Author's Note: Hah hah! Well, that took all of three days.  I'm afraid to say the next chapter won't come with the same rapidity—I can't estimate when I'll get another chance to write. 

Disclaimer: The characters herein with the exception of Clark McCallister are the property of Thomas Harris. They are being used without permission for entertainment purposes and not for the sake of profit. No copyright infringement is intended.


Chapter Seven


Once upon a time, darkness would have intimidated her. Slinking in shadows, relying only on altered perceptions to maneuver across otherwise unknown terrain. The past few years, however, had allowed her relationship with darkness to blossom. They knew each other well now. Were good friends. Old colleagues. Far was she from the rookie who timidly explored the underground of a killer's lair. No, she was prepared. Educated. Already the situation had improved from her last trudge through the shadows, and immediately her mind mapped out the floor plan of the cabin. Every inch she had explored had to be considered. Every piece of furniture positioned across the antique carpet in the foyer. Every creak in the floorboards. Every…

Fine. She wasn't as prepared as she would have liked, but she had control. Sort of.

She had no phone and her gun rested a half-mile downhill in a truck situated under an accumulating mound of snow. Furthermore, the phone lines were out and she had no idea what to expect on the other side.

Nothing but darkness.

Starling had to draw in a sharp breath and remind herself that she was still standing in the lit kitchen. A tiny voice screamed not to overreact, but her extra-sensory discernment was ringing off the charts. The same she had initially ignored upon treading through knee-high snow to get in this position. The same that was always right, no matter how desperately she tried to shut it out.

There wasn't much in sight that would be of any use should the situation turn hostile. A properly folded washcloth rested beside the sink and a pair of decorative oven mitts were thoughtfully placed next to the oven. As quietly as possible, she tiptoed to the far cabinets and began rummaging. The first drawer lucky, it clanked metallically when she pulled it open, but there wasn't the time to flinch. A few ineffectual objects were at her disposal: a spatula, an egg beater, and…

Starling grasped the handle of a butcher knife and held it to eye level, quirking a brow skeptically. A true, honest-to-god-you-would-only-find-one-of-these-in-movies butcher knife. There wasn't time to debate the likelihood; she whispered a thanks to her fickle though infallible fortune and whirled to face the kitchen entry. She had half-expect it to open while her attention was otherwise occupied, but the door remained untouched. Standing there between herself and the other occupant of the house. Between herself and the useless automobile that was lost in a bank of snow. Between herself and her gun.

The silence was beginning to ebb her. It always had—even more so than darkness. There was a time and place for silence. In the cool of the night, silence was more than welcome. A pleasant alternative to her customary routine—anything to keep the lambs from screaming. It worked side-by-side with her to wan away bad dreams, covering her in its protective sheath so she might acquire the much-needed rest.

Or it had, once upon a time. Starling couldn't remember the last time she enjoyed a goodnight's sleep.

Silence when she was on the prowl was indisputably not appreciated. Her trained ears strained to hear anything; a crack in the floorboards, a sigh, a thoughtful muse or a string of inward monologue that somehow escaped through the mouth. Nothing. There was no evidence other than the darkness and the silence to even suggest that she wasn't still alone in the cabin.

An uncomfortable churning in the pit of her stomach articulated its opposition and moved for strike. The tiny voice she had long ago shunned as coward told her it wasn't too late; she could break a window and make it to the car before whoever stood between her and the front door could complete the search.

If indeed they were searching. Although she had been quiet, it was not difficult to differentiate the sound of authentic silence to that of muffled noise. No, there was no way out.

Of course, there was also that miniscule chance that she was blowing this entirely out of proportion. Starling was rarely wrong in such instances but not entirely opposed to the idea that it was beyond probability. Other than the awkward behavior that ensued after the television had snapped off, there was nothing to suggest the owner—or whoever—had the slightest bit of malicious intent.

Nothing but the growing knot in her stomach and the voice that screamed very loudly in the back of her head: THISISBAD!

Creep around or walk through the fire. There was a point of no return somewhere, and she had likely stumbled over it the minute she crossed the threshold. Drawing in a breath, Starling shook her head clear and started for the door. Her hands were slick and sweaty around the knife handle and she felt she could drop it anytime. Or that it would simply liquefy and drip into a batch of nothingness on the floor. One of the two. Give or take.

She felt so naked without her gun.

Opening the door wasn't as difficult as she had construed it to be. Years working with the Bureau had eased in the inward prep talk to a considerable minimal three-word twine of encouragement. Brief and effective; what everyone needed to get the job done. It got many through the complicated tasks simply for the knowledge that there was no alternative. Her interpretation was slightly less conventional.

All right. It's a door. Open it now!

The frame creaked loudly in announcement of her overcoming qualm and darkness consequentially engulfed her. Not unadventurous, comfortable darkness: the full shebang. Pitch black. Even the light emitting from the kitchen behind her seemed to shy at the challenge and only illuminated the pathway a few feet. A number of stakeouts had trained her eyes to adjust with animalesque reflexes, but the trait betrayed her now. There was simply nothing to see. It was as if someone had cleanly blown the room and all of existence away.

But that wasn't what frightened her. The scene was familiar. A scene of nothingness was familiar. Achingly so. Starling drew in a deep, audible breath and bit her lip.

Where did she know this?

Realization was a funny thing. It strikes at the most opportune times perhaps once in a blue moon; more often than not plaguing you with that nagging I know I know this from somewhere before the topic eventually wears out and you fold in frustration. Starling had spent a good part of her career altering her perception to the brink of making an instant-association with any semblance of former awareness. It bothered her when connecting the dots failed to come naturally. However, the lapse only lasted a minute—then everything was painstakingly clear.

This was her dream. The blackness. The lost feeling of desperation. Add a horse and a mad doctor and she was three seconds from coloring herself psychic.

Something tells me I shouldn't have thought about that.

Exerting another deep breath, Starling grasped hold of her fear and took a courageous step forward. When she didn't fall off the face of the earth, she braced herself for another. And another. Three steps inward and she recalled there was a couch somewhere in the middle of the room, along with a coffee table. The piano was in the corner, and the stairs to its left.

This, of course, was all committed to memory and risked the high prospect of registering as null and void. For all she knew, the piano might have been in the kitchen on top of the microwave. The picture presented by her memory blurred into a massive puzzle with pieces strewn all the way across the board.

She bumped into something. Long, hard, smooth (thankfully inanimate) and near what appeared to be—yes! That was the staircase. Starling felt her way to the piano bench as she attempted to calm her breathing, seated herself awkwardly and stilled.

Silence again.

For the first time since leaving the kitchen, a shot of panic shimmied up her spine. Any standard owner—hunter or not—would have confronted the intruder by now. The only sounds she had heard were self-produced, and even then they had fallen to silence with shocking rapidity. It was as if she were stuck in a bad dream.

Perhaps that was all this was. Maybe she was still on the plane, having fallen asleep against her better judgment. Maybe Clark McCallister was sitting just a few seats away, watching her, conspiring as she slept. As of the late, that made the most sense. It was easier to estimate the kindness of the townspeople in Florence as a fantasy world conjured in her bizarre dreamland rather than actuality. With the nightmares she had been having for the past several weeks, it was easy to believe.

Of course, none of her dreams had gone to such a level of realistic detail. And this certainly didn't feel like a dream.

At last her eyes began to adjust. Starling waved her hand across her face and watched the shadow as it passed her line of vision. She couldn't see very far, but far enough to trust herself on her feet. With only that, her tension dropped several nicks and the knot in her stomach began to unravel. Drawing in a deep breath, she supported her weight on the piano and stood.

The single strike of a key sent her straight back to the bench. She hadn't touched a note—she was sure of it. And yet, what sounded like D below middle C rang through the air with frightening clarity. There was no one beside her. No one that could have initiated the sound. No hovering presence, and she hadn't—

Starling paused and frowned, her eye catching a familiar outline in the darkness. There was something so singularly terrifying—

((familiar! familiar is the word you are looking for))

—about this entire experience that she was prepared for any reality.

That was, until, she saw her own face where the music should have been. Several newspaper and magazine headings were in place of written notation. Starling's breath caught in her throat. She had seen each a dozen times—knew each publication date, and had each line dedicated to memory. Several of the images were from years ago: the Memphis incident, the shooting of Jame Gumb, that drug raid she had led two years before, and now the prison transfer. Clark McCallister sharing spotlight with her—his expression very self-satisfied.

And that was it. That was all she could take. Starling jumped to her feet and stumbled backward, catching herself on the bench and falling harshly on her spine. The crash waved through the house with a thundering roar, but she was too far-gone to care. A tinny clank reverberated from her left side as the knife soared out of reach. This was it. This was the part where the Big Bad finally revealed himself, came charging out of the darkness and leapt for her. This was where everything came together right before she pulled out her magic sword and saved the day.

Only nothing happened. The scene remained very much unchanged. Frantically, Starling searched for her only weapon but was blinded with darkness and too impatient to wait more than a few seconds. With haste, she bounded to her feet, looked ineffectually in either direction, and broke for a cold run at the front door. In that minute, it didn't matter that she was barefoot, that she would fall promptly on a patch of ice, and that the only safe-haven was a suspended vehicle a half-mile down a hill of snow. All that mattered was getting out of the cabin. Now.

It took only four words to render her immobile. Four words that shattered through the silence with more force than a thousand mirrors breaking. Four words that resurrected the resounding helplessness of all her recent nightmares, caked with the knowledge that she was not lodged beyond consciousness this time. Oh no, this was real. This was too crazy for even her muddled mind to conjure up.

Four words spoken in that soft, metallic voice she knew all too well.

"Leaving so soon, Clarice?"

That was all it took. Her legs buckled and her eyes snapped shut. She turned to face him with definitive slowness, opening her eyes only when she knew he would see them. Then she drew in a breath, surprised when it didn't catch in her throat.

"It's you."


* * *