Night Visions (20 page)

S
omething digs deeply into her ankles. Samantha opens her eyes, and the room shifts and spins. The lamp in the living room has been turned off, and the darkness animates the shadows. She can't see where things end and begin. A dark figure with no face appears suddenly, towering above her like a wave at its crest.

She knows this nightmare. It has been replaying in her mind for years, since even before such visions kept her from sleeping through the night. Just before sunrise, a faceless man rises out of the earth to steal faces from the living. His victims wake up in perpetual darkness with no ears to hear, mouths to eat, or eyes to see. They can't scream or call for help. Slowly, they starve to death. The sun rises, and the faceless man returns blindly to the darkness, alone.

At first, Samantha is just along for the ride, watching as he peels off the faces, but eventually, he turns to her. She can't move or make a sound. In the distance, a woman sings a long wavering note, and only when her lament stops does Samantha know for certain that he has succeeded. He has taken Samantha's face.

This time it's different.

The faceless man stands still. His gloved hands hold a taut rope attached to some type of pulley in the wall. He wears a long black coat that obscures the shape of his body, and there is something mechanical about each movement. He leans forward, then pivots. Her head suddenly smacks against the floor, and everything flashes white from a sharp pain in the back of her head. She can hear the pulley squeak from the weight of her body.

Her feet are bound together.

This is not a dream.

Another quick tug, and Samantha's body slides forward again—her legs stretched up violently at a ninety-degree angle from her torso. She twists back and forth, trying to roll over, but before she can get enough momentum, he kicks her in the ribs. Her upper body swings like a pendulum across the floor. A deep cough tightens the muscles in her abdomen, and a sticky, sour taste fills her mouth. He steps forward, then adjusts his grip on the rope. Through his legs, she sees the body in the corner. It is no longer turned away from the light but faces the ceiling. Long black marks stain Brooks's cheeks like dried tears.

The faceless man's back leg tenses for the pull, and just as his body pivots, Samantha grabs one of his ankles with both hands. As her body heaves suddenly into the air, his leg is pulled off the ground with her. Her back slams into the wall. He releases the rope, and they both crash to the floor. The entire room shudders. Several bottles of lotion and perfume shatter as they fall to the floor. Rolling sideways and bringing her knees close to her chest, she tries to grab the rope at her ankles, but her wrists are bound too tightly. Blood moistens the rope where it has torn into her skin. She then pushes and rolls onto her knees.

Before she can look up, he kicks her in the stomach with the point of his boot, sending her forward breathless, forearms
slamming hard into the wet floor. He pulls her hair back and clasps her shoulder.

She bites his forearm savagely. Yelling in surprise and anger, he shakes her loose and thrusts his knee into her chest, knocking her back onto the floor.

She can't see him now. He seems to have disappeared, but without smoke, mirrors, and magic wands. His absence terrifies her.

Then, with a forceful grip on her ankles, he flips her over in one violent motion. She twists, squirms, and kicks as he drags her facedown by the rope at her feet. She can't turn over. Then, in what feels like one surging motion, he wraps his arms around her waist and lifts her off the ground. She is standing, but her feet are bound so tightly that she falls back toward him. He adjusts his grip and wraps one arm around her neck.

Samantha gasps, struggling not to black out. She needs to fight.

Pushing against the floor, she tries to knock the two of them backward, but he moves with her instead—stepping back and throwing her into the tub. Her shoulder and head crash into a wall of water and porcelain. Turning onto her back, she tries to lift her head above the surface. She breathes in quickly before he thrusts her against the bottom of the tub.

She throws her feet over the rim and grabs a side with both hands. She lifts, but he pushes back. One hand claws around her neck. The other presses against her chest. Samantha swallows a mouthful of water.

He releases her suddenly, inexplicably.

She breaks above the surface and breathes in loud, shallow pants. He now stands at the counter with his back to her. It's too dark to see any reflection in the mirror. She tries pulling herself out of the tub but struggles to find enough strength. She places her feet against the bottom for leverage. He turns around
slowly, and she sees a long silver blade in his right hand. It faces downward.

As he steps closer, she can see that he does have a face. It must have been obscured by the darkness. His skin is sallow and jaundiced. His eyes black. The muscles in his jaw are taut and strained.

It's Arty.

“Stop.” Samantha's voice sounds hollow. She's winded.

Silence accompanies each step.

“You don't want to do this.” She pushes herself up, struggling to put her left elbow over the rim. “It's me, Samantha. Listen, your name is Arty. Artemus Beecher.”

He towers above her, still, his face colder than the water surrounding her body. He swings the knife swiftly, slicing across the forearm protecting her face. It stings, burning.

He reaches down to grab her shoulders.

She can't see the knife any longer, but she is sure this vanishing act is only a temporary illusion.

“Goldberg,” she whispers to his face.

He pauses qizzically, as if trying to translate something from a language he once knew.

“Goldberg,” she repeats like an incantation. The word tumbles out of her mouth.

His colorless eyes tighten, and he moves for her shoulders once again. It didn't work.

Clasping her hands, she swings them into his groin. Air explodes from his mouth, and his head bends forward. She drives her forehead into his jaw, then pulls her body over the ledge on the opposite side of the tub. She falls clumsily to the floor.

He reaches for her over the length of the tub.

Samantha looks up at his arms, which dangle toward her like tentacles, and into the black eyes that peer over the ledge. She
slams her clasped hands into his nose and rolls away, hitting the wall underneath the window.

He is already standing, somewhat unsteadily, as she gets to her knees. His face twists fiercely. The knife seems to reappear in his right hand, and once again she thinks of those magicians at the fair—men who could say the right words and disappear with flashes of light and puffs of smoke. She wants to do the same, but she just doesn't know the words.

He kicks her across the jaw. She seems to hit the wall and the floor simultaneously. He straddles her hips, presses his weight into her as he pins her wrists to the floor above her head. Her shirt has torn from the struggle, exposing her stomach. She tries to twist free, but the weight of his body makes it impossible to move. She starts to yell and groan.

“No!”

He points the knife steadily at her lower abdomen and stops. She can tell that he has seen the scar and is puzzled. He looks at her face, then back at the crescent moon on her skin.

His expression turns slowly from uncertainty to resolution, as if he has been waiting for this moment.

She sucks in her stomach. For the first time she realizes that she is going to die—but not yet. Not quickly.

First, he has to mark her. He has to complete the circle.

T
he blade stings like dry ice as he presses it into her navel. Samantha kicks and twists and squirms and groans. She won't let her body be a canvas, she thinks, and she convinces herself that if he can't complete the circle she will somehow be all right. She starts picturing shapes from tenth-grade geometry class—a trapezoid, rhombus, isosceles triangle. Anything but a circle.

In one swift, clockwise motion, he slices a half-arc into her stomach. As the weight of his body shifts, she bucks, almost throwing him forward. He has to wrestle her arms to the floor and lean back into her hips before pinning her down again.

“
Please
.” Strained and shaken, her voice sounds unfamiliar, as if someone else is speaking for her.

He doesn't look at her, and Samantha is relieved not to see herself reflected in his black eyes. More steadily now, he positions the knife to finish the circle.

“Wake up, damn it!” she yells.

He looks up.

Suddenly, the floor rumbles like an earthquake as Frank charges toward them. Arty turns, and Frank kicks his rib cage, sending him into the wall beneath the window.

“Sam—” Frank calls out, but before she can answer, Arty springs to his feet, holding his side. He immediately slices up and away from his body. Frank jumps back, but not before the knife cuts across his chest. Arty's arm continues, twisting in one half of a figure eight and slicing back down. Frank slips in the water and falls into a sitting position.

“Hey!” Samantha yells, thrusting her bound feet into Arty's ankle. He stumbles backward, hitting the wall and clutching the thin windowsill.

Frank gets up. He now holds a gun in his outstretched hand. “Don't move!”

Arty pauses for a moment. They look at each other, and something passes between them that hits Frank like a wave. It makes him look unsteady and scared.

“Turn around,” Frank says. His voice is thin.

Arty obeys.

“Put your hands behind your head.”

Arty lifts his arms into the air, then springs forward, smashing through the window with both forearms. Samantha covers her face and turns from the shattering glass.

A strong, icy wind whips into the room. Frank rushes to the window, then to Samantha. He touches her shoulders and looks down at her bloody stomach.

“Are you all right?”

“Get these off me.”

Frank hurries from the room and returns with a serrated kitchen knife. He cuts the rope around her wrists and ankles. He drops the knife and touches the side of her face with his fingers. His eyes reflect the glow of the street lamp. Below, a dog starts
barking wildly. Frank helps her stand, then steps over to the body in the corner.

“Officer Brooks.” He checks for a pulse and briefly examines the deep wound in his skull. “Damn,” he says to himself.

Frank stands quickly, angrily. He glances out the window, and in one stride he is in front of her again, touching her shoulder with great tenderness. “I can't see anything through the trees,” Frank says.

Samantha inadvertently squeezes his arm for balance.

“I'll call an ambulance and the police—”

“No, I can do it. Go!”

Frank hesitates, pulling the broken cell phone from his coat pocket. “But—”

“I'll call. Go!”

He tosses the phone aside and runs out of the apartment. Samantha listens to his long strides thunder down the stairs and fade. Now her apartment, the entire building, sounds perfectly still, as if it were waiting to exhale. She leans on the counter. Her hands tingle painfully, and her feet are numb from the dampness. So much blood covers her stomach that she can't see the shape of the wound. A black duffel bag lies on the floor by her feet. Several pieces of metal clang together as she lifts it to the sink. Reaching inside, she pulls out a long iron spike. There are two more.

Samantha imagines her own crucifixion. The sound of metal being hammered through her bone and skin. Blinding pain. She drops the spike from her shaking hand. What if he had completed the circle? What if—The questions frighten her more than the pain.

Samantha pulls off what remains of her shirt and grabs a thin sweater from on top of the hamper. She staggers into the kitchen and picks up the phone. The room seems to vibrate, and her
eyes struggle to adjust. She dials 911 in case one of her neighbors hasn't done it already, leaves the phone off the hook, and stumbles into the hallway. With each step, she fights for balance, as if she had just been spinning in circles and suddenly wanted to walk a straight line.

She clings to the rail in the stairwell and makes her way to the first floor. The back door is open, and the wind has blown leaves and dirt into the corridor. At the end of the small yard, the wooden gate is partially open. It leads to an alley that spills into a labyrinth of side streets and dead ends.

She pushes the gate, but it moves only a few inches. Something heavy blocks it, as if sandbags were stacked on the other side. She leans against it until there is enough space to squeeze through. A dog behind the corner fence barks sporadically. She steps into the alley and nearly collapses when she sees Officer Chang's face. All the color has drained away except for the black-red line where the wire cuts through his neck and holds him against the fence. She steps closer, touching his shoulder.

“Wayland? Officer Chang?”

His black uniform is soaked with blood.

Blood
, she thinks.

He's dead. His gun missing. A nightstick lies on the ground next to him, and though Samantha isn't sure what good it will do or if she can even figure out how to use it, she grabs it before turning into the dark alley.

Her vision goes in and out of focus. Then she remembers biting Arty's arm during the attack. His blood was in her mouth. She leans against a chain-link fence for balance, and the pain in her stomach surges.

What if it's in me now?
she wonders. The way it was in Catherine before him and Max before her?

She is running now, her legs and feet pulling a reluctant, damaged body.

She passes buildings and turns corners without knowing where she is going. Her heart races, and she imagines her blood pumping with each step, bringing her closer to some end.