Midnight Voices

CHAPTER 31

When the dream began, Laurie knew she wasn’t asleep. but she had to be asleep, because if she wasn’t asleep, how could she be dreaming? But if she was asleep, how could she remember the day? And she remembered all of it, remembered getting up early and feeling much better than she had the day before; good enough to go to school.

Remembered getting dressed and going down to the kitchen where Tony had breakfast all ready. There’d been fresh scones — ones Miss Delamond had made — and they’d been so good she’d eaten two of them, even though she knew she shouldn’t. But it hadn’t really been her fault, since Tony had kept telling her to have another, even splitting it apart and buttering it, then putting it under the broiler and toasting it until it was so golden brown and smelled so good that she just couldn’t resist it.

She remembered going to school, too. Meeting up with Amber Blaisdell just before lunch, then sitting with her at lunch, displacing Caitlin Murphy to the chair at the far end of the table where Laurie herself had found herself stuck on the first day.

After school she’d come home to find her mother sick in bed, and felt like it must have been her fault, even though her mother had told her it wasn’t.

She’d had dinner with Tony and Ryan — who seemed like he was even madder than usual — and then she’d done her homework, gone to bed, read for awhile, and finally turned off the light as she heard the big clock downstairs striking ten.

So she was still awake — she was sure of it.

But there was a funny smell in the room, and she didn’t feel right — her body felt all heavy, like it did in one of those dreams where something’s chasing you, and you have to run, but your feet feel like they’re mired in thick mud and no matter how hard you try, you can barely move at all.

She heard the clock striking again and counted the soft chimes as they rang twelve times.

Then the voices began, the voices whispering from behind the wall, as if there were people in the empty room next door.

She tried to sit up, but couldn’t. It was as if her whole body was being held down by some invisible weight.

She opened her mouth, wanting to cry out, but her mouth felt as if it were filled with feathers.

The voices grew louder, and then she felt more than saw a flicker of movement next to the bed. She tried to turn her head, straining to see through the murky darkness that was unbroken save for a dim ray of light that had found a small gap in the blinds.

A shape, darker even than the room, loomed above her.

A moment later, there was another.

Laurie’s heart began to race, and another cry welled up in her throat, but again it was as if she was trapped in a dream, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t give voice to the terror building inside her.

Now the whispering voices surrounded her like sylphs drifting in the darkness.

“… young…”

“… so luscious…”

“… soft…”

“… tender…”

Something touched her — an unseen finger pressing gently against the flesh of her thigh.

Another, prodding at her stomach.

A pinch on her upper arm, not quite strong enough to hurt.

The voices again: “… yes, she’s perfect now. Perfect…”

More fingers, wriggling beneath her back like worms writhing under her. The fingers followed by hands.

How many hands?

She didn’t know.

The shadowed figures were on both sides of her now, leaning over her. Then she felt herself being lifted up, raised from her bed and transported through the darkness.

Something hard beneath her.

Motion now, and then a slight jar, followed by a new sound.

Wheels rolling across the oaken floor.

Into deeper darkness, where the whispered voices took on a hollow sound, and faint echoes seemed to play in her ears.

Then there was light, and for the first time she could see the figures around her.

Faces smiling at her — faces she recognized.

Melanie Shackleforth, her fingers gently brushing a lock of hair from Laurie’s forehead.

Helena Kensington, peering down at her, her withered hands clasped before her breast, her eyes — bright, vibrant eyes the exact same shade of blue as Rebecca Mayhew’s, fixed on Laurie’s own.

“So pretty,” Helena whispered. “Even prettier than I thought when all I could do was touch her face.” She leaned closer, and one of her fingers traced the line of Laurie’s jaw. “Do you remember dear? Do you remember how I touched you?”

Laurie’s skin crawled, and she wanted to pull away, but now nothing — not her arms or legs, or even her head — would obey her will.

Then Irene Delamond was there, leaning so close that Laurie couldn’t turn away from her fetid breath. “Would you like another scone, dear? It’ll be good for you… as good as you’ll be for me.”

Though she tried to clench her teeth, the old woman pressed a doughy mass into her mouth.

“Wash it down, dearie,” another voice said, and now Lavinia Delamond was there, too, a glass of something in her hands. With one trembling hand the ancient woman lifted Laurie’s head while the swollen fingers of her other hand held the glass to her lips.

Helpless to resist, Laurie let the fluid — so sweet it almost made her gag — trickle through her mouth and down her throat.

“Good,” Lavinia crooned. “So good…”

Laurie felt her throat begin to go numb.

Then it began.

One by one, a dozen or more tubes were inserted into Laurie. They went through every orifice of her body and where there were no orifices, needles punctured her skin and plunged deep inside her, piercing every organ, tapping every gland. Though she tried to turn away, to twist her neck and thrash her hips, there was no escape. Every tube led to some kind of pump, and to the other side of the pumps, other tubes were attached. At the ends of those tubes were more needles, and each of the needles was inserted into a vein or plunged directly into the body of one or another of the haggard old women around her.

“Sleep,” a voice crooned from close by her ear. “Sleep the night away, and when morning comes all that will be left will be dreams.”

As the tubes began to fill with liquid — some blood-red, others pale yellow, or brown, or a sickly green, or even so clear as to look like water, Laurie began to feel an exhaustion creep over her, but it was an exhaustion such as she’d never felt before. Her breath grew shallow, her heart began to pound, and her skin turned clammy with sweat. She could feel every muscle in her body weakening, her vision beginning to fade, and the sound around her turning muffled as if her ears were filled with cotton.

A chill came over her, reaching deep into her until even her bones began to ache. As her vision faded further and what she was certain was the darkness of death began to close around her, she heard a new sound, faint at first, but then louder and louder.

Sighs.

Sighs of contentment, emanating from the time-ruined women into whom Laurie’s youth was flowing.

Then, as the darkness enveloped her, the sighs faded away.

Her mind drifting, Laurie surrendered to the cold and the dark and the silence.