Afterlife - Douglas Clegg [66]
“Right,” Joe said.
“But give yourself a lot of time to heal, Julie. Don’t shortchange this process,” Rick said.
“You sound like my therapist.”
“Dr. Rick,” Joe laughed, swatting his partner lightly behind the ear. Then, he said, “So Hut had secrets. I knew it. He was a man of mystery.”
“He was. I’m not even sure how much to believe. My mom sent me some stuff. Our government sometimes had these aptitude tests when kids showed some unusual ability.”
“The Remote Viewing tests,” Joe said. “I read about them. In the Fortean Times. They were cut off around the Gulf War in the ’90s. But they go back a ways.”
“Joe? Really? You read about them?”
“It never amounted to much. But a lot of tax dollars were spent.”
“Wasted, is more like it,” Rick said. “Just like I don’t believe God came down from the sky and made a virgin get pregnant and I don’t believe that vampires get up out of their tombs at night to suck blood, I don’t believe this stuff. I think human life is rough enough without these…popular delusions.”
“You told me you were skeptical,” Joe said. “I didn’t know you thought I was delusional.”
“Baby, not you. I respect your beliefs. I just don’t believe this stuff.”
With this social stalemate threatening to bring storm clouds, Julie suddenly got the idea that they should get the croquet set out and get the kids playing in the front yard. It helped break the brief, slightly drunken tension between Rick and Joe, and Dutch, the dog, loved chasing after the croquet ball.
10
Rick and Joe were going to get the guestroom, and when everybody was getting ready for bed, Rick pointed to the little nightlights. “What’s with all the nightlights?”
Julie was in the bathroom, standing there with Livy, both of them brushing their teeth in the mirror, Livy standing up on the footstool that allowed her to get up high enough for the sink and mirror. When Julie rinsed, she said, “It’s because it’s too dark at night.”
“It’s for me,” Livy said. “I see a ghost sometimes.”
11
Right on schedule, her erotic dream took her over when she fell asleep.
The dead man who was not quite Hut turned her on her stomach. He began licking from the nape of her neck down her shoulder blades, following the slight knobs of her spine, his tongue wet and flickering as he tasted her skin. He held her wrists back with his hands, and he went lower, and when he reached the dip in her back, just before the rise in her buttocks, he made a slow long circle there, and bit slightly down on her cheek before his mouth went between the cleft.
She moaned into the pillow, but she was not in her bed, but on a dirty mattress in what seemed like a dungeon, with gray stone walls around her, and what looked like metal instruments of torture hanging from the ceiling.
He licked her inside and out, up and down; every part of her below the waist grew moist and warm with his ministrations.
Then, he rose over her, hefting his weight onto her back until she felt crushed, and her breath came hard to her, and then, he entered her from behind, first in one entry, then another. She felt a burning sensation. Oh, but it felt good, and the dead man whispered in her ears, his spit sliding just inside her earlobe, “Do you want me inside you, Julie? Do you? Do you want me all the way in? Every way? I want to open you. I want to open you, Julie.”
And she opened her mouth wide to say yes, but a muffled sound came from her that was not quite her voice.
Then, someone said, too loud, “Julie? Julie?”
12
Julie looked up in the dark. A man stood there. Her eyes adjusted, and she reached for the bedside lamp, fear pulsing through her.
Flicked the light up.
It was Joe, wearing a San Francisco ’49ers T-shirt that went all the way to his