.
Zach was staring down at the empty shell of armor. He nudged the dismembered robotic hand with his foot.
Jenny gave a little gasp of relief. It had been so easy—but then she looked at her cousin. The real test was in his head. “I’m still here, Zach,” she said. “Right? Right?”
He turned to look at her, pink light haloing his hair.
Then, slowly, he smiled. “Right,” he said.
The awful dazed look had disappeared. He looked like Zach again. She could see the sanity return to his eyes. Relief flooded Jenny in painful waves.
Zach dropped the mirrored face mask on the pile of black armor.
“The rock I’ll keep. I still want to do that photo.”
They stepped through the door to the mirrored hallway.
Zach’s slip of paper was on the ground. Jenny picked it up and frowned over it. She could vaguely make out what looked like a profile—a profile with a beaky nose—but behind that was just a futuristic mishmash of colors, streaks and dabs.
“The things in my head,” Zach said. He took it from her and tore it up. Jenny watched the colored pieces float down like confetti.
“Zach—what made you think insanity runs in the family?”
Zach just shrugged. The others had explained their nightmares, but it didn’t surprise Jenny that Zach wouldn’t. Zach protected his privacy.
An unseen clock struck four.
“I hate this place,” Zach said, looking at his own gray-eyed reflection. “It reminds me of the fun house at that amusement park we used to go to when we were kids.”
“Then you’re the one who put it here,” Jenny said. She’d forgotten the fun house herself—but then she’d forgotten a lot about her childhood, especially the years before she came to California. She didn’t want to remember.
She felt a little twist of premonition in her stomach.
She also felt the heat in her cheeks. Now that they were out of danger, now that Zach looked like himself again, she found that her attitude toward him had changed. It was Julian’s fault. Jenny knew perfectly well that her cousin had never thought of her romantically—but she couldn’t forget what had happened in the darkroom. Every time she looked at Zach, she remembered seeing those gray eyes black with passion.
I’ll forget eventually, she told herself. It’ll wear off. Just as long as he never finds out.
Aloud she said, “We’ve got to find the others. Dee and Au
drey and Mike are all wandering around here somewhere. I guess”—she hesitated—“I guess we should separate. But I’m afraid we might not be able to find our way back to each other. I know it seems as if the hall only goes two ways, but you can’t trust anything here.”
“Wait a minute.” Zach pulled two crayons out of the pocket of his flannel shirt. “I took them because I thought the colors might work in a photo. Take your pick, cadet blue or Indian red. We can mark a trail.”
Jenny chose cadet blue and made a pale, waxy streak on the nearest mirror. “Brilliant,” she said. “I’ll go this way, you go that way. Whoever finds them can bring them back here.”
“Where the two crayons meet,” Zach said and began a line of his own. Still drawing, he walked away. The first zigzag of the hall took him out of sight.
No thank-you, no goodbye. Well, that should help her forget the darkroom scene. Zach was himself again, all right.
She went her own way, leaving a crayon trail behind her.
The mirrored hallway seemed infinite—and completely deserted. It went on and on with no variations.
Until, to her astonishment, she came to the end.
It was a blank wall, gray as concrete. No mirror, no blue light, no red button.
It scared her.
On the ground in front of it was a white slip of paper.
Jenny approached the paper slowly. It scared her, too. Dee, Audrey, Mike, Summer, and Zach had had their nightmares. And Julian had said Tom was at the top of the house.
Nobody’s nightmare left on this floor but hers.
She picked the paper up, turned it over. She recognized the formless doodle around the edges. The middle of the paper was exactly as she’d left it—blank.
Jenny looked up at the blank wall.
“Need any help?” Julian asked from behind her.
The paper crumpled in Jenny’s clenched fist as she turned.
He was leaning against a mirror, wearing the sleek black body armor. No helmet, though. Instead, there was a splash of purple in the shock of white hair falling over his forehead and a triangular blue design on his cheekbone. It looked almost like silk-screening. More cyberpunk, Jenny thought. High-tech body art. Zach would love it—or maybe not.
Jenny looked straight into the strange cat-tilted blue eyes. Things had changed since Julian had set the bees on her. She had a new confidence at her core. Whatever he did to her, even if he killed her, he couldn’t break her.
“So it was you shooting at us,” she said.
“Personally, I think it was Zach’s father. I think he has a little complex there. Rugged, old-fashioned dad; artistic, newfangled son, you know. On the other hand, I am a hunter.” He pushed the lock of purple hair out of his eyes, smiling.
“Why don’t you just go away?” Jenny said. “I’m trying to figure something out.”
“I’m glad to help. I know a lot about you. I’ve watched you for so many years now. Hour after hour, day after day.”
Jenny froze. He’d said similar things before, and she hadn’t really listened. Or she hadn’t taken it literally. But now, looking at him, she knew he meant it.
It was the most terrible thing she’d ever heard.
He’d watched her for hours on end? How many times in her life, when she’d thought she was alone, had he been there?
It was an appalling intimacy, and one Jenny didn’t want.
“I’m in love with you,” he said simply. “I think everything you do is marvelous.”
“You—”
“There’s no need to be embarrassed. I don’t think the same way you do. Whether your hair’s brushed—whether your makeup is on—I don’t care. Besides”—he smiled at her—“didn’t you know that I was there?”
“Of course not.” But she had, Jenny realized. Somewhere deep inside herself she’d known she was being watched. She’d just thought everybody had that feeling.
Those times in the night when she woke up, certain that a tall shape was standing over her in the darkness. Usually when it happened she couldn’t move, could hardly breathe. Sometimes she would actually see the shape, the outline black against lighter blackness, and she stared until her eyes ached.
If she kicked at it or turned on the light, it would disappear. But she’d sit there breathing hard anyway, choking on her own fear.
Her room always looked strange in that unnatural middle-of-the-night brightness. Subtly different than it did in the daytime. It was always a long time before she would be able to turn the light off again.
And underneath, in her heart of hearts, she would feel it had been real. Not just a dream. Her eyes had been open when she’d seen the thing above her, and it didn’t matter if that was stupid and nobody could see in such darkness. She’d seen it anyway. It had been there.
Jenny had thought everybody went through things like that.
“I hate you,” she whispered.
“I’d have thought you’d want my help right now.” He nodded at the blank wall. “That’s your nightmare, Jenny—but how are you going to get into it? And if you can’t get into it, how are you going to get through it?”
He wants you panicked, Jenny told herself. He wants to scare you, to make you think you need his help.
But she didn’t need it. She refused to need it.
She smiled suddenly. She could feel it was lopsided. She held up the cadet blue crayon.
“I’ll get in with this,” she said and smoothed out her blank slip of paper.
His eyelids drooped in amusement, and his voice was a caress. “But how will you remember ? You don’t know what to draw. You’ve spent all these years trying to forget. . . .”
“I know enough,” Jenny said. She wondered just how much Julian knew about her own private nightmare, the one she’d spent so long running away from. She had the chilling feeling that she was about to find out.
“I know what it starts with,” she said. “It starts with my grandfather’s basement, when I was five years old.”
She put the paper flat against a mirror and began to draw.
CHAPTER 13
Cadet blue, which had just looked pale on the mirror, turned out to be gray on paper.
Jenny was no artist, but she could draw simple things. Like a square—that was her grandfather’s basement. Steps, going out of the top of the picture up to the house. A desk against one wall. A couch. Three or four large bookcases.
That was all she could remember. She hoped it was enough.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that Julian was gone again. Good.
She put the slip of paper on the floor in front of the blank wall.
The flash of light was exactly like a flashgun going off in her eyes, leaving her with dancing afterimages. Score one for Zach, she thought. When she could see again, she found herself looking in a mirror.
It had worked.
She could feel her pulse in her wrists and throat as well as her chest. God, don’t let me run away, she thought.
After so many years of fighting not to remember this, she was going to throw herself right into it. It was going to be bad. How bad, she’d have to find out when it happened.
She pressed the red button. The blue light went on. The mirrored door slid open.
She didn’t give herself a chance to look at anything before she stepped inside.
Golden sunlight slanted in from small windows set high on the walls. To Jenny’s utter surprise she felt a thrill of excitement and recognition.
I remember those windows! I remember . . .
The door slid shut behind her, but she was already stepping out to the center of the room, looking around in wonder. Taking in the colors, the profusion of objects.
It’s smaller than I thought it would be—and even more crowded. But it’s my grandfather’s basement.
Her grandfather, though, wasn’t there.
That’s right. He wasn’t here that day. I remember. I let myself in the house and went looking for him, but I couldn’t find him a
nywhere upstairs.
So . . . I looked down here—I think. I must have. I don’t remember doing it, but I must have.
Jenny turned toward the stairs, which ended in a blank wall at the top. No door, of course, because this was a nightmare. The wall was as blank as her mind—her sense of delighted recognition had stopped cold. She had no idea what came next.
But as she stared, she seemed to see the ghost of a child looking down from the top step. A little girl wearing shorts, with wind-ruffled hair and a scab on her knee.
Herself. At age five.
It was almost like watching a movie. She could see the little girl’s thongs flap as she ran down the stairs. She could see the child’s lips open as she called for her grandfather, see the child standing in surprise at the bottom when he turned out not to be down here.
As long as Jenny watched without trying to guide the images, the ghostly movie went on.
The little girl was looking around, green eyes opening wide as she realized that she was alone down here, a thing which had never happened before.
That’s right. The door to the basement had always been locked when Jenny’s grandfather wasn’t down there—but not that day. Jenny remembered the feeling of delicious wickedness at being where she wasn’t allowed to be. But she couldn’t remember what happened next.
Don’t try to remember. You’re trying too hard. Relax and see what happens.
As soon as she did, she seemed to see the little girl again. The ghostly image was standing uncertainly, swaying on her toes, considering whether to stay or go.
It was stay. The child looked around with elaborate casualness, then, sucking on her lower lip and affecting an air of nonchalance, she wandered over to the first bookcase.
All right, Jenny thought. So let’s see what’s in the bookcase. She followed the child’s image. The little girl was idly running a grimy finger along a row of books—which, of course, she couldn’t read. Not even the titles. But sixteen-year-old Jenny could.
Some of them looked fairly normal, like Goethe’s Faust and UFO’s: A New Look. But others were completely unfamiliar, like The Qabalah and De Occulta Philosophia and The Galdrabók.
The little girl was moving on to the second bookcase, which held all sorts of objects. One whole shelf was crowded with small wooden boxes with glass tops, filled with what looked like spices. No—herbs, Jenny thought. Dried herbs.