Evil Dreams (9 page)

“There’s the body I live in.”

Now Jon knew it wasn’t his own voice he had heard before. Powerless to question the mystery, he sensed no real panic. Was he actually dying? Could this be death? The scene below him slowly faded when rolling clouds blocked his view.

Eagerly awaiting the fog to clear, he found his curiosity aroused to the fullest. Death would not be so bad if he could continue functioning in some mental capacity.

A memory-filled wave of emotion tore him from the arms of complacency and happiness.

Trina! Where was Trina? He suddenly wanted to see her—just once more. To be able to touch her. To kiss her. To hold her. Just one more time. Stifling a sob, he pushed the thoughts of his wife from his consciousness.

Then concussions battered him. Barely noticeable at first, they grew in intensity until wave after wave buffeted him. What was happening? Death, destruction seemed to surround him. The initial mood of comfort slipped away, forgotten, as did the melancholy of Trina’s absence and loss. Feeling he would not die, he wanted to scream, “I AM ALIVE!” A joyful exuberance he had never known before washed over him, penetrating the depths of his soul.

The smashing impacts continued their assault but he no longer cared. Somehow he knew they couldn’t harm him. Elated, he soared high above the zone where the strange blows first struck him. For a moment, he felt responsible for the chaos and ruination. Nonchalantly pushing aside any sense of guilt, he laughed forcefully when more comfortable impressions forced their way back into his consciousness, driving everything aside, even the thoughts of Trina, releasing him at last from the fiery torture. Happier than he had ever been, he simply wanted to scream, “I’M ALIVE! I STILL LIVE!” But was he alive? Or dead? Perhaps he was insane and would remain in a world of shadows and unrealities for the rest of his days. The thought terrified him. Recognizing this fear, he became aware of a change in his surroundings.

The brightness left, only to be replaced with a damp darkness, as though he were in a lightless cellar, blindfolded.
He had to be dead!
Condemned to the netherworld for eternal punishment.

Then he perceived someone else’s presence. Not one but two—two beings whose emotions he recognized and understood—fear from one, insatiable lust from the other. Panic, bordering on hysteria, more than equalled the maniacal sexual drive. The frightened thoughts remained constant but the second intellect grew more erratic in its observations, memories, desires. An overpowering wish for violent sex suddenly dominated the muddle of emotions.

Helpless, unable to resist, he drifted toward the fitful thoughts, feeling them grow. Suffocating as though inundated, he vividly recalled a childhood memory of being drawn under the surface of a swimming pool, sucking water into his mouth and nostrils. His sinus cavities had been swamped with fluid and he could feel the same choking strangulation now as the invisible attraction drew him closer.

Still, ecstasy filled him, commanding him to scream,
“I STILL LIVE!”
When he surrendered to the urge, the very words, hammering at him since he floated away from the X-ray table, clearly rang out. Opening his eyes, he found himself in a cavern or tunnel of some sort. At his feet, the nude body of a sobbing woman—a young, beautiful woman—trembled, cowering in fear. Her milky white breasts, her smooth stomach, her flared hips centered with a patch of yellow hair, sent his senses reeling as he hungrily desired her. Somehow she looked familiar but he could not place her. Her face flickered into sharp lines for an instant before hazing into an unfocused blur. Who was she?

Obliquely aware of frenzied activity taking place somewhere around him, he looked down to see long, thin hands, unlike his own square shaped ones, unbuckling a belt which held torn pants around someone’s waist. Whose? His? He didn’t know. The monumental sexual drive pushed every other conscious thought from him while a vague awareness of kneeling, then lying upon the body of the woman, indifferently ricocheted through his mind. Roughly spreading the woman’s legs, he pushed his blood gorged erection into the golden pubic triangle, a thrust with his hips, and another and another, until the sensual rhythm was established.

Tears streaking her cheeks, she relaxed, strangely reposed, at peace. Appearing to be asleep, she accepted her cruel fate. Her beautiful, sad face evaporated from his sight when a constant pressure began squeezing in on him until he knew he would be squashed into nothingness. The continuing strain crushed him until he felt like the size of a sand grain. Then more weight bore down until the compression stopped in a sudden wave of release.

Tumbling about, he instinctively began swimming—he had to swim to survive. He would fight the tumultuous current of odds that would not allow him to live beyond the next forty-eight hours. Darkness closed in. He continued swimming.

A gentle hand shook him by the shoulder until Jon looked into the eyes of the nurse who had been monitoring the incision, injecting the substance into his arteries. A feeling of relief jabbed at him when he realized he had been dreaming.

Tory pulled the sheet of paper from the typewriter, adding it to the stack centered on her deck. At least she had finished Mrs. Nelumbo’s last session with Doctor Dayton. With thirty-five minutes left before the office closed, she would not have enough time to begin another tape. Inserting the transcribed conversation into a folder, she moved to the bank of cabinets and filed it in the appropriate drawer. When she had removed the tape from the machine, she sat down behind her desk.

How had she managed to get so much work accomplished today? When she had left home that morning, her thoughts had been focused on Howie. He looked awful. He wasn’t sleeping properly. He wasn’t eating enough. He was smoking too much marijuana and drinking too much beer. What would she do if something were to happen to him? She loved him more than anything or anyone else in her life. Considering herself lucky to have found him and to have fallen in love with him, she stared at her desk top.

Tomorrow, when Doctor Dayton did not come into the office, she would concentrate on different plans to help Howie. First, he would have to find a job. Once that was accomplished, their happiness would virtually be secured. She loved to fantasize about the two of them living in a small cottage in some woods, without a care in the world.

Snapping out of her reverie, she knew there must be a way for him to find a job. There just had to be. Everyone found work of some sort. Why couldn’t he? Most employers didn’t want to hire former convicts but that shouldn’t stop the two of them from realizing their own goals and happiness. There had to be a way they could get enough money to be happy and be together forever.

Opening the bottom drawer of her desk, she withdrew her purse and spread it apart. She checked her billfold. Three hundred fifty dollars to last until the middle of the month? And the rent still had to be paid. What had happened to all the money she had gotten at the bank yesterday when she cashed her check? She had given Howie money to buy some grass. But how much had she given him? They had smoked a lot last night and he had been more tender in his lovemaking than usual. When had she given him the money? Before they smoked? Yes, shortly after she arrived home. He had taken her purse and counted the money, withholding four hundred dollars which he said would be enough for marijuana and other necessities until she was paid again. Then, too, she had stopped at the delicatessen and bought enough food to last them a week.

She smiled when she thought of Howie tonguing her breasts and nipples. When he took his time, he was a great lover. But most of the time, he just jammed it in and finished in a moment or two. Still, she loved him almost more than life itself. On her way home, she would stop and get him a twelve pack of beer. He’d enjoy that and if she could get him into a good mood, he might want to take his time making love tonight.

Closing her purse, she watched the clock. In five minutes, she could leave for home and Howie.

Jon watched Trina disappear through the door of his hospital room. The doctor had said he could go home in the morning and she jumped at the chance to get a good night’s rest. When she had told him about her sleepless night, he had insisted that she go home. It would do no good to have her become ill because of him. Besides, he knew he had been preoccupied when she had been sitting at his bedside, trying to get him to carry on a conversation. The test results had again been negative and since there was no cause to talk about them, he had concentrated his thoughts on his experience during the angiogram.

Dreaming. He had dreamt while the test had been administered. The nightmare—his nightmare—had, after all these years, continued beyond the normal waking point. Or was it a new fantasy? Regardless of what it was, Jon swore to himself, he would never reveal the contents of it to anyone—not even Trina. Anger over the consequences of telling one too many persons about his dream filled his mind. This dream, this nightmarish episode would be divulged to no one—ever.

PART TWO

THE VOICE SPEAKS

May 11, 1979

 
to

May 29, 1979

CHAPTER 5

Preoccupied with the transcript on her desk, Tory traced a route with a well manicured nail from her throat to the exposed cleavage of her breasts. She laid the paper aside, satisfied it held no mistakes in typing and quickly inserted another sheet into the typewriter. Smoothing imaginary wrinkles in her vermillion polyester dress, she opened the bottom desk drawer and pulled out her purse. She checked her hair in a compact mirror, stopping to study her full, natural lashes. A smile curved her lips and she winked at herself before returning the mirror to the handbag. Once the drawer was closed, she stared into space.

The one thing she liked about her job as secretary to Dr. Samuel Dayton, was the fact that she didn’t have to work with anyone else. It would have been difficult for her to cope with another woman on this job. She found it an effort to make friends with women. With men she had no problem at all. Ever since Howie had come into her life, she had used her time on the job as an opportunity to physically and mentally regenerate herself for him. Her love for Howie seemed to know no bounds and many times in the last six months, she had found herself fantasizing a conversation with her mother.

“He loves
me,
Mother. He really does.”

“You’re not worth the love of a good man. Is he
good,
Victoria?”

Tory blanched at the imaginary question posed by her mother. Howie had all the makings of a good man, a good husband. It wasn’t his fault that the government had made him join the army and go to Viet Nam. Tory knew that her mother and father probably would have liked him. In some ways, he reminded her of her brother, Tony. For some inexplicable reason, they had focused their attention on him, ignoring her while she and Tony had grown up. He was a first class member of the family while at best, she could claim a secondary status. She had assumed there were people who did not treat their offspring equally and when she had removed herself from her parents’ presence, she realized that her father treated her mother as a piece of property. Shortly after she met Howie, she understood that her mother had been trying to tell her to find a man who would take care of her, although her method of relaying that information had been abstract.

When Tony, the family’s pride and joy, drank himself into a stupor one night and drove off a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River, her parents’ reason for existence seemed to end. Discovering they were inconsolable to the loss of their only son, and that she would never be able to fill the gap created by his death, Tory left their home in Dubuque and moved to Chicago. She had not been in touch with them since.

Still, Tory was happy. Happy with her love for Howie, happy with her job, and happy just to be happy. Realizing it was almost quitting time and that the weekend was before her, she began putting the files together. On her way home, she’d think about ways to please Howie. She formulated little plans which made her feel good and warm inside, even though most were impractical.

Since Doctor Dayton had already left, she’d lock up and leave a few minutes early. When her desk top was cleared, she quickly perused the outer office and turned off the lights. Stepping into the hall, she locked the door and walked to the elevator.

The weekend passed too quickly for Tory and by Sunday evening, she concluded that the two days had gained nothing. Howie had moped around the one room apartment, barely speaking, either staring out the single window into the alley or pacing about like a caged animal.

“What’s bothering you, hon?” she asked quietly.

Howie continued walking back and forth, lost in thought. “Huh? Did you say something?”

Grateful to have gained his attention, she said, “What’s bothering you? Let’s talk about it. Maybe I can help.”

“That’d be the day.”

“Seriously, I mean it. Talk about it and maybe it’ll go away. The problem, that is.”

“It’s not a problem. I’ve been trying to think of something. That’s all.”

“Think of something?”

“Yeah. Of where I heard something.”

“Like what?”

“Like a woman’s name. I’m not sure if I know it or even heard it. But for some reason, this broad’s been in my mind. She fucks around. She—”

“Howie,” Tory gasped. “You’re not thinking of—of—of fooling around with her, are you?”

“What? Oh, for chrissake! No. I’m just trying to get a handle on what I heard.”

“Tell me what you know.” Tory moved to the bed and sat on its edge, motioning for Howie to join her.

“Well,” he said, flopping next to her, “there’s this broad who’s having an affair with her husband’s business partner. At least, I think it’s his partner. She’s afraid of her old man finding out about it but won’t quit fucking her lover. That’s all I can remember. If I could think of her name or where I heard about her, I’d get all the details and be able to make some easy money.”