4. Mrs. Krenski

'Please would you tell me,' said Alice, a little timidly, for she was not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to speak first, 'why your cat grins like that?'

'It's a Cheshire cat,' said the Duchess, 'and that's why.'

-Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

In the morning, we talked, and worked, and watered the new balcony garden, which was getting large enough I was considering hanging some of it around the corner on the fire escape. Gina spent a lot of the day scribbling what she called maps of her memories - layouts that her tower had contained, Ray and I assumed. We spent the day, all three of us, anticipating the night. Her blood toxicity also came out pretty well, and she wasn't showing any signs of physical withdrawal or other problems over the day.

Ray didn't disappoint, though he did report some trouble at the beginning - he got his focus in the same kind of phantasmal, many-overlapping-scenes environment Gina had found me in the first time. Minus the sex, I assume, though I didn't ask either. Gina had chatted with him a bit about her trips, though - about how focusing on memories had taken her towards the more-solid version of dreaming where the towers were. Trying the same trick worked for Ray, after which he went looking for an exit.

The road from his place to mine across the outlands was much shorter that night, and he just stepped into my apartment through the ground-level entrance and yelled "BEN!", and I came together.

"Hey, man. You gotta come outside and see this."

"See what?"

"Gina's tower. It's incredible. Actually, everything's a little different, but that's the biggest change."

"All right, I'm coming...."

Mrow?

"...Uh, one second. I'll be right out."

The cat from the night before was sitting on my kitchen table, looking at me. I walked over towards it, and it jumped, hit the floor, and sprung back up, directly onto my left shoulder... from which it promptly walked, behind my head, to sit down on my right shoulder.

Mrow.

Unsure what else to do, I reached up, scratched the cat, and went out into the outland night, to see Gina's tower.

Gina had changed things around - where the night before, her tower had been a strange jumble, that night it had been reshaped into a tall palace-fortress of sandstone. Fling butresses merged into hieroglyph-panelled walls, with flattened, stern-faced stautes standing above them to form the upper walls. As I walked out to look at it, I caught up to Ray, who was moving slower, trying to take in the details of it. Ray and I looked at each other, and he looked at the cat. I shrugged with my other shoulder, and we walked down my hill, over the valley, and up again to her several-story-tall doors. The bridge that had solidly connected our towers the night before was flickering; still present, but no longer solid.

I thumped the door, producing a hollow booming echo, and waited. Gina answered the door - several of her, in Egyptianate outfits, armed with copper-headed spears, which they leveled at us.

"You're dreaming, Gina. We're here to meet you. It's Ben; that's Ray."

They looked puzzled, momentarily; then, with a flicker, a singular Gina was in front of us.

"Hey, that was faster than it happens for me." I noted.

"Yeah, I think I was on the edge of lucidity anyway."

"Nice place, tonight." Was Ray, taking in the entry way beyond the doors - squared colomns up and down the sides of a reflecting pool, with a curtained door at the far end.

"Oh, it worked, then? Let's see the outside!" So we stepped out together, and took a look at the outside of her fortress - after which she led us back inside.

"I got the idea from a couple things. Like, concentrating on memories got me down here. But also, there's this technique that supposedly helps you remember thing called a Memory Palace. And after I saw the towers, I thought, maybe I could arrange mine just by deciding on the arrangement I wanted, right?"

"Looks like it worked." I half-mumbled, looking at the terrible sketches she'd pencilled out sprung to life and shape, restacking place she'd seen and recalled into new shapes.

"Yeah; this is pretty much what I had in mind. Just... one thing."

"Hmm?"

"What's with the cat, coz?"

"Dunno. It was in my apartment when I came lucid, waiting for me."

"Cree-py."

Again, I shrugged, one-shouldered.

"So, ramblers! This is truly cool, and Gina should talk us through how she did it when we wake up. But now that I've got you both, let's get rambling. I've got someone I want to try and visit." Ray piped up.

"If we do find them, and they remember the dream, couldn't they be a problem?" I asked.

"No, no chance. I've got that figured."

...

Mrs. Krenski was an elderly woman, somewhere in her nineties, that had arrived at the hospital a couple of weeks before - she was from Ray's old neighborhood, and was one of those ladies that ends up in every historial society, botanical society, and special event team. It had been a stroke. She wasn't expected to wake up, but she was expected to last a while. Ray had known her a little. There was already another ruined road stretching out from Ray's tower, winding out into the dark, which he believed led to her. He'd been thinking about who it would be smart to look for in the outlands much of the day, and Mrs. Krenski has seemed perfect.

We took the jeep, from Gina's place. Or, a jeep, at least, though this one looked a little newer and more military. As we skimmed along, we noticed that there hadn't been any changes to Ray's tower; we guessed that seeing how it looked the night before had fixed it in his mind at the time. A bit of circling, and we found the other road, and set along it.

As we drove, we saw in the distance what looked to be a swarm of bats - but far larger, and their bodies too thin. Ray joked that they were flying monkeys. We all laughed, but even the laugh had a bit of a nervous edge to it; the idea that those were human shapes with wings, obscured by distance, was a little too believable. The swarm never turned towards us, though - they had left or crossed our route before we ever caught sight of them. The bat-things had their own destination in mind.

It wasn't hard to tell that we'd arrived; Mrs. Krenski's tower was Ray's old neighborhood, dressed up in age and time, and lit with nostalgia. Mrs. Krenski, it seemed, tried to remember each place at its best, and succeeded.

High up on the side, though, there was some kind of scalloped encrustation, like a wasps' nest folded in on itself in repeating clamshell shapes, one inside the other. The whole thing was ugly to the point where it felt deliberate, as if it had been crafted to appeal to creatures with a very different geometric sensibility.

"What do you think that is?"

"Dunno. Bad feeling, though."

"Yeah."

We walked around the base, which Ray told us was Kingsport First Baptist church, and came to the doors. We were met, there. But it was a preacher who met us, not Mrs. Krenski. And as he came out the doors to meet us, other members of the congregation, all in sunday best, materialized transluscently around us and slipped past us to walk inside. Ray gave us a kind of 'hold back' hand gesture, to say he had this one.

"Been a long time since you came in these doors, young Mr. Sanderson."

"Yes, it has." Ray nodded.

"Still afraid of the bag-men coming to take you away?"

"No, sir, not for years now. We're here to deal with that." Ray turned a little, pointed up at the ugly nest-thing.

"Well, well. Turned Samaritan, have you now? Well, we may have a little help to offer you and your friends, then. Come in!"

As we walked in, I mumbled at Ray "What do you mean, deal with that?"

To which he responded "Worked, didn't it?" And then we were inside, following the preacher on a meandering course.

I couldn't resist needling him, though - "Afraid of the bag-men, were you?"

"I was afraid of all the kid stuff. Bag-men coming to kidnap me for being bad. Nyxies flying down at midnight. You name it, man. Although, damn. Nyxies."

Having just seen the winged black shapes outside, I caught what he meant. Nyxies were winged creatures that came down from sky to fly in through open windows and torture sleeping children. Part of the old mythology that kids had been handing down in Kingsport from time out of mind.

After that brief moment, though, it seemed ridiculous; our surroundings denied it. Hardwood floors and everything polished until you could see the inner glow of it, warm afternoons in sunshine. That was the inside of Mrs. Krenski's mind. Not all of it, of course - we could see hints of sorrowful sights, and hear youthful music from long ago echoing as we went, and it was plain that there was plenty of variety off the main corridors. But the well-worn halls, utterly solid and real-feeling, had that hazy golden glow.

Gina elbowed Ray, with "Hell of a lady, was she?"

"Yeah. She was. Still is, even if this is the only way to see her."

Gina hooked her arm through Rays, so they could walk together. Which made me jerk for a second, but was kind of the obvious next thing, once I looked back and considered it. Though I didn't really make any notes on it in these pages, they had cracked a lot of jokes together; they had a fight with thrown toast the morning before, and a hundred other little things. Where I'd paid attention at all, I'd just chalked it up as 'bonding', rolled my eyes, and left them to it.

Turning my attention back, the preacher was suddenly holding a military-style rifle. I feel like I should be rattling off a couple of letters and numbers to say what kind, but I haven't got a clue about such things. He was holding it laying across his palms, offering it out to me.

"This belonged to Abe. Figure you know how to use it?"

"I... Suppose I might have some idea."

I took the rifle, and almost collapsed. Holding it, I could feel the history of the thing as Mrs. Krenski believed it to be. Not as it had been. In her mind, Abe Krenski had been a dashing, daring warrior, with an almost movie-star quality. I gave the rifle a couple of parade-ground turns, which came off perfectly.

"Nice jacket, coz."

I was wearing a military jacket now. World War two, maybe? The cut seemed old enough that it could be, anyway. And I was carrying a canvas satchel, as well, now. The satchel twitched, the flap turning over. The cat poked her head out, and gave me something of a look.

Mrow.

"You got that right, cat."

We stumped up steps, looking for places that might have balconies or windows facing outwards, so we could get our orientation relative to that hive. About eight or nine stories up, we came upon a hotel door lifted from the Grand, the premiere hotel in Kingsport. The Grand had balconies, so we slipped through the setting for a very nice night out together, and looked up and around. Above us, the flock of bat-winged things were coming in. Pretty clearly, they were returning to the hive.

They were human-shaped after all, but only as a sick parody. Rail-thin and spindly-limbed, they had something very much like mottled grey leather for skin. Perched on slim necks, they had heads without any organs beyond a forest of curling horns. Their hands were of a kind - long, slim, and tipped with what seemed to be too many curlicues of talon. We stared, then backstepped.

The preacher called to us from the hallway "They're right on the step! This way!"

We sprinted back in, through the suite, and into the hall. Gina gave Ray a look, and "We're going to go up there and fight those things. You got us into it."

"So, I should do what?"

"You should watch my back, while I grab some supplies."

And with that, Gina was back in the vacation suite. She grabbed a bedsheet and a fireplace poker, tore the sheet and wrapped it up. Then, she kicked the fireplace screen aside, and lit the poker like a torch. Finally, on her way back out, torch in hand, she grabbed the champagne.

We followed the preacher onwards and upwards, ultimately into Mrs. Krenski's apartment, entering by way of the bedroom closet. The preacher gestured to the front door -"On the step."

I unslung the rifle, readied it, and Ray opened the door. On the other side, one of the gaunt, ugly things was kneeling, back to us. I pulled the trigger, flinging lead into it and watching it crackle and fold. Ray slammed the door, and held onto it as I reloaded. He was babbling. Or maybe he was saying something important, something useful. I didn't actually hear any of it; I was slamming another clip into place. Gina, meanwhile, was pacing and gesturing with her torch. Ray paused in his noise, and I paused in my preparations. Her turn to shrug.

Door open again, and the things were boiling down a floded tunnel of sorts towards us. I took one shot after another until the gun clicked empty. Then, a shout to Ray, as one of the things jumped for us despite being wounded. I just caught sight of another couple of blurring motions, down low, as the creature hit me, and the door closed.

There's no lack of pain when you're fighting, there. The way wounds are made might not be quite right, but it's real enough to spatter the wall and feel your arm burning. Real enough to go down wrestling, trying hard to hold to the forearms of something with far-too-sharp claws. Certainly real enough to feel relief when a friend of yours hammers your opponent across the back of the head with, I kid you not, a cast iron frying pan. The sound of horns cracking is a fairly memorable one. I rolled the limp thing off me, and Ray finished the job with a few further crackling strokes.

Gina wasn't there, and I remembered seeing motion down low, as the door had closed. A moment of hesitation, and with one eye on the thudding, jerking door, I ejected my clip and started to load another.

"Get the door, Ray."

Gina was on the other side, crouched with her back to us. She had been pounding at the door behind her with one fist, nursing what was now a quickly-growing fire ahead of her. Beyond the flames, though, was a roiling brawl. It was the cat, grown panther-sized, fighting at least two of the things in a snarling, roiling mass.

I pulled Gina back and took her place, crouching with the rifle, hoping for a clean shot. The moment I arrived in that position, the cat flattened out against the ground, eyes on mine. I fired twice more, and then the papery floor I was on tore open, and I fell.

I have mentioned that when you die in a dream, you wake up, didn't I?

The apartment was cool, and I was drenched in sweat, with new bruises blossinging on my chest and legs. I stumbled to the kitchen table and reflected on how old Abe never would have given up, no sir. He was a stiff-upper-lip guy, that Abe. That's when I realized I still had the bundle of Mrs. Krenski's memories and thoughts that had come with the gun, and felt myself mouthing, Oh Shit. Still, I had more pressing problems.

I showered, as hot as I could stand, and stood looking in the mirror, wiping fog away over and over, learning new lessons about psychosomatic injuries and the power of the mind over the body with every twitch.

About half an hour later, Ray and Gina came out of their dream states, and I triggered the alarm to wake them. Getting hugged by people who are that glad to see you alive, just while you're still discovering new places and ways to be sore... it's not an exercise I'd recommend.

They told me about how I'd been pulled into the floor, the fire spreading faster and faster, and the cat had gone after me into the hole. They'd been forced back into the apartment by the heat. The looks they shared told me there was a little more to it than that, but I didn't have the stamina. Anyhow; the hive had burned, and ultimately torn free from the side of the tower and fallen to the ground, splitting open in flames. They had gone down outside, looking for any sign of me or the cat, and found neither. They had held to lucidity as long as they could to search, but it had eventually slipped away from them.