No. The clock display was still-
Then the clock blacked out, just for a second, as if a dark shape had passed in front of it.
Lyle's heart was pounding madly now. He sensed whoever it was coming closer, moving toward him around the side of the bed.
"I've got a knife, damn it!" His hoarse, dry voice cracked in the middle. "Stay back!"
But whoever it was moved relentlessly forward until he hovered over Lyle, leaning closer...
"Fuck you!" Lyle screamed and rammed the knife straight ahead.
Whatever the blade sliced into, it wasn't clothing or flesh; more like powdery snow, and cold-Lyle had never felt such cold. He drew back his hand and tried to drop the knife but his numb fingers wouldn't respond.
And then the lamp came on. Lyle jumped, gasped, and thrust out the knife again-to attack, defend, he didn't know, the blade seemed to move of its own will-but he saw no one.
Gone! But that couldn't be. And the cold-gone too, leaving cloying, humid air in its wake. He looked at the knife and cried out when he saw the thick red fluid oozing down the blade. He hurled it to the floor... and saw what else lay there.
"Charlie!"
Oh God oh Christ it was Charlie on his back, legs and arms splayed, his chest a bloody ruin, and his glazed eyes staring at Lyle in shocked surprise.
Lyle felt as if his bones had dissolved. He slid off the bed and crumpled to his knees beside his dead brother.
"Charlie, Charlie," he mumbled through a sob as he bent over him. "Why'd you do it? Why'd you do something so stupid! You knew-"
"Lyle?"
Charlie's voice. Lyle snapped upright.
"Lyle, what do you want?"
Behind him. He turned and there, across the room, in the doorway on the far side of the bed, stood Charlie. Lyle opened his mouth but couldn't speak. It couldn't be. It...
He turned back to the floor and found it empty except for the knife. No Charlie, no blood on the rug or the blade.
Am I losing it?
"What's going on, man?" Charlie said, yawning. "Why you callin' me this hour?"
Lyle looked at him again. "Charlie, I..." His voice choked off.
"Hey, you all right?" Charlie said, his expression concerned instead of annoyed as he stepped forward. "You look bust, bro."
Finally he could speak. "I just had the worst nightmare of my life. It seemed so real and yet... it couldn't have been."
"What happened? I mean, what it about?"
"Someone here, in the room, coming for me..." He decided not to tell Charlie how the dream had ended.
Charlie nodded. "Well, no mystery where that come from, yo."
Right. No stretch to interpret this dream, but Lyle couldn't shake its remnants... the cold... and the presence.
"But I was so sure someone was here." He pointed at the knife on the floor. "I even tried to cut him."
Charlie's eyes widened as they fixed on the blade. "Sweet Lord, I can see I better start locking my door at night case you start sleepwalking."
He grinned to show he was only kidding. Lyle tried to return the smile, and hoped it didn't look as sick as he felt. If Charlie only knew...
Lyle picked up the knife and turned it over and back, shuddering at the memory of the blood he'd seen coating it. He examined his worn reflection in the surface of the blade, as pristine as when he'd taken it from the cutlery drawer earlier tonight.
Okay, so he hadn't stabbed Charlie. Thank God for that. But against all reason he couldn't shake the feeling that someone else had been here in this room tonight.
Maybe he should go out and find himself a gun.