Midnight Voices

CHAPTER 23

The sound of the clock striking in the apartment’s large foyer echoed like a death knell in Caroline’s mind, and her body responded to every drop of the clock’s hammers with an involuntary twitch, as if it were she herself who was being struck. As the resonance of the final chime faded away, Tony drew his wife even closer.

“You have to sleep, darling. Staying awake all night won’t change anything.” “If I sleep, I’ll dream, and I know what I’ll dream about,” Caroline replied, her voice as hollow as the sound of the clock striking midnight.

The children had been asleep for hours, and Tony had finally convinced Caroline to go to bed just before eleven. Neither of them had slept though; instead they’d simply lain in the darkened room, his arm around her. He’d waited for her breathing to fall into the gentle even rhythm of sleep, but it hadn’t come. Instead he’d heard her struggling against the tide of emotions that kept rising inside her, threatening to overwhelm her once again. “Did you take the pills Dr. Humphries gave you?” he asked.

“One of them — I hate taking pills.”

“Everybody hates taking pills. But sometimes they can actually help.” Gently easing his arm out from under her, Tony slid out of bed and went to the bathroom. A moment later he was back, holding a glass of water. “Where is it?” he asked.

Sighing heavily, Caroline hitched herself up, turned on her bedside lamp, and found the pill. Gazing at it dolefully, she finally put it in her mouth and washed it down with the water Tony had brought her. She managed a wan smile as she handed the empty glass back to him. “If I have nightmares, this is going to cost you.” “I’ll risk it,” Tony replied. He took the glass back to the bathroom, and a moment later was beside her again, his arm once more protectively around her, her head once more snuggled into the hollow of his shoulder. He kissed her gently on the cheek, then reached over and switched off her light, plunging the room back into darkness.

A few minutes later her shallow breath began to deepen.

At last she slept, and he knew she would not dream.

Laurie felt dizzy, and her eyes felt so heavy she couldn’t quite make them open, and at first she thought she must be dreaming. But if she were dreaming, she wouldn’t know it until she woke up, would she?

Where was she? She felt disoriented, like she should know where she was, but couldn’t quite remember.

Her room.

She was in her room, and in her bed.

But why did she feel so strange?

She struggled to open her eyes, but it was no use. Then, even though she could see nothing, she sensed that she was not alone.

She tried to speak, but it was as impossible to form words as it was to open her eyes, and all that came out was a low moan.

“It’s all right. We’re not going to hurt you.”

Though the voice was barely audible, there was something familiar about it. But she couldn’t quite recognize it, and instead of making her feel better, the words that had been whispered into her ear only made her more frightened.

Now she struggled to sit up, but her whole body felt as heavy as her eyelids.

The glow of light that filtered through her closed eyelids dimmed for a second, then brightened.

A shadow?

Someone passing between her and the source of the light?

Once again she tried to force her eyes open; once again she failed.

Another shadow, then another.

Something touched her!

She tried to pull away from the touch, tried to cry out, but once again the terrible heaviness that lay over her prevented her from doing anything more than uttering a nearly inaudible groan.

More touches.

Hands slipping beneath her.

She felt herself being lifted off her bed and moved to the side. A moment later she was lowered down again.

She was no longer in her bed — whatever she now lay on was much harder than her mattress, and the pillow beneath her head much thinner than her own.

Another shadow fell over her face, and she felt herself begin to move.

Something clicked in her mind, and she knew what was happening — she was on a gurney, like the ones she saw on hospital shows on television all the time!

But she wasn’t in a hospital — she was in her bedroom!

Wasn’t she?

“Go to sleep,” the same familiar voice whispered, and though the words seemed to come from far, far away, she felt herself responding to the command, felt herself starting to give in to the strange force that held her in its grip. “That’s right,” the distant voice soothed. “You’re very tired. Just let yourself go to sleep.” So easy. It would be so easy just to let herself drift away from the shadows, and the voices and the touches.

The light around her changed, dimming almost to blackness. Now her thoughts seemed to come from somewhere beyond herself, as if her mind were somehow disconnecting from her body.

Dying?

Was that what was happening?

Had she gotten sick, and been taken to the hospital? Were the people around her doctors who were trying to save her life?

But hospitals weren’t dim — they were always brightly lit with big fluorescent lamps that cast no shadows at all, and even though her eyes were still closed, she knew she was in almost total darkness now.

She heard something.

Not voices — something else.

A soft rhythmic sound, almost like a ticking clock, but not quite.

More like a clicking, but with a hitch to it.

Cli-click.

Cli-click.

Cli-click.

Like the voice that had whispered to her a moment ago, the sound lulled her nearly into unconsciousness, but once again she pulled herself away from the edge of sleep.

What was the sound? If she was on a gurney—

Wheels! Wheels clicking on a tiled floor.

The clicking stopped.

The gurney began to tip and sway, and she felt blood rushing into her head.

The swaying stopped. The pressure in her head eased. But her mind seemed to have cleared slightly, and terrible heaviness in her eyelids eased.

The light brightened, but only slightly, and took on a faintly yellowish hue.

A smoky aroma filled her nostrils.

She managed to lift her eyelids slightly.

Silhouettes of people were all around her, their faces lost in darkness. Behind them she could make out candles flickering.

Some kind of rack stood next to her, with bottles and tubes hanging from its arms.

And next to her, on the same kind of gurney as the one upon which she lay, she saw Rebecca. All the color had drained out of her face, and she lay still.

Perfectly still.

As still as death.

She wanted to reach out, wanted to touch Rebecca, wanted to help her. But then one of the figures stepped between them, blocking her view. She felt a hand on her jaw, gently opening her mouth. She tried to resist, tried to turn away, but couldn’t find the strength. Then she felt something in her mouth, something long and rubbery, being pushed down her throat. Her throat constricted and she gagged, her whole body clutched by a wracking spasm.

More hands touched her, pushing up her nightgown, spreading her legs apart. Again she tried to struggle, tried to twist away from the invading hands, but it was no use.

“She’s not asleep,” a voice whispered. “She should be asleep.” An instant later she felt a sharp jab in her left arm, and then heard another voice.

“It’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right.”

Now the black abyss of sleep yawned before her once more, and she knew that this time she would not be able to turn away. But as she began to give herself up to the darkness, she felt the invasion of her body begin once more.

This time it was through her nostrils and mouth and her ears and every other opening in her body into which something could be inserted.

As the darkness of sleep closed around her, Laurie heard one last voice.

“Good… so good.”

Chloe’s body tensed, her ears twitched, and her eyes darted around the room as a low growl rose in her throat. If the dog had slept at all that night it had only been in brief fits, for ever since she’d curled up in the crook of Ryan’s elbow and felt him fall asleep, she’d been shifting uneasily, rising to her feet to stare into the darkness, only to settle down a moment later. But she never rested for long; time after time she slipped quietly off the bed, responding to a deep instinct that danger was nearby. Patrolling the room, sniffing along the walls, she searched for the source of the stimuli that were keeping her awake. After each circuit of her territory she returned to the bed, bounding silently back up to sniff anxiously at the sleeping boy who seemed utterly unaware of the danger she could sense all around them. Now, poised in the shadowy glow of the few beams of the streetlight outside that penetrated the curtains over the windows, her forefeet resting on Ryan’s belly, she searched once more for the source of the sounds her ears were catching. The ruff around her neck rising, she unconsciously lifted one paw, the other sinking deeper into the boy’s flesh. A single sharp bark escaped her throat, and Ryan’s entire body jerked reflexively in response.

Torn from sleep, Ryan sat up, and Chloe, her balance thrown off, toppled over, squealing in surprise. A second later she scrambled back to her feet and pressed herself against his chest, a soft growl once more rumbling in her chest. Then, as Ryan’s soothing hands stroking her fur silenced Chloe’s growl, he heard something else.

Voices — the same voices he’d heard before — whispering indistinctly in the darkness. His heart began to race, and as his hands unconsciously tightened on the little schnauzer, he felt her muscles stiffen.

“What is it?” he whispered.

In response, Chloe wriggled loose from his grasp and jumped off the bed, disappearing into the darkness. Groping in the dim light, Ryan found the light switch and a moment later his bedside lamp washed the darkness out of the room. Chloe was at the far wall, sniffing along the baseboard, her stubby cropped tail jutting straight out behind her.

The sounds Ryan had heard only a second or two ago had vanished, and all he could hear now was Chloe’s anxious snuffle.

“Chloe?” he whispered again. “What is it, girl?”

When the dog didn’t respond to his voice, Ryan threw the covers back, swung his legs off the bed, and stood up. Instantly, a wave of dizziness came over him, and he sank back onto the bed. He sat still for a few seconds, then tried to stand up again.

His whole body felt weak, and once again a wave of dizziness came over him.

“Mom?” he called out as he sank back onto the bed once again. “Mom!” Chloe, finally distracted from her snuffling along the wall, turned to look at Ryan, cocking her head. Abandoning her search of the room’s perimeter, she ran back to the bed, leaped up onto it, and licked at Ryan’s face, whimpering uncertainly.

Lying back against the headboard, Ryan pulled the dog closer, snuggling Chloe against his chest the way he had his teddy bear when he was younger. As he felt the dog’s heart beating and the comforting warmth of its body, the last of the dizziness faded away, and the fear he’d felt, first at the whispered voices, then at the dizziness itself, began to dissipate as well.

With Chloe’s whimpering finally dying into silence, he strained his ears, searching for any sign of the voices he’d heard before.

But except for the faint sound of a truck rolling down the street outside his window, there was nothing.

And now that the dizziness had passed, he didn’t feel sick, either.

Just tired, as if he hadn’t had enough sleep.

Maybe he’d just tried to get up too quickly — maybe that was why he’d gotten dizzy.

Chloe was breathing evenly now, and as his fingers scratched at her ear she wriggled happily, stretched all four of her legs out to their full length, then snuggled closer to him.

He listened again, but now even the noise of the truck had faded away, and the quiet of the night filled his room.

He pulled the covers back up, covering himself and Chloe as well. He looked around the big room, searching for any sign that something might be wrong. All was peaceful, and with Chloe beside him, the room didn’t seem quite so big and empty. But still, he didn’t feel like turning off the light.

And he wouldn’t sleep anymore, either.

He lay still, his eyes open, his fingers gently stroking Chloe’s fur, but as the minutes crept by his eyelids began to droop.

Three times he caught himself drifting into sleep, and three times brought himself back to wakefulness. But on the fourth time, the quiet of the night won out, and sleep settled over Ryan.

Under the covers, Chloe, exhausted from her hours of watchfulness, slept as well.

And once again, the whispers from beyond the wall drifted into the room, but this time they weren’t loud enough to disturb either the boy or the dog, and neither of them awoke again until long after the sun had risen above the buildings east of the park, silencing the voices of the night.