The Nightmare Game (52 page)

“I think he was trying to impress her.” I knew
that was the case, but I didn’t want Ben think that I was too sure about
anything. I figured that at this point, playing dumb would keep me alive the
longest.

Ben shook his head sadly. “I don’t know what’s
gotten into him lately. I’ve just about had it with him. It frightens me,
Ashley. He’s started to act like he used to, back in our previous life. He’s
been such a little shit these days, just like he was back then. I love Geoffrey
dearly, he’s always been the love of my life, but if he’s reverting back to his
old self,” Ben said, his eyes becoming moist, “I don’t think I can put up with
it. I really don’t think I’m up to going through that again. He put me through
so much before, it ripped my heart out the first time around. I just can’t go
through a betrayal from him again.”

I didn’t know what to say to him.

“Sorry, Ashley,” he said. “You’ve had enough
problems yourself from him tonight.”

“What’s going to happen now, Ben?” I asked,
worried.

“I honestly don’t know. Nothing like this has ever
come up before. There’s no precedent. It’s all up to Arrosha at this point.
Geoffrey’s requested an audience with her and she’s approved it. He just left,
so he’s in the city now, talking to her.”

“He just left and he’s in the city already?”

“Yes.”

“How is that possible?” I asked, hoping Ben would
give me a clue as to how to get out of here.

“We have a way, our own shortcut to our club, The
Crypt.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, trying not to let my
desperation show. Could I convince him to reveal the way out?

“I haven’t shown it to you yet. Arrosha told me
you were not to be allowed up there until she had specifically approved it,
which would be sometime after the transformation ceremony.”

“Oh, okay. I understand,” I said as nonchalantly
as possible, trying not to arouse Ben’s suspicions. So it was in the third
floor, after all. I was right, the voice had been trying to show me the way out
of here all along.

Ben rose from the bed and waked back over to the
door.

“Listen, I’m sorry but I’m going to have to ask
you to stay in here for a few hours and not go wandering about until all of
this gets sorted. The others are waiting for me down in the hookah room;
they’re anxious for me to tell them what I’ve found out so far. Some of them
are pretty upset with you. They think that you may have gotten Arrosha angry at
us all by being here, so I think it’s better if you stay put. I think that
things will go better for you if you’re not around. They don’t need to see you
right now. I’ll fill them in on what I know and then we’ll wait for Geoffrey to
get back and give us Arrosha’s assessment.”

He opened the door and walked out but turned
before leaving.

“Did you lock the bathroom door?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You might want to lock this one after me
again. Geoffrey’s been talking crazy and I don’t want him getting in here when
he gets back. I don’t want to give him another opportunity to try to hurt you.
Regardless of how this turns out, I’m going to have to talk with Arrosha to see
if she knows what’s wrong with him and ask her to fix him.”

“I know what’s wrong with him. He’s been sneaking
in outside water,” I volunteered. I had no reason to protect Geoffrey and every
reason not to; and Ben had a right to know what had caused such a drastic
change in the love of his life.

“But that’s disgusting and would have made him
very sick,” Ben answered, perplexed. “It’s not good for us any more. Why on
earth would he do something crazy like that?”

“He’s been weaning himself back onto it slowly
over the last few months. He said the water here made him too forgetful, too
docile. I think it had something to do with getting his free will, his autonomy
back or something like that.”

“Oh,” was all he said, but the tone of his voice
and the look on his face told me I had hit a nerve. Ben must have had his own
suspicions about the water and I had just confirmed them. “Anyway,” he
continued, glad to change the subject, “I will be back up here to let you know
what’s going on after we talk to Geoffrey. Ashley, I say this for your own
safety, don’t try to leave the house. Geoffrey told me there are some kind of
creatures out there that will kill you if you do.”

“The ghouls, yes, I know. They’re the ones that
attacked me and almost killed me when I first arrived.”

“You remember now?”

“Yes. It all came back to me when I was arguing
with Geoffrey. I remember everything now.”

He glanced over at the water glass and then back
at me. “Perhaps it would be best to keep it that way for now,” he said simply,
but I understood that he meant for me not to drink from the glass that Illea
had poured for me.

I nodded.

“And again, please don’t leave this room until I
get back. I have to warn you against trying to leave by way of the third floor.
That exit is now locked.”

The last of my hopes sank when I heard this.

“I thought that’s how Geoffrey was getting back,”
I said, trying to get more information.

“It is. The gateway is usable now in one direction
only. He can get back, but I’ve been informed that it is locked from this side
to prevent you from leaving here. No one can get out until Arrosha unlocks it.
I hope knowing that will keep you from trying anything foolhardy.

“Anyway, Ashley, I have to get back to the others.
Like I said, I’ll let you know in probably a few hours what’s been decided.” He
then closed the door and left. I did as he asked and locked it after him. Now
more than ever, I felt trapped, an animal in a cage just waiting for the
slaughter.

I began to pace, more nervous now than I was
before Ben’s visit. I put my hand to my upper chest to touch the necklace,
hoping to find some reassurance from it, but there was none to be found. It was
still buried deep within my flesh, hiding in the form of exotic body art, a
form in which it was safe from accidental removal.

With nothing else to do, I walked into the closet
and stared at my old clothing, thinking for a moment that I might put them on
again so that I could at least die wearing my own clothes. The knit top was a
little too big but still wearable, but when I pulled my jeans off the hanger
they were on, I realized that it would be impossible for me to fit into them
now. I’d lost such an incredible amount of weight in the very short time that I
had been here that there was no way that I could even keep them up. Even the
belt that I’d worn here was so large on me now that the notches ended long
before it would fit. No, I wouldn’t even attempt it. My old jeans would be just
too uncomfortable and cumbersome for me to wear now. Whereas normally, I would
have been thrilled, it depressed me now, because it was living proof that
Arrosha had tampered with my body.

Dismay filled me as I realized that it was
probably just a matter of a few hours at most that I’d have to live before
Arrosha killed me. The game was up and I doubted that the water would have much
effect on me anymore. Its effects had already become weaker before Geoffrey got
his claws in me tonight. I remembered deciding earlier tonight to join the
group and I shuddered. In his own psychotic way, Geoffrey had done me a huge
favor by forcing my trip down memory lane and I could not imagine Arrosha being
happy about that, for he had ruined her carefully constructed ruse.

I wondered if Ben, Illea or any of the others
would remember me at all later. Probably not, at least not for long. The miniscule,
barely existent immunity they had from the water seemed to stem from excessive
essence consumption, something I was sure would cease now. Without any
long-standing immunity to the water, it would surely soon wash away any
memories of me and it would be to them as if I had never been here, as if I had
never existed.

I was being silly, I knew, but I wished that I had
my driver’s license on me right now. If I did wind up dead somewhere in the
real world where someone could find my body, I’d like to be known as more than
just another “Jane Doe”. It would be nice if someone could notify my family and
let them know that I wasn’t coming home any more. Maybe Carolyne could help
them sell my house and settle my estate. I knew my mom would give Samson and
Delilah a good home for the rest of their lives. Was anyone missing me yet and
I wondered how long I’d been gone. My four-day vacation was surely over
already. Had Carolyne called my family on their cruise and had they been forced
to cut their vacation short on my account?

Despondency began to wrap itself around me tightly
until it became a prison within a prison, and soon even pacing the room became
too much effort. I lay on the bed for a few seconds, trying to calm my mind,
but that exercise in relaxation was less than futile as I soon became even more
agitated and anxious than I’d been before. With nothing to occupy my mind, I
felt like screaming. I couldn’t stay in this room another moment. It was
driving me mad. So I got up, unlocked the door, and after checking to make sure
that no one was out there, stepped out into the hall, wondering if I would be
able to overhear anything the others were saying. If I saw or heard anyone
coming this way, I could still run back to my room and lock the door. But all
was quiet. Even the artworks had returned to their inanimate state and I could
hear nothing from where I stood. As the minutes passed, I grew braver, inching
my way closer and closer to the elevator and the gallery, straining to hear any
conversation, hyper-vigilant of any changes to the stillness that surround me,
alert as a prey animal to any sights and sounds, any movement, to anything that
might signal danger.

I then heard a sound, a whisper so soft that I
questioned whether it was a real sound and not just my imagination working
overtime. Cautiously, I tip-toed up to the balcony railing and leaned over,
thinking it must be coming from the hookah room below where the others were
gathered, discussing my fate. But if anything, the sound grew even softer
there. I wondered, could it possibly be the same voice that had called me
earlier tonight? It was too soft to tell. If so, why was it so much harder to
hear than it had been earlier? I carefully and noiselessly walked through the
gallery, hiding underneath the spiral staircase lest the voice belonged to
Geoffrey as he spoke to Arrosha, and again strained to hear it. It was slightly
louder here, the whisper coming from the same place that it had before, the
third floor. Once I heard it a little more clearly, I could tell that it was
indeed the same voice, for it was distinctively different from Geoffrey’s. Only
then did I slowly and quietly sneak up the steps, and the voice, still so soft,
grew ever so slightly louder as I ascended, once again, up to the third floor.

After I’d arrived upon the third floor, the
once-tiny voice became clear and audible, almost a stage whisper now. The door
to the storeroom that Geoffrey had dragged me into was closed tightly, but one
of the huge double doors that dominated this floor was slightly ajar. That was
a surprise, for when Ben told me that this exit was locked, I had assumed he’d
meant these doors. Apparently, Geoffrey was so confident in my complete and
utter inability to leave that he didn’t even bother to shut one of them
completely.

I walked up to the entrance of the temple,
thankful that the little ballet-style slippers I now wore were so quiet. I
peeked inside shyly, for a moment terrified to enter this forbidden chamber,
the room from which the voice calling my name seemed to originate. While the
voice was urging me forward, my fear held me back and I smiled sadly at my hesitation.
Whether I entered the room or not, surely my fate had already been cast, and it
was by no means a sunny one, of that I was certain. I could get into no worse
trouble than I was in at the moment, for my death sentence had already been
most probably passed now that Arrosha’s plan was ruined because I’d finally
built up an immunity to the effects of the water.

The realization that I had nothing left to lose
gave me a new courage and, silently and stealthily, I entered the temple of
Arrosha. It was a large, circular conservatory engulfing the lion’s share of
the entire floor. The domed ceiling was a monstrous skylight. The room was
sparse, with only one huge object dominating it, a massive mirror in a frame
reminiscent of my amulet.

The floor and curved walls were reflective, highly
polished white marble. Other than the mirror, the only other objects in the
temple were a group of lamps which illuminated the room from along its
circumference. Larger than life white marble satyrs were they, standing in silence
along the circular walls, upon their heads were large, shining globes. Their
hands, palms up, arms outstretched before them, each held a smaller globe, also
lit. No eunuchs these satyrs; it was apparent that their only reason for
existence in this profane temple was to serve their goddess, their enthusiasm
for their duties overtly visible.

I looked toward the mirror, because the soft
voice, still just a whisper, was emanating from it. While from a distance, the
mirror looked like nothing more than a mirror, the closer I got to it, the less
and less it resembled one. It began to change, so much so that as I approached
it, it took me a few minutes to realize what it was becoming. No longer a
single mirror, it seemed instead to have turned into a multitude of mirrors,
each reflecting off of the objects in the room and off of each other in a
prismatic way. Not at all static, these mirrors were each moving, shifting,
swimming within the frame, making the unit as a whole seem now to breathe as if
alive.

I approached it cautiously, tentatively, because
it now seemed like a monster poised to reach out and swallow me whole. But as I
grew close to it, its center began to cloud, then come into focus, and instead
of my own reflection, I saw a man in front of me that I recognized immediately
from one of the photographs that Geoffrey had shoved at me. It was Zachary
Preston, the chemist, the helper that Virginia had told me about but that I
had, until this moment, not met. He was standing in another room, a room on the
other side of this doorway. This was it, this was the door, this was the gate.

“Ashley!” he said, and while his voice was now
only a loud whisper, I could tell by looking at him that he was not whispering.

“Zachary?” I asked. He nodded. “Why can’t I hear
you better? I barely heard you calling me. I could hear you much better earlier
tonight.”

“The passageway is locked and that muffles the
sound. But that’s not important, what’s important is that you’re here now.
Thank God for that. You’re in extreme danger. Arrosha has given up on her plan
and decided to have you killed instead.”

“The plan to have me join her group?” I asked.

“Yes. You have to get out of there now.”

“How? I thought this exit was locked.”

“It is. But it’s not the only way out. There’s another
one, a back door, Arrosha’s emergency door. None of her followers know it can
be used. Do you know where the reflecting pool is?”

“Yes.”

“Run to it. Now. Go up to the reflecting pool and
wait for the amulet to let you know that it’s safe to jump in. Then dive in and
swim toward the bottom. It’ll take you back.”

“How? The liquid in it is caustic. I won’t survive
the trip.”

“The amulet on your necklace will protect you long
enough for you to make it back. You have to trust it. It will protect you.”

Something must have suddenly happened at his end
because he startled and looked back at me with panic in his eyes. “I think she
may have heard me. I need to leave. They’ll be coming for you, Ashley. Go, now!
It’s your only chance. Run!”

He then disappeared into nothingness the same way
that Virginia and Marcus had. I turned around and quickly ran out of the room
but there, in the hall, stood Ben.

“Ashley!” He said, a scolding tone in his voice.
“I specifically told you not to come up here. You deliberately disobeyed me.”

“Ben! Ben! You’ve got to help me! Geoffrey’s on
his way back now! He’s going to kill me!” I pleaded. I was pretty sure that I
could trust Ben, although his appearance here was not my first choice. The fact
was that at the moment, I had no other option except to trust him. “Please,
Ben, I have to make it to the reflecting pool! I have to!”

“Why the reflecting pool?” He asked, his anger
turning into concern.

“I can plead my case directly to Arrosha from
there!” It was a lie, but I had no choice. “Please, Ben, please! Help me!”

Ben had no time to react to what I had just asked
of him when Geoffrey’s voice came from the other side of the mirror, growing
louder. While still muffled, his voice was easier to hear than Zachary’s had
been, for Geoffrey’s tone indicated that he was speaking rather loudly. Ben
grabbed me, pulling me to the other side of the double doorway, the side
farthest from the spiral staircase. He stood in front of me, peeking into the
room, listening intently, his expression inscrutable as he clasped his hand
tightly upon my wrist so that I could not escape. I could not tell whether he
had decided to help me or turn me in.

“Don’t worry about a thing, my dearest Queen,” We
overheard Geoffrey saying. “I’ll take care of everything for you.”

“You’ve taken care of enough for me already.” Even
though it was muffled and somewhat younger sounding, the cold voice with its
angry edge was unmistakably Rochere’s. “You’re to keep her contained, under
lock and key and that’s all, until you hear further from me. Give her nothing
but the water in quantity and make sure she drinks it, even if you have to
force it down her throat. I haven’t yet decided what I am going to do with her.
Do I make myself understood?”

“Yes, my Queen,” Geoffrey’s voice came back,
greatly humbled.

“Tread lightly, Geoffrey.”

“Yes, my Queen,” he replied, even more humbled.

It was only a matter of seconds before Geoffrey
would be stepping through the gateway. Afraid to make a sound, my eyes implored
Ben as I mouthed broadly to him, “Help me”.

Once again he pulled me by the arm, this time the
short distance to a small, nondescript door at the other end of the hallway
that I had not, in all this excitement, noticed, for it was painted the same
color as its surrounding walls. He opened that door, which led into a plain,
white wooden stairwell, pushed me gently onto the landing and whispered, “Stay
here and don’t make a sound,” before closing it again from the other side.

Fearful of what would happen next, I stood near
the door, straining hard to hear what was happening on the other side. I would
have been down the stairs in an instant, but I didn’t know where this stairway
would lead at the ground floor and I didn’t want to bolt and run only to face a
locked door, a dead end or worst yet, an endless hallway for my efforts.

An equally important reason for me to stay put now
was to keep Ben’s trust. I was pretty sure that I had won him over and that he
would help me to escape, even though, in his mind, he was only helping me to a
place where I could request a personal audience with Arrosha. Considering the
reflecting pool was the second holiest place in the entire complex, my lie to
him was an educated gamble, one it seemed might actually pay off. If I blindly
headed downstairs now, Ben would lose all trust in me and, if that happened, he
would not help me further. I was depending on his help very much right now.

“Ben,” I heard Geoffrey say. He was now back on
this side of the portal, I could tell, because even through the closed door,
his voice was much clearer than it had been only a moment before. “I didn’t
expect to see you up here. Waiting for me, my love?”

“We’re all waiting for you, anxious to hear your
report, Geoffrey,” Ben answered, a coldness in his voice I had never heard him
use before when speaking with the man he loved. “The others are downstairs,
gathered, waiting for word from you.”

“And you decided to escort me, how sweet, dear
Ben,” he replied, suspicion mingled with flattery.

“Well, not exactly. I have some questions of my
own to ask of Arrosha.”

“Anything I can answer? You know she won’t unlock
the gate yet. You can’t go through.”

“I know, Geoffrey. I was there when she informed
us, remember? I just need to ask her a few quick questions concerning this
matter and how it affects the group and I can do that from here. It’s
administrative stuff, do you want to help me with it?”

“Oh, no, and I can’t believe you even asked me.
You know how much that stuff bores me.”

“Fine, then,” Ben said matter-of-factly. “Then go
on down ahead. Like I said, the others are waiting for you. They’re in the
hookah room. Tell them I’ll be down in a few minutes and you can catch me up on
what I missed.”

“Ben, you really need to be in this meeting from
the start.”

“Geoffrey,” Ben insisted, using a short tone I’d
never heard him use with his lover before. “What I really need is to make sure
that this situation is handled absolutely correctly and I want to get those
instructions from Arrosha personally. Do I make myself clear?”

“Loud and clear, Ben,” Geoffrey sounded defensive
and hurt. “Loud and clear.”

“Good. We’ll talk about this more later, in
private.”

“That we will, dear Ben, of that you can rest
assured.”

It was silent then. I stepped away from the door
and a few moments later the door opened and Ben entered the stairwell.

“He’s gone,” Ben announced.

“Thank you, Ben,” I whispered.

“Hey, everybody deserves their day in court.
Listen, we only have a few minutes. I can call Arrosha from here. We don’t have
to go to the reflecting pool.”

“No, no, I can’t,” I answered, fearful now that
even Ben would try to stop me. “The sounds are too muffled with the gateway
being locked. I’d have to talk too loud and then everybody’s going to know that
I’m up here. Ben, I need to speak with Arrosha without interruption, without
the others around, and especially without Geoffrey. I can’t make my case with
him around.”

“I understand,” he said. “We’ll need to hurry,
then. Once they find out that you’re not in your room, they’ll come looking for
you. Let’s go down this way. This is part of the old service stairs. No one in
the group ever uses it.” Swiftly and quietly we ran down the plain wooden
steps, past the second floor where I’d originally been quarantined and out into
the garden through a side door on the ground floor. I followed Ben as we turned
sharply left and ran past the hedges that hemmed in the tennis courts, past the
central fountain and onto the path that led to the reflecting pool.

We ran down that center path, the stone guards
signaling the entrance to the meditation pool looming closer and closer. I
would make it. My heart leapt as I realized that I was, indeed, going to
escape. Ben had just run up to the steps leading onto the platform and I was
right behind him when Geoffrey suddenly jumped out from behind one of the
pillars.

“I thought you might try something like this. Ben,
Ben, my dearest one, why? I thought I could trust you.”

“You’re one to talk, Geoffrey. I wouldn’t be
having to help Ashley if you had handled things correctly.”

“Everyone! Everyone!” Geoffrey yelled. “May I
please have your attention! “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

From various places behind the hedges, the group
emerged, shocked and disbelieving looks upon their faces.

“See, everyone,” Geoffrey smirked. “I told you our
little Bensy was helping the traitor escape.”

“Ben,” said Robert, stepping forth. “How could
you?”

Agreeing murmurs from the rest of the group joined
in the accusation.

“Geoffrey’s wrong, guys. He’s done everything he
can to try to railroad Ashley into the role of the bad guy. All she wants is a
chance to tell Arrosha her side of the story without his interference.”

Again, the others murmured, this time less
angrily, this time considering Ben’s point of view.

“Isn’t that just sweet, Ben,” Geoffrey said. “If
that’s true, why come here, then, why not just stay upstairs for that?”

“Because it would be hard for to communicate with
the gateway locked. C’mon, Geoffrey, you know that as well as anybody else.”

“She’s going to escape.”

“How, Geoff? How on earth can she possibly escape
from here? The reflecting pool would kill her in seconds.”

“I don’t know how she’s going to do it, but she
is,” Geoffrey said, getting angry. “Okay, Bensy, fun and games are over. C’mon,
you bitch,” he said to me, “You’re coming with me. Back in the house with you.
Now!”