Monster in My Closet (17 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Despite my insistence that I knew what I was doing and that I wouldn’t be able to get hurt, I was sure of neither of these things. Being occasionally aware that you’re asleep by no stretch grants the ability to chase after a bad guy in your dreams. This posed another question: Did demons dream? Did it matter?

I took a long, hot bath and settled into bed. I knew once I was asleep Maurice would be hovering around me, watching. Rather than make me nervous, this gave me a measure of calm. In theory, even if I could get hurt in my dreams, the danger would be gone the minute I woke up. Maurice wouldn’t let Sebastian pull a Freddy Krueger on me.

I shuddered. Thinking about Freddy Krueger right before going to sleep is never a good idea. It’s especially bad when you’re going into dreamland to hunt down your enemy.

I lay in the dark trying to stay focused enough to retain control of my thoughts, yet relaxed enough to drift off to sleep. Not an easy trick.

I thought about Riley’s eyes and the way his laugh gave me goose bumps. I could eat sushi for him. What’s a little raw fish and seaweed?
No, focus. Think about the rope that connects you to Sebastian so you can follow it. Come on, Zoey. Build a mousetrap now, romance and googly eyes later.

I knew I was getting drowsy. My thoughts were wandering loose. I tried to follow them and rein them in, but it was like herding cats.

I remembered the game Mousetrap from my childhood. Daddy and I used to play it together. All those pieces were so complicated. We didn’t always get the mouse. Maybe if we’d used Gruyère. Maybe the mouse was snooty. I tried to pluck the mouse out of a tiny jail cell, but the tweezers I was using brushed the bars and set off an alarm. I jumped and woke up.

Way to concentrate, Zoey. Pull your head out and try again.

I concentrated on the line Andrew had said that, in theory, tethered me to the incubus. In the dark behind my eyelids, I imagined a thread tied around my ankle and winding out the window. I followed it, pulling the length through my hands. I climbed out the window into my garden. Grass brushed against my legs. When did my lawn get so long?

The moon was overhead, spinning like a windmill and singing a wordless tune. The thread in my hands bit my fingers and I dropped it.

I bent to pick it up and found a wet, flopping fish at my feet. It went still and stared up at me with one glassy eye.

“The problem is,” the fish said, “you have to have movie-time attitude.”

I pondered this bit of sage advice.

“Should I make popcorn?” I asked.

“No, you must wear a tiara. And maybe you should be awake.”

I looked over my shoulder at my open window.

“Dammit,” I said. “I lost the thread.” This dream-journey thing was harder than I’d thought.

I picked up the thread and followed it again. When I reached the tree Sebastian had been leaning against the last time, Bob Saget stepped out from behind it.

“I’m very disappointed in you, Zoey,” he said. “Getting your friends killed is not very responsible. I think you should go back to your room and think about it.”

My stomach knotted up with shame. I was about to apologize and turn around when I realized Bob Saget was not, in fact, my father.

I began to wonder how much was the work of my wandering mind, and how much was meant to intentionally distract me. If Sebastian knew I was coming and was placing barriers in my way, it meant he was afraid. I marched past Bob Saget without engaging.

Of course, if this was my own mind throwing up roadblocks, it meant I was afraid. But I already knew that.

I followed the thread down the road and onto Highway 1. It looked nothing like the real road I traveled every day, but I knew where it led. I was going to Sausalito. I could see the city lights in the distance and knew the journey wasn’t real. I was making good time on foot, whereas it was a good forty-five minutes by car. Dream math.

My feet made a crunching sound on the gravel. I knew I was being watched. I squared my shoulders and followed the thread, which had thickened in my hands. The deeper I went into the dream, the more it grew. At this rate, it might get so big I’d have to climb my way over it before I was done.

At the crossroad, I halted. There’s always a crossroad in dreams.

Riley stood waiting for me, wearing a red and green striped sweater and Freddy Krueger’s hat.

“Hurry up,” he said. “The coffee’s getting cold. Everybody’s waiting.”

He motioned me to follow him down the left fork. I could hear people celebrating, glasses clinking. I took a step forward and dropped the rope.

“Come on,” Sara said.

“What happened to Riley?”

“Who’s Riley?” She tugged at my hand.

I looked at the road that forked to the right. Clouds had drifted in. They looked angry.

“This is a horrible idea,” one said. Its face was puffy and soot-stained.

“Which one?” I asked. “Your way or theirs?”

He shrugged his billowy shoulders. “Doesn’t much matter, does it?”

I turned to follow the left branch. The clouds had folded over and enveloped both roads. Which way?

“Zoey, baby. You have to concentrate.”

My mother stood in the road. She smiled and reached out her hand. I took it. “Concentrate,” she said again.

The confusion cleared from my muddled head. “Thank you,” I said. I reached down and picked up the rope. It felt oily and frayed. I must’ve been getting close.

The path through Sausalito was convoluted and wound in and out of shops and offices. Demonic rabbits, a rain of soap bubbles, and my ex-husband hanging upside down from a tree didn’t distract me as I made my way.

I stepped out of an empty warehouse and blinked in the sunlight. I stood in the street, and the blackened rope hung limp in my hand. The end stretched out and hovered in the air, culminating in a dense, oily cloud that reached into the distance. It went everywhere and nowhere. I was both relieved and disappointed. Tracking down the incubus was impossible.

But I could still destroy the connection.

I closed my eyes and formed a sturdy, sharp pair of scissors in my hand. Light glinted off their surface. My grip on the rope was firm.

Unfortunately, scissors are never sharp enough in real life, and this is equally true in the dream world. It was a bit of a moment-killer. I’d been hoping for a single, dramatic snip to do the job.

I worked it down to a few last threads. I was torn between confident elation and the fear that Sebastian would pop up and stop me before I could finish.

I focused. I cut. And before I was all the way through, my vision shifted.

The rope didn’t change. It lay dead and frayed across my palm. The city didn’t change. It was still empty, a distorted version of the real Sausalito. The change came from me.

I was glowing. All over my body were thin, wispy threads of silvery blue. They shot out in all directions, breathtaking and ethereal. I picked one out and followed it with my eyes. In the distance, I saw the other end connected to a tiny woman. I squinted to see better. Molly waved at me.

I followed a second line, and it led to Moira from the bakery, and a third and fourth were for Gail and Alma Dickson. The threads were infinite in number and spread out across the town. Mrs. Talbot. The barista at my favorite coffee shop. The lady who delivered my mail.

Sara.

Every woman I’d come in contact with was connected to me.

The rope in my hand throbbed and squirmed like a tentacle. Its inky blackness leached into every single line that was bound to me, infecting it. Every one of those women was in danger.

I hacked at the final few threads of Sebastian’s rope until the last bit snapped loose, and I was free.

It was too late. Incubus rot pulsed down the lines toward the women. I tried to cut those lines from myself, to amputate them before the sickness flowed all the way out, but these were connections of emotion, not so easily severed. Wherever my blades touched, the lines puffed into mist, then reformed.

I slumped to the ground, devastated. He didn’t need me to track them anymore. I was too late. Every woman in Sausalito was a potential feast.

I had accomplished nothing.

The dark cloud at the other end of the rope condensed and took form.

I imagined what Sebastian might look like as his true self. He could be some monstrous Cthulhu-like creature with tentacles and red, bleeding eyes. He might be ten feet tall, covered in open sores and have filthy, twelve-inch claws. He might be a two-foot-long slug with lightning reflexes and speed so fast I wouldn’t see him until he was oozing up my legs and gnashing at my flesh.

I backed up faster.

In dreams, that which we fear is the exact thing which will come for us in the dark. If we don’t think about it, it isn’t there. But I had thought about it.

I did the worst thing a person can do in a dream. I panicked, turned my back and ran.

I was no longer captain of my fate. I had nothing under control. I wasn’t aware anymore that I was dreaming. I only knew the squelching sounds behind me were getting closer and my feet were moving too slowly. Something brushed the back of my calf.

I tried to scream. Nothing came out but a low, garbled sound like I was choking on a mouthful of hard-boiled eggs.

I dove into my office and tried to climb under my desk to hide. I was too slow. It grabbed me by the shoulder and sunk its claws into my skin.

I thrashed, refusing to turn and face it, terrified of what I would see.

I tried again to scream. My throat closed up and the sound refused to travel up my windpipe.

The unseen thing squeezed and shook.

“Zoey,” it said.

It knew my name.

“No!” I thrashed harder.

It shook me like a rag doll. “Zoey, stop it.”

I batted at it with fists. “You can’t have me!”

“Zoey, wake up!”

I opened my eyes to find Maurice holding me down as I flailed my arms. Molly was standing on my nightstand with a worried expression, and beyond all reason in my sleep-fogged state, I saw a large furry face pressed against the window, fist braced to break the glass.

“I’m awake! I’m awake!” I said, tearing loose. “Don’t let him break the window!”

The skunk-ape opened his fingers and let his hand drop to his side. He grinned at me.

“We were worried,” Molly said. “You would not wake up. We thought he had you.”

“I’m fine. I didn’t see him. Just a regular bad dream. Maurice, would you open the window, please?”

He squeezed my shoulder before releasing me, then patted my arm, as if to reassure himself I was whole. “You keep scaring the hell out of me, Zoey. How am I supposed to get anything done around here?” He crossed to the window and slid it open. “You take daredevil risks that make my hair fall out. Look at my hair!” He pointed to the top of his head. There didn’t seem to be any less than he’d had when he first got there, which hadn’t been much to begin with. It seemed prudent not to mention it—though the single bobbing tuft still winked at me. I never had offered him that hair gel.

I dragged myself from under the comforter and moved to the window. The skunk-ape looked stricken, as if he might bolt.

“Thank you for looking after me,” I said. “I don’t even know your name.”

The hairy creature clicked his tongue and grunted.

“He does not speak your language,” Molly said, having appeared on the windowsill when my attention was focused elsewhere. I really needed to find out how these people moved so fast. “His name is Iris.”

I glanced at Molly, questioning whether I’d heard right. She nodded once and went still, giving me a warning look. I returned my attention to the skunk-ape.

“Well, thank you, Iris.” I leaned out the window and offered my hand. He looked at it a moment before wrapping it in an enormous, gentle paw.

His palm was rough, but bare, the rest of him covered in bristly gray and white fur. Parts of his face were naked as well—a long straight nose, saggy lips, the apples of his ruddy cheeks, and two very human blue eyes. I had expected a skunk-ape to smell to high heaven. To my surprise, he had a flowery scent, as if he’d soaked in aromatherapy bath salts. It was nice, not overwhelming.

I placed my other hand over the back of his, giving him a warm, two-handed squeeze. “You don’t need to stay so far out of sight,” I said. “You’re welcome here.”

He grunted twice.

“He thanks you for your kindness,” Molly said, translating. “He prefers the cover of the woods, but will always be near if you need him.” Iris clicked his tongue and made a few guttural noises, then disappeared.

“Iris?” I said after he was out of earshot.

“He likes flowers. Skunk-apes usually live in the Southeast, but his aversion to the natural musk of his people caused them to shun him.”

“Let me guess. He moved west until my mother took him in.”

Maurice smiled. “You’re getting good at this.”

“It seems to be the answer to most of my questions these days.” I dropped into the padded chair near the window. “Unfortunately, it’s not the answer to all of them.”

“What happened in the dream, Zo?” Maurice asked. He took a seat on the edge of the bed.

“I cut the cord, but I didn’t actually find him.”

“But you were so frightened,” Molly said. “You did not see him?”

“That was my own brain throwing up. I wasn’t exactly the picture of mental self-control in there.” I grabbed a black and green throw-pillow and buried my face in it. I groaned. Molly and Maurice were silent, letting me pull myself together. When I was done, I pushed the pillow away and looked at them both. My chest was tight with hopeless, unshed tears.

“I was too late,” I said. “I cut him off, but he tagged every woman I’m connected to. He doesn’t need me anymore. He’s got a nearly endless supply without me.”

“Oh, Zoey.” Maurice shook his head. “You can’t blame yourself. How could you know he would do that?”

“There’s very little I do know, Maurice. I don’t know a damn thing that’s useful. He’s going to keep killing people I care about, and I can’t stop him.”

There was one thing I could do, but I could barely think it to myself, let alone say anything to Maurice and Molly.