A Soft Barren Aftershock

by F. Paul Wilson

  “Damn right,” I say. “It’s going to be important, so the Effster’s spending a whole day on it, start to finish.”

  “A whole day!” Georgie says. “You’ve never spent more than a few hours on a novel!”

  “I know that. But it’s for Brian.”

  They both say, “Oh.”

  I take Stevie’s remaining bishop with my queen.

  “Yeah, he came to the Effster last week. Wants to do something with teenagers after ‘Sisters.’ You know DePalma—likes all that red stuff in his movies. I told him the Effster would whip something together for him but I want to do it as a novel first. I mean, you guys know how the Effster has been trying for years to get this horror thing rolling, but it remains dead in the water. I don’t know what it is. I thought I’d jump started it with Rosemary’s Baby under my Levin moniker, but even with a hit movie it never got going. Did I tell you I’m going to do another Levin novel soon? Calling it The Boys from Brazil. Anyway, I waited a couple of years and tried again with The Exorcist under my Blatty pen name. Another bestseller, but still the horror thing is just sputtering along. I’m hoping this new one will turn the corner.”

  The Effster is nothing if not persistent.

  “If anyone can do it, F,” Stevie says, “you can.”

  “I know. I know. I’ve just got to set my mind to it.”

  “Look what you did for international thrillers with your Ludlum books.”

  Stevie’s trying to sneak up on the Effster’s queen but I see what he’s doing.

  “Maybe that’s it,” I say. “Maybe the Effster should start a new pseudonym and pump a horror novel or two a year into the market under that name. Create a Ludlum of horror. Yeah. That’s what I’II do. But what name will I use?”

  “Yo, F!” says a new voice.

  “Yo, Sly!” I say as Stallone saunters into the backyard. “What’s happenin’?”

  “Not much. Whatcha workin’ on?”

  “New novel called Carrie.”

  He eyes the roll of paper at the rear of the typewriter.

  “Slow goin’, huh?”

  I should explain, for those of you unfamiliar with the Effster Method, that I type on a continuous sheet of paper; it rolls from below the machine and flows onto a take-up roller after the Effster has had his way with it. I call it a Word Processor. (When I get a few minutes I’II work out a way to get this done electronically, but for now this will have to do.) My secretary unrolls it later, cuts it into separate sheets, boxes the manuscript, and sends it off to the publisher.

  The Effster never rewrites. He doesn’t have to.

  Sly says, “I assume this means you finished that screenplay you was doin’ for me.”

  “It certainly does.”

  I reach under the table and pull a script from the box there. I hand it to him.

  “There you go.”

  He stares at the top sheet. “ ‘Rocky?’ ”

  “It’s perfect for you, Sly. Tailor made for you by the Effster. It’s gonna make you.”

  He flashes a lopsided grin. “You’re da greatest, F.”

  “Ain’t it da troot,” I say In Brooklynese so he can understand better.

  The Effster is nothing if not gracious.

  “Now,” I say as I turn to the chess board and move my queen’s bishop three squares, “if I could only think of a catchy pseudonym for my new series of horror novels. Checkmate, by the way.”

  Stevie gapes as Georgie and Sly laugh.

  Stevie says, “Got me again, F,” and knocks over his king.

  Which gives me an idea.

  “Thanks,” l say.

  “For what?”

  “For giving me the surname of my new pseudonym. And for helping me out, I’m going to make the first name Steven—though I might change the spelling a little—in your honor.”

  The Effster is nothing if not demonstrative of his gratitude.

  “Now get out of here, you guys. The Effster’s got too much to do.”

  They wave and leave.

  So much to do. I mean, I’m planning Slapstick, a new novel under my Kurt Vonnegut pseud, plus Ragtime under my Doctorow name for the snobs, and not one but two Jack Higgins novels, Storm Warning and The Eagle Has Landed. I’m finishing up The Forever War under my Haldeman name, plus Hef’s been calling all week, wanting the Effster to do the entire December issue of Playboy. Which is okay, but I’d only agreed to do all the fiction. Now he wants the Effster to do all the editorials and non-fiction too. I’m not terribly interested in writing non-fiction, but I agreed.

  The Effster’s nothing if not accommodating.

  Back to work.

  DREAMS

  The nightmare again.

  I almost dread falling asleep. Always the same, and yet never quite the same. The events differ dream to dream, yet always I am in a stranger’s body, a huge, monstrous, patchwork contraption that reels through the darkness in such ungainly fashion. It’s always dark in the dream, for I seem to be a creature of the night, forever in hiding.

  And I can’t remember my name.

  The recent dreams are well formed. My head has cleared in them. So unlike the early dreams, which I can barely remember. Those are no more than a montage of blurred images now—a lightning-drenched laboratory, a whip-wielding hunchback, fear, a stone-walled cell, chains, loneliness, a little girl drowning among floating blossoms, a woman in a wedding gown, townsfolk with torches, fire, a burning windmill, pain, rage, PAIN!

  But I’m all right now. Scarred but healing. And my mind is clear. The pain from the fire burned away the mists. I remember things from dream to dream, and more and more bits and pieces from long ago.

  But what is my name?

  I know I must stay out of sight. I don’t want to be burned again. That’s why I spend the daylight hours hiding here in the loft of this abandoned stable on the outskirts of Goldstadt. I sleep most of the day. But at night I wander. Always into town. Always to the area around the Goldstadt Medical College. I seem to be attracted to the medical college. The reason rests here in my brain, but it scampers beyond my grasp whenever I reach for it. One day I’ll catch it and then I’ll know.

  So many unanswered questions in these dreams. But aren’t dreams supposed to be that way? Don’t they pose more questions than they answer?

  My belly is full now. I broke into a pastry shop and gorged myself on the unsold sweets left over from yesterday, and now I’m wandering the back alleys, drinking from rain barrels, peering from the shadows into the lighted windows I pass. I feel a warm resonance within when I see a family together by a fire. Once I must have had a life like that. But the warmth warps into rage if I watch too long, because I know such a scene will never be mine again.

  I know it’s only a dream. But the rage is so real.

  As I pass the rear of a tavern, the side door opens and two men step out. I stumble farther back into the shadows, wanting to run but knowing I’d make a terrible racket. No one must see me. No one must know I’m alive. So I stay perfectly still, waiting for them to leave.

  That’s when I hear the voice. The deep, delicious voice of a handsome young man with curly blond hair and fresh clear skin. I know this without seeing him. I even know his name.

  Karl.

  I lean to my right and peer down the alley. My heart leaps at the sight of him. It’s not my heart; it’s the huge, ponderous heart of a stranger, but it responds nonetheless, thudding madly in my chest. I listen to his clear, rich laughter as he waves good-bye to his friend and strolls away toward the street.

  Karl.

  Why do I know him?

  I follow. I know it’s dangerous but I must. But I don’t go down the alley after him. Instead I lumber along in the back alleys, splattering through puddles, scattering rats, dodging stinking piles of trash as I keep pace with him, catching sight of his golden-haired form between buildings as he strides along.

  He’s not heading for home. Somewhere in my head I know where he lives and he’s headed in
the wrong direction. I follow him to a cottage at the north end of Goldstadt, watch him knock, watch a raven-haired beauty open the door and leap into his arms, watch them disappear inside. I know her too.

  Maria.

  The rage spewing up in me is nearly as uncontainable as it is unexplainable. It’s all I can do to keep myself from bursting through that door and tearing them both apart.

  Why? What are these emotions? Who are these people? And why do I know their names and not my own?

  I cool. I wait. But Karl doesn’t reappear. The sky lightens and still no Karl. I must leave before I am seen. As I head back toward the stable that has become my nest, my rage is gone, replaced by a cold black despair. Before I climb to the loft I pause to relieve myself. As I lower my heavy, crudely stitched pants I pray that it will be different this dream, but there it is—that long, thick, slack member hanging between my legs. It repulses me. I try to relieve myself without touching it.

  I am a woman. Why do these dreams place me in the body of a man?

  Awake again.

  I’ve spent the day talking, laughing, discussing the wisdom of the ages. Such a relief to be back to reality, back in my own body—young, lithe, smaller, smoother, with slim legs, dainty fingers, and firm, compact breasts. So good to be a woman again.

  But my waking hours aren’t completely free from confusion. I’m not sure where I am. I do know that it’s warm and beautiful. Grassy knolls flow green through the golden sunshine toward the majestic amethyst-hued mountains that tower in the distance. Sweet little hummingbirds dart about in the hazy spring air.

  And at least when I’m awake I know my name: Eva. Eva Rucker.

  I just wish I knew why I was here. Don’t misunderstand. I love it here. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted. Friendly people wandering the hills, wise men stopping by to discuss the great philosophies of the ages. It’s like the Elysian Fields I read about in Greek mythology, except I’m alive and this is all real. I simply don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this.

  I have a sense that I was brought here as compensation for an unpleasantness in my past. I seem to remember some recent ugliness in which I was unwittingly involved, unjustly accused, something so darkly traumatic that my mind shies from the memory of it. But the wrong was righted and I’ve been sent here to recuperate.

  I think of Karl and how he became part of my dream last night. Karl . . . so handsome, so brilliant, so dashing. I haven’t thought of him since I arrived here. How could I forget the man I love?

  A cloud passes across the sun as my thoughts darken with the memory of the dream-Karl in the dream-Maria’s arms. Maria is Karl’s sister! They would never!

  How perverse these nightmares! I shouldn’t let them upset me.

  The sun reemerges as I push the memory away. It’s wonderful here. I never want to leave. But I’m tired now. The golden wine I had with dinner has made me drowsy. I’ll just lie back and rest my eyes for a moment . . .

  Oh, no! The dream again!

  I’m in that horrid body, stumbling through the night. Can’t I close my eyes even for a few seconds without falling into this nightmare? I want to scream, to burst from this cocoon of dream and return to my golden fields. But the nightmare tightens its steely grip and I lurch on.

  I stop at a schoolhouse. I’m hungry but there’s something more important than food inside. I break down the door and enter the single classroom with its rows of tiny desks. I rip the top off one desk after the other and carry it to the shafts of moonlight pouring through the windows until I find the paper and pencil I seek. I bring them to the teacher’s desk. I’m too large to seat myself, so I kneel beside the desk and force my huge ungainly fingers to grasp the pencil and write.

  I know this is a dream, but still I feel compelled to let the dream-Karl know that even though my body has metamorphosed into this huge ungainly monstrosity, his Eva still cares for him.

  After many tries, I manage a legible note:

  KARL

  I LOVE YOU

  YOUR EVA

  I fold the sheet and take it with me. At Karl’s uncle’s house—where Karl lives—I slip it under the door. Then I stand back in the shadows and wait. And as I wait, I remember more and more about Karl.

  We met near the University of Goldstadt where he was a student at the medical college. That was in my real life. I assume he remains a student in my dreams. I so wanted to attend the university but the Regents wouldn’t hear of it. They were scandalized by my application. No women in the College of Arts and Sciences, and especially in the medical college. Especially not a poor farm girl.

  So I’d hide in the rear of the lecture halls and listen to Dr. Waldman’s lectures on anatomy and physiology. Karl found me there but kept my secret and let me stay. I fell in love with him immediately. I remember that. I remember all our secret meetings, in fields, in lofts. He’d teach me what he learned in class. And then he’d teach me other things. We became lovers. I’d never given myself to any man before. Karl was the first, and I swear he’ll be the only one. I don’t remember how we became separated. I—

  Here he comes. Oh, look at him! I want to run to him but I couldn’t bear for him to see me like this. What torture this nightmare is!

  I watch him enter his uncle’s house, see him light the candles in the entry-way. I move closer as he picks up my note and reads it. But no loving smile lights his features. Instead, his face blanches and he totters back against the wall. Then he’s out the door and running, flying through the streets, my note clutched in his hand. I follow him as best I can but he outdistances me. No matter. I know the route. I sense where he’s going.

  When I arrive at Maria’s house he’s already inside. I lurch to a lighted window and peer within. Karl stands in the center of the room, his eyes wild, the ruddy color still gone from his cheeks. Maria has her arms around his waist. She’s smiling as she comforts him.

  “—only a joke,” she says. “Can’t you see that, my love? Someone’s trying to play a trick on you!”

  “Then it’s a damn good trick!” Karl holds my note before her eyes. “This is how she always signed her notes—‘Your Eva.’ No one else knew that. Not even you. And I burned all those letters.”

  Maria laughs. “So what are you telling me? That Eva wrote you this note? That’s certainly not her handwriting.”

  “True, but—”

  “Eva is dead, my love.”

  The words strike like hammer blows to my brain. I want to shout that I’m here, alive, transformed into this creature. But I keep silent. I have no workable voice. And after all, this is only a dream. I must keep telling myself that.

  Only a dream.

  Nothing here is true and therefore none of it matters.

  Yet I find a horrid fascination in it.

  “They hung her,” Maria is saying. “I know because I went and watched. You couldn’t stomach it but I went to see for myself.” Her smile fades as an ugly light grows in her eyes. “They hung her, Karl. Hung her till she stopped kicking and swung limp in the breeze. Then they cut her down and took her off to the medical college just as she requested. The noble little thing: Wanted her body donated to science. Well, by now she’s in a thousand little pieces.”

  “I know.” Karl’s color is returning, but his flush seems more a shade of guilt than good health. “I saw her brain, Maria. Eva’s brain! Dr. Waldman kept it in a glass jar on one of the lab tables as an example of an abnormal brain. ‘Dysfunctio Cerebri’ his label said, right next to a supposedly normal brain. I had to sit there during all his lectures and stare at it, knowing the whole time who it had belonged to, and that it was not abnormal in the least.”

  “It should have been labeled a ‘stupid’ brain.” Maria laughs. “She believed you loved her. She thought I was your sister. She believed everything we told her, and so she wound up taking the blame for your uncle’s murder. As a result, you’re rich and you don’t ever have to think about her again. She’s gone.”

  “Her brain’s go
ne too. I was so glad when pranksters stole it and I no longer had to look at it.”

  “Now you can look at me.”

  Maria steps back and unbuttons her blouse, baring her breasts. As Karl locks her in an embrace, I reel away from the window, sobbing, retching, running blindly for the stables I call home.

  Awake again.

  Back in my Elysian fields, but still I cannot shake off the effects of the nightmare. The dream-Maria’s words have roused memories in my waking mind. They are partly true.

  How could I have forgotten?

  There was a murder. Karl’s rich uncle. And I was accused. I remember now . . . remember that night. I was supposed to meet Karl at the house. He was going to introduce me to his uncle and bring our love out into the open at last. But when I got there, the door was open and a portly old man lay on the floor, bleeding, dying. I tried to help him but he had lost too much blood. Then the Burgomeister’s men arrived and found me with the slain man’s blood on my hands and the knife that had killed him at my feet.

  And Karl was nowhere to be found.

  I never saw Karl again. He never came to visit me. Never answered my notes. In fact, his barrister came to the jail and told me to stop writing to Karl—that Karl didn’t know who I was and wanted nothing to do with the murderer of his uncle.

  No one believed that I knew Karl. No one but his sister Maria had ever seen us together, and Maria said I was a complete stranger. I remember the final shock when I was told that Maria wasn’t his sister at all.

  After that the heart went out of me. I gave up. I lost the will to defend myself. I let them do with me as they wished. My only request was that my body be given to the medical college. That was my private joke on the regents—I would be attending the university after all.

  I remember walking to the gallows. I remember the rope going around my neck. After that . . .

  . . . I was here. So I must have been saved from execution. If only I could remember how. No matter. It will come. What does matter is that since arriving here my life has been a succession of one blissful day after another. Perfect . . .