Lair of Dreams

“Hungry ghosts,” Ling said, looking at Henry with frightened eyes.

Suddenly, all the bricks lit up, showing the same image: the veiled woman running into the tunnel, terrified, the bloody knife in her hand, as she crawled into the silent train car. And then there was nothing but darkness.

A shrill, bestial scream echoed the length of tunnel.

“What was…” Ling couldn’t finish. For down at the spot where they’d entered, a figure now appeared, a dark silhouette in a dress, drawing closer.

“Henry…” Ling whispered.

He nodded. “Start walking. We’re just reversing our steps.”

Hand in hand, they walked toward the ring of light and the promise of the station at the end of it. But no matter how fast they walked, the station stayed just out of reach.

“It keeps getting farther away,” Ling said. “Like it wants to keep us here.”

Behind them, there was snarling and scratching in the dark.

“I can wake you up. You know I can.”

“Don’t you dare! We go together or not at all,” Ling said.

“All right. I’m going to give you a suggestion, then. Let’s see if you can imagine us someplace else, in a different dream. Ling, why don’t you dream about… about…” His mind was blank. “Dream about the New Year! Dream about the lion dancers and moon cakes and fireworks.”

Ling shut her eyes tight, but she was too frightened. Her mind couldn’t think of anything but those terrible sounds. It was like a swarm approaching. But a swarm of what?

Henry cried out.

“Henry?” Ling opened her eyes. Henry was nowhere to be seen. “Henry!”

Ling was alone with whatever lurked in the dark.

Henry came to on the floor of his room in the Bennington, the sheets tangled around his ankles, his heart pounding. He’d fallen out of bed, and it had been enough to wake him. Ling was still there in that terrible place. From where he lay, he could see the telephone on the side table in the hall, but the post-dream paralysis kept him anchored to the floor, counting down the seconds until he could move again.

The swarm in the dark grew louder.

Ling tried to run but stumbled, putting a hand to the wall to steady herself. The picture inside the stone was disrupted. One by one, the bricks showed the same image of the veiled woman’s face. Serrated teeth glinted beneath the netting. But it was the ghost’s dark eyes that unsettled her most—they were fixed on Ling’s.

A soft ringing sounded in the tunnel, but it was drowned out by the hideous guttural whine. Glowing fingers pushed through the walls as if the tunnel were giving birth to a dozen nightmares at once.

“Who dares disturb my dream?” The veiled woman drew closer. In her hand, a knife shone.

Ling shook. She wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn’t tear them away from the things slithering out of the tunnel walls, and the queen leading them.

Wake up, Ling thought. Please let me wake up.

The soft ringing was mingled with the bestial noise. And then it rose above the din, becoming a brash, insistent alarm that surrounded Ling, capturing her full attention. Her body went heavy as the dream faded into a gray blankness.

“Ohhh,” Ling moaned in her bed. Her body ached horribly, but she didn’t care. She had never before been so grateful to be awake.

Through her closed bedroom door, she heard her mother complaining angrily. “A wrong number. I’d like to see whoever that was have his sleep ruined.…”

Ling managed a weak smile. The telephone. That’s what had brought her back. Henry. Henry hadn’t left her.

She looked down at her hand.

The angry burn was still there.

The sedan carrying the two men crept steadily along rain-drenched roads. Both men were of roughly the same height, neither too tall nor too short, too fat nor too slim. They were dressed in the same dark suits, pressed white shirts with starched collars, and deep gray fedoras pulled down snugly on heads of closely cropped hair that fell on the color spectrum somewhere between dun and dirt. They were unremarkable in appearance, men meant to disappear into their surroundings, leaving no trace of their ever having been. When they stepped into a store or a roadside cafe, the owners of these establishments would be hard-pressed to remember any details about them. The men were courteous. Kept to themselves. Paid the tab, left a tip, and did not make a mess. For the men were well acquainted with messes and the cleaning thereof.

The men drove. Sometimes their drives took them to small towns in the middle of the country, to houses where anxious mothers listened to their questions and patted the hems of aprons gone gray with the years and from a lack of coins in the cookie tin.