Chapter Three:
SLEEPWALKING
The last thing Vivien remembered in the real world was falling asleep in her new room with all the curtains drawn and a tiny night-light plugged into the far wall (she'd always had one, ever since she was a child - it was comforting). The last thing she remembered in the dream world was eating ice cream on the deck of a large ship, watching the waves roll back and forth with people dancing on them like some sort of collection of ice skaters.
Then she opened her eyes and that dizzy feeling of just waking up washed over her. She was awake now. But she wasn't in her bed any more. She wasn't even in her room any more. There was no more night-light. There was no more anything.
She was standing in a room she'd never seen, one with horrible vine-painted wallpaper. It was a modest sized room, but there was absolutely nothing in it aside from a white tablecloth draped over a figure-like shape.
Where was she?
It was still night so it was difficult to see. She reached her hands out, trembling now at the sense of disorientation, and groped for some sort of light switch. She found one and flicked it on. A light filled the room, thank goodness, and she took another look around.
This had to be a room in the house somewhere, but she had no idea how she'd come to this place. Walked, obviously, but where was this room situated in the scheme of the house?
There was a window so she walked over to it and looked out. She must be on the top floor because the ground looked so far down. She could see the light of her neighbor, Constance's, house thirty feet away, so she was on the far side of the mansion.
"Scary," she said, and turned to the door behind her. It had been many years since she sleepwalked. Usually it plagued her when she experienced a large portion of stress, and it made sense that it would start happening now.
She hated her husband.
He knew it. He had to know it. If not then he was denser than she realized. Didn't he hear her get up in the middle of the night? Wasn't he concerned?
She reached for the doorknob, a rusty, grooved thing, and gave it a yank. Nothing happened. Again she tried. Still the thing wouldn't budge. The door was locked. Either that or the wood had somehow swelled so that it made the thing stick fast.
A horrible, squeamish feeling crept into her stomach. She had a deep-seated fear of enclosed spaces - being confined. There was no way out except for the window.
How did she even get in here? If the door was so tricky there must have been some sort of struggle for her to get into this room.
And it was so bizarre that she'd never seen this space before!
She tried the door one last time and when that did nothing she resorted to pounding on the thing with her fists.
"Hello!" she hollered. Her voice echoed off the walls in a very tinny way. "Hello? Ben? Ben, I'm stuck!"
Silence. Then -
"Can anyone hear me? Violet?"
She stomped on the floor. Maybe she was above Violet's room and her daughter would hear and come to her rescue. But even as she paused there was no movement beneath the floorboards.
Then she heard something behind her. The hair on the back of her neck stood up and she reached around to rub the feeling away. When she turned, there was nothing there. She was still alone as far as she could see. But that unmistakable feeling of being watched remained.
That was it. If no one was going to help her, she was going to get back to her room on her own.
She opened the window and stepped out onto the ledge.
Dammit! Why did she have to sleepwalk now? This entire situation was the last thing she needed.
Off to the right was a ladder of latticework. Hopefully it was strong enough to hold her weight until she made it to the ground. If not..
She looked down and immediately suffered from vertigo. Why did she have to be so high up?
One step down.
So far so good. Easy does it...
Two steps down. She got low enough that she was resting her entire weight on the lattice. A cold breeze tugged at her nightgown and she rested her forehead against the wood and tried to swallow the nauseous feeling in her stomach. It gradually subsided.
After what felt like a lifetime she finally rested her bare feet on the dew-soaked grass and shivered.
"I'm never doing that again," she muttered to herself.
She glanced up at the window from where she came and stumbled back at what she saw.
A figure! A dark, leather-covered figure was leaning out the window staring at her! Just staring!
She turned to hurry into the house when two arms wrapped around her. She screamed.
"Viv! Viv - it's me!"
Ben stood before her and she nearly collapsed into his arms.
"What are you doing out here?" he asked.
"A man!" she pointed up at the window. "There was a man up there in that window watching me!"
Ben looked up.
"Viv, what are you talking about?" he said. "The window's shut and locked."
"What?"
He was right. The window was shut and there was no figure.
"You were sleepwalking again," Ben said. "Come on. Let's go back to bed."
He led her by the hand like a child. She hated that. Back up the stone steps, through the house, and back into their master bedroom. She didn't think that there was any possibility of sleep after what she just experienced.
Back in bed Ben put an arm around her and she pushed it away. He sighed and rolled over to the opposite side of the bed.
"Tomorrow I'll put a new lock on the bedroom doors," he said. "It will be safer that way."
"Sure, Ben," she said.
His breathing quickly slowed to that rhythmic sleep cycle and she was left awake, staring at the ceiling.
"Sure it will," she said to herself.
She spent the rest of the night imagining the man in the rubber suit reaching through the ceiling at her.