Haunted (20 page)

Too, he had no desire to go downstairs again tonight. The music faded, if it was ever there at all, and he turned back to his book. He barely finished a page before his eyes grew heavy and the words became a blur. Gratefully, he set the book aside and turned off his reading lamp.

Eyes closed, he drifted toward sleep over and over again, but each time his mind began to fill with the shifting hypnogogic images that signaled the dreams to come, he would panic and wrench himself back to consciousness, then lie in the dark, staring at the ceiling, while his heart pounded and the sea air from the open window dried the sweat on his skin.

You've gotta knock it off, Masters, he told himself after the fourth or fifth episode. The house was quiet, the atmosphere in the room spoke of the ocean, not ghosts, and there was absolutely no reason why last night's dream visitor, whether she was a product of the house or of his imagination, should return. And if she does, enjoy it, Masters. What’s there to be afraid of? Minnie Willard telling the town you stain your sheets? Finally, his fear moved into the proper perspective, and he closed his eyes once more. This time, he gave himself to the hynogogia, relishing it as he normally did, and was soon rewarded with a pleasant dream about a romantic weekend he and Melanie had spent in a ski lodge in the White Mountains.

Toward the end of the dream, which had consisted of warm, pleasant emotions experienced while they sat in front of a huge stone fireplace, hands and feet entwined, and watched the blizzard rage outside, Melanie did something out of character. Despite all the other people in the lodge's common room, she began undressing. He protested, suggesting they go to their room, but she only smiled, and the smile changed her into someone else.

She held herself above him and her breasts were small but perfect as he kneaded them with his fingers while she fed first one, then the other, between his lips, into his mouth. He tasted the smooth saltiness of her skin as he sucked the nipple, licking and gently chewing it. Her cool flesh smelled of jasmine, a scent he thought he might die for.

She lifted herself up, taking away her breasts, making him moan his desire for them. He tried to reach for them, but she stopped him, grabbing his wrists in her incredibly strong hands and holding them to his sides as she slid her body down over his.

Her tongue flicked over his lips, lightly at first, then probing more and more forcefully until he parted them. As she explored his mouth, she continued to pin his arms at his sides and began rubbing her body over his. He could feel her rubbery-hard nipples against his chest and then, the tickle of her pubic hair against his erection as she moved downward, trailing her tongue over his lower lip and down until she reached his neck.

Suddenly, she slipped her sex over his and he felt himself surrounded, imprisoned within her cold fire. She bit his neck, painfully, then sat up and began to ride him like a horse. She let go of his hands, but he didn't move them.

"My God," he moaned. "My God, Melanie." He opened his eyes to look at her, his head swimming with desire, his body on the verge of release, but it was too dark to see her. "Melanie." He felt her weight, felt the tight sheath of her muscles entrapping him, using him, felt her cold hands pinching his skin, yanking his chest hairs as she moved over him. A nail scratched his nipple, but be was so excited, it only added to his passion. He heard her laugh, smelled her perfume, the heavy erotic scent of jasmine.

Still half asleep, he reached out to caress her ass as it pressed rhythmically against his groin, and she laughed again as his hands floundered in the chill, chill air.

Melanie’s not here he realized, and at that moment, the woman dug the nails of one hand into his chest. An instant later, he felt her other hand reaching down between his legs, felt a finger probing between his buttocks, and he shivered in erotic agony as it entered him like an icicle. At the same time, she squeezed her muscles around his erection, up and down, milking him until everything in the world disappeared in a climatic delirium that went on forever and ever.

Dimly, he heard himself screaming with release, heard her laughing, laughing, laughing.

Breathing heavily, shaking, dizzy, he lay there beneath her cold weight for one second, then two. At three, he yelled and grabbed for the light, almost knocking it over as he pushed the switch.

The weak, golden light illuminated the room and the bed, and he forced himself to look down.

"My God," he whispered, still feeling the cold weight upon him, but seeing nothing except his spent penis standing at an unnatural angle, still inside the invisible thing that had used him.

His body wouldn't respond, wouldn't move. He felt paralyzed. "Get off me!" he whispered.

Laughter was the only response, that and a renewal of the cloying perfume, now tinged with decay. The entity squeezed his penis again as he watched and he saw a ripple move up and down the shaft as invisible muscles moved. The cold finger began to probe once more and, against his will, his body started to respond.

"Get off me!" he growled.

But the succubus continued to use him, to start its horrible rape all over again.

Rape, he thought. Dear God, I'm being raped! Anger welled inside him, gave him strength, killed his fear. "Get off!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. Refusing the paralysis, he propelled himself upward and, where physical strength had failed, the sheer force of his will succeeded. He threw the thing from him. "Get the fuck out of here!" he hissed. "Get the fuck out!" He shoved at the chillness, recognizing it now as the same sort of clammy cold as he'd experienced downstairs. This time, it had taken a form. "Get out!" Hatred filled his heart and mind.

There was a brief surge of the odor of flowers and rot, and then it faded. Trembling uncontrollably, he padded naked around the room, feeling for cool spots, wondering how he was going to keep the entity out of the room. There were many methods and he hoped that one might work.

He found it hovering near the door, small and icy cold, slushy-thick. Quickly, he withdrew his hand from the manifestation. "Get the fuck out of here," he ordered, still fueled by anger.

He heard the laughter, right in his ear, and then he heard the feminine voice say, David, David, David. And then it was gone.

My God. It knows my name.

Hurriedly, he slipped on his robe and trotted to Amber's room. The door was locked. "Amber!" He pounded on the door. "Amber! Wake up!"

A moment later, he heard her fumbling with the lock, and then she stood there looking at him with sleepy-heavy eyes.

To him, she looked ten years old again, with her braided hair and Garfield sleep shirt. She looked so vulnerable. What have I done? What was I thinking, bringing her to this house?

"What, Dad?" she asked.

"Is everything okay in here?"

"Sure. I was asleep." She seemed to wake a little bit. "What happened to you?"

"Why?" He glanced down, relieved to see his robe was closed.

"You look like you just ran a marathon."

"I had a visitor." He paused. "Frankly, I'm not sure it's safe for us to have that empty room between us. If it visits you--"

"It won't," she said simply.

"How do you know that?" he asked, exasperated.

"Because," she said patiently, "this room's already got a ghost."

"It what?" He couldn't believe his ears.

"It has a ghost, a good one. That other thing won't come in here."

"How do you know?"

"I know."

He believed her.

She studied him. "You want to sleep in here?''

He considered it, then thought that if she was wrong, if the jasmine manifestation could enter the room, what might happen would, at the least, humiliate him forever, and at the most, destroy both their lives. "That's okay, kiddo. It won't bother me again tonight."

She nodded. "'Night, Daddy."

He gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead before heading back to his bedroom.

"Goodnight."

Body House: 12:35 P.M.

By noon, David had his office set up exactly the way he wanted it, from the Navajo rugs on the floor to the Felix the Cat clock, and the Edward Hopper prints, movie posters and blowups of his own book posters on the walls. His favorite Hopper, Gas, hung to one side of the front window, so that he could see it anytime he looked up. He stared at it now, marveling at the way it never failed to inspire him. It depicted a 1930s Mobil gas station beside a wooded highway at dusk.

A lanky man in vest and tie stood near a pump and, beyond him, the forest and road disappeared into a curve of unending blackness. David always wondered what was lurking just beyond the turn in the road, what was waiting to emerge, what was watching the oblivious man as he straightened cans of oil, and if other things observed him from the blackness beneath the nearest trees. The wondering always brought him different answers and different questions and, ultimately, different ideas for his books.

He and Eric had moved the portrait of Lizzie Baudey to the parlor, hanging it in a place of honor above the fireplace built into the wall separating the parlor from the dining room. After the job was completed, he'd briefly wondered if Theo would be irritated, then decided not to worry about it.

Settling in had gone far more smoothly than he'd expected. His oversized L-shaped oak desk hugged the north and west facing walls, affording him views of both Red Cay's half-moon bay and the old lighthouse. To his dismay, he'd managed to book up the big computer correctly on his first try and it only took a couple of tries to get the fax and the answering machines for both his phone lines working.

Now, having finished copying the files from his laptop onto the main machine, he sat in his chair, feet comfortably propped on the desk and the door optimistically shut against Minnie's unending verbiage. In his hands, he held the doll Amber had given him this morning. It was unfortunate that the legs were marred but, in spite of this, it was still an exquisite piece of work.

Before bringing it downstairs, he had removed its clothing, as Amber suggested. He'd been shocked by the anatomical detailing, though he didn't know why, considering the history of the house. Now, he repeated the process, setting the clothes aside, and holding the effigy of Lizzie Baudey under the bright desk lamp, he scrutinized it more thoroughly. Finally, on the inside of the right thigh, he found what he was looking for: the artist's initial. The tiny, curling "C" was so subtle that it was nearly invisible, but it was there, all right. "C" for Christabel, it had to be. So, Christabel Baudey had made a doll of her own mother... complete with genitalia.

That struck David as one of the most unnatural things he had ever encountered.

As far as he knew, no one had ever found one of Christabel's dolls before. There were all sorts of theories on the whereabouts of the collection, the most popular being that they were secreted in hidden compartments throughout the house or in the infamously unfindable cellar below. It seemed to him now that the secret compartments theory might at least be partially correct.

This morning, Amber had showed him where the wardrobe's hidden compartment was located, but neither of them could get it to open again. Finally, she'd grinned wickedly and told him, "Maybe I was supposed to find it!"

Maybe she was supposed to, he thought now.

He began dressing the doll. Amber had said nothing more about the haunting in her room and he'd decided not to bring it up until later since she was in such a hurry to get going on her shopping trip.

Not very much was known about the dolls. Several of Elizabeth Baudey's beautiful creations bad been in a private collection back east, but that entire collection had been destroyed by fire in the nineteen forties. Still, there were photographs and enough documentation for him to know with certainty that Lizzie's dolls were not anatomically correct, as this one was. He wondered what had happened to the rest of them, suspecting that Lizzie had probably given many of them away as gifts to the people they represented--which meant there were probably a few still in town. As for the rest, he had an intuitive feeling that Christabel might have destroyed them. From all accounts, she had a jealous, vindictive nature, and as talented as she was, she wouldn't want to have to compete with her mother.

The stories concerning Christabel’s dolls were rather sparse, as if people had been afraid to talk about them, or her. This, combined with her alleged black magic powers, made David suspect that the dolls might have been used for magical purposes, or at least were believed to be by the superstitious sailors and townspeople of the era.

Looking at this doll, beautiful as it was, made him think he'd been right about that. There was something about it--probably the unnatural detailing--that chilled him.

Just as he started trying to fasten the frustratingly tiny buttons on the back of the dress, he heard three raps on the door. Quickly, he placed the doll in a desk drawer.

"Mr. Masters?" Minnie called.

Without waiting for a reply, she opened the door and beamed at him. "Oh my, this is just the loveliest room. Is this how writers like to work, in a great big office like this? My Lord, just look at that big computer, I don't know how you manage such a complicated thing. I'd just fall apart if I had to figure out how to work it, but then, I'd fall apart if I had to figure out how to write a book. You're just so astounding, Mr. Masters, just amazing, and that TV screen or computer screen, whatever you call it, it's such a pretty blue, don't you think? Do they come in different colors? Computers, that is? Yellow is my favorite color, so I'd want a yellow screen. Do they sell those?"