Chapter Fourteen
Eternal Darkness
When Abby and Dawn returned to the latter's house and turned off the car headlights, black night wrapped its shroud about everything. They were accompanied by the ever present crickets and katydids, who sang their songs to one another. They needed flashlights to cross from the car to the door. "I should have left a night light on," Dawn admitted.
"Don't worry, I'm perfectly at home in the dark," she quipped but sensed it didn't accomplish its goal.
Dawn glared at Abby, unseen in the dark. "You're starting to make me nervous, 'Vampirstein'." When the door opened they were met by the enthusiastic sounds of Grieg's 'Peer Gynt Suite'.
"What, you won't leave a light on, but you'll leave the radio playing?" Abby teased.
"A sense of priority," Dawn retorted. "You have to admit 'the Hall of the Mountain King' is more impressive than 'the bungalow three blocks off the main road'."
"When do you not play your Classical?" Abby asked as Dawn turned on the kitchen light.
"Never."
"What do your students think of that?"
"They sit with their mouths hanging wide open when they find out the Warner Brothers music wasn't composed in the 40's. I let them watch 'Bugs Bunny' or some such cartoon, have them pay attention to the music, and then I play them the real thing."
"Good call."
"My kids learn Mozart and Dvorak long before they learn Pink Floyd."
"There's something to be said about 'Def Leppard'."
"I know, but I'm a lady."
Abby laughed, vastly thankful that her friend seemed to be coming out of her doldrums, undoubtedly because she saw that something concrete was finally going to be done.
xx
There were five rooms in the house other than the bathroom in the left rear corner, most of the space taken up by the 'combined' living room and kitchen, separated by a half partition extending half way from the front door toward the table that edged the two smaller bedrooms. There were three bedrooms, two side by side off the large living room and kitchen, a third larger one beyond the kitchen, next to the rear porch door.
The left guest bedroom opened toward the back porch, accessed by the door between the master bedroom and the bathroom. Dawn's bedroom was off the living room on the right, backed by the television. One had to exit the guest room toward the porch next to the bathroom, round about to the left through the kitchen, pass the table where they'd sat having their aborted breakfast and go through the living room to enter Dawn's bedroom. The adjoining wall was at the head of the guest bed.
Abby had already stowed the suitcase she always kept ready in the trunk of her car in the left guest room next to Dawn's. She kept the suitcase in case she had the urge to go Clubbing, or in case she got lucky after a night of clubbing.
"Sorry I don't have a coffin," Dawn told her with a grin as they stepped into the left bedroom, "but there's a sleeping bag in the closet that you could use as a body bag."
"Ha ha," she said. "Get some sleep."
Dawn's grin faltered. "I'll try," she promised, not very convincingly. "Good night." She started to pull the door closed, but then came back in, drew Abby into a brief hug, having to be a bit cautious of the sharp spiked choker the dark woman wore. Without another word she closed the door and went around to her room next door.
x
Abby hoisted her black suitcase onto the bed and started to unpack it, shaking out and hanging up the clothes she intended to wear in the morning.
Finishing, she pushed the nearly full bag under the bed and started to undress. The first thing she had to remove was the spike studded leather choker she'd worn about her neck, followed by the long black dress. A few minutes later, clad in fiery red panties and a black t-shirt with a picture of Barnabas Collins – the original one – under blood red lettering that invited the unwary to 'Come see how the vampires do it.', she lay down on the bed, switched off the lamp beside her and shrouded the room in darkness as complete as her own coffin room.
She was asleep in minutes.
xx
"GET OFF ME!" The shrill scream tore through the thin wooden wall above Abby's head, brought her bolt upright on the bed. "YOU'RE HURTING ME!" Abby threw the thin sheet off her body, slapping at the lamp, the room bursting into eye-searing light. "OWWW!" Abby snatched her leather choker off the night table as she leapt from the bed, wrapped the sharp spiked leather about her right fist as she ran for the door. "STOP IT!" The shriek burst from the room next door as Abby tore her door open, charged around the corner and past the kitchen table, the indirect light of the lamp in her room turning the blackness into dim shadows, allowing her to run to the next room, clutching the leather tightly in her hand. The sharp silver spikes radiating from it were better than brass knuckles, and they would go through the softest part of that bastard. "LEAVE ME ALONE!" She twisted the knob, slammed her shoulder into the door, burst into the room, spiked fist already drawn back.
Dawn lay upon her bed, flailing wildly at the sheet covering her, twisted in its folds.
She was alone.
From the clock radio beside her, playing softly and barely heard, Corelli's 'Concerti Grossi Op 6, #8 in G minor' formed a horrible counterpoint to her terror. Abby switched on the light.
"YOU"RE HURTING ME! LEMME GO!" Dawn cried wildly, panic turning her voice shrill.
"Dawn!" Abby reached out, shook the girl's shoulder hard. She was ready when Dawn woke and swung, she blocked the punch with her left hand. "Wake up!"
x
Dawn came awake with a start and sat up, chest heaving with her desperate gasps and heart pounding as she looked about, astonished to find Abby bending over her. "Abby?" she gasped, but as the dream followed her into wakefulness, she started to tremble. She sat on the edge of the bed, panting, her nightclothes clinging to her wet body, heart beating so hard Abby could actually hear it in the girl's heaving chest. "Damn, won't they ever stop?"
Abby sat down on the bed beside her friend, drew her into a hug. Dawn shook violently, her breath reduced to shuddering gasps.
"Want to talk about it?" She knew talking helped separate the dream from reality, to push it back into fantasy where it belonged.
"It's worse than the others," Dawn told her, her breath short and quaking, blue eyes haunted. Her face was still filled with fear, and her tee shirt clung with chilling intimacy to her flesh.
"How so?"
"I never saw his face," Dawn reminded her. "In the dreams I don't see him either."
"This time?" she urged gently when Dawn wouldn't finish.
Dawn looked at her, then brought her legs up, stretching the shirt like a miniature tent, huddling inside it, her arms wrapped about her raised knees. Abby kept her right arm about her friend's shoulders, not sure what else she could do.
"There were two men this time," she admitted, her voice quivering. "I'm not sure I should tell you."
"Why not?"
"You won't say anything to them, will you?"
"Who?" Now she was confused.
"Mr. DiNozzo was holding me down, holding my arms over my head while Mr. McGee…." she couldn't continue, turned away, face bright red.
"Crap," Abby whispered, stunned.
"Don't tell them, please."
"Never."
x
Dawn pulled out of Abby's light embrace and lay down on her side on the bed, sighing morosely, but instantly withdrew from the damp pillow and sheet. She turned the pillow over, but there was nothing she could do for the mattress, and less for the clinging and increasingly chilly nightshirt. "I've gotta get some sleep, but every time I close my eyes…." She turned to Abby, hope bright in her eyes. "Have you got anything in your bag of tricks that'll make me sleep?"
Abby bit back a quip about 'Felix the Cat'. "That's not a good idea. The thing about nightmares is that they let you wake up. Even if I had something, you do not want to be locked in a drugged stupor for the rest of the night."
"God," she sighed miserably. She got off the bed, letting the damp covering fall to the floor, and started tugging at the sheet. There was no way she could rest until everything was changed. On the quiet radio, the soft tones of Schubert's 'Symphony #8 in B minor – Unfinished' offered no comfort at all. "Why can't this just be over?"
Abby thought for a few moments, then nudged her. "Come with me."
She turned back. "Huh?"
Abby turned off the radio and walked to the door before turning and looking back at Dawn. "We're moving to the Master Bedroom." She left.
Dawn, unable to believe this sudden turn of events, followed, but every step was an effort. When she entered the living room, Abby was standing near the closed door beyond the kitchen, illuminated only by the light from the guest room. "Are you nuts? I can't sleep in there."
"Why not?"
"It's my parents' room!"
"They kept you safe."
"I know – but–"
"Come on. I'll keep you safe." She turned, opened the door, stepped in and turned on the lamp. Dawn was left with no choice but to follow.
She took a step, but then turned back. She reentered her own room and tugged off her damp tee shirt and panties, exchanging them for a dry set. Then she followed her too surprising friend.
x
The King size bed was pressed into the corner furthest from the door. The room was lit by a lamp on the cabinet / headboard. Abby had already switched the lamp in the guest room off, and switched on a small white oscillating fan set on the corner of the dresser by the door to provide gentle circulation. She turned back as Dawn hesitantly entered. "Come on, do you want the wall or the outside?"
Dawn stared at her, unable to believe her friend. "The outside," she answered quietly, automatically, incredulously, feeling the need to be able to flee. Abby got onto the bed, moved toward the wall and looked back expectantly.
She could see longing in Dawn's eyes, longing for security and comfort and protection that she would never admit, could never speak of, couldn't bring herself to ask for. She knew that, sleeping beside her, held in comforting embrace, Dawn would feel safe. But her long blonde hair hanging in darkened strands, she couldn't bring herself to ask, so Abby made sure she didn't have to.
x
Slowly, unable to look Abby in the eye and unable to say how grateful she was, Dawn approached the bed. Vastly uncomfortable - this is her parents' bed - she finally got herself onto the mattress, back to her friend. There was little space between them, but Abby reached out and drew her back into a hug. There was nothing sexual about the reassuring embrace, and a few moments later Dawn was able to force herself to relax.
"Don't worry, Sunshine," Abby whispered in her ear, then reached down and drew the thin sheet up over both their bodies, "you just get some sleep. Abby will protect you."
x
Twenty minutes later Dawn's body and breath relaxed enough for Abby to reach up to the headboard and turn off the lamp, plunging the room again into the blackness of the tomb.