The Nightmare Game (57 page)

Surrounded without relief by blackness, I was
amazed at how even was the path upon which I walked. Although I was
hyper-vigilant for any irregularity, nothing emerged to trip me. There were no
potholes, there were no rocks, there was nothing in my way; so although I was
both blinded and disoriented by the complete darkness, I was able to proceed
with relative steadiness. Eventually, the blackness lightened to a dark, dull
gray and shapes began to emerge within that grayness. I was now enveloped by a
thick fog, and my pants and T-shirt had been exchanged in favor of a simple
cotton dress. I could only suppose that Arrosha had not approved of my wardrobe
selection.

The fog lifted quickly, and again I found myself
on a rural road, this time surrounded by a deserted, flat landscape which was
dotted only occasionally by a few, dead, scraggly trees. As I walked, the hot
dryness of the air began to choke me, wrapping itself around me against my
will. It was the dryness of an extended drought that promised no hope of ever
breaking. Smotheringly quiet, there was no wind, as if the air itself forgot
how to move, yet it was dusty and gritty, revealing that the drought had been
around for so long that the dirt had become part of the very air itself.

I found myself in the middle of nowhere. In either
direction, everything on this dirt road looked so similar that I got the
feeling that the direction in which I traveled really didn’t matter. It was
twilight now, but I got the impression that it was always perpetual twilight in
this land without color. The total quiet was unnerving, as if the sound here
depended on wind or moisture to nurture it and, finding neither, decided to
remain mute.

The jump in space then happened once more. One
moment I was walking along the deserted dirt road, a road with no cars, no
other people, nothing around for miles. The next I was standing in front of the
broken wooden gate of a broken wooden fence that bordered a broken wooden
two-story farmhouse, dilapidated and eaten up with dry rot. It was in such bad
disrepair that it looked as if it had never known good times. I was no longer
alone any more, for Ben and Illea were standing next to me.

“Where are we?” I asked them.

Illea jumped, putting her hand to her chest. “Oh,
you startled me!” she said. “You weren’t there a second ago. How did you get
here?”

“I have no idea.”

“I’m glad you’re back. We thought we lost you. I
don’t know where we are, either. I don’t even know how we got here.” Illea
says. “Have you seen Ricky? We lost him, too, and I’m very worried.”

“No, I haven’t seen him. Sorry.”

Ben grabbed me, hugging me hard.

“Thank god you’re all right. How did we ever get
separated? I was holding onto your hand tightly. Illea stayed with me but your
hand just seemed to vanish. I was worried sick. Does anybody have any idea of
what’s going on?”

I knew, of course. I knew that they had outlived
their usefulness to Arrosha and she was finished with them. I knew that she
would destroy them before the night was over, but telling them about it seemed
so cruel and served no useful purpose, so I pretended to be clueless.

“I was put down on the road some ways back and
then I just popped up here somehow. Don’t know how, though,” I said. “Have you
guys been here long?”

Ben got a confused, disturbed look upon his face.
“No. And I don’t know how we got here. There was a fog and then I lost your
hand and then we were somewhere, I don’t know where, for awhile…” His voice
trailed off into silence. “You changed clothes,” he added, changing the subject
as he noticed my dress.

“You, too,” I said. They weren’t wearing their
robes anymore, but regular street clothes.

“How did that happen?” asked Ben.

“We never changed clothes. Did you?” Illea asked.

“No,” I told her. “Just like you guys, I looked
down and they were different.”

Illea shook her head and I could tell that on top
of being perplexed, she and Ben were afraid.

“So, should we go in?” asked Ben.

“I don’t know,” Illea answered. “That house, it
looks so unhealthy.”

“Yes,” Ben said, “but I don’t see that we have
much of a choice.” Looking around, he added, “This seems to be the only shelter
that’s around for miles. I don’t know where else to go. It looks deserted, but
maybe we’ll find something in there that can at least help us find out where we
are.”

“I don’t know, Ben, I don’t like this place,”
Illea said. “I’d rather not go in. It feels bad to me. Let’s start walking.
Maybe there’s someplace better down the road.”

“No,” I replied. “There isn’t. There’s nothing
better down the road. Not in either direction.”

“How do you know?” Illea asks.

“I just came from that direction,” I said,
pointing behind me. “As for the other one, I don’t know how I know, but I do.
There is nothing else. This is it. I’m sure of it. This is where whatever
brought us here wants us to be.” Again I resisted telling them it was Arrosha’s
doing. “We could walk for miles and we would just wind up back here again. I’m
certain of it but I don’t know why I’m certain of it.”

With no other options, we opened the decomposing
gate, barely hanging on by its last hinge. It managed not to fall apart
completely and we walked up the sidewalk to the house, whose windows were
sloppily boarded up with unpainted slats. We stepped up on the small, creaky
front porch, treading carefully to avoid the holes and missing boards in the
porch, eaten away by decades of rot and neglect. We went up to the front door
and knocked.

When no one answered, Ben carefully opened the
door, ducking just in time to avoid two thick boards whizzing through the air,
one from either side. Both boards stopped mid-air, and we heard a nervous,
relieved laughter. Behind the board were Robert and Ricky.

“Thank Arrosha, it’s you guys!” said Robert,
relieved. “We thought you were dead!”

“Baby,” Ricky said to Illea, hugging her. “I thought
I lost you. Are you alright?”

“I’m as good as I can be, I guess,” she answered.
“I just wish I knew what was going on.”

When we went inside we saw that the interior of
the house was as dismal as its exterior.

Ben asked, “Robert, we saw the walls suck you in.
How did you survive?” Ben asked them.

“My guess is as good as yours,” Robert replied.
“All I can remember is that one minute, the wall trapped Timothy and me and the
next, I just wound up next to Ricky on the road outside this house. How did you
guys get here?”

“Pretty much the same way,” Ben said. “We were
running down a corridor one minute and the next, we were here.” Ben said. “And
speaking of Timothy, where is he?”

“We haven’t seen him since that incident at the
tomb. Or the Sisters, either, for that matter. And I’m sorry to be the bearer
of bad news, Ben, but nobody’s seen Geoffrey since before all of this started.
I really hope they’re all alright,”

“So do I,” Ben answered.

“I don’t understand,” Illea commented. “Timothy
and you were both sucked into that wall at the same time. Shouldn’t the two of
you have wound up here together in the same spot?”

“You’d think, Illea, but we have no idea of what’s
going on,” Robert said.

“Those are some nice boards, guys,” Ben said as he
examined the weapons. “And some reception, too. You could have really hurt
somebody. Just who’d you think we were?”

“We didn’t know. Those creatures maybe,” answered
Robert.

“We’ve been hearing some freaky sounds coming from
outside,” noted Ricky. “We didn’t know who it was that was coming in.”

“Do intruders usually knock?” said Ben.

“That was a knock?” Ricky said, confused. “It
sounded like you guys were trying to break down the damn door of an echo
chamber!”

“We didn’t knock loud,” Ben replied. “Just
normally.”

“I guess sounds aren’t what they appear to be
here, either,” I said as the others looked at each other, confused.

“So tell me, have you guys been here long?” Ben
asked after a few minutes.

“No,” Ricky answered. “We got here just a little
bit before you guys showed up.”

“Have you looked around the house yet?” wondered
Illea.

“Part of it. We were just checking it out when we
heard the commotion at the front door. We can all pick our search back up from
where we left off,” Robert suggested.

“Should we split up?” Robert asked. “You know, to
cover ground more quickly?”

“Dude,” said Ricky, “Don’t you ever watch any
movies? You never, ever split up in a situation like this. It’s dangerous
enough even if we all stick together.”

“Okay, then, there’s one room down here this way
that we haven’t checked out yet,” Robert motioned to the others as he went down
the short hallway by the stairs. “And we haven’t looked upstairs either.”

“Let’s finish the ground floor first, since you’re
almost done with it,” Ben suggested.

We went into the last of the back rooms and looked
around. At first glance, it seemed to be empty, but then we heard a muffled
growl and a moan coming from the little room’s sole closet.

With caution, we walked up to the closet. Ben put
his hands on the doorknob as Ricky and Robert again held up their boards high
as makeshift weapons.

“On three I’ll open the door, okay? 1-2-3,”
whispered Ben. The other two nodded in agreement.

Ben turned the knob and threw the door open wide.
Something hideous hiding inside the closet jumped out, snarling. Rather than
bashing it, the whole group screamed and ran.

“Get outta here!” Ricky and Robert shouted to
Illea and me as they ran past us.

“It’s a monster!” yelled Ben.

No sooner had we left the room than we heard
uncontrolled laughter.

“What the hell?” asked Robert.

“Is that monster laughing at us?” Ricky said.

As the laughing continued, Ben stuck his head back
into the room, just in time to see the laughing monster taking off its
Halloween mask.

“Guys,” Ben said. “It’s not a monster. It’s just a
prime specimen of the great American jerk.”

The rest of us went back into the room, where
Geoffrey was quite impressed with both himself and his joke.

“What is wrong with you, man?” Robert said.

“Geoffrey, you really are an asshole,” commented
Ricky. “A first class, bonafide asshole.”

“And that’s not even to mention that you’re a real
little shit,” added Illea. “To think that we were ever worried about you.”

“Just what did you think you were doing?” a
furious Ben admonished him. “What did you plan to accomplish with this? Did you
think you were being funny?”

Geoffrey could not stop laughing. In between
bursts of laughter, he said, “Oh, no, man, I don’t
think
it was funny, I
know
it was funny.”

“To you, maybe, but not to anybody else,” Ben answered
him.

“I know, man, that’s what makes it so damn funny,”
Geoffrey said.

As Geoffrey continued to gloat, it was to ears
that ignored him as the rest of us walked out into the entryway.

“Oh, c’mon, guys, it was funny,” Geoffrey
protested, on and on, but there was no response, for no one would speak to him.

 Once in the tiny kitchen, Geoffrey continued his
pleas.

“Ben, c’mon.”

“No, Geoffrey, I would have been so happy to see
you safe, but now I don’t want to hear a word out of you unless it’s something
helpful. If it’s not that, then we don’t want to hear it. Robert, Ricky, keep
an eye on him. If he moves, hit him.”

“With pleasure, Ben,” Robert said.

“Got that right,” added an angry Ricky.

“Oh, c’mon, Ben,” Geoff said, “that was funny,
admit it.”

“I changed my mind,” said Ben. “If he blinks, hit
him.”

“Ben… Guys…” As Geoffrey protested, Ricky and
Robert brandished their boards at him.

“Shut up, Geoff,” Robert warned.

“If you don’t, I’ll hit you,” menaced Ricky.
“We’re not in any mood for more of your ‘jokes’, Geoff. I mean it.”

“Have you guys checked this room?” Ben asked as we
entered the kitchen.

“Yeah,” said Robert.

“Well, let’s see if there’s anything here we can
use as a weapon if we need to.” Ben said.

“Yeah,” added Ricky. “Maybe we can try it out on
Geoffrey.”

They looked around the kitchen and Ricky said,
“There’s nothing here, Ben. This house seems to have been abandoned a long time
ago. Everything’s empty.”

“Yeah,” said Robert. “That seems to be just about
the only thing left behind.” He pointed to a cheap old kitchen table against
one wall of the room, with two badly worn chairs, the only furniture we’d seen
in the place since we’d arrived.

“At least let me get comfortable, guys,” Geoffrey
said as he sat down upon one of the chairs at the table.

Ben walked over to the faucet of the old sink and
opened it, but the only thing it had to offer was a dry, sickly groan of air,
which soon stopped as the faucet spent itself.

“I don’t know what we’re going to find in this
place. It must be years since anybody’s lived here,” Ben said. Pointing to a
closed door in the kitchen, he added, “I wonder where that leads. It seems like
the next logical thing to investigate.”

“I don’t know, Ben,” Robert said. “It wasn’t here
when we looked around earlier.”

“Really,” Ricky added. “It couldn’t have been. I’m
sure would we have noticed it.”

“Maybe it’s the cellar.” Geoffrey remarked,
unsolicited. “After all, isn’t that where the juicy stuff usually is in a place
like this?”

“Shut up, Geoffrey,” Ben told him.

Ben carefully opened the door. Behind it was only
the dark.

“I can’t see a thing,” he said. “If I only had
some light.”

“Try the light switch on the chain in front of
you,” Geoffrey offered.