Scott Nicholson - The Manor

Ah, there were those shots from the bridge, and even colorless, and with black, white, and shades of gray reversed, he could tell the photos would add to the legend that was Roth. He scanned down the squares of images, coming to those of the bridge and Lilith.

"Bloody hell?" He brought the lantern closer, even though he risked warping the celluloid with the heat.

There spanned the length of bridge, where it disappeared into the trees leading back to Black Rock and civilization. Those creepy ravens were perfectly plain in reverse image along the bridge rails, and the frosted spiderweb hung in the pictures like a dark piece of lace. But Lilith didn't appear in any of them.

Roth wiped his eyes. Maybe he'd advanced the film too far, taken the shots of her after he'd reached the end of the roll. That was the sort of thing amateurs did, gawps and ninnies, not masters. When was the last time Roth had made a mistake?

"Bloody goddamned hell," he whispered, his accent a blend of Manchester and lower-class Cleveland. Maybe it was time for a drink, a comfy fireside, and a bit of rest. The fringe benefits of fame and fake charisma might prove to be fleeting if he kept on like this. Especially since Spence was proving to be a stone wall. If Roth's luck didn't improve soon, he might start blaming the curse of Korban or some such.

He lifted the lantern high, the dusty bottoms of the bottles surrounding him like ancient eyes. He pulled a bottle from the rack that lined one wall. The dark glass bore a plain label, corked right here at the estate. In ink, someone had handwritten 1909. Probably a decent year. Decent enough to blot out that memory of the bridge, at any rate. And maybe decent enough to warm the heart and part the legs of the fair and tender Lilith.

Roth tucked the bottle under his arm and left the basement, his photographs consigned to the darkness.

"She won't let me leave," Adam said.

"Damn." Paul took another draw off his joint. The sweet smell of marijuana drifted across the back porch. "Too bad, Princess."

Paul's third joint of the day. Rational conversation would be impossible. But then, hadn't it always been? There wasn't much left to discuss anyway.

Adam stood against the rail, staring out at the mountains. Paul sat in one of the mule-eared rockers, not bothering to move his chair closer to Adam's. The noise of the piano leaked from the study, drowning out the morning song of birds. Someone laughed drunk-enly inside the house, no doubt another suffering artist who had self-inflicted misery to drive away.

Adam didn't even have that pathetic excuse for his nightmares. Because he'd gone to bed cold sober, and his mind was far too clear, preserving every detail of his death and subsequent resurrection.

"You know something?" Paul's face looked sinister as he sucked in a lungful of smoke. He held it in, then exhaled toward Adam with an exaggerated flourish. "Maybe if you'd loosen up, you could get a little more joy out of life. Do you always have to be so damned serious about everything?"

Uptight city boy. That was Adam, all right. Worried about mutual funds when most people were worried about scoring the night's lover, deciding which band was the flavor of the month, or choosing a brand name clothes designer. But at least Adam wasn't selfish. That was why making the relationship work was so important to him. That was why he wanted to adopt a child.

He wanted to share what he had to offer, to give himself away. He wanted a home in somebody's heart. Only he now feared it wouldn't be Paul's.

"Let it out," Adam said. "Go ahead and destroy me. That's all you've done since we got here, anyway. Might as well finish the job."

Paul giggled. "The martyr. Nails in your palms and a spear in your side. Poor boy. You've given me an idea for my next video. The Noble Suffering of Adam Andrews. Filmed in whine-a-vision."

Asshole. Asshole.

Adam clenched a fist, the anger merging with the fear, creating a hot mix that burned his gut. But losing control would be letting Paul have the final victory. Adam always lost with grace. And he'd had lots of practice.

He forced his voice to remain calm and quiet. "Look, since I'm stuck here for five more weeks, we may as well be civil to each other. That way, maybe we can look back at this one day and pretend it wasn't all bad."

The rocker squeaked as Paul stood up, and the ember of the joint stub arced into the damp grass beside the porch. Paul walked over to Adam, leaned forward until his face was so close that Adam could smell the marijuana and liquor on his breath.

"Now you're talking," Paul said. "Since we're stuck with each other, we might as well enjoy it."

Adam tried to slide away from the contact, but Paul hugged him, his breath hot on Adam's neck.

"Paul, I don't think-"

"Shh. You get all hot and bothered over Ephram Korban, talking about him in your sleep, but I'm probably a little more available."

"I can't, knowing you don't care about me. Now stop it, Miss Mamie might see us."

Paul stepped back, looked into Adam's eyes. Smiled. His damned hair was tousled, boyish, he was dead cute and knew it.

Suddenly his face changed, contorted, and Ephram Korban, that twisted, cruel face from Adam's nightmare, leered at him like a Halloween mask.

And the dream came back in all its brilliance and realism, Korban leaning him over the railing of the widow's walk, only kissing him this time, breath hot and foul, tongue like an insistent snake, mouth stealing the breath from his lungs. Then, drained and empty, Korban sucking him into the long tunnel toward the thing that Adam knew was waiting around the bend. The thing he feared most.

For Adam, there would be nothing. In Adam's part of the tunnel, after he passed through the row of ghosts, he would step into the pitch of his childhood nightmare. The one of suffocation, no sight, no sound, no touch besides the texture of the darkness pressing down around him. No taste besides the bland airless nothing.

No feeling besides the fear that came with isolation. And the dread of knowing that the bubble was complete, intact, unchanging. Eternal loneliness.

Was that why he was so desperate to adopt? To make someone need him? To make it so the child couldn't leave, at least for many years? Years that the awful colorless texture would be kept away.

He blinked and it was Paul who stood before him, not Ephram Korban. The piano notes were like needles of ice driven by the wind.

Only a flashback, he thought. How old were you when you first had that dream of suffocation? Three? Two? Even before you knew about words?

And this house has brought it back, the dream comes sniffing around your heels like a strange black dog that follows you home. That neither comes close enough to be petted nor gets left far enough behind to be forgotten.

Adam didn't know what the dream meant, and he wasn't interested in a shrink's opinion, either. He only knew that he didn't want to be alone. Even if it meant surrendering, losing, grabbing and hanging on in desperation. He wrapped his arms around Paul, clung to him as if sinking in quicksand.

The death dream. Ephram Korban. The ghosts. All part of it. The house would take him in its jaws and then swallow him into its black stomach. Swallow him alone, unless he took someone with him into that airless silence.

"I care about you," Paul whispered in his ear. "Can't you tell?"

Paul cared about the flesh, the meat. But that was okay. That's all they were, anyway. They had no spirit. Two souls could never mingle as one, not even in dreams.

Adam let out a sharp breath. He hated the feelings that flooded his body, the passion that betrayed him. But love and hate were basically the same thing, and both were better than feeling nothing. Anything was better than the suffocation of solitude that waited in his tunnel of the soul. He pulled Paul closer.