Terror Incognita Page 6

After her long chill walk, Judith sipped the black coffee gratefully. Coffee had been the first passion they’d shared.

  They stood about his small, warm kitchen, and now Robert turned to fully face her, to address her. “Why are you here, Jude?” he asked grimly.

  Jude the Obscure had been his teasing nickname for her. They had also shared a passion for the works of Jude’s author, Thomas Hardy. Robert’s favorite of his novels was Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Thinking of the standing stone in the pasture, Judith remembered the climactic scene of Tess’s capture and symbolic sacrifice at Stonehenge, after murdering her cruel lover so as to return to her husband...

  For all their power over him, Judith still found herself averting her eyes. They didn’t feel powerful at the moment. “Ian and I are no longer together, Robert.”

  Several moments. And then: “Really? Did you leave him, or did he leave you?”

  “He’s back with his wife. They’re going to try again.”

  “I see. He dumped you. And so now, here you are. Here. With bags.”

  “Robert...you must believe that when we broke up—Ian and I—I was honestly relieved. I was actually happy. He’s doing the right thing, going back to try to salvage his marriage. He should never have left her in the first place.” She lifted her gaze to his at last. “And I made a terrible mistake as well.”

  Robert’s voice had risen a trifle, and trembled slightly, but he was obviously struggling to keep its tone icy and composed. “A relief, huh? You were happy he dumped you? You weren’t at all hurt? At all angry?”

  “Yes...I was hurt and angry, too. But I was relieved. I was anxious to find you...”

  “Find me. The spare tire, now that the other is flat. Find me...your second choice.”

  “Robert.”

  “Jude, you would not be here if Ian hadn’t broken off with you. He’s the love of your life. The one you left your five-year marriage for...”

  “Robert, I never stopped loving you. It wasn’t easy for me, leaving you. It hurt me horribly.”

  “I’m sure he comforted you. Listen, Jude...I can understand why you left me. You should never have been with me in the first place. I was poor...we lived more on your money than mine. We could never vacation, struggled with our bills...”

  “I never blamed you for that.”

  “But the money made it tense. We were scared, and we fought. Subconsciously, maybe, you resented me for not trying harder. Thought I was weak...”

  “No. I never resented you. But yes, the money problems depressed me greatly. I was unhappy. We were both of us miserable. And then—Ian came along. Charming...handsome. I became dazzled like a wanky little teenager. He distracted me from all the fear and depression. But you weren’t the source of my fear and depression, Robert.”

  “Ian is the man you always wanted. You were reluctant to be with me from the start, but I was persistent. You always said we weren’t perfectly suited. Ian is British...he’s more your ideal in every way.”

  “No, Robert. You and I aren’t perfectly suited...no couple is. But we’re both artists, and that makes us as well-suited as any two people could be. Don’t blame yourself for this in any way. It was entirely me. People are greedy, selfish. They become jaded, and lose their perspectives. They’re restless and never content. Our...bloody consumer-obsessed society teaches us to always want more, something better, something different; that relationships are disposable like everything else...”

  “I never felt that way.”

  “I know you didn’t. You’re different. You’re loyal. Loyal to your family. Loyal to me. Don’t put yourself down. You didn’t disappoint me. God, you’re too forgiving...but at the same time, I’m here to ask your forgiveness.” Her dark voice had grown husky, and now cracked. Her brows gathered like storm clouds over her eyes. “I’m so sorry that I hurt you...”

  “You think...you think I can just forget that you left me for him? That you laughed with him? Held his hand? That you made love? Him inside you, his hands on you? It poisons me, Jude. And I can’t be someone’s second choice.”

  “Robert, you are my first and only choice, now. I can see that Ian didn’t love me as I thought. That changed my feelings for him. Yes, I was hurt. But it felt right that he left me. It felt right to remember my love for you.”

  A cruel, agonized smile marred Robert’s face. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? Neither of us can be the first choice of our loves. You aren’t Ian’s, and I’m not yours. So I guess we two unwanted things are well-suited, after all.”

  “Robert, I’m telling you, it isn’t that way...not any more...”

  “You can never convince me that it isn’t. You would be with Ian forever if he hadn’t changed that.”

  “I don’t know that. And I’d like to try to change your mind...if you’ll only give me the chance.”

  “I can’t go through this again, Jude! I barely survived it once. If it didn’t work again...I can’t. I could understand your leaving me. I could accept it because I felt I never deserved you in the first place. But don’t do this to me now...” his voice broke, his face crumpled like a child’s “...don’t...”

  Judith started toward him, reached out to him, but he backed against the sink, held up warding hands.

  “Anyway, it’s too late. I’m back in Sesqua, Jude. I swore I’d never come back here...even though I knew my poor mother was sick. But when we broke up, when I had nowhere else to go...”

  “It isn’t too late...”

  “It is too late!” he half shouted, half sobbed. “I have things to do here, things you could never understand. Things I can’t even describe, and that you’d never even believe...”

  “What are you talking about? Robert, please—I’ll do anything you ask. I’ll even move here with you if that’s what you want. I’ll quit my job, freelance from here. Robert...only you matter...”

  “No! No. You can spend the night. But tomorrow you have to leave. It’s the only way it can be.” He covered his face in his long, graceful artist’s hands, scarred by years of factory labor. “It’s too late...”

  Judith once more thought of Hardy’s Tess, how she had told her husband it was too late for them to be together again. Too late to stop the terrible gears of her fate. But Judith was determined that it was not too late for herself. She did not again try to touch Robert so as to comfort his weeping. But by the same token, though this was his house, she had no intention of leaving it tomorrow. She could have been wrong, but she believed that in his heart of hearts, he didn’t want her to leave now any more than he had wanted her to leave him the first time...

  * * *

  In her dream, she knew the name of the tower that soared with impossible height from the caverns below...soared to touch the crust of the waking world. Koth, it was called...

  And she knew the beings were called Gugs, before she could even discern them. At first, they were merely shambling hulks, dark and dark-furred. If only they hadn’t reached that circle of stones. In its center, they had lit a bonfire. The light of its flames illuminated the silent procession...and their terrible activities at the megaliths they had erected. Each of these was a brother to the stone in Robert’s pasture...

  The flames seemed to glow inside pink eyes set on jagged, hooded projections of bone. And mouths gaped wide, soundlessly. Mouths that gaped vertically in hideous faces...fangs that flashed back the colors of fire and blood.

  And what they were doing. What they were doing...God help her that she ever should have seen. The Great Ones had banished them for just such practices...

  And there was something more horrible yet...

  ...and that was that the creatures seemed to be aware she was observing them. First one, then another, then all turned to gaze directly at her invisible dreamer’s form, amongst them, spying on them.

  It was then that the first of the Gugs started toward her.

  It was then that Judith awoke with a gasp.

  As her breathing slowed, she reached out shakily for a
light. At first, she half-expected to find Ian beside her. But this was her ex-husband’s bed, and the spot beside her gaped empty. Robert slept on his sofa, in the other room. He had insisted she sleep in his bed. His pillows smelled subtly of his shampoo, his aftershave. She had wept into them.

  The rain had stopped, the night lay still. No sound of city traffic, no sound even of rustling trees. Judith heard only one sound, and she had no idea what it was.

  A scraping? A scratching? She was reminded of their former apartment together, on the second floor of an old house in Victoria. The branches of a tree, on windy nights, would scratch against the kitchen window like nails on a blackboard. It was just like that. Only...only it seemed to be coming up from the floor. Up from the cellar she knew lay below, though she had never gone down there herself.

  She sat up in bed listening to the scraping. While she did so, her distracted gaze took in a gun rack on the wall, in which a shotgun and two rifles rested, and it vaguely disturbed her, as she knew Robert abhorred hunting. She was fully awake now; it was more the nightmare than the sound that kept her from slipping back beneath the covers, but now that she was awake, the sound tugged at her. At last, giving in to it, she slipped out of bed and stole out into the living room. For some reason, the sound made her afraid...as if it were the creak of a rope from which Robert dangled, unable to bear the fear of losing her a second time...

  But he lay asleep on the sofa, curled against the pain that held his jaw tense and brows knitted intensely even in sleep. Standing over him, Judith wanted to gently smooth that brow, soothe it, but she did not touch him. Instead, barefoot, she continued on past him, into the kitchen where the door to the basement stood double-bolted.

  She slipped both bolts, threw a switch against the wall. A breeze so chill it made her shudder was exhaled up at her, like a kiss from dead lips. Judith began to descend rough wooden steps that creaked and sagged even under her slight weight. At their foot, the darkness branched off into two directions. On her right, she heard the hiss of a water heater, saw the shadowy hunched forms of a washer and dryer. Prosaic enough. But the high-pitched scratching came from the left, from a room of the cellar into which only the dregs of light reached.

  Boxes of books, of tools, bundled newspapers and old furniture were piled against the walls, but at its center there was one thing only—a great, rounded hump covered completely by a tarp large enough to cover a car. The squealing scratches came from this mound, from under that heavy tarp...

  Bricks weighed the corners of the tarp, and Judith stooped to remove several of them. For a moment she hesitated to go further. Then, curling her fingers around the tarp, she threw its edge up over the top of the mound. She didn’t know what she would find, and when she found it, didn’t know what it was.

  It appeared to be a great globe of dark metal or glass, buried in the cement floor of the cellar but for its upper surface. Or was that all there was of it, a huge concave object? Whether sphere or hemisphere, the scratching came from its inner surface.

  Granted, it was gloomy in the basement, but at first the glass seemed truly opaque, if not absolutely black. But as she studied it, the surface seemed to gradually lighten. Until she was certain that it was indeed growing lighter. A murky gray. At last, somehow, miraculously, almost entirely transparent. It was gloomy within the glass, also...gloomy under the cellar floor, which the glass seemed to peer into like a monstrous lens. But she could discern light in that gloom...a flickering light bleeding in from the distance. The reddish glow of a nearby fire.

  And there were two other lights, closer at hand. They floated nearer, like luminous fish at the bottom of the sea, rising to investigate her. The twin smudges of light moved in unison...and were of a soft pink color.

  Before Judith could back away—before she could scream – the face pressed up against the interior of the glass. Huge nails raked against the inside of the lens. The thing’s jaws gnashed vertically, so that its fangs ground across the glass as well. And the eyes of the Gug glared hungrily out at her.

  “No!” Judith heard Robert shout behind her. “Don’t let it see you! Don’t let it see you!” He was suddenly pushing her out of the way, throwing himself across the lens as if to blot it out, pulling down the dreaming eyelid of the dark tarp and pinning it again with bricks.

  Judith fell back against the wall, gasping for air as when she had been jolted from her nightmare. When Robert whirled to face her, they stared at each other in horror and despair.

  “Robert,” Judith began to sob, “what is it? What are they? What’s down there?”

  “It’s the Dreamlands, Jude. It’s why you shouldn’t have come. It’s what you shouldn’t have seen, and what my family has been chosen to guard against since my grandfather’s father built this house around the Dream Lens.”

  “I don’t understand!”

  He continued on as if in a trance, as if a terrible numbing calm had fallen over him. “The Dreamlands are on another plane, Jude. But Sesqua is a special place. The veils are very thin here. Extremely thin in a spot like this. It should not have been seen. Especially not by an outsider. Now you know why I can never leave again, and why I can’t have you here...even if I wanted.”

  The scratching continued, frantic, desperate, hungry. Judith shook, hugging herself, eyes fixed on the shroud of the tarpaulin. The mound was like a belly pregnant with a monster anxious to be born. Who knew how many monstrosities, waiting to be born into this world?

  “I’m afraid now that it saw you, and you saw into its world,” Robert went on, “that...that things will be bad. The two worlds mustn’t see into each other. It starts a door to open. My father looked too long in the lens, once...” He let the story trail off. “But it’s too late, now. You didn’t know; it isn’t your fault. It’s...too late to change anything now.”

  * * *

  Robert had to support Judith as he walked her back up the stairs, and down the hall back to her bed. He sat on its edge as he covered her. As he rose, she looked up at him imploringly, her large eyes like those of a frightened child, and lay a hand lightly on his arm.

  “Please,” she whispered. “Don’t leave me.”

  He sat beside her again, and held her hand. Held it until mercifully dreamless sleep clouded her stunned mind. Continued holding it. Long minutes after she was asleep, at last he whispered back, “I won’t.”

  * * *

  Was it a nightmare?

  Robert was at the bedroom window, his body tense as a deer’s...or a cougar’s, ready to spring on the deer. He was staring out into the night, and Judith heard him whisper, “No...God, no...”

  He whirled from the window, lurched toward the door. Judith caught a glimpse of his eyes, wide and flashing silver, and then he was at the gun rack. And then out through the door. She swung her legs out of bed. “Robert!” she called after him.

  As she rose, Judith turned to glance out the window, and the curtains were still spread, as if some ethereal veil had been parted so that she might see what lay behind her former reality.

  A translucent mist lay over the pasture like a milky membrane, a caul, a burial shroud, and the moon had come out from behind the dispersing rain clouds. It made the mist glow.

  In the center of the wild meadow, the standing stone was gone. In its place towered a ghost, seemingly made of that same glowing fog.

  “Robert!” Judith cried again, and then she too was darting from the room...barefoot, in her nightgown, like a sleepwalker running from her nightmare—or running deeper into her dream.

  He had already left the house ahead of her...was already racing through the tangled field. As she burst through the door into the night air, Judith saw again that figure of mist where the standing stone had been. It was not a ghost, but a ghostly outline of the megalith’s former essence. The mist sparkled in that smoky pillar, and then she felt she knew why. The stone had not turned to mist...but its substance had come unwoven, unmeshed, so that the tiny granite crystals swirled and glittered
like powder.

  As Judith waded into the meadow, the weeds and tall grass grabbed at her bare ankles like myriad living limbs of one vast, malignant creature. She thrashed wildly along, and at one point she fell. As she struggled back to her feet and lifted her head, she saw two things—that Robert had very nearly reached the center of the pasture...and that a pair of glowing pink eyes had appeared within the ghostly megalith.

  Robert planted himself in a stance, worked the shotgun’s slide, and a crashing report like thunder rumbled across the meadow as he fired into the mist...and then again...and then again. Judith flinched at each blast...and saw the pink eyes quickly withdraw.

  She resumed her wading into the field, and Robert saw her coming. He called to her, “A sacrifice will appease them. Blood will close the door again. I think I got it.” But he returned his attention to the unwoven obelisk, and added, “It’s not closing...Jude, go back to the house!”

  Pink eyes rushing...and then the Gug was through...

  It stooped to pass through the portal of fog, but quickly raised itself to its full height. A tower of shaggy blackness with those orbs blazing near its summit. In one motion, as it came through, it swung one heavy forelimb—and Judith saw Robert go flying back as if struck by a car, the shotgun spinning end over end through the air.

  She heard the weapon thud somewhere ahead of her. She beat her way toward it, trying not to look upon the great beast or being that shambled toward Robert. It took its time in reaching him. It did not expect him to escape it. No sound came from its jaws, which worked vertically like a giant clam fused into what passed for its face.

  The Gug stood over Robert, and then turned its head abruptly to see Judith there, bringing the shotgun up and squeezing the trigger.

  A small dry click like a twig snapping. The Gug took a step, now, toward her...reaching out...great clawed fingers spreading...fingers dripping dark drops of human blood...

  Judith pumped the slide and squeezed the trigger again and the recoil kicked her back a few steps. She saw one of the twin pink suns above her suddenly go black.