Possession - J.M. Dillard [45]
As the Vulcan scientist clutched Barbara Evans in his arms, invading and infecting her brain, he could hear, inside her, the voice that had haunted him for so long.
Behind Barbara Evans’s terrorized gaze screamed his mother, telling Evans, too late, to run. To hide. To escape her only child.
“RUN! RUN AWAY!”
“Deanna!” Riker gave the thrashing Betazoid a hearty shake. Her teeth clicked together, then suddenly her eyes were open, wide, staring unseeing, terrified.
“Run for your life!” she shouted, not at him, but at some point in the distance only she could see.
Riker slapped the communicator on his shoulder, grateful he’d decided to sleep in his uniform. Something about Deanna’s nervousness and the strange aura the Vulcan had left here had convinced him to be prepared, ready for anything. When he’d heard screaming coming from her room, he’d thought she’d been under attack and had raced in to find her fighting the bedcovers, yelling in her sleep.
“Riker to Dr. Crusher!” he barked into the communicator, over the hammering of his heart. “Medical emergency!”
“Crusher here,” the doctor answered immediately, though her voice was faintly heavy with sleep. “What is it, Will?”
“It’s Deanna. She’s locked in some nightmare. I can’t wake her up.”
By now Crusher could hear the Betazoid’s ravings over the comm link. “I’m on my way!”
Only then did Riker think Crusher might be in Picard’s quarters. They frequently had breakfast together before starting their duty shift. Well, there wasn’t much he could do about that.
“Deanna, come on!” Riker begged, as he gripped his friend’s shoulders. “It’s me, Will!” He held her face in his hand and turned her eyes to him, forcing her to stare at him, praying she might really see him through her dream.
She stared at him, her black eyes wide with terror, her mouth open; a long dark curl had fallen diagonally across her face … and, to his amazement, she stopped thrashing.
“Look at me, Deanna. It’s me,” he repeated, willing her to snap out of the dream.
She looked at him and did not move; as he held her arms, her gasping began to ease. “Will,” she said, then lifted her hands to catch his arms, but her gaze was still wild. “My God …”
She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, the look in them was one of fear—mixed with grateful recognition. Riker smiled.
“I’m here,” he said softly, his grip on her arms now meant to offer comfort. “Everything’s okay now.”
Her black eyes grew sorrowful, tear-filled. “No. No, nothing’s okay. Oh, Will, it’s terrible!”
He pulled her into the shelter of his embrace, just as he heard the outer doors to her quarters opening. “Sssssh. It’s okay, Deanna. You’re awake now. The dream is over.”
But she just shook her head and held him, her body trembling violently.
“How is she?” Crusher asked, as she rushed in, putting one knee on the bed and opening her emergency kit at the same time. She had the medi-scanner in her hand so quickly that Will never saw her pull it out.
He glanced over his shoulder at a figure moving behind the doctor and saw Picard. “She’s awake. She just seemed to come out of it herself. But she doesn’t seem to be able to separate reality from dream yet.”
Crusher frowned as she looked at the scanner readout.
“It wasn’t a dream,” Deanna protested, pushing away from Riker. “They were memories—Skel’s memories.” She was in control again and rubbed her eyes, collecting herself. “I was dreaming normally at one point in my sleep, but something happened, and I found myself enmeshed in Skel’s memories. Suddenly, I was Skel as a child, trapped in that terrible time when the entities from the artifacts infected his people. His father was infected and went mad, killing his mother slowly through torture. In spite of her personal anguish, her terror, she controlled herself long enough to send him a powerful mental warning. He was so young at the time, I think such an intense telepathic impression may have damaged his brain, because he still hears it, that voice, that silent command. I sensed it—heard it—from him last night when he was in