F Paul Wilson - Secret History 02 (27 page)

           
And stared.

           
Someone had written in lipstick on
the door's mirrored surface.

 
 

           
Kara felt the toothpaste slip from
her fingers as she stood there and trembled. It took all her strength of will
to keep from screaming. She leaned on the sink and steadied herself. She had to
be calm. She had to control this situation. Most of all she had to protect Jill
from it. She couldn't let Jill see the writing, and she couldn't let Jill see
her mother like this.

           
Forcing her hands to be steady, Kara
took a handful of tissues and began to rub at the letters. First they smeared
and merged, and then with increased effort they began to fade. When they were
gone and only her own ashen, frightened face showed in the glass, she carried
the wad downstairs to the kitchen garbage.

           
As she stood in the kitchen, she
felt off-balance, physically as well as mentally, as if she were tottering on
the brink of some sort of breakdown. It would be so easy to give in to the
impulse to run screaming from the house, to lose herself in panic, to exhaust
herself in blind flight. But there was Jill to think of. And there was the
overriding realization that she could not run from this.

           
She went through her purse and found
Dr. Gates's card. It was early and it was Sunday, but she had to call him
now
. She had to do something, make an
attempt to speak to someone who knew about these things, even if it was only to
leave a message on his answering machine, tell him that she was falling apart
and ask him what she could do about it.

           
"Dr. Gates' service," said
a woman's voice after three rings.

           
A
real person! An answering service! They'll know where he is!

           
"Hello, my name is Kara Wade,
I'm a patient of Dr. Gates' and I need to reach him immediately. Can you
connect me?"

           
"I'm sorry. Dr. Gates is not
available for the weekend. He'll be picking up his messages tomorrow morning.
Dr. Fleischer is covering any emergencies. Can I have him call you back?"

           
No, that wouldn't do. Only Dr. Gates
would understand the situation and know she wasn't hallucinating. She thanked
the operator and hung up. She'd have to wait until tomorrow.

           
Delusions… hallucinations… she
walked over to the kitchen garbage pail and stared at the clump of red smeared
tissues. Still there. She touched it. Still very real.

           
She glanced up at the clock over the
sink. Ten to six. It was a long, long time until tomorrow morning. But she
could do it. She could make it. She could handle this until then.

           
11:35 P.M.

           
Kara sat staring at the TV. A repeat
of one of the old black and white
Avengers
episodes was on channel 12, but she wasn't paying attention. It had been a long
day. She was emotionally drained and exhausted. Her body cried out for sleep
but the prospect terrified her.

           
No
sleep.

           
Sleep was a luxury she couldn't
afford. Sleep was when you lost control. So the answer was to stay awake all
night. She had coffee, she had the television. Jill was peacefully asleep
upstairs. Kara would stay down here, and stay awake.

           
Janine
.
The name had plagued her all through the hellishly long day. Writing had been
impossible because she couldn't stop thinking about Janine. If indeed there
truly was a Janine inside her, where had she got the name? Since her
unconscious had presumably created Janine during Kara's childhood, where had it
dug up a name Kara had never heard as a child? Or at least did not remember
hearing. Maybe the source of the name was locked away with the personality that
bore it.

           
But another question haunted her:
Did Janine really exist? Or was what had happened here these past two days a
part of her own reaction to Kelly's death? She clung to that explanation. She
had to.

           
She could probably clear it up with
a simple phone call to her mother. Or could she? What could she say?
Mom? Did Dad rape Kelly and me on a regular
basis when we were kids
?

           
No way.

           
Shuddering with revulsion, she got
up and poured herself another cup of coffee, then settled herself on the
straight-back wooden chair and tried to lose herself in the irrelevance of a
three-decades old British television show.

           
It beat thinking.

 
 

           
Kara realized she had been asleep.

           
She jumped up from the chair and
stared frantically around the living room. Good God, it was morning already!
Body by Jake
was on the TV. How long had
she been out? Was anything different? Had she done anything while she was out?
She checked her feet—clean. But that hadn't meant anything yesterday. She
scanned the kitchen. Everything seemed the same there except for—

           
—the carving knife on the counter.

           
Feeling weak and sick, Kara stumbled
toward the kitchen.

           
Please,
God, no blood. Don't let there be blood on that blade.

           
There wasn't. The blade was clean.
It was Dad's ancient carving knife. It had been new when it was a wedding gift
thirty-five years ago. He'd honed it so many times over the years, standing
before Thanksgiving turkeys, Christmas hams, and summer steaks, that the blade
was now half its original width. Kara had never thrown it away. It had always
been special. Now she didn't want to touch it. But she did.

           
As she lifted it gingerly and
carried it to the sink, she saw that the point was broken. She didn't remember
ever noticing that before. What could—?

           
"Mom?"

           
It was Jill's voice from upstairs.
She sounded a little frightened. Probably looking for her. Kara hurried to the
foot of the stairs.

           
"I'm down here, hon. Everything
okay?"

           
She held her breath.
Please say yes
.

           
"Sure," Jill said, smiling
from the top of the stairs.

           
Kara exhaled.

           
Jill said, "But who's
Janine?"

           
Biting back a scream, Kara fought
off the blackness that crowded the edges of her vision and forced herself up
the stairs.

           
"Wh-where did you heard that
name?"

           
"You okay, Mom?'

           
"Just tell me!"

           
"I read it. Mom, what's
wrong?"

           
"Where? In the bathroom?"

           
"No. In my bedroom."

           
Kara brushed past her alarmed
daughter and hurried to the bedroom at the far end of the hall. She burst
through the door and didn't notice anything at first. Then she saw the thin
letters sliced into the wall above Jill's bed.

 
 

           
Kara couldn't hold it in any longer.
She stood in the doorway and screamed.

           
They made it to the New Jersey
Turnpike in record time.

           
After Kara had calmed herself and
soothed a very frightened and mystified Jill, she called Dr. Gates. He wasn't
available yet, according to the answering service. Kara couldn't wait. She had
to get away from the farm, away from those words carved in the wall above
Jill's bed. She threw some clothes in a couple of suitcases, loaded the car,
and fled for New York.