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  He had advised her to do two things in the meantime. One, she was to try and get her mind off the past and start dwelling on the present and the future. “Go out and mingle with friends, have some fun for a change, maybe take in a good movie,” he’d told her. There was a psychological stigma to these nightmares, the doctor explained, and if she continued dwelling on them and fearing them, she would most likely go on having them.

  Two, she was to start getting more sleep. If she went to sleep and suddenly awoke, having experienced a nightmare, she was to try and go back to sleep immediately in spite of how frightened she might be. For this purpose, the doctor had prescribed some moderately potent sleeping pills for her to take.

  Emily slowed down her speed. The road was getting worse the further north she drove and it was becoming increasingly harder to see through the frenzy of snow.

  As instructed, Emily had tried a number of things to get her mind off her plight. She’d picked up a few new pieces of furniture to restore and had spent an entire week diligently working on them. She had spent another week rearranging several of the displays in the shop. She’d even done some baby-sitting for the Ferrell’s two-year-old a few evenings, hoping that this new experience in a different environment might somehow turn things around. But nothing changed and the nightmares persisted. The sleeping pills had been equally disappointing. She’d taken one every time she awoke from a nightmare, just as the doctor had ordered, but all it had done was make her a little drowsy. She had doubled and even tripled the dose on a few occasions, but the end result had been the same: No sleep.

  But perhaps the most unsettling development to arise in the last month pertained to the actual nature of the nightmares themselves. They had evolved into full-blown scenarios that had taken on a chilling semblance to reality; to such a degree that she was having difficulty discerning fact from fiction. She was actually starting to hear and see things that weren’t there while she was wide-awake. Many were the times she had caught herself talking out loud to an empty room, or chasing imaginary people all around the house. Emily never told the doctor about this scary behavior because she already had a good hunch what he would have told her—that she was becoming schizophrenic.

  One day, Emily had decided to stay overnight at the shop, thinking that perhaps sleeping somewhere other than in her house might help. She had ended up having her most terrifying nightmare ever that night. She had driven back up to the house afterwards, frightened and depressed to the point that she had once again seriously considered suicide as being her only solution.

  Then Lenny Williams had entered the picture. Had it not been for her chance meeting with him as a result of the accident, Emily knew that she might well not be alive today . . .

  She’d had her final session with Doctor Langstrom on that fateful day. Discouraged by the fact that after two weeks of therapy, three sessions a week, she was as bad if not worse than she’d been before she started seeing him, Emily had nearly reached the end of her rope. Furthermore, she’d grown weary of commuting to New York City, feeling half-dead from lack of sleep, only to be given some predictable advice and a bunch of pills that simply weren’t working.

  So she had asked Doctor Langstrom, point-blank, if he really thought he would be able to cure her. He hedged at first, reminding her that these things take time and that it was too early to make any kind of prognosis. But then she pushed the issue, insisting that he tell her the truth—his gut feeling if nothing else—as to whether or not he thought the nightmares would ever go away.

  He had then reluctantly proceeded to give Emily his assessment of her case; concluding in so many words that it was quite unlikely that the nightmares would ever cease, but that it was still possible. In other words, he confided, it was virtually impossible to predict phenomena such as dreams.

  Emily had listened to Doctor Langstrom’s assessment with an open mind and admitted to herself that it sounded realistic. In a nutshell, he was telling her that she was most likely cursed for the rest of her life. She had started crying, and Doctor Langstrom tried to comfort her, urging her to continue therapy, citing that it may well be her only hope. He’d even told her that he would refer her to another psychiatrist if she was dissatisfied with him. But Emily had heard all she wanted to hear and stormed out of Doctor Langstrom’s office, never to return.

  She was still in tears when she had arrived at the parking garage, wanting nothing but to get out of the city as quickly as possible and go home.

  But the bus had refused to start.

  She’d kept trying to get it started for nearly half an hour until the battery had finally ran down so low that it wouldn’t turn the engine over. Finding herself becoming more upset by the minute, she’d gone to a phone booth and called AAA for a tow truck to come and jump-start the bus. An hour later, it had finally arrived. After trying unsuccessfully to start it for nearly twenty minutes, the tow truck driver informed her that it was going to have to go to the shop. Emily had reluctantly allowed the driver to tow the bus to a garage located in Tribeca.

  She had waited over an hour at the garage before the mechanic had finally gotten around to looking at the bus, only to be told that he was going to have to order a part, and that it would take at least another hour to install the part it once he’d obtained it. Unable to believe what she was hearing, Emily had decided to take a cab up to midtown and shop in the meantime, in lieu of hanging around the garage and getting angrier than she already was.

  She’d moped around Bloomingdale’s for over an hour and a half then called the garage. They had picked up the part and were installing it at that moment, and it would be ready in half an hour, she’d been told.

  By this time Emily was thoroughly exhausted and on edge. She’d hailed a cab to take her to the garage, and as if things weren’t going badly enough, she soon discovered that it was her cabbie’s first day on the job after he’d managed to get them lost somewhere in the vicinity of the lower east side. After getting directions to Tribeca from a pedestrian, the cabbie had finally got back on course as Emily squirmed around in the back seat pulling out her hair when she realized in horror that the garage would be closed in another ten minutes.

  She’d ordered the cabbie to hurry it up a bit, promising him a generous tip if he got her to the garage before it closed. Then, before Emily knew what was happening, the cabbie had run the light at 6th Street and Broadway, striking Lenny Williams . . .

  Emily reached the outskirts of Yonkers and wiped the windshield with the side of her hand. Visibility had steadily diminished and it was now impossible to see beyond fifty feet in the blowing, driving snowstorm. She glanced at the speedometer—she was doing forty miles per hour—and calculated that at this speed it would take her at least and extra hour to get home. She hoped Lenny wouldn’t worry about her.

  She knew that Lenny was burning to know why she’d acted as she had while he was in the hospital. She’d been tempted to try and explain to him how difficult it was for her to share herself with him before they’d gone into the restaurant. But wisely, she had decided not to go through with it. It had been hard enough just telling him that she hadn’t been out with a man in over ten years; and that was only the tip of the iceberg. How could she ever expect him to understand the rest?

  Emily swallowed hard and tears came to her eyes as the cold, hard reality of it all flashed into her mind. She loved Lenny Williams but she could never allow him to get involved with her. It simply wouldn’t be fair to drag him into her miserable situation. Who was she trying to kid, anyway? And why had she let this go as far as it already had?

  Because there was something special about Lenny, she told herself. All her doubts and fears seemed to evaporate when she was with him. Reality no longer seemed relevant. He had a way of making her forget the ugliness of her life for a while. And when he’d kissed her . . . She’d never dreamed that something could make her feel so good! And so . . .

  Emily grinned, unable to believe herself capable of the urges and desir
e she’d felt when Lenny had kissed her. It certainly hadn’t been that way with Ted Chalmers. She’d been repulsed, terrified of him. But with Lenny it had been so natural, so beautiful, so damn encouraging. That was the word—encouraging. For the first time in her life she’d been with a man who made her want more.

  Love, she thought. That’s what this is all about. Love is what makes all reasoning and rationale seem suddenly irrelevant. Love is what makes life seem worth living again.

  Was she going to deny herself this wonderful feeling?

  She suddenly laughed out loud. There was one tiny detail she was forgetting in all her excitement. What about Lenny? He does have a vital role in this, after all.

  Did Lenny love her?

  Somehow, she already knew the answer to this. It seemed presumptuous, but she couldn’t help but believe that he did love her. Something to do with the accident when she’d held his hand and felt that they had somehow been joined together spiritually? Perhaps.

  And that was another thing that made Lenny Williams so special. That immediate attraction she’d felt toward him from the very beginning.

  All of a sudden, Emily felt the bus slide out of control as she rounded a curve on the highway. Instinctively, she grasped the steering wheel with both hands and turned it in the direction the bus was sliding, narrowly avoiding plummeting into an embankment. Once she had it under control again, she breathed a sigh of relief and slowed down her speed even more.

  The near-disaster sobered up her thoughts and Emily again contemplated what she might be getting Lenny into by allowing him to enter her life. Paramount on her mind were the nightmares. What kind of relationship could they possibly have anyway? she thought. Lenny wasn’t going to want to be involved with someone who spent the majority of her nights being haunted by ghouls in her sleep; and she couldn’t expect him to, either. Case closed. There simply couldn’t be a relationship in the first place.

  Emily tried blotting out all her thoughts by concentrating on her driving. She checked the time—she’d been on the road for nearly an hour already and she wasn’t even a third of the way to Ashland Falls yet. The snow continued pouring down, showing no sign of letting up, and the wind had begun to form drifts along the side of the highway. She turned the radio on and fumbled with the tuner, trying to pick up a weather report somewhere on the dial. She didn’t have any luck, so she tuned in a station that was playing an old Beatles song and turned up the volume.

  It suddenly dawned on her that she was very tired. The emotions of the day had exhausted her and the stress of driving through the blinding snowstorm was making her even more fatigued. Her eyelids felt like lead weights as she struggled to keep her eyes open and on the road.

  The hypnotic effect of the driving snow wasn’t helping much, either—

  CHAPTER 17

  Lenny glanced at the clock again: 9:47. She should definitely have called by now, he thought. Although he realized that the snowstorm would slow her down considerably, he doubted if it would take Emily more than three hours to make a two-hour drive unless it was snowing a lot harder upstate than it was in the city now.

  He stood up and turned on the television, hoping to find a weather bulletin or update of some kind. Having flipped through all the channels several times, he turned it off and heaved a long sigh. He went over to the telephone and dialed Emily’s number for the third time that evening. He let it ring a dozen times then hung up.

  Normally, Lenny wasn’t inclined to worry about things of this nature. But from the moment Emily had pulled away from his apartment, he’d had the uneasy feeling in the back of his mind that something bad was going to happen. He hadn’t been able to shake it off all evening.

  He had finished up the work for Heather Thompson and mailed it, all the while thinking about Emily Hoffman, his Dream Lady, and all the weird, incredible things that had transpired earlier that day.

  It all seemed too good to be true, really.

  And maybe that was partly why he was so worried now. He wasn’t just worried about Emily driving in the storm; he was worried about Emily Hoffman in general. His mind had started wandering in the last couple of hours, and Lenny recalled that Emily had a problem—a major problem of some kind—and he now had the ominous feeling that whatever that problem was had something to do with why she hadn’t made it home yet. Maybe he was just being paranoid. And maybe he wasn’t.

  Whatever the case, he decided to wait until ten o’clock and if Emily still hadn’t arrived at her home, he was going to drive up to Ashland Falls and find out what was happening.

  Lenny went over and looked over the road map sprawled out on the coffee table. He located Ashland Falls and traced the route he’d be taking with his finger. He had no idea where Emily lived, but figured that in a town that small there would surely be someone around who could direct him to her house. This was assuming, of course, that he didn’t find her pulled over along the road somewhere between the city and Ashland Falls . . .

  At ten o’clock sharp, Lenny tried her number again. No answer. Feeling a nervous pang in the pit of his stomach, he gathered up his coat, gloves, and the road map then left the apartment.

  The snow had tapered off to flurries when Lenny stepped outside and hustled down the steps to the street. He walked briskly over to the Celica and started it up then let the engine run as he began clearing off the snow from the windows. A few minutes later he stepped in and pulled away from the curb.

  He’d driven as far as the Tappan Zee Bridge when it dawned on him that he should have left some kind of message for Emily on the outgoing message tape of his answering machine just in case she called in the meantime. Cursing himself for this oversight, he drove on, convinced that it would be even more stupid to turn around and go back now.

  By the time he’d reached the New York Thruway, the snow was coming down hard again. Within another ten miles Lenny found himself driving through a full-blown blizzard. He slowed down his speed somewhat, knowing full well that the traction of his Celica in the snow wasn’t worth a shit. And visibility was just about zero.

  After driving for nearly an hour, it occurred to Lenny that it actually could have taken Emily up to four hours to get home in this snowstorm. It had taken him an hour just to travel forty miles, and he’d been pushing it to the limit just to make it that far. The road crews hadn’t yet plowed the highway and traffic was so light that it was like driving through four or five inches of virgin snow. Several times the Celica fishtailed precariously along the way, cautioning him to keep his speed down.

  He began thinking that perhaps he’d overreacted to all of this. Emily might well be home now, wondering why the hell he wasn’t at his apartment answering her calls. This started eating at him, so he decided to pull off at the next available exit to give her a call.

  In another ten minutes, Lenny spotted a huge yellow Shell sign and pulled onto the exit ramp. He checked his fuel gauge and decided to get some gas as well. When he reached the station, he pulled up beside the pumps, got out and headed for the office.

  “Five dollars,” he told the attendant, handing him a five dollar bill. “Where’s your phone?”

  “Back there,” the bored attendant replied, pointing toward the rear.

  “Thanks,” Lenny said then walked back to the pay phone. He dug out a quarter and dialed Emily’s number, hoping it would be a local call. It wasn’t.

  “Fuck it,” he groaned as he re-deposited the quarter and dialed the operator. He told the operator that he wanted to make a collect call then gave her Emily’s phone number. She put him through and after letting it ring nine or ten times, informed him that there was no answer. He thanked her and hung up.

  After gassing up the car, Lenny pulled back onto the Thruway, feeling his stomach muscles tighten. Emily definitely should have been home by now, he thought, glancing at the clock on the instrument panel. It was 11:33.

  Something had happened. He just knew it.

  The snow fell relentlessly as he drove for the next
hour and a half. When he approached Kingston, he reached for the map and turned on the interior light, recalling that he had to pick up another route somewhere around here. He found the spot on the map and took the exit for Kingston then quickly came upon the junction of Route 17 and pulled onto it.

  The two-lane road was virtually free of traffic, and there was little wonder why. Nobody in his right mind would be out driving in this snowstorm on this desolate thoroughfare, he thought to himself. The Celica spun like crazy on the barely traveled road and it took every ounce of concentration Lenny could muster to keep moving in a straight line and avoid tail-spinning over the side into a snowdrift.

  After a while he noticed that the terrain was getting hilly and reckoned that he must be getting near the Catskills. This was confirmed when he passed a sign that read: ENTERING THE CATSKILL MOUNTAIN REGION. Almost immediately the road started zigzagging through the foothills and the grade inclined sharply. Twice Lenny almost totally lost control; and at one point he got stuck on a hill and just barely made it up and over the top before coming to a dead standstill.

  Then finally, from out of nowhere and in the middle of nowhere, he spotted a sign that read: WELCOME TO ASHLAND FALLS. Breathing a huge sigh of relief, Lenny slowed down and started looking for some signs of life.

  The town of Ashland Falls was minuscule, even smaller than he’d anticipated. He reached what he assumed to be the downtown area, which was little more than one main street—Hudson Street—which was lined by around twenty or thirty small businesses. He drove the length of Hudson Street, glancing curiously over at the little shops then suddenly realized that he’d reached the city limits of Ashland Falls proper as Route 17 resumed into the vast darkness of the mountains.