Dimension Of Horror

Chapter 14

Each voyage into Dimension X was different, yet all had certain features in common. There would be a period of wild imagery, dreamlike, but with an urgency unmatched by any except the worst of nightmares, then there would be sensations of motion, of incredible speed. Then there would be physical sensations experienced with a curious detachment. Cold. Heat. Unbearable pain that somehow did not really hurt. Always before Richard had taken these things passively, letting them happen.

He could no longer afford that luxury.

It had been because of a failure of critical judgment that the Ngaa had trapped him. The Ngaa, master of illusion, had made him believe he was still between dimensions for some time after he had arrived on the «other side.» It had taken advantage of his passive attitude to establish a hypnotic control Richard had not been able to break until that night in the plane over London when he had been commanded to kill J and had resisted, a control that even then had only gradually faded, a control that-Who knows? — might still exert some influence on Blade's subconscious mind.

Richard thought, I must distinguish illusion from reality, or the Ngaa will win.

Sometimes Richard landed in a new universe fully conscious, but more often he blacked out for some undetermined period before awakening in an unfamiliar and usually dangerous environment. This time he must not black out! The Ngaa knew he was coming.

Richard thought, I am awake now. I will stay awake.

The golden light was rushing past all the while in total silence, as if he were falling faster and faster into clouds of bright gas or dust. Falling. A terrible vertigo threatened to possess him, but he pushed it away with the thought, This is illusion.

The light seemed to hold faces, naked bodies. They flashed by like streaks of flame, gazing at him with gaunt anguish. Illusion, Richard thought again.

But their eyes were so haunted, their bodies so wasted with disease, starvation and age, their heads so skull-like. Could there be concentration camps here in the void between universes? Could there be Spanish Inquisitions? Plagues? Witch hunts? Illusion! Illusion!

But now he could begin to hear their voices, their wails of wordless agony.

Nothing but illusion!

Wordless? It seemed to Richard he could begin to understand them.

«Help!» they were crying. «Help! Help us!»

The golden light was shifting to a dull, dim blue, and Richard felt cold, an infinite cold that made his swim in the Thames seem summery.

«Help!» they called out again and again.

How could he refuse them? He was a human being, and so were they.

Or were they? An instant before he stretched out his hand to one of the passing figures, he noticed the teeth.

The teeth! Long, stained with brownish red.

These were not humans at all, but vampires.

«Help!» they howled, grinning, leering, mocking.

Illusion! Yet here between one space-time continuum and another, could illusions kill? Perhaps, if you believed in them.

I must not believe. I must not sleep.

Sleep!

At the thought he became suddenly weary, suddenly like an old man who can go no further, who must lie down and rest even if he never gets up again.

The light grew dimmer, redder. The headlong rush of the vampires slowed. Were they watching him with their glowing red eyes? Were they waiting for him to sleep?

I don't care. If only I can get a little rest.

Consciousness was fading. Time itself seemed to be coming to a stop.

Richard shook himself awake.

No! It's illusion! All illusion!

The vampires drew back, hissing with fury. There were so many of them! Thousands. Millions!

As Richard drifted through space, the vampires spread their wings and began wheeling about him in great flocks, great batlike clouds. The light was almost gone. Richard could not see them, only hear their immense and infinite flapping, their birdlike cries of hunger. One flew so close its wing brushed his arm.

Light returned, slowly, this time a soft amber glow. The swirling cloud of vampires retreated, gathered together, formed into the shape of a giant looming head. The head leaned toward him. Its eyes opened.

His nostrils were filled with a familiar perfume. The face was familiar too, a face he had never hoped to see again though he sometimes dreamed of it. And the soft soothing womanly voice was familiar: «Hush, Dickie baby. Don't be afraid.»

«Mama. «

«Everything's all right. Go to sleep, darling.»

Something within him wanted to believe, did believe. Sleep. Yes. Why not? But then his conscious mind jerked him awake.

He shouted, «Illusion! Illusion! You're nothing but an illusion!»

With an expression of infinite sadness, the face began to fade.