A Nest of Nightmares Read online

  Out of the darkness came the familiar, cheery glow of a Ramada Inn sign, and Sheila felt a rush of relief that made her smile. Whatever was out there in the darkness, whoever these two people were, she knew, now, where she was.

  The clock above the registration desk showed nearly midnight, and Sheila yawned reflexively, reminding herself that it was an hour earlier in Los Angeles, and wondering what Damon was doing. Was he thinking of her?

  Victoria’s melodramatic shriek sliced into her thoughts.

  ‘I did,’ said Grace in a high, terrified voice. ‘I did reserve a room, honestly I did!’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said the desk clerk. ‘And I’m really sorry. But we couldn’t keep it for you. Our check-in time is seven p.m. It’s the same all over the country. You can request us to hold the room for as many hours after that as you like, but unless the request is made, after seven p.m. we assume the registered guest is a no-show, and we give the room to someone else. And all our rooms are taken tonight.’

  ‘But I didn’t know,’ Grace wailed. ‘It’s not my fault that I didn’t know.’

  ‘It is your fault,’ said Victoria in arctic tones. ‘I gave you the responsibility of reserving the room, and that includes finding out check-in times.’

  Sheila had the feeling that they would go on arguing whose fault it was all night, and she would still be without a place to sleep. ‘Isn’t there some other hotel?’ she asked.

  ‘Are you kidding?’ said Victoria.

  ‘There’s one over by Taylor,’ said the desk clerk. ‘It’s a Holiday Inn, but I’d be happy to make a phone call to check if they’ve got a room for you.’

  ‘No,’ said Victoria sharply. ‘Taylor’s thirty miles from here. I’m not driving all that way there and back. You can stay with me tonight. Luckily, I have two beds in my room. I know it won’t be as nice for you, and I’m sorry about this. I apologize for Grace’s stupidity – shut up, Grace. You won’t mind sharing a room with me, will you?’

  ‘Well, I don’t think I really have a choice, do I?’ said Sheila. She knew she was being ungracious and forced herself to sound grateful. ‘It’s very nice of you to offer. Thank you.’

  The town of Byzantium was four miles farther down the highway, and in the darkness Sheila received no clear impression of it. A yellow bug-light on the porch revealed Victoria’s house as an ordinary, one-story, white-painted frame house of the sort she’d often seen elsewhere. There was nothing special or unusual about it.

  But the moment she stepped inside she broke into a sweat of fear. It was only Victoria’s physical presence at her back which kept her from bolting, and after another moment she realised that it was the smell of the house she had responded to so powerfully. It was the smell of her mother’s house, as if she had fallen back in time. But there was nothing mysterious or even unlikely about it – just an unfortunate combination of a particular brand of furniture polish, air freshener, and a whiff of bacon grease.

  ‘Keep quiet,’ Victoria breathed at her ear. ‘Just follow me. Mom’s asleep.’ Still shaken by the physical force of memory, Sheila obeyed. Victoria had told her in the car that she lived with her widowed mother.

  ‘Welcome to my sanctum sanctorum,’ said Victoria, and closed the bedroom door. Sheila was not usually bothered by claustrophobia, but as the door closed she felt her throat tighten and she began to have trouble breathing. The room was so crowded with books, furniture, and clutter that it felt more like a storage closet than a place to live. Sheila looked around, trying to relax by taking in details.

  There was a fussy, pink and white dressing table with a lighted mirror; narrow twin beds separated by a chest of drawers; a slant-topped, professional drawing table and adjustable chair; and bookshelves covering two walls, overstuffed with books and seeming to strain at their moorings. Sheila looked at one of the beds and at the burdened shelves above it, and hoped that nothing would fall on her in the night. Where there was wall space not covered with books, paintings and photographs had been mounted. Sheila recognized various famous movie and television stars in customary poses, but the paintings were uninspired: landscapes in unlikely colours, and stiff, mannered depictions of dragons, unicorns, and strangely dressed people.

  ‘Most of the art is mine,’ said Victoria. ‘But I won’t bore you with my creations right now.’ She giggled. ‘Oh, it’s so exciting, having a real, live author in my very own room!’

  Sheila realised suddenly that the bossy Victoria wasn’t as self-confident as she pretended – that she was actually shy – but the understanding didn’t change her feelings. Of course, it wasn’t Victoria’s fault that this house reminded her of her own past, or that in Victoria’s nagging and bossing of Grace Sheila heard her mother’s disappointment: Would it kill you to show a little interest? To be friendly?

  Yes, she thought now, it would have killed her. If she had made friends and found contentment in the life her mother wanted for her it would have killed her soul. She would never have written. She would have felt no need to escape.

  She looked at Victoria’s pinched, sourly hopeful face. Victoria was trapped, even if she didn’t know it, but Sheila had escaped. She could afford to show a little kindness.

  ‘It’s a very nice room,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to show me your designs in the morning . . . not right now because I’m too tired to appreciate anything but bed.’

  ‘Oh, silly me! Of course you’re tired – I forgot how late it is. It’s just that I’m so excited.’

  Sheila decided she liked Victoria even less when she was giggly and excited, but there was no escape from her now except into silence and herself: the same old thing.

  ‘It’s like being a kid again, having someone spend the night,’ Victoria said in the darkness. ‘Didn’t you used to love going to slumber parties?’

  Sheila had been to only one slumber party, attending under pressure from her mother. She did now what she had done then and pretended to sleep. But she lay awake for what seemed hours, listening to Victoria’s adenoidal breathing and hearing, behind it, her mother’s voice: Think you’re better than all the other girls? Too good to talk to them? You think you’re different?

  She knew she was different. She knew she was better. The hard part was to hang on to that knowledge, and resist all those who tried to make her ordinary.

  Sheila woke feeling as exhausted as if she had been struggling rather than sleeping all night, and when she saw herself in the bathroom mirror it was clear that she had lost the struggle.

  There were days when she liked her face, but this was not one of them. Makeup didn’t really help, and her hair was hopeless. Confronted with the change in atmosphere and the dry, gritty wind of West Texas, it seemed the permanent had given up, leaving her with a lank, lifeless, mousy brown mop.

  Her clothes, which had looked so fresh and fashionable in California, now looked drab and badly cut. They were wrinkled from having been packed, and they no longer fitted: the fabric of the skirt stretched unattractively tight across stomach and hips, while the blouse simply hung on her. Sheila had the eerie feeling that she had changed shape overnight. She sucked in her stomach as hard as she could and turned away from the mirror, not ready to face Byzantium, but having no other choice.

  Daylight revealed what had been hidden by the night: towering above ordinary frame houses and scrubby trees was a vast, looming presence, a rugged brown peak.

  ‘What’s that?’

  Victoria smiled disbelievingly. ‘What do you think? It’s the mountain.’

  She was finding it hard to breathe – probably the effect of holding in her stomach, but it felt as if she was afraid. Of the mountain? That was silly. ‘I just didn’t realize there would be a mountain here.’

  ‘Oh, come on!’

  ‘No, really. I thought this part of Texas was all flat.’

  Another hard look from Victoria. ‘But it’s the most fa
mous thing about Byzantium, our mountain.’

  That made Sheila laugh, despite her unease. ‘Look, no offense, but “famous” is not a word I’d use about Byzantium! I’d never even heard of your town until you wrote me.’

  ‘Really? And you’ve never been here before?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Well. That is a surprise. I’d better show you why. We’ll go up where you can see it all . . . why don’t you close your eyes until I tell you to look? It’ll be more impressive that way.’

  Most of the drive was a gradual ascent – too gentle to be up the mountain, and it seemed to Sheila that the car was travelling away from the peak. It was not long before the car pulled to a stop and Victoria said, ‘You can open your eyes now.’

  They were outside of town, up on a ridge, in a roadside parking area created especially for the view: there were coin-operated telescopes there, and a map mounted behind plastic, with the state highway department seal on it. Sheila took in the view mechanically, eyes scanning the distance, the hazy blue sky and a line of faraway mountains, then, just below, on the flat valley floor, the town of Byzantium, buildings clustered around the single peak rising like some rough, hunched beast furred brown and green.

  And then she saw what she was seeing. She knew this landscape – she had been here many times before. She had invented the town, the mountain, and the wasteland beyond. She had written it into existence.

  ‘You see?’ said Victoria. ‘You had to come here.’

  The Ramada Inn had what they called a conference centre, and it was there – a detached, windowless, concrete building on the other side of the swimming pool that the First Byzantium Science Fiction Convention was held.

  When Sheila and Victoria arrived, they found Grace sitting behind a table near the door, with a cashbox and a list of names.

  ‘We’ve had fifteen people so far,’ she said, looking apprehensively up at Victoria. ‘I think that’s pretty good for the first hour.’

  ‘How many are you expecting?’ Sheila asked.

  ‘A lot,’ said Victoria. ‘Science fiction is big business these days, and there’s never been a convention in this part of the state. I’m sure it’ll be a big success. Here, put this nametag on. I designed it especially, so people can pick you out as the Guest of Honour.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do?’

  ‘This evening you’ll judge the costume contest. Until then, just enjoy yourself. Give the fans a chance to talk to you. Be friendly.’

  Sheila felt tired and uncertain of herself. She wanted to retreat, having seldom felt less like talking to strangers. But she had agreed to come and must make an effort. She moved away from the registration desk to begin her tour of the convention.

  The conference centre consisted of the small reception area where Grace sat, three small seminar rooms, and one big hall. In one seminar room Sheila found four boys and two girls huddled in a circle with dice and notebooks, playing Dungeons and Dragons. They didn’t even look up when she entered, too involved with their fantasy to notice her.

  The next seminar room contained eight or ten dark shapes gazing at a large television screen upon which flickered an episode of The Prisoner.

  The main hall had a podium and microphone set up at the far end, unused. At the near end several tables had been set up and people were selling used paperbacks, comics, posters, little clay and metal figurines, and other paraphernalia. Some artwork was displayed, and Sheila recognized the paintings as Victoria’s work.

  People of both sexes, most of them apparently in their teens or early twenties, milled around the room. Sheila noticed a very fat man in a kilt, with a plastic sword belted at his side, and a skinny young woman in a black knitted mini-dress, who might have been attractive beneath the layer of green paint she wore over all exposed flesh. But even the people not in costume – the boy reading a paperback novel on the floor, frowning in fierce concentration; the acned young man whose shirt-pocket bulged with different coloured pens; the girl talking into a tape-recorder – seemed to exist in some other, private universe, and even if she had found any of them the slightest bit attractive, Sheila could not have approached without feeling herself an intruder.

  ‘Excuse me, are you Sheila Stoller?’

  Sheila turned to see an ordinary-looking teenager, a girl in blue jeans and a pink T-shirt, holding up a copy of Moonlight Under the Mountain in much the way that people in horror films presented crosses to vampires. She smiled with relief and pleasure. This was what she was here for, after all: to be the author.

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Oh!’ The girl sounded surprised. ‘I thought – I don’t know – I thought you’d look more – like a writer.’

  ‘How is that? With thick glasses and a typewriter tucked under my arm?’

  ‘No, I thought you’d be more glamorous. Well, would you sign my book? Make it out to Lori.’

  Sheila did as she was told. ‘Did you like it?’

  ‘Oh, I haven’t read it yet. I bought it because somebody told me it was sort of like Anne McCaffrey. I love Anne McCaffrey. I’ve read everything she’s ever written. I was hoping they could get her to come here, but . . . Thanks for the autograph. It was nice meeting you.’ She slouched away, leaving Sheila bemused. Was that it? Was that why she was here, to disappoint Anne McCaffrey fans and sign unread books?

  She went back to the registration area to find Victoria and Grace, and was discouraged to find that even they were no longer interested in her. It was an effort to make them talk, and as she struggled she wondered why she was bothering.

  ‘So . . . Victoria, you’re interested in art. Do you plan to study it professionally, go to art school, or . . . were you an art major in college?’

  Victoria looked at her coldly. ‘I didn’t go to college. As I told you last night. It wasn’t possible. We couldn’t afford it and mother couldn’t really do without me. Mother has problems with her health. As I told you.’

  Sheila felt herself getting hot. She didn’t know how to apologize without making things worse. She should have been paying attention instead of daydreaming, as usual. ‘I’m sorry . . . I was tired last night, and . . .’

  ‘You were probably thinking of me,’ Grace said. ‘I went to college.’

  ‘And much good it did you,’ said Victoria. ‘You can’t get a job with your history degree now, can you? I’ve got a job in cosmetics, at Eckard’s Drugs. I get a discount on all my perfume and makeup. It’s a good deal. And it’s a pretty creative job, sometimes. It calls for someone like me with taste and a good eye for colour to tell the ladies what lipstick would suit them, and how to put on blusher to make the most of their own features. You should have seen the makeover I did for Grace! I don’t know why she doesn’t fix herself up like that all the time. It would only take a half hour in the morning, and it makes all the difference in the world.’

  Grace was getting steadily redder, and glaring at her feet. Sheila tried to feel some sympathy for her, but was too repelled. Did she have to be so fat and her hair so greasy? Makeup would probably only aggravate her skin problems, but surely she could make some effort.

  ‘It might even help you get a job,’ Victoria went on. ‘If you looked more . . .’

  ‘Don’t want a job,’ Grace mumbled. She raised her head defiantly. ‘I need time to write.’ She looked at Sheila. ‘Don’t you? Don’t you need time to write?’

  Before Sheila could think of how to answer, Victoria spoke for her. ‘But you also need to earn a living,’ she said. ‘You can’t sponge off your parents forever. You’re twenty-four.’

  ‘So? They don’t mind.’

  ‘But for how long? And how long before you actually finish your novel? You’re too comfortable; you think you’ve got all the time in the world. How many years have you been working on it? Three? Four?’

  Sheila was beginning to feel Grace’s discomfort a
s her own, as if Victoria’s jabs had been aimed at her. This was a familiar, old quarrel, but it was nothing to do with her. She wouldn’t even try to break it up. She only wanted to get away and leave them to it.

  Looking at her watch, Sheila said, ‘Maybe I should check into my room now. There doesn’t seem to be too much going on, and I’d like a chance to put my things away and maybe have a shower.’

  Victoria and Grace looked at each other in a way that made Sheila’s heart sink.

  ‘I’m not saying this is your fault,’ said Victoria carefully. ‘Don’t get me wrong. But we haven’t had as many people register for the convention as we had hoped for.’

  ‘How could that be my fault?’

  ‘Well, a big-name guest will draw more people . . . but I’m not saying it is your fault, you understand. If people didn’t come to see you, it’s our fault for assuming that everybody would like Moonlight Under the Mountain as much as us . . . but that’s probably not the reason, anyway. Grace probably didn’t coordinate the publicity and press releases well enough – never mind, Grace, I’m not blaming you.’

  ‘I don’t understand. If you don’t think it’s my fault, why are you telling me?’

  ‘Well, of course it’s not your fault! And no matter how much money we lose on this, Grace and I will feel that it was worth it to get you to come here. I knew when I wrote out the check for your airplane ticket that I probably wasn’t going to get my money back, and that isn’t important. The thing is, we just don’t have that much money left over . . . for non-essentials. And since I’ve got a spare bed anyway . . .’

  Sheila just stared at her, refusing to give in.