An excerpt from Pavor Nocturnus
by Lerong Ajang
“…why can’t you sleep?” a gentle female voice whispered. A troubled silence followed. Who is she, he thought. Why is she here? “Just bad dreams,” she responded herself, after a considerable wait. “You just don’t want to sleep, do you?”
A sigh.
The box-like room dwelled in the darkness of the night’s eerie shadows, dancing about when the small, wax lantern, which sat at the corner of the room, met a menacing breeze. The orangish light from the lantern flames crawled up the walls, frolicking and vibrating gracefully. Garret was safe here. It had become his home: the darkness. As a child he dreamed up demonic faces and pulled them out of the black to leer down upon him. Now it was a part of him, and the demons appeared involuntarily.
“The nightmares? They surely keep you up, don’t they?” she asked persistently, a tremble in her voice.
Another breeze drifted through the room and the orange light accented the woman’s figure. She was sitting formally in the center of the area staring at the blackness across from her where Garret’s right leg and foot, adorned with a mired, construction boot, protruded into the light. He was sitting on the muddy, concrete floor with his elbow resting on his elevated knee; his face shadowed in blackness.
“I still don’t understand how you found me,” he finally said in his deep shivering voice. “You suddenly show up asking a lot of questions,” Garret shifted in the shadows, trying to see the lonely doctor through the black overcast. “I’m the one who’s confused.”
Another silence.
“My client is also a victim of pavor nocturnus,” she finally said. “It was no easy task finding you. I believe our situation is, somehow, connected.” She seemed to offer the last bit a little too easily.
“Well, hell, an ambitious researcher like yourself could find all the night terrors you wanted down here; enough of ‘em for both yourself and your client.”
“You fall into that category, whether you like it or not, Mr. Nearing. And your information will,” she readjusted, as if she had made a mistake, “I mean, may help someone greatly in need.”
“Garret will do nicely, doctor,” he responded, calming slightly. “A voice like yours is meant for informal talk.”
“Where do you live, Mr. Nearing?”
“I don’t,” he retorted. “You should know that know that you’ve found me.”
“It’s rather a unique situation, I agree,” she returned. “That’s why I’m here. My client has a very rare gift, and, I believe, that you’re familiar with it, Mr. Nearing.”
“Garret,” he interject, and responded, “What gift?”
“Sometimes, Mr. Nearing, she describes a persistent dream,” she said. She shuffled in her seat for a moment, indicating that a difficult part was coming up. “You may find this unbelievable, but her dream led me here.”
“How so?” he asked softly.
“She described this dark place. She knew how to get here. Although I was skeptical, I followed her instructions and found you.” Leaning forward with her head slanted on its axis, she attempted to find Garret’s face in the shadows.
How? But he couldn’t speak.
“My client: she said that you helped her, Mr. Nearing,” the doctor said. “How would a seven year old girl be able to lead me this far unless something remarkable were happening?”
He turned away; even in the shadows, he felt vulnerable.
“Rivera,” he whispered.
“What did you say?” her tone changed suddenly.
Garret put an unsteady hand to his face and wondered how this would all turn out. The doctor seemed sweet, but so do many things in life. He began to hate her for finding him.
“This is amazing!” she said, relief and astonishment coming out all at once. “You know her name. She said she saw you in her home the night her mother died.”
“Her home?”
“Yes,” the doctor sniffled down a grunt of quickly engulfing wonderment. “She lived in a forested cabin with her parents.”
Oh, god.
She continued to talk, “And she claims that you helped her escape…”
A cabin was always visible to him when he went walking in the deep forest; sometimes, he went walking in his mind; sometimes, he couldn’t tell the difference. It was as if that cabin was his goal and his eyes were stained with its image: a modest but well-cared-for log cabin with a plank of hickory tied at each end by a thick, white rope to a broad oak tree making a swing at its side. That cabin rested just above the gentle slope of a wide forest. A peaceful place for a family to live even though the rainy season brought night more often than day.
A red horizon usually welcomed the night, and dusk approached like a dark hand reaching over the land. The red and orange trees haloed the earth in the brilliant cardinal wing. But the earth changed when the shadows began to crawl through, seeping into the cracks between the trees and brush. Everything changed.
The night usually obscured his path there, and even in the daylight, the wind whistled spectral chants. Something watched from nearby… always. It didn’t attack in the day though... only at night:
It had long grayish hair that covered most of the unsightly features of its face and long and sharp, seasoned nails that willowy trees bent to when the dark shadow floated by, waving its hands. It was always watching him. He knew it.
He rose to his feet, and the doctor dropped her leg and held the seat of the chair as if she were preparing to kick herself up and dash for the sunlight. Slowly, he approached her. The shadows clung to his face like a silky, black mask. His long brown hair was the only hint that the diminutive lantern blaze provided.
“Leave me!”
She quickly rose to her feet, and as she danced around the chair to avoid him her heels clicked with a violent echo.
“You have no need to verbally or otherwise assault me, Mr. Nearing,” she said, breathing heavily. “I came to you because you helped Rivera. Now she wants to help you.”
He stopped.
Her slender body slipped into the pale, streaming light at the far end of the room. She reached into her purse, which hung from one shoulder and rested at the curve of her hip. Pulling out a small, square Polaroid picture, she asked, “You know her, Mr. Nearing, don’t you.” She tossed the picture onto the floor where the beacon of light rested heavily.
His face changed in the shadows, as if something incredibly fierce and potentially venomous had struck him. It was a face he knew; a face he thought of each day passing: the blond, angelic girl; the fair haired and tormented child giggling in the forest of his nightmares. He had thought that she was only a dream.
“What are you really up to, doc?” he insisted. His body was stiff and rigid, as if he were afraid that the girl would reach out from the picture to try to seize him. Even though she was so innocently beautiful, he was immediately wary.
She exhaled, “She’s a patient at a dream clinic not too far from here.”
“The clinic where you work, I suppose?”
“Q.D.R.,” she responded. “Quantitative Dream Research.”
“You’re one of those silly dream interpreters who snag some extra cash from making up occult stories about what dreams really mean? It’s bullshit.”
“Not at all,” she returned. “Quantitative research does not apply mythology or occult interpretation, Mr. Nearing.”
“Then what do you do, doc?”
Her words and voice seemed distant. Garret heaved a sigh. A ticklish itch erupted in his fist, and he clenched it tightly, hoping it would flush away.
“Dreams might have some kind of significance, Mr. Nearing, but we don’t interpret what they mean in obscure and unfounded metaphors. We simply analyze how these dreams exist in correlation to the real world.” She waited for a moment. “Sir, I doubt that you’ve ever personally met this girl,” pointing to the picture, “but you know her, and she knows you. On some very real plain of existence, you encountered each other.”
She’s not getting through, he thought, although even he couldn’t fully convince himself of that. The name. The cabin. The picture.
Her voice shifted slightly and drifted over him with true endearment. Her final attempt, it seemed, “Mr. Nearing, I research dreams to help people who can’t control them. I want to help. That little girl wants to help.”
He shrugged into a terrible slouch, brooding in dark silence. When he looked up, he could see part of the doctor’s face: her eyes were kind and yielding. Her arms clung close to her chest as if she were attempting to cradle his weariness and pull him into the soothing light.
“Q.D.R., Mr. Nearing,” she said with certainty. “The address is on the back of that photo. I hope to see you soon.”
But it wasn’t a question for debate. He knew the uneasiness would remain until he followed those clicking heels to end of his dreams. As her shadow, stretching down the dimly lit stairway minimized into nothingness, he gazed down at the smiling picture.
When he finally saw her, she was sleeping soundly in a white and thin-sheeted hospital bed with a small and square, brown flannel cover keeping her feet and legs warm. Above the bed was a pasted, black sign that read “Q.D.R.: Bed 235.”
He couldn’t believe it, and, strangely, he believed less of it seeing her there. Somehow, it was all a scam, a trick, a ruse to finally ensnare him; he believed that for certain. Often, in fact, he looked toward the doctor to see what sort of cruel device she had in store for him. More often, he wondered why he had humored her thus far. Then it struck him: she’s a woman.
“What am I to do here, doc?” he asked, looking away momentarily.
If his eyes ever withdrew from the little girl, they quickly returned as he tried vigorously to convince himself that this was all product of an overactive imagination.
“Talk to her,” she responded. “I’m sure you both know each other already,” the doctor said, awaiting a nod or subtle affirmation. “Mr. Nearing?”
“How does your dream research explain all this, doc?” he asked, feeling more than a bit like a lab rat.
She looked at him blankly.
“And I still don’t know your name, doc.”
She smiled as if she had been waiting for him to ask.
“Erin Conway. Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Nearing.”
Dr. Conway had sat Garret at a sturdy, round-edged plastic seat beside the bed of the little girl, who lay there awake, looking at him with eyes she might have placed on a father or friend, like a defending watchdog. There was a peaceful tension in the room. Garret felt a sort of safety and belonging that he hadn’t felt for years. The belonging sentiment nearly felt invasive and unnatural.
He was almost afraid to look at the little girl or into her gleaming, blue eyes.
“Thanks for saving me,” Rivera said softly.
“Saving you?” he was searching his thoughts.
“From the bad man,” she said. “From the dark man.”
He looked on her intently. He had a dilemma here, an enigma solve.
“Who,” he said seriously, “is the dark man, Rivera?”
She never answered that question. A child of seven years old seemed to be able to tip-toe around details as well as any learned politician or con-artist, both being one in the same, at least in Garret’s mind.
“They found me in the arms of my mommy after the dark man came to visit,” she said, twiddling her fingers upon her chest. “I loved my mommy very much. She always tucked me in at night and told me that the shadows in the forest were just pictures in my head. She said they couldn’t hurt me.”
It was obvious to Garret what the outcome was: mommy was wrong. Funny how all the things a child learns turn out to be wrong: mere stories told by scared parents to elude and control, even if just for a moment.
Garret tucked Rivera in before saying goodbye and heading for the door.
“Will you come and see me again, Garret,” she asked. “Like you used to?”
Like I used? It seemed to be such a beautiful phrase. He stood, held by the white light from the hallway, with his head turned. Shifting, he faced her again. He smiled.
“What do you mean, Rivera?” he asked.
“We used to hide from mommy and daddy and run out to the balcony where all the sheets are hung up. They never looked there,” she replied. “Mommy didn’t mind you being around... but I don’t think daddy liked you very much.”
His eyes narrowed as he tried to remember.
“We used to play hide and go seek,” she said. “You’d come to visit me when it was dark. I’d hide and leave a little note for you under my pillow to give you a hint.”
Next to her bed was a slender, wooden table braced by a thin metal bar that was attached to a platform with wheels. There was a thick drawing pad sat on the table with three crayons, red, green, and black, lying upon it. Garret approached the table and picked up the pad, minding not to drop the crayons. He flipped the cover open. There was a child-like sketch of a dark, shadowy man with a black hat. His eyes were red, and he was smiling. Behind that figure, Rivera had drawn a house on a slanting, green hill with thick green lines for grass. The house was on fire.
“The dark man,” she said.
“You know this man?”
“Not as well as you do.”
He placed the pad back on the table.
“You will come back, won’t you?” she asked.
“Yeah, Rivera. Real soon.”
“I’ll be waiting for you.”
He waved and walked out to find Dr. Conway waiting patiently for him in the hallway.
“Seems like it well, Mr. Nearing.”
“I still feel like I’m dreaming,” he said. He looked at her, for once, without suspicion, “Otherwise, it went well, Miss Conway... or is it Mrs. Conway?”
She shook her head, “No,
He frowned and almost growled, “Oh, all that formality. How about Doc?”
The swing still shook in the autumn breeze, and the leaves had just begun to fall. The broad oak dangled the old swing at a distance and, in the glimmer of the orange sun, a little girl swung from it laughing. It was Rivera.
Autumn leaves were beginning to muster on the hilly earth. He stepped out into the opening just past the final row of trees. All he remembered from his walk through the forest was the narrow, winding path he had always followed. The abundance of red and yellow leaves had obscured the trail. He was relieved that he had found his way.
Garret approached Rivera with heavy legs. In the shrubbery that cultivated around the forest trees, wide, round eyes watched. He still felt it.
“Rivera,” he whispered, and her laughing stopped.
She looked at him with sudden torment and pointed toward the horizon, toward the cabin. A dark, shadowy man stood on the porch only recognizable by a black panama and matching black clothes that hung from his body like shrouds of death. Behind him, the cabin was no longer standing, but crumbled in black ash.
The man, though his face was blurry from a distance, seemed to smile and point as he stood there with his hanging drape dancing in the somber breeze. Garret looked to Rivera, who sat motionless on the swing, pale as virgin snow.
Was the man merely laughing? Or was the pointed smile an indication that he had finally found him?
From behind, something approached, and the footsteps danced eagerly in the brush.
“Garret, what was it?”
He looked at her as if she were stupid - meddling and stupid. He yanked roughly at the rubber-coated electrodes that were jellied to his chest and forehead. Jostling her aside, he scrambled out of the skinny, rectangular bed, feeling the sting of the cold, tile floor on his bare feet, and made his way for the hallway. Dr. Conway followed him, stumbling frequently on her heels.
As he drew closer to Rivera’s room he could hear her calling for him. She was sitting upright in her bed, looking toward the wall as if a face had just faded into the white plastic, when he arrived. Her eyes were frightened, haunted, and she clenched her thin, white blanket with both hands upon her chest.
“Rivera,” he said, panting.
Rivera’s eyes shifted toward him, but her head remained still.
“They’ve found us,” she barely whispered…