The Nightmare Game by S. Suzanne Martin

smile. He was dressed in the same kind of
beautiful old fashioned clothing as he was in my dream. His sleek golden brown
hair curled slightly just below his shoulders as he stood so elegantly, one
hand resting easily upon the back of a chair, the other by his side. So he
wasn’t just a dream, a figment of my imagination, after all. He was real and I
was in his house Studying the portrait, I became mesmerized by it, lost in it,
transported back into my dream world. I felt his arms around me, his breath
upon my neck, his lips upon my own.
     A sharp, angry cry far away in the distance cut
short my daydream. Mad and enraged, it wasn’t the cry of a human nor of any
animal I’d ever heard.
     “What was that?” I asked, but when I turned to
the woman, her eyes were wild with fear.
     “Go! Now!” She grabbed me by the arm, roughly and
tightly, and pulled me bodily out of the room.
     Still towing me by the arm, we raced down the
hall, out the door, down the stairs and into the apartment. She let go of my
arm and slammed the sliding glass door shut.
    She turned to me, eyes flashing. “This is real
important, darlin’ for you to pay close attention right now an’ to do as I say.
Real important. Jus’ go about your business an’ act like nothin’ happened until
you hear from one of us again. Act like you never had no dreams and like you
never saw upstairs. You understan’ me? Jus’ go about your business. But don’
you never, ever take off that necklace, you hear? Not when you’re takin’ a bath
or goin’ to sleep or nothin’, Never take it off for no reason. That necklace is
on you now. It’s your only protection. It stays on, always, no matter what.
Always. You hear me?”
    I rolled my eyes upward, reluctantly nodding my
head. When I looked back to speak to her, there was no one there. She was gone
and I was all alone.

CHAPTER THREE
     
    In shock, I stared at the empty air where, less
than a second ago, the strange woman had stood. The frail shadow of a scream
escaped my lips before I freaked out completely.
    “Okay,” I said aloud, “that’s it. I am outta
here!”
    I ran back into the bedroom, threw on my shoes,
grabbed my purse and keys and as fast as my legs could take me, left the
apartment, afraid now to stay even a minute longer.
    “What the hell was that?” I thought aloud, my
heart pounding as I walked quickly toward the general direction of Jackson
Square. I kept looking over my shoulder to make sure that no one was coming
after me. Not slowing down, I was aware of nothing except putting space between
myself and that apartment, unable to shake the feeling of being followed. When
I hit Royal Street, I turned off of Toulouse, crossed over to the other side of
Royal and ducked into a souvenir shop to think.
    Walking to a back corner of the shop, I hid among
the T-shirts, baseball caps, Junior League cookbooks and guides to New Orleans,
afraid that someone or something would come in to drag me out. The scream was
burned into my brain. What sort of unholy shriek was that anyway? It didn’t
sound like a scream of pain, but more like one of extreme frustration and
anger. Murderous frustration and anger. Where on earth had it come from? It
seemed to have come from no place in particular but rather from all around me.
Okay, I reminded myself, that in and of itself wasn’t so unusual; in a densely
populated area like the Quarter, it was often hard to tell specifically where a
sound originated. The bigger questions were, who or what made that horrible
sound and why was that woman so frightened by it that she physically dragged me
out of the main house immediately afterward. And speaking of that woman, where
did she go? She was standing right in front of me one second and the next she
was gone. She’d just vanished. I thought back to Rochere’s warning to me not to
go into the rest of the building. Was it somehow connected with that scream? My
mind searched for answers as to what I should do next.