The Dreamer in Fire and Other Stories Read online

  I looked over and saw that Detective Armitage, who had been in charge of the case and had been the one who grilled me the worst, staring at me. I felt his eyes boring into me and struggled to smile and pat Ruth on the back. Crystal wouldn’t stop crying and tugging at her daughter, “Is it true? Did it really happen?” To which Ruth responded by caressing her hair and softly saying, “Yes, Mom. It really happened. I’m home now.”

  The TV reporters lapped it up. I think we made all the major news programs that night. They got their shots of the happy family reunited and took off. For them, the story was over. I’d be seeing them again soon enough. Detective Armitage pushed his way forward and, placing a fatherly hand on both Crystal and Ruth’s shoulders, requested a few minutes with Ruth . . . alone.

  I lightly pulled Crystal away and told her to go to the kitchen and fix Ruth something to eat. “She’s been lost in the woods for five days. She must be hungry.”

  “Oh, yeah, Dad,” Ruth seductively replied, “you’ve no idea how hungry I am!”

  I cringed but tried not to show it.

  Armitage and Ruth went into the dining room while I helped Crystal in the kitchen. She was prattling on to me about Ruth’s ‘miraculous’ return, but I wasn’t listening to her. I kept straining to hear the voices in the dining room. My hearing had never been the best, so I couldn’t make out everything they were saying. I could hear Armitage’s voice being forceful, but not anything Ruth said. I tried to keep my hands still, but they were shaking so hard. Frightened, I put them under the tap and ran hot water on them for as long as I could stand it.

  Finally, they came out of the dining room and Crystal pushed a plate of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and corn in front of her daughter. It was one of the meals that the neighbors had brought over for us in our time of distress. “Right,” Armitage said, “I guess everything’s turned out for the best. Maybe next time, little girl, you’ll think twice about running out in the dark by Sentinel Hill?”

  Ruth smiled and stuffed her face with food. “Walk me out, Walt?” Armitage said to me. Reluctantly, I followed him out of the kitchen.

  “Remarkable story,” Armitage said, “running through the woods for five days. Never catching sight of another soul or the road or the lights of town. Never even hearing the search party we had out looking for her. Truly remarkable.”

  “I know,” I said. “I can’t believe it myself.”

  “Yeah,” Armitage replied. “I bet you can’t. All right, look, Mr. Rice, I’m going to be blunt with you. Until that girl walked through that door, I thought you’d killed her. I was working hard to find enough evidence to arrest you and sweat you until you gave up her body. Your alibi was shaky—”

  “I told you I’d been at the garage, working on the books.”

  “Yep, yep, you did. No one to verify it, though. No calls made. None received.”

  “But you impounded my truck! You didn’t find any hair or fibers, nothing.”

  Armitage nodded. “True, all very true. But, you know, that was strange too. I mean, family vehicle and all. I’d expect to find lots of hairs and fibers and DNA all over it. But there was nothing. Odd, don’t you think?”

  I stumbled for words. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Detective. Ruth’s here. She’s alive. What more could we want?”

  “Oh, I agree! We always hope for this type of result in these cases. You know how often that happens though, Mr. Rice?” I must have looked puzzled. “Not at all. Be seeing you, Walt! Count on it!”

  Armitage walked out to his car and left. I hadn’t been this nervous and scared when I killed Ruth. I turned and looked back at the house, Crystal’s house. I wanted to get in my truck and drive off, but I couldn’t. Not just yet. I’d have to get together some cash, and that would take a few days; and I’d have to make sure that Armitage didn’t suspect anything and stop me. Until then, I had to just keep it together. I had to keep away from whatever it was in that house that was calling itself Ruth.

  I walked inside and went to the kitchen. They were all laughing and talking at the same time. A happy little family out of some old Norman Rockwell painting. I didn’t know what to do next.

  “Walt! Isn’t it wonderful?? Our baby’s back!” Crystal laughed and cried.

  I smiled and agreed. What could I do? I couldn’t yell out, “This isn’t Ruth! I killed her! This is something wearing her like a hat or coat!”

  So I started drinking.

  By the time I’d gotten through about a case of Narragansett beer, I was well and truly drunk. I staggered off to bed and tried to get some sleep. At some point I woke up, and Ruth was staring me in the face.

  “Ruth? What are you doing? Where’s your mother?”

  Ruth smiled. I expected snakes to curl out of her mouth. “She’s asleep right next to you. Can’t you feel her?”

  She put her hand under the covers and touched my leg. I could feel Crystal’s weight in the bed next to me.

  “Wh-what do you want?”

  “I want to know how you feel, Walt. Aren’t you happy I’m home?”

  I tried to smile, but I was starting to sweat.

  “Of course I am, sweetie. I—we were all worried about you.”

  Ruth’s face moved closer to mine. “No, you weren’t, Walt. You knew exactly where I was and I know exactly what you did to me. Or, rather, what you did to ‘Ruth.’ But maybe I do owe you something. I mean, I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

  She kissed me, hard. There was nothing loving or sexy in the kiss. It was hard and mean. Her hand moved up under the covers and grabbed my penis and squeezed. My eyes teared from the pain.

  “I could rip it off, Walt.” Ruth whispered. “Then watch it flop around like a dead fish. Would you like that?”

  I whimpered and muttered, “No . . .”

  She smirked. “I bet you wouldn’t.” She moved away so quickly that I almost fell off the bed. “I changed my mind, Walt, I’m not going to kill you right now. I’m gonna make you watch. I’m gonna make sure you know every little thing I do in this piece-of-shit town. And as you watch me open the way for the others, you’ll know that it’s all your fault and you couldn’t do a fucking damn thing about it.”

  She slinked out of the room, actually slinked! I never thought anyone could really do that. As she left she blew me a kiss and licked her lips. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I was in a bad horror movie.

  I’ve never liked phones. I always thought they were an incredibly rude device. That might be because I’ve never liked talking on the phone. I’d always get nervous and try to rush through the call as quickly as possible even if I knew the person on the other end. But I had to accept the phone as part of my life because of my business. At any point, I could get a call from AAA to go tow someone. If I didn’t have a phone, I’d lose money. But in the days after “Ruth’s” return, I hated my phone even more.

  I had tried to get out of the house early the next day so I could avoid seeing her, but Ruth was already gone. For the next several hours I got an endless series of texts and videos from Ruth on the phone. They started out calmly enough—“Enjoying the sunshine on this wonderful September day, aren’t you?”—but they didn’t stay that way.

  They got worse as the day went on. Some were sexual, talking about what she wanted to do with this new body. Some taunted me, goading me about not being able to stop her. Others I couldn’t understand.

  “Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, and future all are one in Yog-Sothoth. I am he as you are me and we are all together, goo goo g’joob.”

  There were others like that that I couldn’t understand at all. It was as if she were texting gibberish or some little kid had gotten hold of her phone and was just pressing buttons at random.

  Then there was a pic and text that chilled me to the bone. It was a picture of a little baby, cute and babbling in a crib. The text simply said, “Feeling hungry, time for lunch?”

  I stared at
the picture. I didn’t know what to do. There was no way to identify the baby. I didn’t recognize it and Ruth was careful enough not to show anything that would tell her location. I couldn’t do anything and she knew it. I sent her texts telling her not to do anything, but she never answered. I sat and stared at my cell phone, trying to think of a way to find her. I knew that the police could run a trace on her phone, track it through their GPS system or whatever. But I’d have to tell them why and they wouldn’t believe me. Short of driving aimlessly around town, I couldn’t do a damn thing. So that’s what I did.

  As it got dark, I was still driving around in the garage’s tow truck looking for Ruth. I hoped that people would figure I was just trolling for business. I couldn’t find her. Ruth had an old car—a POS Honda Civic which I fixed up for her. But I couldn’t find it anywhere. I called Crystal and told her I was working late. She was used to that. Then I started driving through the back roads through the woods.

  Around 8 p.m., I got a message from Ruth. I was still driving and nearly ran off the road. When I opened it, it was the sound of a baby crying and Ruth laughing and chanting. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but it sounded like “N’gai n’gha’ghaa, bugg-shoggog, y’hah; Yog-Sothoth, Yog-Sothoth!”

  I shut it off. I couldn’t listen to any more.

  The next message was a picture. I debated opening it because I wasn’t sure I wanted to see it. But, eventually, I couldn’t resist and pressed the button. Ruth had held the phone up and took a picture with her phone. She was naked. Her mouth was bloody and she was smiling. The text read simply, “Wanna kiss me now, Walt?”

  I pulled over to the side of the road and puked.

  When I got back home, Ruth was already there. She and her mother were sitting in the kitchen, laughing and talking. Ruth looked as if nothing had happened to her at all in the last week. She was smiling and happy. Truthfully, I’d never really seen her so happy before.

  “Did you use the Voorish Sign?” Crystal asked her and Ruth sheepishly shook her head. “Well, that’s why it didn’t work.” I grabbed a beer and went into the living room to watch TV. If I was hungry before, I certainly wasn’t after seeing the news. I’d half expected it, of course, but to see that baby’s face on the news and the parents crying over their lost child made it all too real.

  “Isn’t that terrible?” Crystal said behind me. “Thank God our baby is home safe and sound, right, Walt?”

  I nodded as Ruth sat down on the couch next to me. My skin began to crawl as she cuddled up to me. “I know Daddy Walt’s happy, Mom, I can see it in his eyes.”

  I tried not to vomit.

  Crystal smiled and went to bed. I could feel all the blood draining out of my body.

  “What did you do to that kid?” I asked.

  Ruth sat up and looked at me. The air between us grew cold.

  “What do you think I did?” she purred. She tossed her blond hair back as if she was posing for a photo shoot.

  “I think you killed him.”

  She looked at me as if I was dumb. “And that’s all you think I did? You have no imagination, Walt. None at all.”

  She ran a finger down the front of my shirt. “I killed him, sure. But I did other things too. There were certain . . .”—she pouted her lips—“certain rituals or rites that had to be done in the right order. I kinda . . .”—she flipped her head back and rolled her eyes—“kinda messed that up a bit. I’ll do better next time. Just takes practice, you know?”

  I shuddered. “No, no, you won’t! I’m not gonna let you . . .”

  Ruth lunged forward and grabbed me by the throat. “You? What the fuck do you think you can do about it? I own you! You go to the cops and I’ll tell them you took me up by Cold Spring Glen and kept me prisoner there for five days. I’ll tell them you raped me over and over again and how I barely escaped with my life. They’ll love that story, especially in prison. I know that Detective Armitage would just love to hear me say that.”

  “What the hell are you?” I gasped.

  She smirked and pulled her hand away. “Like you would know or even begin to understand what a dhole is. You’re just like all these other people. Thinking that what you see is all that matters. There are other spheres of existence, ones you couldn’t possibly comprehend. All this you see is just an illusion, a dream from which this world will awaken soon enough. You truly have no idea how little you all matter. Before long, I will open the way and they will break this reality apart. It’s not like before.” She laughed. “You humans make it all so easy for us now. Worried about your economies and money and sex. Like any of that matters. You’ll learn what really matters, what this world really is.”

  Ruth leaned forward and kissed me. I tried to pull away, but she grabbed my head and held it tight. I could feel her tongue pressing against my mouth. Although I tried to keep my lips closed, she twisted my hair and her tongue darted inside my mouth. I could feel it searching, probing . . . then it split in two.

  I tried to pull away, but she held my head in tight. Without wanting to, my tongue touched hers and I could feel that it was thick and scaly. Each part moved by itself, and it felt as if the parts had turned into some kind of tentacles with suckers and teeth. I grabbed Ruth by her shoulders and pushed as hard as I could. She landed on the floor with a thud and just grinned as she pulled her tongue back into her mouth. I could see that I was right and her tongue was now a pair of octopus-like tentacles. She opened her mouth and her tongue was back to normal.

  “Keep your phone on tomorrow. I’ve got something special planned for you.”

  I sat in the dark and drank until I passed out.

  The next morning I had a change of plans. I was going to watch Ruth all day, no matter what it took. It was a Saturday and Crystal left early with her son, Kyle, leaving me alone in the house with Ruth.

  “Gonna be a busy day, Walt. Lots to do! I’ll text you!” Ruth ran out the door and I was close behind her. Her white Honda headed toward the downtown area, and I followed closely in my old truck. I didn’t care if she saw me. In fact, I hoped that she did see me so she’d know I was there and maybe she’d not do anything.

  Ruth parked the white Honda outside of Osborn’s Department Store, so I stopped further up the street and watched her walk into the store. There wasn’t much in the way of stores in Dunwich. Most folks bought their food at the old IGA up on Aylesbury Pike. There was a Walmart outside Arkham, but most people didn’t bother to drive that far. I waited, but Ruth didn’t come out.

  Cautiously, I got out of my truck and walked down the street, looking around for her. I stopped at her car and looked inside. There was nothing unusual there. I stopped and turned around, but she was nowhere in sight. As I walked up to the front door of Osborn’s, I heard tires screeching and someone shouting. I turned around and saw Ruth riding in a white Mustang convertible and hooting and hollering as if she was riding a bull.

  “Hey, Walt! Missed me?” she yelled as the car tore by me. I could see young Bill Osborn in the driver’s seat. She’d never even spoken to the guy before last week. He was one of the town’s young punks. His family owned the town store ever since there was a town, I guess, and he liked to spend that money on booze and drugs. I was getting a real bad feeling.

  Even though I rushed back to my truck, it wasn’t fast enough. I couldn’t see the white Mustang anywhere. I felt stupid. I should have known that just following her wouldn’t make a difference. If I really wanted to stop Ruth, I’d have to take more drastic steps.

  I stopped at the hardware store and bought an axe. I used my hands the last time, but I knew that wouldn’t be enough now. A gun would be good, but I didn’t have one and didn’t have the time to get one. I was going to have to move fast if I had any hope of succeeding. I didn’t know what the hell she was now, but I figured that anything will die if you chop it into enough pieces.

  The rest of the day was spent driving around. I never saw her and her car never moved. Around 3 p.m., my phone rang.
It was Ruth. I gripped the wheel tighter and clicked the button.

  “Wallllllttttt! Where you been, baby? You know, you could’ve just come with me. All you hadda do was ask!”

  “Where are you?”

  “Aw, ain’t that sweet? You miss your baby, Daddy Walt? You’re gonna make me cry. Well, I’m having a little party, sweetie. You wanna join in? I’ve got me a nice, quiet cabin at Morgan’s Motor Lodge out on the Pike. I’m in number twenty-one. I’m waiting for you.”

  She hung up the phone and I turned the truck around. Morgan’s Motor Lodge was one of those old places with separate cabins. I don’t really know why it was ever even built. Dunwich was never much of a tourist place. The place was mostly used by junkies and prostitutes out of Arkham.

  I thought that there was someone following me, but I was probably just nervous.

  Pulling into the back of the motor lodge, I could see the Osborn kid’s convertible in front of cabin 21. There was another SUV that I didn’t recognize. The cabins consisted of nothing more than a bedroom and a bathroom, usually in really ugly colors. I used to come here before I met Crystal. As I walked up to the cabin, I could see that the window was open and the shade was up. I knew that meant that Ruth wanted me to see. The closer I got, I could hear the sounds of three different men and Ruth . . . all moaning.

  Telling myself that I needed to look so I’d know what I was getting into, I peeked through the window. I wish I had never done that.

  They were all naked and thrashing on the bed. Ruth was gyrating on top of the Osborn kid while some other guy was behind her working like a piston engine. A third guy was standing next to her, thrusting himself into her mouth. My hand tightened around the axe handle. I hadn’t expected this. I couldn’t take on all of them.

  I figured I might have to fight off the Osborn kid, but there was no way I could get through three of them before getting to Ruth. I was turning away from the window when Ruth saw me. She spit the guy out and squealed, “Walt! You made it, baby! C’mon in and join us!”