The Nightmare Game (55 page)

“Edmond, how can I possibly win this?” I asked
again, feeling defeated before I’d even gone through that last door.

“This fight, it’s about connection, about
affinities. It’s more psychic than physical. You have a better chance of
killing her than anyone I’ve called in years.”

“But I’m not strong or brave or particularly
resourceful.”

“You will be. Besides, the amulet will be able now
to keep you going. It will help you. It knows you so well now that it can
shield you from the worst of your own fears and terrors.”

“So I won’t be afraid?”

“I wish that were so, but no, you’ll still be
afraid. The amulet will protect you from being paralyzed by your fears, from
collapsing into them. It will make sure that you have the strength and bravery
simply to keep going and not give up. It’s important because once you step
through that third door, she’ll use your own fears and nightmares against you.
Make no mistake about it. It will be bad. She knows what you’re afraid of.”

“She can read minds?” I asked. As if Rochere
weren’t scary enough to me already, was I was finding out she had new powers?

“Yes, but it’s not that easy for her. She prefers
to emotions, the baser, the better, no matter how far back they go. She read
your fears in her office when she first attacked you. But your mind and your psyche
has been impenetrable to her since you put on the necklace and will continue to
be as long as you wear it.

“But since she failed to bring you over to her
side, she’ll fight this battle using the worst fears of both you and her
followers. Every horror that you’ve ever seen, every tall tale or urban legend
you’ve ever heard, every nightmare you’ve ever experienced are all fodder for
her persecution of you. She will put you through a maze of psychic darkness,
leading you wherever she wants you to go, into a game of cat and mouse in
which, ultimately, you are the mouse. There’s no turning back, no running away.
You can only go forward, and, in the end, she will bring you to me. I remind
you again, never to take off that necklace, for it’s the only thing that
protects you from the fate that Max has earned. Never take it off until it is
time to free me. Have no fear, you will know when that time has come.”

Edmond gave me one last kiss and held me tightly.
He sighed deeply.

“I have nothing left to give you now, Ashley,” he
said. “Please be confident that everything you need is already in either you or
the amulet now. She can no longer try to use our connection against you.”

“How could she use it against me?”

“She tries to see into your mind through me. I’m
able to keep her out, but it’s very hard to keep her out completely as long as
I still needed to connect with you. Now that I will no longer be connecting
with you, I can close my mind completely to the witch until this is finished.
Because of my prison, she can read my mind and when she is not on guard, which
is when she is sleeping or distracted, I can read hers. That which keeps me
prisoner links us.

“But let me leave you with this one thought: she
can be conquered, she can be killed. It’s hard but not impossible. She is
extremely powerful but even so, she is not as powerful as she thinks she is.
She is overconfident and she underestimates all others for better or worse,
which is why Geoffrey was unwittingly able to undermine her plans. She is mad
and insane, which makes her dangerous but it also makes her fallible. She is
vengeful, petty and cruel, but her vanity makes her blind in the extreme to her
own faults. Her arrogance makes her careless. She blocks out her own failures,
refusing to acknowledge them, refusing to learn from them. It is through these
things that she can be defeated. Ashley. Always remember that.”

“Edmond, does she know that you’re telling me all
of this?”

“She’s not listening right now because she’s
getting ready for you, but she knows what I’m telling you because most of it,
I’ve told others before you.”

“Aren’t you afraid?”

“I’m terrified. I can block her out only until
this game is finished. Blocking her takes an enormous amount of energy that I
can keep up for only a limited time. Her attention, her efforts, are on my
champion, which right now is you. Whenever my player loses, once the amulet is
returned home to its box, she turns loose all of her anger upon me. By then I
am too tired to continue and she is too strong. She gets into my mind and she
turns her rage loose upon me, torturing me until she loses interest in it. The
better you play, the longer her interest.”

The impact of his words hit me fully. I realized
that I loved Edmond and I needed to win this to keep him safe. The thought of
Rochere torturing him was too terrible to imagine. I needed to protect him.
Even though there were times that no other word fit as well, I now truly
realized why Virginia so hated the description of this quest as a “game”.

My eyes began to fill with tears as I looked up at
Edmond, searching his face for answers. But all he did was smile sweetly at me
and say, “Don’t worry about that too much, Ashley, you have enough to think
about, enough to do without worrying about me. I chose this place to meet with
you so that you could have some real pleasantness in the midst of all this
sordid business.

“Now I don’t want you to be alarmed when you
awaken. All the chemical burns you received in the reflecting pool are healed.
What you see might look bad, but it can all be washed off. The evil one can’t
get to you in the real world now, so when you wake up, please don’t be afraid
to get into the shower.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Was I hurt?”

“The talisman protected you as best it could from
the full effects of the liquid in the reflecting pool, for had it not been for
the amulet, your flesh would have been seared off your bones only a matter of
seconds before your bones were then dissolved. But because the amulet was
working at diminished power, you were still kept in the pool too long and you
did receive a few chemical burns. They were mostly superficial, but they would
have landed you into the hospital for a few days. It was a delay that would
have handed this victory over to the evil one, for she would have surely then
sent Geoffrey after you to kill you as you slept.”

“I thought she wouldn’t do that.”

“She never has in the past, but for you, she would
have made an exception. She would actually have forfeited her own pleasure in
killing you personally, taking her anger and frustration out on me instead.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. While she thrills at killing the people I
call, she could not afford to pass up an opportunity like that to get rid of
you. Try not to think about it too much just yet. The evil one will be ready
for you all too soon and I want you to get some sleep before you set out again.

As he held me in his arms, my eyelids grew heavy
and upon closing them, I quickly drifted fast asleep, my paradise escape
melting away.

After what seemed like only a few seconds later, I
awoke feeling rested and refreshed, face down on the floor of the apartment,
carpet fibers in my mouth.

I pulled the bits of carpet out of my mouth and
sat up, orienting back to the real world. I was covered in dried blood and goo residue
and I realized now why Edmond had made the comment about not being afraid to
take a shower. I felt for the necklace at my throat and found it lying there,
no longer buried beneath my skin, no longer hiding itself from me, and became
confident that what happened the last time could not happen today. Arrosha had
already played that card and could not play it again because she needed to get
into my head to get to me and her water’s effects had already worn off. I
walked into the bathroom, still amazed at my improved reflection in the mirror,
knowing this time that there would be no shadows lurking in the background. The
horrors that Rochere had in store for me lurked not in my present, but in my
future.

Over and over, I reminded myself of that as I walked
into the tub that still held bad memories for me. I had little choice, though,
because I was so horribly grimy. As I stood beneath the water running
haphazardly from the shower head as it sat precariously upon its pipe, hammered
into place to make due until a real plumber could show up,

The power of the amulet was kicking in. I could
feel the difference it made in me already. Even though I was making this shower
a short one, at least I was taking it. Before the courage I’d received from the
amulet, I never would have had the nerve to step in here again. I sooner would
have wiped myself clean with a stack of towels, changed clothes and gone off
with the residues of goo and blood still sticking to my skin. It was different
now. I was different now. I knew that nothing could harm me, at least not at
the moment. The amulet would see to that. It would protect me from whatever
Rochere had in store for me, at least out here, in the real world. In her
world, it could prove to be a very different matter indeed.

I wondered what Rochere’s next move would be, what
surprises she was readying in my “honor”. She enjoyed doing her own dirty work
didn’t she, loved it, in fact. She needed the satisfaction of killing her prey
by her own hands. As long as I wore the necklace amulet, she couldn’t really
get to me, could she, but the real danger would come when she was finished
toying with me, when I was in that room facing Edmond, when she had completely
tired of this round of the game and was ready to get rid of me. As I rinsed my
face for the last time, I got a little shower water in my mouth and it tasted
foul and absolutely disgusting. If I didn’t know any better, I would have sworn
it was poison; I could really see now why the tastes of the outside world held
so little appeal to the group and why Arrosha had trusted Geoffrey not to do
what he did.

I stepped out of the shower, dried off quickly and
stepped out to dress. Riffling through my things, I picked out a t-shirt, too
large for me now, but one which I could still wear, for most of the weight that
I’d lost was from the waist down. That posed another problem for me, however,
so I picked out a pair of once-too-tight stretch pants that were now far too
loose and pinned them with a couple of trusty safety pins in order to keep them
up.

I thought about calling my family, but they were
still enjoying their cruise and I didn’t see the sense of ruining it for them.
There was nothing they could do right now from where they were, anyway. I
thought about calling Carolyne, but decided against that, too. There would just
be too many questions. In the off chance that I won, she’d be hearing from me
again and in the case that I didn’t, she’d know something bad happened to me
soon enough. Besides, I had enough to worry about as it was.

It was time for me to go now and I took nothing
with me, for I no longer had either driver’s license or a key to the apartment.
It felt strange to me to leave with nothing but the clothes on my back; it was
now that the full realization that I might not be coming back really hit home.

I left the apartment, sad but determined. I took
the more direct route, down Burgundy, to The Crypt this time, no longer trying
to avoid or delay my fate, an act I could never have done yesterday or the day
before. I felt braver now, for I possessed a confidence that I’d never had in
my entire life.

I wondered how much of my new-found courage came
from Edmond and how much of it came from my necklace amulet. I had to smile,
realizing that I thought of it now as “my” necklace, when only a couple of days
ago, I felt as though I’d practically stolen the thing. Now, it felt like a
part of my body, like a piece of me. I’d actually grown quite fond of it, as I
would a pet. I was left to wonder, though, if the necklace talisman was becoming
my pet or whether I was becoming its.

This time, it was with surety that I walked up to
The Crypt, not lagging but not hurrying either. While I might not be avoiding
my fate, I certainly wasn’t rushing in to meet it, either. Once again, I
stopped across the street before entering. It was time for me to “face my
demon”. For most people, it was a metaphor, but for me, it was a reality. I
stepped off the curb toward The Crypt, mentally preparing myself for battle. I
swallowed hard. I was toast and I knew it. Forget DOA, for all intents and
purposes, I was Dead Before Arrival. But I had no choice, so I kept walking,
straight ahead, right on into The Crypt.

I opened the door and walked into the club,
realizing that, whether I won or lost, it would be the very last time I would
ever enter The Crypt. I really couldn’t say that I would miss it.

As I walked in, standing behind the bar was Max.
At least I thought it was Max, because had I not known he belonged here, I
would never have recognized him. He was extremely deformed, like a Claymation
character that had been thrown about too hard and too many times to be able to
keep its shape.

The shock of seeing him this way must have
registered on my face, because, before I said a word, he offered, “I know, I
know. Ain’t I pretty? I’m nothin’ but her own, personal silly putty. You got
that
,” he pointed at me, indicating the improvements
in my appearance, “and I got this.” He pointed to himself.

“What happened to you?” I asked, unable to hide my
shock.

“Arrosha happened, that’s what. She got pissed
that she lost the last round. Not that it was me that did anything wrong. She
just likes to take things out on me. I think it’s the only reason she keeps me
around. I’m her big joke.”

“I’m so sorry, Max.”

“That makes the two of us. Listen, you can’t go on
in right now. She’s still gettin’ ready for you. Might as well sit here and
talk for awhile if you can stomach lookin’ at me. You want a drink while you’re
waitin’?”

“You have to be kidding.” I answered him.

“I had to ask. Arrosha expects it. You might say
it’s what I get paid for, if I actually got paid. Just between you and me,
though, I’m glad you turned it down.”

“So, listen, Max, at the mansion, I found out that
you used to be one of us.”

“Really? Who told you that?”

“Geoffrey showed me a newspaper clipping. And then
a certain gentleman we both know corroborated it.”

“Did he really?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, I guess he’s right. Must be, huh. I
gotta tell you, though, that when I wore that,” he pointed to my necklace, “it
didn’t look so foo-foo girly like it does now. It looked butch, real butch. It
was nice and macho when I had it on. Hey, it was the seventies and it looked
real ‘in’. You see, it changes to suit the wearer when it needs to.”

“So what happened? Now that we’ve got a little
time to kill, I wouldn’t mind hearing about it.”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“He only gave me the nutshell version. Anything
you’d like to add?”

“No.”

“Alright, then. I guess we’ll just sit here and
stare at each other until she’s ready to get started.”

“Love.”

“What?”

“It was love that brought me down, okay? Not
ordinary love, but the real thing. First love, the kind that makes the freakin’
earth move. Ya know?”

“Yeah, I do,” I commiserated.

“There was this girl at the mansion. She was part
of Arrosha’s group. Her name was Gizelle. She was so sweet, she was so special.
It was like Arrosha picked her out just for me and I’m sure she had my type in
mind when she did pick her out. She’s a fuckin’ genius at matchmaking, that
Arrosha. I made the mistake of fallin’ in love with her. Hey, I was there for
almost two months, not just a few days like you were. I had time to get to know
her, right? And like I said, it was first love. You know how first love is, you
don’t know to look out for it, so it hits ya full blast, it blinds ya, it
knocks ya to your knees. Heck, I was only nineteen at the time, and I fell
hard. I know I’m nothin’ to look at now, but hey, I was a real stud in my prime
back then and pretty handsome, I’d been told.

“Anyway, Gizelle, she was something, I tell ya,
and like Ben and most of the folks that you met, she was an innocent in all of
this. Arrosha was usin’ her just like she uses everybody. But the game went on
too long and Arrosha got tired of playin’ it. So, once she realized that
Gizelle and I were in love, she decided to use it against me and torture her.

“I just couldn’t stand the thought of that, of
somebody hurtin’ my sweet little Gizelle. I had to protect her and there was
nothin’ else I could do to protect her. I tried, I really tried to think of
somethin’ else, but handing over the amulet was the only way.”

He looked down, ashamed.

“I know what you’re thinkin’. How could I even
consider it? Did she drug me like she did you? I wish I could have that for an
excuse, but nah, she didn’t. I was good the whole time I was there and never
took any essence or water or anything else. You see, back then, she didn’t have
those zombie creatures that she used on you. She didn’t know how to keep ‘em
around long enough to use ‘em like that. They’re a relatively new invention of
hers.”

“So what happened, then. You know, to Gizelle and
the others?” I asked.

“Well, once the amulet returned to its box, she
killed them all anyway. My poor sweet Gizelle. She loved me as much as I loved
her. Even though I screwed up real bad and gave the bitch the amulet, she still
went ahead and murdered my Gizelle anyway.

“Yep, she killed everybody in that group. It was
their reward for her failure. Those saps, they thought she loved them, but
she’s a real freak. She don’t feel love, she don’t feel nothin’ except for
herself. She just used them all. She just uses everybody. And then she kills
them. She killed everybody in that whole group and she’ll do the same to this
next group tonight.”

He absentmindedly wiped down the already clean bar
counter and said sadly, “As a matter of fact, I’m probably the only one that’s
safe.”

“So, you don’t think she’ll hurt you?” I asked.

“Oh, she’ll hurt me. A lot and that’s for sure.”

“That doesn’t make you afraid?”

“Toots, I’m always afraid, ever since she first
stuck her claws into me. She’ll hurt me. She does it all the time. Hey, just
take a look at me, right? But she won’t actually harm me. You see, I failed the
mission, baby. I failed the great quest. I let down the man in the portrait.
That’s why she keeps me around. I’m her fuckin’ trophy. She’s made me ugly and
deformed and now I’m nothin but a lapdog and butt boy to her and to anybody she
controls.”

“Ben never mentioned anything about Arrosha
screwing with your looks.”

“She always turned me back before he saw me. And I
wasn’t allowed to tell him. She monitored what I said to the group, although
she don’t care anymore now. You know that phrase ‘tongue tied’? With Arrosha it
was a lot more than just a figure of speech.

“Ben didn’t know. He never saw it. Neither did any
of the others except for Geoffrey. She did it in private, away from prying
eyes, away from witnesses. Nobody that cared or would have objected knew how
she treated me. Only Geoffrey knew and he egged her on. I guess I was their
little private joke.”

Geoffrey’s sense of entitlement made more sense to
me now.

“She punishes me all the time,” he continued.
“Once the amulet energy finally wore off completely, she started bein’ able to
get into my mind again. The shit she puts in there is more vile than the crap
she does to my body. That twisted bitch is so evil, so foul, you wouldn’t
believe. She punishes me so much I die inside every time, but she won’t kill me
outright like the others because I’m different from everybody else. I’m
special, you see. I’m Edmond’s failed champion, so she likes to keep me around
for the express purpose of humiliation. She likes to make me pay, to remind
Edmond of who’s really in charge, like that poor bastard ever needs any reminding.”

Since Max was in a decidedly chatty mood, I went
ahead and asked him, “Why are you telling me all of this, Max? Don’t you think
she’ll hear you?”

“Nah. After all of these years, I can tell when
she’s listenin’. Right now, she ain’t. I’ve learned how to tune in to that. You
see, she ain’t no deity, no matter how much she’s got some people convinced, so
she’s got her weaknesses. And right now, she’s too busy makin’ preparations for
you and the others.

“Besides, I’ve been awfully pissy to you before
now and I feel bad about it. You were nice to me when I was halfway decent to
you, so I figure I owed you something at least to make it up. You’re in a bad
spot, the same spot I was in once. I figured instead of bein’ resentful of you,
I’d help you a little with what I know. Just because I failed doesn’t mean you
don’t deserve your fair chance at bat.”

“So you’re sure that she’s not listening?” I
double-checked.

“Real sure.”

“Why doesn’t she just use surveillance equipment?”

“Oh, don’t you think she wouldn’t love to. But she
can’t because it won’t work. See, the real world is one dimension, the
nightmare world’s another, and this place is somewhere in-between, just like
the apartment, sort of half-way points in between the two. What works in one
won’t work in the other, and nothin’ works in these half-way points. Don’t
matter if it’s analog or digital, don’t matter if it’s that freaky stuff that
paranormal investigators use. It’s why the mansion has its own power supply,
cause no technology is compatible from one place to the next and she don’t know
how to patch them together to make ‘em work, either.”

“She has problems with technology, then?”

“Hell, yeah, you could say that. It’s the only
reason that we even stand a fightin’ chance. I’ve learned a thing or two about
her in all this time I’ve been her freakin’ lapdog. She ain’t that good at
this. It’s why she kills off the people Edmond calls so early on and why so few
of us get through the first rounds of this game to challenge her for real. It’s
hard for her to fight against the amulet. She can fight the whole world with
all of its weapons easier than she can fight you while you’re wearing that
thing,” he pointed to my necklace.

“The technology,” he went on, “is above her. She’s
kinda like a really good driver that’s useless under the hood. She’s an expert
at usin’ her machines, but she don’t know a thing about fixin’ them. Anything
new she finds out about how her stuff works is strictly by accident.

“To this day, she still don’t know all the rules
of the amulets. She ain’t as familiar with them as you’d think she’d be. Except
for the stuff she found out in the very beginning, it’s almost like they’re
just about as new to her as they are us or somethin’. She used to think they
were easier to get than they really are. She’s been learnin’ a lot of their
rules the same way that we’re learnin’ – trial and error. It’s why she don’t
have them yet.

“That ain’t her only failin’, either. She
underestimates people. For instance, she wound up givin’ the group way too much
essence and as a result, Geoffrey figured out that she was druggin’ him with
the water.”

“I was wondering about that,” I said. “Why’d she
do that?”

“It was an accident. She was experimenting with
makin’ those zombie things to bring you down, to make you helpless so she could
steal your memory. She learned with me that she had to use somethin’ like the
zombies to force you to take the water. It was the only way to remove your
resistance. Get rid of the memories and you get rid of the resistance. Simple
as that. Even with those tricks, though, as long as she’s been around people,
and it’s been a long, long time, she still underestimates us like crazy.”

“Max,” I said, leaning up to the bar and lowering
my voice to a whisper. Max said she wasn’t listening, but I still felt
paranoid. “The guy in the portrait, he said something about her using black
magic.”

“Yeah, she uses it,” he replied. “She’d use it a
whole lot more, but it don’t like her.”

“What do you mean?”

“See, the thing about black magic is this. For it to
work well, for it to work easy, you gotta bow down to it and she won’t bow down
to anybody or anything. So she don’t use it except when she really has to, when
the technology won’t support what she wants to use it for. She’s used her dark
magic a lot against you, cause the machines of her technology don’t like goin’
against that necklace you wear. Oh, she hates usin’ black magic, but she’ll do
it if she has to, and she’s got to lay it on thick to fight that amulet. It’s
why it takes so much outta her and why, when she absolutely has to use it, it
makes her look like death.”

“What else did she use against me?” If Max was
going to be such a fountain of information, it really behooved me to pick is
brain right now while he was in the mood to talk.

“Oh, man, you got the full sales pitch. They
really laid it on thick for you. She played Ben as much as she was tryin’ to
play you. He was a true believer and actually thought he was doin’ somethin’
good for you, the poor schmuck.

“Take that transformation ceremony, for example.
I’m so glad you didn’t fall for that one!”

I was too embarrassed to tell Max that I almost
did.

“She got all those saps believing that it means
something, when it’s just a bunch of bull. It seems real to her followers, but
it’s just more of her razzle-dazzle. It’s just a cover, a sham ceremony that’s
been put in place to get hold of the amulet. Transformation ceremony, my ass!
I’ll give her one thing – she certainly is patient when it comes to gettin’
that amulet, that’s for sure. The ceremony has nothing to do with the changes
they experience.” Max rolled his eyes, a gesture that made his current
deformities look even more grotesque. “Arrosha uses her ancient technology to
perform those transformations. Hell, she’s used transformations on me more
times than I can count. The whole thing’s just a scam that’s set in place
waiting for whoever the guy in the portrait sends her way.”

“Max, you’ve been here a long time. Do you know
where she keeps the man in the portrait? Where I can find him?” I asked.

“In a room somewhere. I don’t know where it is,
exactly. Might be nowhere, for all I know. It’s got no windows and no outside
doors. It’s just some weird, long room.”