John Saul - The Right Hand of Evil

No. She didn't even want to remember it herself.

But long after Sandy had fallen back to sleep, Kim lay awake as the details of the dream came back to hang in the darkness in front of her.

Over and over, she witnessed the wanton scene on the bloody altar, saw over and over again the face of the demon that had reached out to her. As the night crept on, she tried to banish the visions, but failed.

It was only as the rising sun drove back the dark that the demons finally released Kim from their grip and let her sleep.

Even then she could still feel the throbbing rhythms from the basement as the tentacles of Jared's music reached out to ensnare her.

She slept, but she didn't rest.

It was a dream. It had to have been a dream. Yet even now, with the morning sun flooding through the windows, Kim could remember every detail. She lay staring up at the ceiling while the horrifying images-the impossible images-she'd seen last night recurred in her mind like some insanely repeating videotape, endlessly replaying the same sequence.

Beside her, Sandy Engstrom stirred, then sat up, rubbing her eyes. Seeing Kim was awake, she pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, then eyed Kim warily. "If I tell you about a dream I had, will you promise not to tell anybody?" she asked, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I mean, not a soul!"

A flicker of foreboding flashed through Kim, but she nodded.

Sandy's eyes gleamed, and even in the warmth of the morning she shivered with remembered pleasure. "It was about Jared."

Kim's stomach knotted as she was consumed by a terrible feeling that she didn't want to hear what Sandy was about to tell her. But she heard herself say, "I promise. I won't tell a soul."

Sandy hugged her legs more tightly to her chest and sighed. "It was really weird," she began. "I was sound asleep, and then I started to wake up. I could feel someone touching me, but I wasn't scared at all. It felt really wonderful. And when I was wide awake, he took me somewhere. It was the most beautiful place I've ever seen. Oh, God, Kim, you should have seen it! It looked kind of like a church, but a lot more beautiful than any church I've ever been in!"

No! Kim thought. It's not possible!

As she listened to Sandy, Kim recalled the details of her own dream, in which she'd watched Luke making love to her friend.

Could it be that she hadn't been dreaming at all? Her mind reeled as she tried to make sense of the possibility that it had all really happened. But that made no sense, either. The house was big, but none of the rooms was anywhere near as large as the one Sandy described.

The one she herself had seen in her own dream.

Could she have been sleepwalking? Had it been some strange hypnotic state? If not a dream, then what?

"Kim?" Sandy said. "Kim, what's wrong? You look white as a ghost. Are you okay?"

Jerked out of her maelstrom of thoughts, Kim nodded mutely. Should she tell Sandy they'd both had the same dream- exactly the same dream?

No way. Sandy would think she was crazy. Besides, they couldn't possibly have had exactly the same dream, so there must be some other explanation.

Something that made sense.

"I-I'm fine," she stammered at last. "I just didn't sleep very well, that's all."

Sandy cocked her head, and for a second Kim had the strange feeling that somehow Sandy was looking right into her. But then the color drained from Sandy's face, and she scrambled out of bed and hurried toward the door.

"Sandy? What is it?"

"S-Sick," Sandy blurted, clapping her hand over her mouth as she rushed out into the hall. Moments later Kim heard the muffled sounds of Sandy throwing up in the bathroom next door.

Getting out of bed, Kim hurried toward the bathroom, where her friend was kneeling on the floor in front of the toilet. A racking seizure hit Sandy, and she retched into the toilet, a blackish fluid spewing from her mouth.

As Kim ran cold water in the sink, soaked a hand towel and pressed it against Sandy's forehead, another spume of vomit burst from Sandy's mouth into the toilet bowl.

When the seizure passed, Sandy took the wet towel from Kim and eased away from the toilet. Not trusting herself to stand, she leaned against the wall and wiped her face with the towel.

"I'll get my mom," Kim said, then flushed the toilet and opened the bathroom window to let the rancid odor escape.

"Don't," Sandy said, pushing off from the wall and steadying herself against the sink. "I-I think I'm okay now. I don't want my mother to know."

"But if you're sick-" Kim began, but Sandy didn't let her finish.

"So I got sick! Remember what I ate last night?" She groaned just thinking about the pizza, potato chips, Fritos, cookies, ice cream, and Cokes they'd consumed. "I'm okay," she said. "Really, just let me take a shower, and I'll be fine."

But Kim wondered. She'd eaten nearly as much as Sandy. If it was the food, why wasn't she sick, too?

Kim stood at the top of the basement stairs, staring down at the closed door to Jared's room. Jared had left half an hour ago, so the room was empty.

Should she take a look at it? But how could it possibly look like what she'd seen in her dream, and what Sandy Engstrom had described?

But even as she argued with herself, Kim moved down the steep flight of stairs to Jared's door.

Don't do it, she told herself as her hand went to the doorknob. It's his room. Whatever he's got in there isn't any of your business.

She turned the knob and pushed the door open.

Inside, she saw nothing more than the four black-painted walls, the workbench, Jared's bed, and the mattresses that served as furniture.

No altar.

No stained-glass windows.

Nothing.

A dream, Kim repeated to herself as she went back upstairs.

It was just a dream.

But she didn't believe it.

Something had happened last night.

Something terrible.

Ellie Roberts eyed her own image worriedly. The mirror on the back of her closet door was so old the silvering was flaking away, but despite the mottled look of her reflection, she knew something was wrong. Maybe she shouldn't go. Maybe she should just take off the dress-her best one, the one she only wore to mass on special holidays-and stay home. But she'd promised Father MacNeill, and a promise was a promise, especially to the man to whom she owed so much. When he'd mentioned the town meeting, it hadn't seemed so much to ask. Ellie knew practically everyone in town, especially the Catholics. She'd grown up with them-known them her whole life. But on the evening Father Mack had asked her, she'd had a bad dream about it, a horrible dream that woke her up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. Ellie knew what was causing her bad dreams. Speaking at the meeting.

She had almost gone to Father MacNeill the next morning and told him she'd changed her mind, that she just couldn't do it, couldn't get up in front of the whole town to speak. But she'd put it off all day, and the next day, too, and every day since then. And every night, she woke up with her skin clammy and covered with goose bumps, and a feeling of dread.

And now the night was here and there was no turning back.

Her eyes shifted from the burning face in the mirror to the sparse contents of the closet. Just as she decided her best dress was too dressy and reached for the dark blue outfit she often wore on Sundays, the doorbell rang. Luke called out to her, "Mom! Father MacNeill's here!"

Too late to change.

Her stomach churning, Ellie turned away from the closet, patted her hair nervously as she checked herself out in the mirror one last time, then went out to greet the priest.