Brian Freeman - Dark Screams - Volume Six

After the story, Lennox had added, “I hope you’ll remember only this about me: that I loved you.”

I printed out the email and read it over again, hoping that somehow the hard copy would render the words into something comprehensible, sensible, but there was no sense to be found. After my fourth reading, I set the email down and sped through airline websites. I made phone calls and found a flight leaving for Atlanta in three hours. I didn’t bother to pack; this wouldn’t be a long visit, if the Wilmonts even agreed to see me at all.

But I had no choice: I had to demand answers. And see Lennox again.

I arrived at the Wilmont estate shortly before dawn. The sky hadn’t started to lighten yet as I pulled the rental car up to the front gate. The guard, whom I still couldn’t see behind the window of the guard shack, spoke into a phone before rolling back the gate. I pulled forward.

It was late, and I was operating on no sleep and a cup of bad coffee I’d picked up at a convenience store after leaving the airport, so it took me an extra, startled second to react when the figure ran in front of the car.

I slammed on the brakes and was thrown forward against the seatbelt. I knew instinctively that the thing outlined in my headlights was the same one I’d glimpsed on my last trip here, running awkwardly through the woods: a humanoid figure with furry legs, bent back at the knees like a quadruped’s, with hooves instead of feet. The torso was downy, the arms long, the head capped by a tawny mane and curling horns. It stared at me with wide, golden eyes.

It raised an arm and brought it down on the hood, hard enough to dent the metal. Opening its jaws wide, it screamed, a sound that stopped my heart.

It started to come around the front of the car toward the driver’s side, gliding on those impossible legs, a long tongue darting out of its mouth. I glimpsed something moving in the groin, and my paralysis snapped. I slammed my foot down on the accelerator. The car shot forward, tires squealing.

I didn’t look into the mirror to see if it was following. As I screeched to a stop before the house, the front door opened and someone stood there, outlined by light. I grappled with the seatbelt and then leapt from the car, shouting, “Lennox!”

“No, it’s Madelyn. Come in, Sara.”

Now I did look back, but nothing had followed. Cold flooded me; I was shaking. When Madelyn put an arm around me, I fell into the sanctuary of it. “Something chased me, something not human—”

“Grant,” Madelyn said.

I stopped, gaping at her. “Grant? But that’s your son’s name…”

“Yes. My son—with Lennox.”

“With… no. Lennox?”

“Come in and sit down. I’ll get you something to drink.”

I let Madelyn lead me into the great house, into a room of rich padded chairs and large hearths. Madelyn seated me, brought a glass. I sniffed it—bourbon—and downed it in one gulp. My chill began to ease. Madelyn sat opposite, sipping her own glass more carefully.

“I know about Lennox’s email to you,” Madelyn said.

At the mention of Lennox, my heart thrummed. “Can I see him?”

“Not yet. We need to talk first.” Madelyn set her glass down, piercing me with her gaze. “Sara, I have to ask: Are you in love with Lennox?”

I started to answer, then caught myself, thinking. Yes, I wanted Lennox—dear God, how I wanted him—my entire body thrilled at the thought of him… but was that love? And was this intense attraction natural, or had I been manipulated, unnaturally influenced? “I’m not sure.”

Madelyn considered before going on. “I’m prepared to offer you a life with Lennox, but not the life you’re probably imagining. I would approve of your marriage to Lennox, you would live as his wife, with all the privilege of a Wilmont… but you would never be able to consummate the relationship.”

At first I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard, but then I remembered my last visit here. “Like Alan?”

“Yes.”

I thought of Alan, the bitterly drunken husband, useful only for appearance’s sake. “No. I won’t live like that.”

“You have to understand that if you were to… be with Lennox, you wouldn’t survive.”

“Are you saying that story—the one in the email, the one in the Beltane Room—is true?”

“It’s the family history.”

An unwelcome image of Lennox and Madelyn entwined, naked and altered, saturnine, popped into my head. “How many children do you have?”

“Six. Five of them have to be hidden away. You met Grant outside. Only one looks human; she will be my successor.” Madelyn gestured at a silver-framed photo of a blond-haired little girl smiling into the camera—the most beautiful child I’d ever seen. “We’re still trying for a boy.”

My stomach filled with bile. I tried to stand, but my knees threatened to give way and my vision swam. “But Lennox loves me…”

“Sara, let me get a room ready for you. You’ve suffered a shock, you’re in no state to travel again right now.”

Numbed by revelation and liquor, I didn’t react as Madelyn took me up the stairs to the Gold Room. I was dimly aware when she stepped out and locked the door from the outside as she left. I fell onto the bed, where I let myself go, weeping with little strength, repeating his name over and over.

“Lennox… Lennox…”

Eventually I fell into an unhappy state that might have been sleep.

I awoke when I heard my name, soft and muffled. The sky was only starting to lighten, so I knew I hadn’t slept long. I lay there, fuzzy-headed but sobering up quickly, listening. It came again:

“Sara…”

Even though it didn’t sound human, I knew it was Lennox. He knew I was here. I wondered if he’d caught my scent.

What will I do if he opens the door? Does Madelyn know he’s out there, prowling, already transformed by his desire for me? Had she planned this—giving me to Lennox as an easy way to dispose of me?

The door bangs and shudders; he’s thrown himself against it. A new sound now: claws scrabbling at wood.

He’s turning the lock.

I don’t scream, at least yet. I don’t call Madelyn, or prepare to run. I’m sweating, but it’s not from fear.

I know he’ll be beautiful.

I sit on the bed… and wait.

When I push open the door, a bell emits a piercing brass chuckle, but there’s not a single person in sight. I take a step back and double check—sure enough, the sign in the window blinks OPEN in fluorescent lettering. I hesitate for a moment, wondering if I should come back another time, but I drove all the way over here, and honestly, I’d just like to get it over with. The bell sounds for a second time as I walk inside and plant myself in front of the reception desk. Some sort of jazzy piano is playing through the speakers in the ceiling, but it sounds as if the piano needs to be tuned. I wince, wondering who chose the music.

The room is heavy with the sweet smell of floral air freshener, with the metallic tang of nail polish and disinfectant right underneath. I try to breathe shallowly through my mouth to avoid these landmark scents. The floor looks like it’s made out of the same uniform brown linoleum found in elementary schools and hospitals all across the country, and the walls are an ambiguous green. The light and shadows play on the questionable shade, brightening it into a nearly yellow color around the glowing wall lights and fading it out to a patchy grayish-green in the corners. The wall to my left is covered with shelves of polish: at least a hundred different reds taking up three shelves to themselves, and hundreds more bottles spanning the color wheel above and below. A row of lattice-metal waiting chairs with a few magazines from the early 2000s lines the window that opens onto the dark street. A line of thick brown dentist chair/foot bath combos looms against the back wall, and the rest of the room behind the reception area is dedicated to my own personal nightmare, the manicure desks.