Shivers (8 page)

He had tried to relax and let whatever emanations might be about flow smoothly and easily into his consciousness, but nothing had come. He’d tried to hone in on the powerful mental force that the derelict had exhibited earlier in the night. But it was gone. Missing. It and he had disappeared along with all the other pathetic denizens of the area. Gone to some secret place.

Eric had been trying to get to sleep for over an hour now. Nothing worked. Sometimes it was tough for him to close his mind entirely; he was too susceptible to communications, both from those around him—behind the walls in the other apartments—and from the mystic other side, the many worlds of alternate reality. Tonight, intensified by his unnerving experience, was one of those times. He could not drop off into slumber and sublimate all the messages he received into his dreams as he usually did. Instead, he was inundated by bizarre but incomplete images, like pieces of a hideous jigsaw puzzle floating from the ether into his mind. The puzzle was all jumbled up so that no one could see the actual horror as it was —only a torturous
hint
of what was being depicted in the illustration. Fragments of waking nightmares. Mere glimpses of a totality so repulsive and terrifying that Thorne wondered if it was his own mind which refused to put the pieces together for the sake of protecting his sanity. Perhaps if he managed to mentally fit the fragments together, it would be too much for his mortal mind to bear. Or perhaps his power was simply not strong enough to form the complete picture.

There was a great deal of anguish. Crying, wailing, hysteria. Death, much death. Incredible pain. He started to descend into the images, the sounds, letting himself give in to their persuasive spell, letting his mind be carried away, overwhelmed by the sights and smells and sounds of this strange netherworld, going down, down, exploring. Afraid, so afraid, and yet too fascinated to resist.

Below.

There were people all around him, packed together, naked, crammed into one tiny space. They were of all different ages, with nothing in common that mattered except for their fear, their utter despair. Everything was blurred, too hazy. He couldn’t make out any of their features, only the general impression of their bulk, their height. So many, too many, to look over. Where were they? He tried to hold onto this image, grab onto it before it was replaced by a different, equally brief and furtive scene. Hold it, lock onto it like a camera, capture it so that it could be re-examined later when he returned to true consciousness. He did it. He
did it:
he was still there, in that room or cubicle, that space—trapped with all the others.

He was vibrating, both literally and figuratively. He started to moan out loud. But it wasn’t his body that was shaking, it was the very
enclosure,
the space they were crammed into. It swayed erratically, almost hypnotically.
What did it remind him of?
He raised an astral head and “looked” in what he sensed was a forward direction. There was something like . . . a window. There was only blackness beyond it. Then—
what could it be?
—a stark, brilliant white rectangle that loomed larger and larger, growing and growing and growing until there was nothing but white.

Then he saw a big steel door with writing on it. A
massive
door.

He came out of the trance screaming for his very life.

He sat upright in bed, breathing hard and covered with droplets of perspiration. He reached over and snapped on the night-table lamp. Not enough light. He got up, went to the wall switch, and turned on the brighter overhead lights. Better, much better.

He went back to the bed and sat down. He looked around the room. It was blue, all blue. No black open spaces or white rectangles. Just blue. Calm, comforting blue. Blue rug, blue wallpaper, blue bed covers, and light blue sheets. Blue.

He went into the kitchen with its brighter lights and polished wood and sleek formica surfaces. He got a glass and turned on the tap. He drank three full glasses of water in rapid succession. He put the glass in the sink. He turned around suddenly. The wood counter was right behind him. Too close, too close. He needed more space, much more room.

He went into the living room. It had never looked so tiny before. The sofa and the two easy chairs and the new color TV and the stereo console and the bookshelves all seemed right
on top
of one another. Why had he never noticed it before? How could he have put so many things into one tiny room? Space, not enough space.

He started to leave the living room, heading for . . . where? There was nowhere left to go! He looked into the bathroom. The door was wide open, for all the world resembling a
maw.
It was waiting for him to step inside, waiting for him to commit that one little error. He averted his eyes. He couldn’t bear the thought of walking into such a tiny little room. He started turning in circles, helpless, not knowing where to go. He realized he’d been crying without even being aware of it. He sat down on the couch and buried his face in his hands. He sobbed, suddenly hating his pathetic little apartment, feeling tragically hemmed in by the very walls, locked away with useless pieces of furniture that would dare to exist when his dismal life was over. He looked up again. It was all so clear, so pathetically clear.

He got up and switched on the television, turning the volume up higher than usual. He needed to hear other voices, see other people. He knelt down in front of the set, staring so hard into the picture tube that his eyes began to squint. It took a moment for the picture to come in. He felt a chill, reminded of something—but it dissipated as soon as he could make out the images on the screen. An old western. Lots of noise. Shooting, hollering. He made the volume louder. He relished it, not really paying attention to the action or the dialogue. Just losing himself in the noises and images. Lots of images. Sane, familiar images. Comforting. Like blue.

He had no idea how long he’d been in front of the set like that when he heard someone in the next apartment banging on the wall. It snapped him out of his condition. He quickly lowered the sound. The banging stopped. He continued to look at the screen for another ten minutes, but by then was back to normal, able to face reality again. He shut the TV off. He hated westerns.

Eric got up and stood there awhile rubbing the bridge of his nose. What a trip! He must have gone crazy, all because of that trance he’d been subjected to. He’d have to get himself together, be prepared to deal with any other psychic attacks that might occur. He had tapped into a
conscious force
so powerful that it had twisted his emotions, causing him to dive into a fit of depression that was senseless and unnecessary. Worse, it had been draining. He seemed to ache all over.

He was all right now. He went into the bathroom without pause. He splashed water all over his face and looked in the mirror. His normally rosy complexion was cadaverously pale. He looked like he’d been through the wars. His thick, mussed-up black hair and thin black mustache stood out startlingly against the pallid flesh. He looked much older than thirty-seven. The heavy eyes from lack of sleep. Cheeks too fleshy; someday they’d be jowls. Not handsome. Not ugly. He had a professional face. Competent. Almost mousy—until he opened his mouth and spoke to you. His authoritative voice always made it clear that he knew what he was talking about, that no one could push him around.

He was a small man, thin-boned. He would never have a weight problem. He would have had a nice body had he worked at it. He was divorced. Sometimes lonely. Mostly not—due to a large collection of friends and acquaintances that he’d acquired over the years. Fascinating people. Many of them in his own line of work.

He drank two more glasses of water, then went back into the bathroom to urinate. He kept watching the door as he did so—
why?
he asked himself—almost splashing his piss on the floor. He felt quite tired now, reasonably sure that the worst was over and that he could sleep a normal sleep. He brought his pillow and blanket into the living room, and slept on the couch with the lights on. First thing in the morning he would talk to someone about his experience.

For now, he was content not to think about it at all.

Detective John Albright sat in the kitchen of his house stirring a cup of reheated coffee. He poured in some sugar—too much sugar—from a box on the table. He took a sip, cursed under his breath, then downed half the cup in one thirsty gulp. He heard a rustling noise behind him, turned, and saw his wife coming down the hall from their bedroom.

“It’s three o’clock, dear,” she said softly. “Is something the matter?”

John sighed heavily and sat back in the chair. “Just couldn’t get to sleep. Sorry if I kept you up.”

Gloria Albright sat down in the chair opposite him and fingered some stale donuts lying in a battered carton. “You didn’t. I’ve been sleeping like a log. I just woke up a little while ago and wondered where you were.” She was worried. She could tell that something was bothering her husband, and been bothering him for quite a few weeks. He always kept things bottled up, unable to express his feelings with the ease some people could. She put her hand on his, her fingers tiny against his big red knuckles. “Is something worrying you?”

“No, no. It’s nothing, honey. I don’t know—I just couldn’t fall asleep.”

“Did you get any sleep at all?”

“A little bit. Not much. Kept waking up again. My stomach didn’t feel too good.”

“You
had
to have a milkshake. You know what they do to you.”

“I know, I know.”

Milkshake, like hell. Gloria knew it was something far more serious than stomach distress. Was he feeling the same tensions and stress of middle age that she sometimes felt? One kid married, another in college, the little one at home. Thought a third child would keep them young. It hadn’t worked. Looking at the little fellow, feeling more tired taking care of him and cleaning up after him and running after him, only reminded her of how old she was getting. It had been so much easier with the other children.
Stupid,
she often called herself.
Stupid. You could have done things, gone places with the money you’d saved. You and Johnny. You alone. You could have done something more with your life.

“What are you thinking about?” John asked her.

“I was just wondering what you were thinking about.”

“Why don’t you have a cup of coffee?”

“I might as well.” She got up and went to the stove. When she came back with the cup of coffee, he hadn’t shifted position; his countenance was just as morose as before.

“John, honey,” she said sweetly. “What’s the matter? I can tell that something’s bothering you. Tell me what it is.”

“It’s that damn milkshake. I told ya.”

“I told
you,
but that’s not the point. Now don’t change the subject on me like you usually do.” She put her hand on top of his again, looked into his eyes, trying to read them.

How could he tell her what he couldn’t quite put into words?

“Is it the job? Is that what’s bothering you?”

“I don’t know,” he said, trying to suppress a yawn, failing.

“Don’t go to sleep on me now.”

“Something funny’s goin’ on Gloria. I’m told not to worry, but I do. I do.”

“What’s funny?”

“Gloria, today I was given fifteen cases to look into. In one day.”

“Was somebody sick? You always get a bigger workload when somebody’s out sick, you know—”

He cut her off, not wanting to
rationalize
any longer. “No one was sick. It wasn’t that. Nobody was laid off. It’s just that—we get more cases.”

“So you had more reports today than usual.”

“It’s been like this for a long time.”

“But Johnny, you’ve been through this before. The runaways, the missing daddies, the wives who run off and leave their kids. All that sadness. It’s bound to get to you now and then. But you guys find just about everybody and bring them all back home, don’t you?”

“Not anymore,” he said grimly. “Not lately, Gloria. The number is rising. Higher each week. Not only are there more reports of missing persons, but we’re not finding nearly as many of them as we used to.”

“Somedays it’s worse than others. Don’t let it get you down.”

“No, it’s not that. I can deal with my job, with the sadness, and all the rest. I can’t deal with this strange—epidemic we’re having. The other guys on the squad talk the way you do. “More people. Sicker society. More yoyos running away, dying, killing themselves.’ But I’ve
looked
at the statistics. I went
through
the files and the charts and the papers. More and more people are poppin’ outa sight each day, and I don’t fuckin’ know why. And we ain’t findin’ all that many of ‘em.”

“Johnny. It’s a thankless job, a futile job, at times. You said so yourself.”

“You’re not listening to me. Within the past six months, our workload has tripled. Everybody says, ‘So, that’s life. Everybody wants to disappear all of a sudden, ha ha. Shut up and do your job.’ So I shut up and I do my job but I still wonder: why? What’s happening out there that so
many
people should just vanish all of a sudden ? I checked the figures over and over and over one afternoon. I was terrified. If it keeps up, we’re gonna have an empty city.”

Gloria looked at him reproachfully. “Now Johnny. You’re exaggerating and you know it. You have insomnia. That milkshake—your stomach ache is—magnifying—everything.” She suddenly leaned over and put her hand on his forehead. “John, you’re
shivering.
Are you getting the flu? You don’t have a fever.”

“That must be the milkshake too!” Albright snapped. “You asked me what was wrong; I told you. What do you have to bug me for?”

“I didn’t mean to “bug you.’ I was concerned.”

He got up, waving his arms around. The coffee cup overturned, spilling out what was left in its contents. “All right already. Forget I said anything. I’m crazy, okay?”