Lazar (12 page)

“Yes. Yes, I think so. But it is a bit hard to take in, you
must admit.”

“Why? You seemed quite happy that your so-called ‘virus’
could affect our sense of sight. Why can’t you accept that it could also affect
my sense of touch?”

“I don’t know,” Hal frowned. “It’s just, well,
different
, isn’t it? I mean, you can’t
bruise yourself on an optical illusion, can you?”

“What about stigmata?” Jan asked suddenly.

“What about it?”

“It’s when religious people think so hard about Christ’s
crucifixion that they make blood come from their hands and feet.”

“I
do
know what
stigmata is,” Hal said indignantly, then snapped his fingers. “Yes, of course. You’ve
got it in one, again. That’s exactly how the virus works. It’s making you think
so hard that you’re back in medieval times; making you
so
convinced that you’ve run into a door, that it’s caused you to
break out in a bruise.”

“And made my knuckles bleed?” Jan asked.

“Yes, that as well.”

“Hmm.” Jan thought for a moment, then turned on the spot and
marched over to the north wall. She stopped just short of it, stretched out her
arms and tipped forward until her body formed the hypotenuse of a triangle with
the ground and … thin air. She moved her feet backward to make the angle more
acute.

“Is it making me defy the laws of gravity as well?” she shouted
back over her shoulder.

Hal walked slowly toward his cousin, carefully taking in every
detail of the phenomenon in front of him. He walked up to her, around her,
ducked under her and came up on the other side.

“You’ve got to admit,” he said, in a terribly serious voice,
“it’s one hell of a virus.”

His deadpan face then broke into the broadest possible grin. Jan
collapsed to the ground in a fit of giggles.

“This is just so weird,” they said as one, then burst out
laughing again. Hal sat down on the remains of the monastery wall.

“Forgive me if I don’t sit next to you,” Jan quipped. She got
to her feet and looked down the full length of the ruined church. “I wonder if
I can touch everything that I saw in my dream?”

“I wonder if you can touch the bits you didn’t,” said Hal as
he got up and stood beside her. “There are bits of the monastery missing on my
computer. Only the north and west walls have been recreated – the sides
of the building you saw in your dream. If you could touch the other parts we
might be able to get enough detail to simulate the whole building.”

“Let’s see – or, rather, feel,” Jan said, and then
walked briskly over to within a metre of the south wall. She held out her arms
and moved slowly forward. She continued to do so until she dropped both arms in
disappointment and turned and sat down on the stones.

“No joy then?”

“No.”

Hal sat down next to his cousin.

“Perhaps tomorrow,” he suggested.

“Eh?”

“Perhaps there’ll be more to touch tomorrow – assuming
that you have another one of your dreams, that is.”

“Thank
you!
The
last thing I want is another dream like that. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so
frightened in my life. In any case, it’s over.”

“How do you mean, ‘over’?”

“I mean, the haunting’s over. I’ve fulfilled its purpose I’ve
passed a message back through time and alerted Margaret to the impending storm.
She can warn the townsfolk so they can prepare for it and take precautions.

“I’ve averted a disaster,” she concluded. “That’s an end to
it. No more simulated cities. No more dreams.”

Jan was standing outside the monastery.

She was certain of that, even though her eyes had not yet
grown accustomed to the spectral moonlight. What little she could see was far
more detailed than she remembered from her dream. For a start there was stained
glass in the windows, its shapes and lines and colours slowly coming into focus
as they shimmered in the candlelight that shone from within.

Jan turned away. The road was dark and featureless in
contrast to the detail and the light. But she knew what lay ahead. She moved
along the road soundlessly and inexorably toward the city gates. She crossed
the bridge that spanned the dyke and, as she did so, the nothingness in front
of her appeared to crystallise into hard-edged shapes and structures.

The gatehouse towered above her. The city walls stretched out
left and right. They were not made of stone, as she felt she was expecting, but
of wood – split tree trunks – a fact she was somehow aware that she’d
always known.
How
had she known?
Who
had known?

She continued. The city gates stood open. She passed between
them, and entered Wickwich. Her first impression was of emptiness. There was
nothing to be seen. She looked again. This time there were cottages, rising up
along the roadside – first their wooden skeletons and then their plaster
skins. She passed them by.

More houses manifested themselves. They crowded in on either
side. Then a church appeared, so suddenly it was as though its walls and
buttresses were the spontaneous fabrication of the stuff this dream was made
of.

Yes! Something, somewhere deep inside, knew that she was
dreaming – but something even deeper made her need to carry on.

She carried on. Narrow lanes and passages drifted up and
sloped away in all directions. She ignored them. Even if she’d wanted to
investigate their alleyways she somehow knew her journey was in one direction
only – forward. Only forward. Forward toward the sea. She could smell it;
taste it in the air; feel the salt east wind upon her face.

She had stepped into the market square. There was open space
before her and a wide sky overhead, and both were filled with sounds and shapes
and movement. What had been a wall of silence was now spattered with the
raucous scrawl of seagulls, like graffiti in the sky, and what had once been
still now burst with teeming life. There was running, shoving, screaming,
shouting, rushing everywhere.

And there was anger.

Although she could not see the crowd she could feel its
hatred and its loathing. It was palpable. It was a living thing. It was a
frenzied, many-headed beast intent upon its prey.

This was no dream. This was a nightmare. She had never felt
this frightened in her life – no, not in
her
life. The crowd that swarmed invisibly around her had a focus
for its anger. The beast’s malevolent eye was fixed on her.

“Wake up,
wake up – I must wake up,”
her thoughts screamed, but no
words came from her lips.
“Oh, let me
wake up, please! Oh, please!”
But no one heard, not even her. All she could
hear was the baying of the crowd. And although it called out “Margaret”, she
knew that all its venom was directed straight at her.

“Why me?” she thought, “why me? I tried to warn them.”

The crowd reared up and knocked her forward. Then it dragged
her through the square.

“I tried to save you,” she beseeched it, but it did not seem
to hear. It just cursed and spat and pulled and pushed and hauled her down a
winding street that lead toward the sea.

And then, at last, the dream began to falter. The crowd went
quiet. The buildings fell away. A yawning void engulfed her field of vision. There
was nothing there in front of her, except … What was that, stark and hateful,
rising from the sea?

“Oh, no!” she screamed. “Not me, not me.”

“It isn’t
me,”
the thought broke through, but was snatched away immediately
and swallowed whole by an all-consuming horror that had sunk its teeth into her
soul. Terror tore at her emotions. It ripped her reason into shreds. She could
not think. There was no thought, only panic, pain and dread.

Somebody grabbed her. She tried to struggle free, but her
arms refused to move. The grip tightened. She tried to twist to get away, but
she was paralysed with fear. She was being pushed. She was being pulled. She
was being shaken wildly.

Someone bellowed.

“Jan!”

Who’s Jan?

“Jan! Wake up Jan.”

Jan – she knew the name.

“Oh, come on, Jan – wake up. Wake up!”

Jan woke up. She gave a small scream of surprise, then threw
her arms around Hal’s neck.

“Oh, God! I’ve had the most horrendous dream.”

“Nightmare,” Hal corrected. “I heard you scream. Are you OK?”

“Yes, I am
now. Thanks,” Jan laughed and wiped her cheeks. “Look,” she held out her
tear-wet fingers, “I’ve been crying in my sleep.”

“I’m not surprised,” Hal sympathised. “I knew you were
dreaming, but when you shouted out I…”

“How did you know I was dreaming?”

“I was watching, on my computer. I guessed we hadn’t seen the
last of it. If we had – if you had fulfilled your ‘task’ when you warned
Margaret – then the haunting would have ended and you wouldn’t have been
still able to touch the monastery.

“So I reckoned you were in for another dream and turned my
computer on after you’d gone to bed. And, just as I thought, I saw the street
plan of Old Wickwich pop up as you…”

“Do you mean to say you knew I was going to have another
nightmare?” Jan stared at her cousin in utter amazement, unable to believe that
even he could be that indifferent to her feelings.

“I didn’t say I knew,” Hal attempted to explain. “I only
thought…”

“You
only thought
,”
Jan mimicked scornfully. “The only thought you had was for your computer. You
could have warned me that I might have another nightmare. But no, you wanted me
to have the dream so you could find out what would happen with your program.”

Jan glared at Hal. He looked straight back.

“But it was worth it,” he said wryly, and broke into a smile.

“Why, you…” Jan pulled a pillow out from behind her and swung
it at Hal’s head.

“What’s going on?”

The cousins turned at once to see Hal’s father standing at
the bedroom door.

“I thought I heard Jan screaming,” continued Bill. “Have you
two been having a pillow fight?”

“Er, no, I had a nightmare,” Jan replied, trying not to
laugh, aware that she did not look like someone who had been frightened.

“Yes, and I came and woke her out of it,” Hal explained.

“With a pillow?” Hal’s father smiled in mock confusion. “Probably
all this talk about ghosts. Now, back to your room, Hal, and let Jan try to get
a good night’s sleep.”

Hal got up.

“I’ll show you Wickwich in the morning,” he whispered to his
cousin before leaving.

His father followed him out and closed the door.

“There you are, Old Wickwich,”
Hal
proclaimed. As he slid his mouse around on the mat on his desk the street map
on the screen scrolled up and down. “At least, part of it,” he added, “from the
west gate to the sea front, through the market square. I presume that’s the
path you followed in your dream?”