Crave (19 page)
Authors: Karen E. Taylor
Consciously, I made an effort to reach my mind out into the dawn. And felt the scream of pain slowly rise up within me to escape into the blinding and burning light of the sun.
Chapter 22
I
woke to total silence. Sam slept soundly in the chair next to me. I sat up and looked around, tossing off the blanket. With no windows and the door closed I had no way of knowing whether it was an hour past dawn or before dusk.
woke to total silence. Sam slept soundly in the chair next to me. I sat up and looked around, tossing off the blanket. With no windows and the door closed I had no way of knowing whether it was an hour past dawn or before dusk.
Quietly, I reached over and turned his wrist gently so that I could read his watch, but even this touch woke him up. His eyes popped open and he gazed around in confusion, blinking his eyes until he saw my face.
“Morning,” he said, standing up and rubbing the back of his neck, tilting his head from side to side until the bones cracked. I winced at the sound.
“Is it morning? I can't tell. This room is very effective.”
He looked at his watch. “I should have said âevening,' I suppose, since it's going on seven right now. And I know it's not the morning. You talked for almost an hour this morning after the sun came up and you didn't really settle in until well after eight.”
“What happened?”
“Don't you remember?”
I shook my head. “No, not really. I remember the sun rising. And then nothing until just now.”
“Interesting. Especially since I didn't tell you not to remember. Fortunately, I got it all on tape. And I think I might have even gotten some details that will help. But,” and the look he gave me was sad and distant, “don't ever ask me to do this for you again. I found out things I didn't want to know.”
He didn't answer my questioning look, but paced briefly around the room. “I guess you can't leave here until the sun goes down, huh? I sure wouldn't mind having a comfortable chair.”
“No, I can't even walk down the hallway. But you can go and I'll come when I can.”
He dismissed that idea immediately. “We'll listen to the tape first. That'll kill an hour and I'm actually anxious to hear it again. The voice on the tape was disturbingly familiar.”
“Familiar? Why wouldn't it be? It's my voice.”
“Well,” Sam gave me a tentative glance as if he wasn't quite sure whether he should be frightened or not, “it was you, and it wasn't. I did manage to get through to Mitch though to tell him you were here and safe. And he let me know that your vision was true. Another vampire turned up dead shortly after sunrise this morning.”
“Damn.”
“That's what I said, too. But we'll listen to the tape and you can see why. You might want to get comfortable before I start this.” He settled back into his chair, motioned me to the bed, and I lay down again, on my back, my hands grasped behind my head.
At first the only sound on the tape was my scream. It was terrifying. I could feel the pain all over again, smell the burning flesh, feel the anger and the despair. I gasped in remembrance. Sam just nodded his head.
“It stops soon.”
And it did. But the echo of it would remain in my soul.
The tape wound silently for a minute or two. When Sam's soft voice began speaking, it did not seem an intrusion, but merely a continuation of the silence.
“Deirdre? Are you still in pain?”
“No, the pain is gone.”
“Good. Now I want you to listen to my voice very carefully. Listen and pay attention to every word I say. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I want you to imagine yourself in a room of total white. The walls are white. The floors are white. The ceiling is white. It is a room of absolute safety, there is no harm that can come to you in this room. Are you here now?”
There was a pause on the tape. Then my voice came back, softer now, so soft that I had to strain to hear it. “Yes, I am here.”
“And how do you feel?”
“I feel safe.”
“Good. When we start talking about something that upsets you, that might make you want to scream again, I want you to remember that you are in the white room and that you are safe. No harm can come to you in this room. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Good. Now I want you to think back, before you screamed. Do you remember why you screamed?”
There was a silence on the tape. I could hear my breathing, labored and heavy, but I was not speaking.
“Deirdre?”
“Yes?”
“Do you remember screaming?”
“Yes.” My voice filled with tension. Sam recognized it instantly.
“You are in the white room, Deirdre. No one can harm you here.”
“I,” there were a few short gasps on the tape until I continued, “I hurt. I hurt because I screamed. I screamed because I hurt.”
“Do you hurt now, Deirdre?”
“No, the pain is gone. Because she is gone.”
“Can you remember back before the scream?”
“Yes.” I could hear the reticence in my own voice. My inherent cautiousness apparently overflowed into my subconscious, as well.
“Tell me what you were doing before the scream. Before the hurt.”
There were four or five definite deep breaths on the tape. And then I began to speak. Sam was correct; the voice was mine, but it was not mine. I struggled as the tape played to recognize the voice.
“I'm with him.”
“Who is he?”
“He's my friend. He treats me better than the rest. I'd like him to be more than my friend. I'd like him to be my lover, but he says it's too soon for that. He says that we need to move slow and that I need to prove how much I love him first.”
“Who is he?”
“He's my friend. I don't have very many friends, you know.”
“Yes, I understand that he is your friend. But what is his name?”
The voice on the tape giggled. “Larry, of course.”
“Larry?”
“Yeah, Larry Martin. I do him favors and he stays my friend. I don't mind doing him favors usually, but I'm angry about the last favor he asked me to do.”
“What kind of things does Larry usually ask you to do?”
“Usually he just asks me to do easy things. You know, like opening the door to let him in, or like putting the flowers in her room. One time he wanted me to go to Victor's office and steal some papers for him. And sometimes I just give him money. Those are easy things.”
“And what was this last favor he asked you for? The one you're angry about?”
“He wanted me to tell everyone that I saw him die.”
I motioned to Sam to stop the tape and he did so. “Mitch should be listening to this. Whoever she is, she's Victor's witness.”
“Does it really matter at this point? She's dead.” There was an underlying emotion in his words that brought me up short. I had forgotten that this person speaking through me was one of the figures in the sun.
“Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't think.” I felt myself blushing slightly. But the voice sounded so alive and enough like me, that it was hard to believe she was dead. “Please, start it again.”
He wound it back just a little bit and restarted the tape.
“. . . tell everyone that I saw him die.”
“Why would he want you to do that?”
“He wanted everyone to think that he'd died so that they'd leave him alone. If they thought he was still alive, you see, they'd hunt him, and when they found him he'd have to go back to the prison in the cellar. I can understand that, I'd never want to be put down there. There's no air and no food and it's bright all the time. It's a horrible place; no one should have to suffer like that.”
“So you did this last favor for him. Even though you didn't want to.”
“Oh, no, I wanted to. I told him I understood and I would do almost anything for him. I didn't get angry until later.”
“What happened later?”
“Well, later it all turned into a big deal. I had to speak to all the house leaders and swear an oath on my honor that what I'd said was true. They kept asking me questions that I had a hard time answering, even though Larry and I practiced before.”
There was a pause on the tape. “Go on,” Sam prompted.
The voice sounded angrier when it spoke again. “All I figured I'd have to do would be to tell Victor that I had seen Larry sit on the park bench and wait for the sun. That I had watched him burst into flames. And that he was dead.”
“Isn't that exactly what you did say?”
“Yeah, but I had to say it in front of everyone. And if they find out I lied about it, which they will, I'll be punished.”
“How will they find out that you lied?”
“Mitch knows that I lied.”
With her mention of his name I knew who she was. My eyes caught Sam's and he nodded. “Jean?” I mouthed the word and he nodded again. I sighed.
“And she'll know, of course. And if she knows, she'll tell Victor. They're very close, you know. Even though she killed Max, Victor still likes her. Almost everyone likes her. I think even Larry likes her, deep down inside, although he pretends that he hates her. It's not fair.”
“Of course it isn't fair.” I could feel the gentle tugging from Sam, attempting to keep her on topic. “But what about the testimony you gave? Did they believe you?”
“Yes. That was the easy part. I was upset anyway, that I had to tell his lies in front of everyone. So I just let them think that I was upset because I watched him die. I was very convincing,” the voice laughed, a whining little laugh that would have enabled me to identify her clearly if I had not already done so. “So much so that I said that I wanted to go away for a while. It was very traumatic to watch one of us die and I didn't want to talk about it anymore.”
“And they believed you?”
“Why wouldn't they? What reason would I have to lie?”
“And then what happened?”
“I found out that somebody actually did die, that he killed one of us, so that he could escape. All of a sudden I was an accessory to murder. We fought about that, but eventually he convinced me that no one would ever know.” There was a long pause on the tape and when the voice resumed, it was lighter, almost girlish. “We made love that night for the first time. And he told me he loved me and that when he left he would take me with him. And so I kept my mouth shut. It was in my best interest, anyway. I didn't want to be punished and I wanted to be with him. Almost all my dreams were coming true.”
“And then what happened?”
“Then he killed again. When I asked him about it he denied it. It was just a coincidence, he told me. Ron had been depressed since she came back into town with Mitch. Ron loved her, you see, and he knew he couldn't have her.” Jean sighed. “I know how bad it is to love someone, to know that you can't have them. And it's worse for us, because the pain lasts forever.”
“I see. And you believed him?”
“Partway. I wanted to believe him. Then he asked to meet me and I said yes. I thought I loved him, you see, and I thought he loved me. We went to the park together and he'd brought a bottle of wine for me. And a blanket for us to lie on. A moonlight picnic he called it. I drank all the wine because he kept filling my glass and I didn't want to disappoint him. I didn't notice until it was almost all gone that he wasn't drinking any. And when I asked him why he wasn't, he just laughed at me. âIt doesn't agree with me,' he said. âBut it will work just fine on you.'
“Then I tried to stand up. I didn't like being laughed at, not even by him. And I couldn't move. All of a sudden I felt like my veins had been filled with glue. My blood had been slowed down. He looked down at me and laughed again. I asked him to help me and he reached down and picked me up. Carried me to a bench not too far away and sat me down. I still couldn't move but I watched him gather up the picnic stuff. He came back over to me and I thought he would pick me up again. But he didn't. He laughed again. âYou pitiful slut,' he said, âhow on earth could you think that anyone would love you?' I opened my mouth to say his name and my tongue wouldn't move. I wanted to spit at him and call him every name in the book, but I was totally and completely paralyzed. All that remained was my brain. And he walked away; he didn't even look back.”
The tape wound out for a while and I thought it might be over, but Sam shook his head.
“What is your name?”
“Dr. Samuels, don't you recognize me? It's me, Jean, you know, the night nurse. But you knew that, you just wanted me to say it on the tape.”
“Yes, Jean, I know you.” On the tape, Sam's voice was sad, it almost sounded as if he were crying. I looked over at him this time and saw that he was.
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