The Nightmare Game (26 page)

“That’s far too long a story to go into right now.
Hey, I’m getting hungry, how about you?” He asked, deliberately changing the
subject.

“A little bit,” I answered, letting the matter
drop.

“Wonderful!” he exclaimed. “If you’re hungry, then
you’re on the mend. The timing of your recovery could not be more perfect
because our little family will be taking nourishment soon. Let me show you
around a little. While I’d very much like to give you the full grand tour,
there’s not enough time for it right now, but we do have just enough time for
me to take you around the main rooms of the mansion before joining the others.
I want you to be able to get your bearings, at least. I’ll show you the rest of
the mansion in the next few days.”

“Promise?” I teased him.

“I promise.” He stood up straight, held two
fingers in the air and said, solemnly, “Scout’s Honor.”

He flashed me such a huge smile that I couldn’t
help but be enamored. He was such a sweet man that it was impossible not to
like him.

“Come to think about it, I guess I could eat
something,” I said, smiling back at him. “What’s for dinner?”

Ben looked back at me a little sheepishly. “Well,
there really isn’t a choice. It’s the same thing we always have.”

“You eat the same thing every day?”

“Well, we don’t exactly eat, we simply take in
nourishment. And we don’t need to do it every day, which is why your timing is
perfect. Not that it would have really been a problem because I’m sure that
Arrosha would have made arrangements for you later on anyway. She wouldn’t have
wanted our guest starving to death.”

“Arrosha?”

“Let’s see, what’s the best way for me to
introduce her to you? I guess you could say that she’s sort of the leader of
our pack. This is her house.”

“Will I meet her at dinner?”

“Oh, no. She’s not here that often. But I’m sure
you’ll be meeting her in a day or two. She told me that she wants you to get
settled in first before she meets you.”

“Sure, I understand.” Actually, I didn’t
understand, I was just trying to be polite. “So what is ‘taking in nourishment’
if it’s not eating?”

“Don’t worry, it’s very, very satisfying. It may
not seem like much to you at first, but once you’ve had your first meal, you
probably won’t want to ingest anything again, ever. I mean, it is so much
better than eating.”

Imagining a dinner of sprout juice, I was
disappointed. “Better than eating?” I protested. “You mean it’s better than shrimp
scampi? Better than gumbo? Better than roast beef?”

“Infinitely better, I can assure you.”

“Better than pizza? No way it’s better than
pizza.”

Ben rolled his eyes. “Well, it might not taste
better than pizza, but it
is
better than
pizza.”

“Nothing’s better than pizza.” New memories of
crash diets past returned suddenly to my mind. “Hey, no offense intended, but
please don’t tell me that’s it’s some kind of liquid diet crap.

Ben chuckled. “No liquid diet. No crap.”

I laughed a little until a horrible thought
crossed my mind.

“You don’t eat food. You’re not vampires, are
you?” At first I said it as a joke but the minute the words left my mouth, it
felt serious. I became anxious, realizing that I was about to enter into a
group of people about which I knew nothing, a group living in a mansion so far
removed from any neighbors that no one could hear me should I scream. I didn’t
remember much, but I remembered enough to realize I’d seen that plot many times
in horror films before.

Ben seemed amused at the growing fear in my eyes.
“Don’t be silly,” he assured me. “We are most definitely not vampires. Ashley,
remember, I said we weren’t on any liquid diets. That includes blood.”

“You don’t really eat. Are you aliens?”

His smile got bigger. “Of course not. Seriously,
have I asked you even once for you to take me to your leader?”

“No.” I said. Ben’s disarmingly winsome manner
allayed my new fears, so I decided to play along. Still, despite my instant
rapport with him, I was still curious to see how he would react. So I asked
him, tongue in cheek, “Let’s see, if you don’t eat, then you must be the living
dead. You’re a zombie, aren’t you?”

Ben laughed a hearty laugh out loud. “So you think
I’m inviting you to dinner as the main course? Don’t be silly. If we were zombies,
we’d have to eat your brain. Everyone knows that zombies eat brains. Remember,
we don’t eat solid food,” he said lightheartedly.

“All right,” I said, teasing him, “Let’s just keep
it that way.”

“Ashley, you can put your mind to rest,” he said,
giving me a hearty one-armed hug. “No one in this house is either an alien or a
vampire or a zombie.” He put his hand on the doorknob and opened the door.
“Besides,” he said, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, “If we were, I
wouldn’t tell you.”

“Ben!”

“Wow, Ashley, you really are fun to tease. I’ll
have to remember that. C’mon, silly, let me show you around the old homestead
and then get something in you before you get too hungry.”

We entered into a drab, unadorned, off-white
corridor with wood floors.

“Right now we’re in the wing that was once the
mansion’s old slave quarters,” Ben said, entering into a tour-guide mode. “I
wanted to put you into one of our nicer guest areas but Arrosha wanted you
quarantined. I really don’t know why, since we can’t catch diseases, but I
guess she had her reasons.”

“You can’t catch diseases? Are you sure?”

“Quite sure. Our immunity is perfect.”

“What makes you so immune?”

He turned around and said, in a mock-menacing
tone, “Human brains and blood.”

“Ben! Stop that!” I scolded.

He laughed his friendly, contagious laugh again.
“Sorry Ashley, couldn’t help myself. You really are too much fun to tease, but
I’ll stop it until you get to know me better. It’s just that I feel so
comfortable talking to you that it’s hard to believe that I just met you.
Awake, that is.”

He was right. I felt it too. There was something
about Ben, a sincerity, an easy-going quality and a heartiness to his sense of
humor that made me trust him and feel safe in his presence. It was rare to meet
an instant friend, someone with whom I clicked immediately. Another memory
resurfaced out of nowhere when I realized that I’d had the same experience when
I’d first met my best friend Carolyne. For some unknown reason, in the back of
my mind, I felt that I should have been terrified in this strange place, but it
was hard to be afraid when Ben was around.

We reached the plain wooden door at the end of the
hall. When Ben opened it, a far different world greeted my eyes than the one we
were leaving behind. Instead of the flat, dull, cramped realm of the servants
quarters, a brilliant new universe of lavish and opulent splendor revealed
itself to my eyes. In my entire life, I had never been inside a private
residence such as the one that I was about to enter. I had only ever seen such
grandeur in pictures and the movies. I had just stepped into a palace.

“Wow,” was the only thing that I could say as I
took in the majesty that lay ahead of me. The hallway enlarged tremendously in
all directions; the floor offered up a plush carpeting of the darkest burgundy
upon which to walk. The walls were covered with paintings framed in gilded
hardwood; small statues and busts sat between every few paintings.

“It’s true. They’re right,” I said, stunned by the
magnificence that lay before me. “Rich really is better.”

“Oh, but this is only the beginning,” Ben said.
“Allow me let to me give you at least part of the grand tour. We have enough
time for that. Let’s start with where we’re standing. We’re on the second floor
now. Most of the paintings and smaller sculptures are on this floor.”

As we stood in the massive hallway, there was so
much to see, so many paintings, sculptures, opulent rugs and tapestries; my
eyes were so flooded with such an overabundance of art and riches that I didn’t
know where to begin to focus my attention. I walked forward to view the
paintings that hung to my right, but as I did, those few steps revealed to me a
view of a vast space to my left that had before seemed miraculously hidden. The
wall there had disappeared, replaced by a railing of thick, rich, hand-carved
mahogany, varnished to the highest luster, as the hallway transformed itself
into a balcony or mezzanine.

“How?” I asked, at a loss for words.

“Nice trick, isn’t it?” remarked Ben, watching my
expression. “It never ceases to amaze me how she can keep that view hidden
until she’s ready to reveal it. Of course, Arrosha never ceases to amaze me,
period.”

“I’ll say. It’s completely breathtaking,” I
answered as, mesmerized, I walked up to the railing.

“We call it this Great Room,” he told me.

“I can see why,” I replied, flabbergasted, for the
word “great” was actually an understatement.

“For many years,” Ben explained, “Arrosha lived in
and about Romania, after which she moved to Paris. She says that during these
times, she was happier than she’d been in ages. That’s why those influences are
so strong in the architecture of the room.”

 The room was palatial in every sense of the word.
It was overwhelming in its size, magnificence and opulence, displaying a level
of wealth over which revolutions had been fought. Of monumental proportions, it
was a unique combination of Gothic and Baroque, an unlikely cross between the
dark palatial castles of the robber baron princes of central Europe and a ballroom
at the Palace of Versailles as gold lacework merged with dark, rich mahogany
wood. The ceiling, adorned with
trompe d’oeil
frescoes, held a myriad of crystal chandeliers that dripped from the high,
ornate ceiling like huge, bejeweled earrings, drawing the eye downward toward
an expansive marble floor containing a large, ancient-looking circular mosaic
of a woman directly in its center. Corinthian columns with elegant scrollwork
at the top stood guard in each corner and at various places in each wall’s
mid-section. Flat columns sat in between them; each of these sported a fat,
smiling carved cherub with extended arms holding lit candelabra. Further down
the balcony, a grand staircase covered in the same rich, deep, burgundy red
carpet upon which I now stood, spilled out onto the lower floor. The stairway
was flanked by heavy banisters made of richly carved mahogany adorned with gold
gilt work, an extension of the polished railing onto which I now held. Heavy
drapes hid the windows; they matched the color of the carpet that dripped down
the staircase and that covered all of the floor of this second story, a color
so deep and rich a burgundy red that in the right lighting, it would have
appeared black. The room was lined with statues, the most curious of which was
an enormous crystal piece which took up almost the entire length of the far
wall.

If ever I’d teased Ben about the group being
vampires, my mind was put to rest as I noticed the huge mirrors in baroque gold
frames or moldings taking up most of the walls upon which they were set,
reflecting the huge room and making it look even larger.

“Beautiful, isn’t it, our Great Room?” Ben
whispered reverently as he stood next to me at the railing.

“That’s quite the understatement,” I replied, not
looking at him. I was so engrossed in the view that I was unable to tear my
eyes from the sight that lay before me. “I thought you said this was a mansion,
not a palace.”

“It is. Actually, it’s an old plantation home.”

“Really? Where?” I asked.

“We’re in bayou country in southwestern
Louisiana.”

“That can’t be. This mansion isn’t just big, it’s
gigantic,” I protested. “I’ve never heard of any plantation homes on this scale
in Louisiana. I grew up in the state and nothing like this has ever crossed my
radar. This house would have been famous. Nobody could keep something like this
a secret.”

“Hey, you remembered something new.” I didn’t know
if Ben was happy for me or just trying to change the subject again. “You know
where you’re from now.”

“It just came to me,” I said, finally turning my
attention away from the majestic view. “Like everything else I’ve remembered so
far, it just popped into my head.”

“Keep it up and we’ll have the mystery that is you
solved in no time.”

“I hope so, but you’re not going to change the subject
that easily this time. How can this place be so huge and still such a secret?”

“Probably because we are very secluded out here
and the house really isn’t this big on the outside.”

“What?”

“This mansion is extremely unique. It has an odd
floor plan. The bulk of the house is devoted to this entry room. The rest of
the house is smaller, relatively speaking, of course. Understanding the
anomalies are actually easy because around here, anything is possible,” he
said. “There’s actually a lot more to this mansion than meets the eye. It’s
full of wonders, although the floor plan can be very tricky in some spots. Just
enjoy the view for now. I’ll explain more as we go along.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“There
is
an
explanation, one I’ll tell you soon. I promise,” he replied.

“I’ve heard that line before,” I only half teased.

“I always keep my promises, Ashley.” A perplexed
look then crossed his face, as if he were almost unwilling to broach a subject
with me. “Listen, I didn’t mention this before, Ashley, but there’s another
thing that’s been bothering me a lot and it’s about you. I’m sure that if I
would have met you before, I would have remembered you. I mean, it’s not
everyday that I hit it off right away with somebody like I have with you. I
could swear that I’ve seen you before. You look so incredibly familiar to me,
but try as hard as I might, I just can’t place you.”

“I know, I feel the same way,” I replied. “It
seems like I’ve seen you someplace before, too.”

“You’ve lost your memories, you have an excuse. I
don’t,” Ben said. “This isn’t like me at all. I should remember. If I could,
then maybe it would give us some clues to your past.”

“That would be awfully nice,” I said wistfully. I
was suddenly getting a sinking feeling that my memories were going to be a lot
more important to me than I could possibly imagine right now.

“Well, enough of all this serious talk,” Ben said,
snapping out of his frustration, his sunny smile returning. “Let’s get back to
our tour. Even though we won’t have time today to take in the whole house, I
still want to show you the highlights because once you get oriented here,
finding your way around the entire mansion gets a lot easier. Besides, while I
know these rooms and belongings don’t actually belong to me personally, this is
my home and I can’t help but be proud, anyway.”

He continued leading me down the balcony, although
I could have stayed in that one spot and stared at the Great Room for a long
time without moving. Soon, we came to a large mural. Ben touched it, then slid
first one side and then the other into the wall, revealing that it was a hidden
door leading into an open gallery. Like the hall and balcony, the gallery was
filled with paintings and smaller sculptures. At the rear of the room, in the
left hand corner, stood a spiral staircase.

“This is really neat,” he said. I could tell that
he was thoroughly enjoying his role as tour guide. “Try to find where the doors
went.”

I examined the wall closest to me, but all signs
of the door and door cradles had disappeared altogether.

“Where did they go?”

“See this little section of the molding that looks
about half a shade darker than the rest?”

“No.” I looked very closely, but try as I might, I
saw nothing.

“It doesn’t matter. You’ll see it tomorrow, I
promise. Anyway, when I press it, the doors reappear.” He touched the spot I
could not see and a handle appeared. He pulled it and the sliding door
re-emerged. He drew the door out a few inches and then pushed it back into the
wall. Again, all signs of it disappeared. “That’s just one of the very neat
things about this house,” he continued. “We usually keep this door open. This
area is only ever closed off when we have company. I’ll leave it open, now,
because I’m pretty sure we can trust you.”

“I wouldn’t think of stealing anything.”

“Oh, it’s not that. We just don’t want outsiders
in the conservatory.”

I was amazed at the art collection that hung upon
the wall of the gallery area. It was an eclectic mix, works by old masters hung
side by side with a very few newer pieces, all interspersed with
frightening-looking African masks and other aboriginal carvings. It was a
combination that should never have fit together, but somehow it worked here,
perhaps because all the art had a dark, brooding feel to it. Whatever cohesion
the collection lacked in style, it made up for in mood. There were no
landscapes, no still lifes or abstracts in the bunch. No matter what the
subject was, male or female, portrait or mythical setting, the people depicted
all seemed either hopeless or angry. There was not one painting or sculpture
containing a smiling person in the lot.

In the middle of the room was its largest
sculpture, a life-size piece of three mediaeval monks, standing in a
semi-circle, praying.

“I love this piece,” said Ben as we walked up to
it. “It’s one of my favorites in the entire collection. I like to think of them
as guardians.”

“What exactly are they guarding?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. Just things in general. Truth,
justice and the American way, I guess” he said, flashing his smile again. “None
of us have a clue what this sculpture’s real name is, we just call these guys
‘The Saints’. There’s something very comforting about this piece. Don’t think
me too odd, but sometimes I like to come up here and talk to them. It helps me
think. Geoffrey insists that at one time they were part of an old Gothic
cathedral. I don’t agree with him but he enjoys the fantasy too much for me to
argue.”

“I think you’re right. I don’t see how they could
be Gothic.”

“I know my reasons, but what makes you think
that?”

“Well, even though the background, base and
clothing are in the highly stylized manner of pre-Renaissance sculpture and it
certainly looks very old, the faces and hands are far too realistic. They look
almost like body casts of Asian men, as a matter of fact. This piece could
never be Gothic.”

“Have you studied art?” he asked.

“Hey, you know, I did. I took a few semesters of
art history in college. They were required courses.”

“And we know something else about you now. See, I
told you that your memories would start coming back. So were you an art history
major?”

“No, I was an art major. But art history was a
prerequisite to graduate. Ben, why can I remember that and not what I was doing
before I got here?”

“Probably because this gallery is jogging your
memory. Listen, like I said, I’m sure everything will come back to you
eventually.”

“I hope you’re right. But why isn’t it bothering
me more, losing my memory? You’d think that I’d be going nuts trying to
remember, but I’m not.”

“Because it
is
coming back to you, even if it is just a little at a time. It will all return
eventually, I know it will. And the less you stress about it, the faster it’ll
happen. Besides, I plan on keeping you way too busy for it to bug you until it
does.”

“Thanks. By the way,” I said, walking to the
spiral staircase in the corner. “What’s up there?”

“The third floor. It’s only a partial floor,
mainly Arrosha’s personal storage room and the conservatory.”

“Can we go up there?”

“Not yet.”

“Why?”

“No guests are allowed up there, only those in our
group. We plan on taking you up there soon, but, like the rest of us when we
first arrived, you’ll need to be transformed first before you can enter.”

“Transformed? That’s strange. Transformed in what
way?”

“It’s nothing sinister,” he replied. “It’s very
lovely. As a matter of fact it’s a process you’ve already begun.”

“How?”

“We gave you the water in an IV solution so that
you could get well and then you drank some of it before you went back to
sleep.”

“Yeah, and then I drank what was in the glass when
I woke up.”

“Wonderful. Arrosha has told me that the water is
the first of your transformation steps. After that, you’ll need to take in the
essence, that’s our ‘food’, but don’t worry, you’ll love it; everybody does.
That’s where we’ll be headed after I show you around a little bit more. After
the essence comes the purge, which I’ll explain to you later. Following that,
you’ll need to go through the transformation process, which involves meeting
Arrosha. You’ll enjoy meeting her, it’s truly wonderful, and the transformation
experience itself is very pleasant. Then you’ll be deemed ready at last to
enter the conservatory, and we’ll all take you up there. You fall into a unique
category, Ashley, because since you weren’t brought to us personally by Arrosha
herself, she will have to give you her formal acceptance. But don’t worry,
everything’s really very easy and involves no math whatsoever. That’s all there
is to it. I’m sure you’ll be accepted, since Arrosha has expressed a great
interest in you and is allowing you to take essence, even though you came to us
in such an unorthodox fashion. Right now, though, you are still only her guest
and therefore not allowed upon the third floor. But if she accepts you, and I’m
sure she will, you can go up there, for you will no longer be her guest. Like
the rest of us, you will then be her child.”