Read Online Incarnate by Ramsey Campbell - Free Book Online

writing—used to say that was one thing his hands weren’t good for. He said he was glad he’d gone instead of me, he could look after things out there while I got on with learning, there were enough of us dying. He wanted me to promise my mother I wouldn’t go, and her to make me promise. A rocket killed him in the jungle near someplace I never could pronounce.”
    He dabbed at his mouth with his napkin, and then at his eyes. “I was home for the funeral when my draft card came. As soon as the funeral was over, I skipped to Canada and spent two years making my film.” He dug his fork into a piece of meat so hard that the tines screeched on the plate. “As if making it could wipe out what I’d done.”
    “I don’t see why you should feel guilty.”
    “Don’t you? I must have expressed myself badly, then.” Or had he left something out? He was withdrawing behind his smile. “This is wonderful,” he said. “Let’s eat.”
    She felt as if she’d missed a point somewhere, but he encouraged her to talk about herself, and she told him about her childhood near Plymouth, about the smugglers’ coves and the inns with secret passages; Winston the bulldog who sat in the middle of the village street and would move just enough for a car to pass; about the summer day she’d lain on Dartmoor and watched the clouds until she had felt the world turning and the night she’d seen sailing ships in the moonlight (but that must have been a dream). And then she was on the edge of telling him about her dreams, but she held back. “Were your parents pleased you dedicated this last film to them?” she said.
    “My mother was. My father, I guess not, if she even told him. I don’t hear from him. I know from her he’s pretty ill by now, his heart and too much booze. Something else I can take the credit for.”
    “You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself,” Molly said, but she felt she wasn’t reaching his pain. She wished she could confide more of herself to him, reach him that way, but all she could think of to share were her dreams.
    After the meal he walked her home. Queensway was crowded as a bazaar, Bayswater Road was almost deserted except for a turbaned cyclist and a few cars. A stone eagle on a pedestal guarded a private square, a crow like a tatter of the night flew into the park. As they turned the corner by the estate agent’s, she made up her mind not to invite him in for coffee; she would be too conscious of not being able to tell him about the dreams she used to have. She had forgotten how much it meant to her.
    “Thanks a lot, Molly,” he said when they reached her gate. “I had a fine time. You’re good company. I’m lucky to know you.” He smiled and turned away quickly, up the hill toward Kensington and his flat, which MTV was paying for. She bolted the gate behind her, feeling oddly disappointed, and was at her, door when suddenly she wanted to call him back. Instead she strode furiously in to discover who was in her flat.
    She snatched a letter from the doormat and stalked along the hall, shoving doors open and switching on lights. She’d find them this time, whoever they were, however they had got in. Wind chimes whispered phrases, her monkey gazed from the bed, the serving hatch gaped. Hadn’t she closed it last night? Apparently not. since nobody was in her flat. The secretaries from the second floor must be making her paranoid with their incessant borrowing—why, just the other day they’d banged on her door to borrow her phone directory, they’d rung the doorbell and thumped on the windows in case she couldn’t hear—but if that were the explanation, she wished it would start to be reassuring, for her nervousness reminded her too much of the time she hadn’t been able to sleep for fear of dreaming. She slammed the serving hatch and sat down to read her letter, and then she saw the name on the return address. As she stared at it, her heart pounding, the room seemed to darken with a panic