Sleepwalk (31 page)

“Check the French doors twice,” she imagined she heard him say as she went into the dining room. “That lock never worked quite right.”

She twisted the lock, then rattled the doors in silent compliance with Max’s equally silent instructions. Satisfied, she moved on to the library.

Max’s presence was stronger here. His desk was covered with papers—even yesterday, when she’d worked at the desk herself, she hadn’t disturbed Max’s things. A
book still lay open, facedown, on the table next to his favorite chair. Rita paused for a moment, fingering the volume, then abruptly picked it up, closed it, and returned it to its place on the walnut shelves that lined the room.

She crossed to the windows, checked their latches, then pulled closed the heavy damask curtains. When she returned to the door, she paused a moment, looking back into the room before she switched out the light.

A vague feeling of apprehension swept over her, and for a moment she thought she might cry. Resolutely, she flicked the switch, plunging the room into darkness, then pulled the door shut.

At last she went upstairs, but she went through the house on the second floor, opening the windows to let the cool night air drift through the rooms.

Finally, in the master bedroom, she began folding the clothes—Max’s clothes—that were spread out on the bed, and packing them away in the boxes Greg had brought her yesterday.

Greg.

She felt an icy chill as she remembered the conversation she’d had with him after Judith had left the living room. She’d done her best to mask her emotions, but she was almost certain he’d known something was wrong.

Still, nothing had actually been said. They’d simply made small talk for a while, and she’d assured him she was doing just fine. No, she wasn’t lonely.

No, she hadn’t thought any more about selling the house.

Yes, she’d heard about Frank Arnold—Judith had told her.

She’d searched his face as they’d talked about Frank,
looking for any sign that would tell her his concern was anything less than genuine. But even as he’d finally said good-bye, he’d spoken once more of Frank. “It’s a shame,” he’d said, his voice filled with what sounded to Rita like genuine sympathy. “He could be a pain in the neck sometimes, but no one deserves what’s been happening to him today.”

Rita had searched his eyes as he spoke, but they had revealed nothing. When he left, she went upstairs to talk to Judith again.

“I don’t know,” she’d sighed, perching on the edge of Judith’s bed. “Perhaps we’re wrong—”

“We’re not,” Judith had insisted. “I called my friend in Los Alamos. He doesn’t have any answers yet, but he promised to keep trying.” She glanced at her watch, then her eyes shifted back to Rita. “Look, I promised Jed I’d meet him at the hospital, then take him out for dinner. Why don’t you come with me? I don’t think you should be alone here.”

Rita had brushed her words aside. “Don’t be silly,” she’d said. “I didn’t say a word to Greg. And I need some time to think about all this. It’s just … well, it just seems so unbelievable. You go ahead, dear. I’ll be fine.”

She’d fixed herself a small dinner, but had been unable to eat it.

She’d tried to work on some needlepoint, but her hobby hadn’t soothed her either.

In the end she’d spent most of the evening simply sitting in front of an unlit fire, thinking about Greg and the experiment he’d carried out on his puppy.

And suddenly she was certain she knew the truth of what Greg was doing now.

Once again he was carrying on some kind of experiment. Only this time it wasn’t a puppy that was dying.

This time it was people.

Tomorrow, she would find a way to stop him.

Tiredly, she put the last of the things on the bed into the boxes, then undressed and put on a robe. She sat at her vanity, pulled the pins out of her hair, then began giving it the hundred brushstrokes it had received every night since she was ten years old.

Usually, the ritual brushing of her hair relaxed her, made her put the worries of the day aside, but tonight it didn’t seem to work, and when she was finished with the task, she still felt nervous.

She wandered restlessly to the window and looked out into the night.

The moon was high, and a silvery light danced on the face of the mesa. She could see bats darting through the night, and heard the soft hoot of an owl as it coasted on the breeze, searching the ground for mice.

She was about to turn away when she thought she saw a movement in the shadows outside the house, but when she looked again, there was nothing there. At last she turned away and slid into bed.

She read for a while, but the conversation with Greg kept replaying in her mind, and she had to go back over the pages again and again, the words holding no meaning for her.

At last she drifted into sleep.

She had no idea what time it was when she woke up, but she sensed immediately that something was wrong.

The air in her room was heavy, and acrid with smoke.

She came fully awake, and then she could hear it.

A crackling sound, as if someone were crumpling paper.

She ran to the window and looked out, half expecting to see a brush fire burning in the desert.

But the bright yellow glow that filled the yard was not coming from the desert beyond her property. It was coming from the house itself.

Rita gasped, instinctively slammed the window shut, then snatched her robe from the foot of the bed, shoving her arms into its sleeves as she hurried to the bedroom door.

The hall was choked with smoke. As she pulled the door open, it rolled into the room, filling her nostrils and making her gasp for air. She slammed the door closed again, then ran once more to the window.

No way down.

If she jumped, she would surely break her legs, if not her back.

She thought quickly. If she took a deep breath, she could make it down the stairs and out the front door before she had to take another.

What if she tripped and fell on the stairs?

She put the thought out of her mind.

She returned to the door once more, then steeled herself as she took three deep breaths, holding the last one.

Throwing the door open, she hurled herself toward the top of the stairs twenty-odd feet away.

She could hear the fire roaring now, and almost turned back, but then she was at the top of the staircase. The walls of the foyer were blazing, their ancient hand-carved
wood panels crackling and curling as the fire consumed them.

Now it was too late to turn back. She drew the robe tighter around her as she hurried down the marble stairs. Then she was in the foyer itself. The front door was only a few yards away.

She ran to it, twisting at the knob, her aching lungs releasing her breath as they anticipated the fresh air on the other side of the door.

The door refused to open. Rita’s fingers fumbled with the lock mechanism, struggling to turn it.

Her lungs expanded and she choked as smoke was sucked into her throat.

Coughing, she twisted at the lock again, then jerked hard on the door.

It gave way slightly, then stuck again.

The chain!

Panic was overwhelming her now, and as she tried to breathe again, smoke gorged her lungs and she felt her legs weaken beneath her. She hurled herself against the door, then tried to reach the chain, but it was too late.

Her legs betrayed her, and she slid to the floor, overwhelmed by the smoke that was trapped in the room.

The fire seemed to close in on her, reaching out to take her in its arms, its flames whispering to her, calling to her.

As her lungs filled once more with the bitter, stinging miasma, she gave in to the beckoning arms, gave herself up to the fire.

And as she passed into the blackness that now surrounded her, she thought she saw Max, coming toward her, his hand held out to her.

That was how they found her when the fire finally
died: her hand stretched out as if reaching for help. They thought she was reaching for the door, trying to make good her escape from the flames.

In truth, though no one would ever know it, she had not been reaching for the door at all in those last fleeting seconds of her life.

She had been reaching for Max, and she had found him.

Night fell in Borrego. High above the town, at the rim of the canyon, there was a low hum of well-oiled machinery.

The huge antenna came slowly to life.

Midnight.

Gina Alvarez was lying in her bed, her eyes closed, a book propped on her knees. She’d fallen asleep earlier that evening, but then awakened when the fire trucks screamed by the little house she shared with her mother and younger sister. She’d gotten up and looked out the window. At first she’d seen nothing, but then, off in the distance somewhere near the mesa, an orange glare had flared up. She’d thought about going outside and trying to get a better look, but then decided against it and gone back to bed. But by then she was wide awake again, so she’d decided to do some reading for her American literature class. The book was
The Deerslayer
,
and though she found the story interesting enough, the style seemed kind of old-fashioned to her, and she’d found her eyes growing heavy.

Now she wasn’t quite asleep, but neither was she quite awake. She was in that half state somewhere in between, where she was vaguely aware of what was going on around her, but the images of dreams to come were already beginning to sneak up from her subconscious like night creatures emerging from their holes.

A haze of color played around her vision, and she idly wondered if it could be morning already. But she knew it was impossible—her reading light was still on, and she could feel the weight of her book resting on her legs. She toyed abstractly with the idea of moving the book to her night table and switching off the light, but knew the movement itself would banish the sleep that had almost overcome her. Then she would be lying in the darkness, fully awake again, and her mind would start working overtime, going over her schedule for tomorrow, worrying about a quiz in history, trying to think of things she might be able to do to help Jed.

Suddenly, despite herself, she was wide awake again.

Sighing, she picked up her book, stared at its open pages for a moment, then closed it and set it aside.

She snapped off the light, rolled over, and tried to will herself to fall instantly asleep.

Seconds ticked by.

She smelled something.

She frowned slightly and sniffed at the air, then sat up. Something smelled terrible. Like burning rubber. Or garbage rotting.

Gina’s frown deepened, but when she drew another breath in through her nose, the strange odor seemed to
be gone. She hesitated a moment, then lay down again. She concentrated on making each of the muscles in her body relax, starting with her toes, then working her way up her legs, through her torso, then down her arms to her fingertips. Usually, by the time she was finished, she was almost asleep.

A few minutes later she was almost done. She felt totally relaxed, almost as if she were floating in space. Soft tendrils of sleep stroked at the edges of her mind, and she began reaching out toward them, welcoming them.

Dreams began to form, shapeless images of swirling colors, spinning out of the blackness, dancing in front of her eyes. Then, as she watched, they began to take shape, but just as she was about to recognize what they might be, they would disappear.

And then, quite suddenly, her whole body went into a spasm, every muscle in her jerking in unison.

And she was awake again.

She was sure she knew what had happened. The spasms came over her every now and then, just when she was on the verge of falling asleep. They always seemed to come jumping out at her, taking her by surprise, just when she was most comfortable, just when she had curled in the most perfect position, feeling neither too hot nor too cold. Then she would lie awake for another half hour, having to start all over again with her complicated program of relaxing.

Except that tonight was different.

Tonight, after the spasm hit her, she felt really relaxed. She stretched languidly in the bed for a moment, then yawned.

She had no urge to turn the light back on and read some more, nor did she even feel her usual impatience
at the prospect of losing another half hour or so to nothing more productive than trying to go to sleep.

Within the space of a minute she drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Jeff Hankins rolled over in bed, kicking out at the covers, then jerking awake.

The dream had been vivid.

He’d been on the football field, and he’d just caught the kickoff in the second half. The ball had come into his arms solidly, and he was already on the run.

In the stands he could hear all his friends cheering wildly as he sprinted down the field.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted one of the opposing players, bearing down on him from the left. He’d feinted, then darted right across the other player’s path, feeling the boy’s fingers try to grasp his ankle as he went by.

The field seemed to be clear then, and he could see the end zone, only twenty more yards away.

The crowd was going crazy, and the band was already playing a series of fanfares, urging him on as he charged down the field.

Ten yards to go, then five.

And then, out of nowhere, they appeared.

Three of them. Big boys, each of them towering over him, barreling down on him. He tried to turn away, but suddenly there were two more of them, even bigger than the first three, blocking his way.

And then they hit him.

He felt the shock of their weight as they slammed
down on him, felt his lungs collapse as the wind was knocked out of him.

He woke up with a start, sitting bolt upright in bed. He gasped for breath, struggling to recapture his wind. Then he realized where he was, and that it had been nothing more than a dream.

Christ, he wasn’t even on the football team. In fact, his interest in football went no further than in taking a six-pack to the games and getting drunk under the grandstand with a couple of his friends. Then, after the game, they’d go out and raise a little hell around town until they got bored or the cops sent them home.