The Nightmare Game (30 page)

“You only say that because you can’t imagine how
wonderful it is. Don’t judge it until you’ve tried it first.”

“Okay, okay,” I acquiesced. “I’ll have to
resurrect that sixties’ mantra, ‘I’ll try anything once’.”

“Atta girl, that’s the spirit.” Ben beamed.

“Alright, don’t rub it in. So you have these
parties like what, every month or so?”

“Well, we used to have them just once in a blue
moon, but we’ve had a bunch this year, especially in the last few months. I
don’t know what’s put Arrosha into such a festive mood of late, but whatever
the reason, I’m awfully glad of it. There’s nothing I like better than a good
party and Ashley, you will love our parties because they are so incredibly
fabulous! Truly great galas in the grand tradition. Arrosha hires musicians,
actors, performance artists, poets, you name it, to perform at our parties.
There are always different themes, so it never gets boring. Some are centered
around dances, others concerts or plays. Sometimes, and these are my favorites,
we have the most fabulous costume and masquerade balls.

“Arrosha invites artists, writers, scientists,
intellectuals of all sorts, people from all walks of life, rich, poor and
everything in-between to our events. The variety of our guests is astonishing.
The only requirement Arrosha seems to have is that they must be interesting.
Intellectuals, leaders of industry and foreign dignitaries rub shoulders with
pub owners, actors, librarians, school teachers, plumbers. The diversity is
astonishing. As long as they have interesting stories, viewpoints and ideas, they’re
in. It’s very avante garde. I’ve met so many fascinating people and I’ve
learned about so much through them. Arrosha usually throws these functions for
us when we start to get bored around the mansion and with the club scene in the
city, which isn’t very often since there is so much here to keep us
entertained.”

“Meeting so many people must give you guys a lot
of folks to visit when you travel,” I remarked, testing the length of his
gilded tether.

Ben’s expression became wistful. “I wish. Don’t
get me wrong, because I’m certainly not complaining. Hey, look around, what do
I have to complain about, right? But my only real gripe, the only thing that I
would change about our socials if I could, would be to have at least a few
individuals attend more than once. We never get to see anybody a second time. I
meet so many people that I’d like to develop friendships with, but Arrosha
never invites them back. I’ve asked her to, many times, but she always tells me
that she doesn’t want us to have binding ties with the outside world any more.
She says that world is wicked and would be a corrupting influence upon us. She
wants our only true relationships to be within our little group here.” His
buoyancy had vanished and he seemed quite sad, but he sighed resignedly and
shrugged. “I guess she’s right. After all, she is the Goddess, the all-seeing,
all-knowing Arrosha and I’m just, well, me.” Ben seemed incapable of being down
for very long, for as suddenly as it had appeared, the cloud that surrounded
him disappeared and his happy, good-natured mood returned.

“Hey, listen, Ashley, it’s time for us to go on in
soon. Somebody should have come for us by now. Can you stay here for a minute
while I see why we’re running late?’“

“Sure.”

“I promise I’ll be right back.”

“Not a problem,” I told him.

He darted toward a door in the narrower inside
wall and disappeared. Ben wasn’t gone long before I began to lose the comfort
zone that his presence had provided. I had no idea as to how to occupy myself
during his absence. I wandered over to the folded chairs and music stands and
pretended to study them, careful not to touch because I was afraid I might
inadvertently break something or send the stack tumbling. It was terribly
disinteresting and I quickly bored of it, so I returned back to the center of
the stage as softly as I could, afraid even to make the tiniest noise in this
vast mansion which was now far too silent without Ben at my side. He’d been
gone only a little more than a minute but without his friendly, reassuring
presence, I was beginning to get antsy and grow uneasy. I wandered around the
stage in circles, never leaving its empty center, because I felt that I could
cause no trouble here. My uneasiness soon grew into an impatience fueled by
anxiety. Exactly where had Ben gone? Where was he now in this huge palace of a
mansion? He’d headed off to into a part of the house that he hadn’t yet shown
me, so I had no way of knowing where to find him if he didn’t return. What if
he didn’t return?

Of course he would return. He had to, he lived
here. I didn’t know why I was feeling so insecure. It wasn’t as though he could
just disappear into thin air, now, was it?

That thought, rather than striking me as being
more than a little silly, disturbed me. It felt as if it could easily be a real
possibility. An odd sensation, rather like a memory, stirred in me, reminding
me that such things were indeed possible. But it couldn’t be, could it? My
mind, panicking now that Ben was out of the room, was playing tricks on me. I
needed to change the path my thoughts were taking, to turn them outward rather
than inward, so I lifted my eyes to re-examine the marvelous artworks of the
Great Room. What I saw there struck me with terror.

All the statues in the room that were facing my
direction were staring directly at me. After the initial shock, I tried to
laugh it off, telling myself that eyes in good art often gave the impression
that they were following you around a room. That was all there was to it; it
was a simple explanation. I was just being ridiculous again and needed to take
hold of my imagination. The rationalization helped for a moment while I rubbed
my eyes and looked again. This time I recognized that the sculptures weren’t
just looking at me, they were glaring at me. Why were their eyes all so open?
Hadn’t some of them been downcast or closed? The Medusa glowered at me
intensely, but it wasn’t she who alarmed me so much, because I remembered being
startled by her vicious gaze when I first saw her. No, it was Perseus now who
frightened me, for his eyes were open and trained upon me, staring at me from
over the severed head of the gorgon. I remembered distinctly that his eyes had
been closed, for he was purposely avoiding any chance glimpse of Medusa’s
snake-infested head and yet, there he now stood, staring at me, a savage look
in his eyes.

All around the Great Room, every statue glared at
me with the same expression, scowling and angry. This couldn’t be, it just
couldn’t. These were all simply statues made either of stone, metal or crystal,
immovable, inanimate objects. This wasn’t happening. I was overtired, that was
all. I’d been sick, my eyes were playing tricks on me, they had to be. What I
was seeing was impossible. Statues couldn’t move, statues couldn’t see. My
panic rose as they continued to glare. I rubbed my eyes a second time and
looked back, but it changed nothing. The statues still stared at me with
murderous rage.

 What if Ben really wasn’t coming back? I had to
get out of here. I had to run. I was near the front door, I could easily
escape. I was on the verge of bolting for the exit when a vile, visceral
impulse hit me. It was vague but undeniable. I couldn’t leave. I had no idea
why, but I knew I couldn’t leave, I could not go out that door. There was no
reason, no logic attached to that feeling, just sheer animal instinct, sheer
animal terror. Somehow I knew that whatever waited for me out there was far
worse than what dwelt in here. I knew without knowing what or why that whatever
was out there wanted to kill me, wanted to devour me. My heart raced even
faster as I fought to breathe as this unnamed horror engulfed me. I backed away
toward the corner of the stage room, toward the drapes; I backed as far away
from both the front door and the Great Room with its glowering statues as I
could, hiding behind the partition, hiding from those sculptures, from those
eyes. If I couldn’t see them from this angle, I knew that they couldn’t see me.
I stood in that one spot, afraid and shaking, backed up into the corner, almost
crawling into the drapes, praying for Ben’s immediate return.

Then I heard it. Breaking up the dead silence of
the house came a scratching at the window, the sound of fingernails on glass,
the sound that signaled that whatever it was that lay in wait for me out there
had found my hiding place. Then came a low moaning noise that accompanying the
scraping sound, a scraping which became louder, faster, more frequent, as if
more hands had joined the first in clawing at the window. I jumped back and
turned, staring at the heavy drapes, which, like all the others I’d seen here,
were drawn shut. What was it that was out there? What did it look like? What
was its shape? Why did it want me? I needed to know; I need to remember. I knew
that the answers were someplace within me, buried somewhere within my mind, but
they failed to reveal themselves to me. The harder I tried to retrieve them,
the deeper they buried themselves. Maybe if I looked, maybe if I saw what
lurked out there, what had come for me, maybe then I would remember. As
terrified as I was, I had no choice. I had to look, I had to remember. With
fear, I stepped toward the drapes, touched them and then drew my hand away. I
couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t. But I had to, didn’t I? I was terrified for a
reason and I had to find out, had to remember what that reason was. So with
shaking hands, I tried again, and this time I slowly, fearfully, began to pull
back the drapes.

With a start, my heart jumped the next second and
I froze. Something was crawling in my hair. It felt as though a large insect
had suddenly jumped or fallen into it. I shuddered as I braced myself to brush
the thing off of me when abruptly, as it continued to crawl, something else, a
new something, grabbed the ends of my hair. Had the unnamed evil that was after
me come into the house? Had it found me?

Terror-stricken, I gasped. It wasn’t courage but
sheer reflex alone that caused me to whisk around, cringing back at the same
time. I could feel the blood pump into my brain.

No ghastly creatures or disgusting insects greeted
my eyes. Enormous relief flooded my being as I came face to face with three
intensely beautiful women, hands still extended as they continued to touch my
hair. They must have been Ben’s housemates. I breathed out deeply, my fears
allayed.

“Did we frighten you?” Said the first, the tallest
of the three women.

“Oh, no,” I lied. “You just startled me.”

“Oh, pity,” said the next.

“Yes, pity,” said the last.

“It’s just that you have such beautiful hair,” the
first spoke again.

“We couldn’t help but touch it,” the second one
remarked.

“It’s so soft,” the third chimed in.

Their voices were laced with a heavy, exotic
eastern European accent, an accent acquired by learning English in England, not
in the United States. It was an intonation that generally appealed to me, one
to which I could normally enjoy hearing for hours. Yet what little these three
had said I already found disconcerting. Their voices, so soft and melodic,
seemed overly seductive in a sinister way. My initial relief was soon replaced
by aversion. I didn’t know what it was about them that put me off so quickly.
They seemed eccentric, true, but it wasn’t that which I found repellent. It
wasn’t their looks, either, for they were extremely striking in appearance,
three fair raven-haired beauties whose features seemed flawless. Maybe it was
the matching lipstick and nail polish they each wore, so dark it almost matched
the drapes. Maybe it was the nightgowns in which they were dressed, garments
which, while sheer and sexy, also held a whisper of the death shroud about
them. I wondered if they’d chosen those garments specifically for that effect,
because the nightgown I’d worn last night had not been in the least funereal.
Also, although the women were beautiful beyond belief, they were grouped
together tightly, postured in a stance that was both coquettish and predatory
at the same time. There was something definitely unhealthy about them that was
unnerving as they huddled together, staring at me intently without blinking, as
if I were the fly to their spider.

“What were you doing?” The first asked in her
sing-song voice.

“Were you going to open the drapes?” Asked the
second in the same way.

“You mustn’t do that,” the third added. Their
voices were so similar that the effect was chilling.

“No, not really,” I said, finding myself on the
defensive. “I thought I heard something outside and I was just going to look to
see what it was.”

“You mustn’t open the drapes,” the first
commented, as if I had said nothing.

“We’ve been told never to open the drapes in this
room, you know,” remarked the second.

“No, I don’t know,” I said, beginning to get
irritated. “Besides, I wasn’t going to, I just wanted to see…”

“If we’re not allowed,” the third interrupted me
in the same sing-song pattern as the other two, “then you’re not allowed.

I just looked at them in disbelief, not knowing
what to say or how to react. They were so very odd.

As I continued staring back at them, another hand
appeared out of nowhere and touched mine. I jumped at the sensation and twirled
around again. I was looking into the ice-cold light blue eyes of a Nordic god.
The man in front of me was so handsome that it was impossible for me to take my
eyes off him. Like Ben, he looked very familiar, but I couldn’t remember meeting
him.

“Jumpy, isn’t she?” he said to the three women in
a polished transatlantic accent that I could have sworn I’d heard before.

“Yes, she is,” the three said in uncanny unison.
“Very jumpy.”

“It’s bad for the antiques, you know,” the man
said to me.

“What?” I asked, somewhat befuddled. I’d been
completely thrown off my game by these new people.

“The sunlight. It’s bad for the antiques. That’s
why we keep the drapes closed always. The mansion’s climate and light are kept
strictly controlled. I really shouldn’t have to explain this to you, unless, of
course, you’re completely ignorant. You have been to a museum before in your
life, haven’t you?”

“Of course I have,” I said indignantly. Suddenly
he no longer seemed handsome. “It’s just that I heard a sound out there and
wondered what it was.”

“A sound?” He sounded skeptical.

“Yes, a scratching sound of some sort. As if
someone were scratching on the window.”

Almost as if on cue, the scratching sound started
up again.

“Ah, yes,” he said, condescendingly, still
sounding skeptical. “Well, let’s just see what’s out there, shall we?”

He walked closer to the wall and peeked carefully
out from the side of the drapes.

“Ah, yes, I do see what’s causing that noise.
There’s a tree limb scratching at the window. It’s overcast and windy and it
looks like it might rain.”

“Silly,” said the first woman.

“It’s just the wind,” declared the second.

“Don’t tell us you’re afraid of the wind,” added
the third.

The scratching sound lessened and then stopped
altogether.

“Looks like we won’t get any rain after all. It’s
already blowing over. You see, your noise was just a tree limb in need of
pruning. We’ll have it taken care of immediately, of course. By the way, you
shouldn’t frighten so easily.”

The three women all giggled in unhealthy unison.

“I wasn’t frightened,” I explained, getting angry
now. “I was simply startled.”

Coming too close for my taste, he touched me
beneath my chin with his right forefinger, lifting my head slightly. “If you
hear any more noises that startle you, you’ll be sure to let me know right
away, won’t you? I’m here to serve you in any way you desire.” His voice was as
smooth as honey but with a touch of oily seduction that I found repugnant.

I jerked my head away. “It wasn’t the noise that
startled me,” I lied, an angry edge to my voice, “it’s people sneaking up
behind me. I hate that.”

I stood there for a few seconds, the four of them
staring at me with an intensity that I could not decipher. Were they merely
curious about me, putting me through my paces in order to size me up, to see if
I would fit into their group or did they, in one way or another, want to devour
me? I really couldn’t tell.

“Hey!” I heard Ben’s voice calling. We all turned
to look at him, the others relaxing immediately as if he had just ordered
“stand down” or “at ease”. He walked up to me and put a friendly arm around my
shoulder. “I see you’ve met Ashley.”

“We’ve met her,” said the first woman.

“But we haven’t been properly introduced,” said
the second.

“No, not at all,” said the third.

“Okay, then. Ashley, this is Marta, this is Magda
and this is Annameta. And this handsome devil over here,” he said as he walked
over to the blond man, put a more than friendly arm around him, and kissed him
warmly, “is my Geoffrey. He’s the one that found you at our doorstep.”

“Yes,” oozed Geoffrey. “And what a charming little
bundle of joy she’s turning out to be.”

“Yeah, I think so too,” replied Ben, Geoffrey’s
sarcasm seemed to be completely lost on him. “I’m so glad you guys are getting
along.”

“We’re getting along just famously,” the blond man
said coldly.

“By the way, Geoff, where have you been?” Ben
asked. “I’ve been looking all over the place for you.”

“Funny, but I’ve been trying to find you as well,”
Geoffrey answered, his voice warm now and without innuendo. “I was afraid you
would run late because I know how involved you get when you give your tours.”

“He knows me too well,” Ben replied, giving
Geoffrey an affection squeeze as he beamed at him.

“I presume that in chasing each other, we each
kept missing the other. Regardless, we need to get started soon. We don’t want
the essence to lose strength just because we’re running late, now do we?”

“Goodness no,” Ben agreed. “Especially not when
it’s the first time our guest Ashley gets to take it.”

“We were afraid we’d be late ourselves,” the first
woman remarked, drawing attention back to herself.

“Yes, we were busy playing upstairs,” explained
the second.

“We almost lost track of the time,” the third one
replied.

“Well, it’s a good thing you girls made it, isn’t
it?” Ben said in a fatherly, accepting voice that told me that he did not find
their eccentricity creepy in the least. “It might be awhile before Arrosha
gives us more essence. You know, she decides when we need it.”

They looked at him sheepishly and replied in
unison, “We know.”

“You know there’ll be plenty of time for play
after taking essence. There always is,” Ben added.

They looked at him coquettishly, giggled again and
scampered toward the door that Ben had gone through earlier.

“Speaking of essence, is it ready?” Ben asked.

“Of course. Any time you’re ready, my love,”
Geoffrey answered.

“Great!” Ben said enthusiastically as he walked
ahead. “Let’s go into the hookah room. C’mon, Ashley. You’re in for a real
delicacy. I hope you’re hungry!”

Once Ben’s back was turned, Geoffrey’s ice blue
eyes shot through me as he smiled coldly. “Yes, my dear,” he said, the oiliness
returning to his voice. “I hope you’ve brought your appetite, because do we
ever have a treat in store for you.”