There were audible gasps from the audience. “Oh, my goodness!” the mayor’s wife said.
Nora looked around. The crowd continued to stare at the still-rising mummy as if mesmerized, swaying, uncomfortable now. She could feel their fear rising like a miasma, their voices tight and hushed. Viola caught her eye, gave her a questioning frown. Beyond, Nora could make out the face of Collopy, the museum director. He looked pale.
The malfunctioning strobe lights kept flashing, flashing, flashing in her peripheral vision, so very brightly, and Nora felt a real twinge of dizziness. Another gut-twisting low note sounded, and she closed her eyes momentarily against the combined assault of the brilliant lights and the deep sounds. She heard more gasps around her, then a scream, choked off almost before it started. What the hell was this? Those sounds—she had never heard anything like them. They were like the sounding of the last trump, full of dread and horror, so loud it seemed to violate her very being.
The mummy now began to open its jaw, the dry lips cracking and flaking off as they drew back from a rack of brown, rotting teeth. The mouth became a sinkhole of black slime, which began to seethe and wriggle. Then, as she watched in horror, it morphed into a swarm of greasy black cockroaches, which began rustling and crawling their way out of the ruined orifice. Another horrible groaning, and then there was a second explosion of strobe flashes of such incredible intensity that, when she closed her eyes, she could still see them flashing through her eyelids…
… but a hideous buzzing sound forced her to open her eyes again. It now looked as if the mummy were vomiting blackness—the swarm of insects had taken flight, the cockroaches morphing into fat lubricious wasps, their mandibles clicking like knitting needles as they flew toward the audience with a horrible believability.
She felt a sudden wave of vertigo, and she swayed, instinctively grabbing the person next to her—the mayor—who was himself stumbling and unsteady.
“Oh my God—!”
She heard someone vomiting, a cry for help—and then a flurry of short screams as the crowd surged back, trying to escape the insects. Although Nora knew they had to be holographically generated, like everything else, they looked amazingly real as they came straight at her, each with a vicious stinger extruded from its abdomen, gleaming with venom. She stumbled backward instinctively, felt herself falling, with no bottom, falling like the robber in the well, to a chorus of wails around her like the shrieks of the damned being sucked into hell itself.
60
Constance was awakened by a discreet rapping on her bedroom door. Without opening her eyes, she turned over with a sigh, nuzzling gently at the down pillow.
The knock came again, a little louder now. “Constance? Constance, is everything all right?” It was the voice of Wren—shrill, worried.
Constance stretched languorously—deliciously—then sat up in bed. “I’m fine,” she said with a twinge of irritation.
“Is anything the matter?”
“Nothing’s the matter, thank you.”
“You’re not ill?”
“Certainly not. I’m fine.”
“You’ll forgive my intrusion. It’s just that I’ve never known you to sleep all day like this. It’s eight-thirty, past time for supper, and you’re still abed.”
“Yes,” was all Constance said in return.
“Would you care for your usual breakfast, then? Green tea and a piece of buttered toast?”
“Not the usual breakfast, thank you, Wren. If you could manage it, I’d like poached eggs, cranberry juice, kippers, half a dozen rashers of bacon, a grapefruit half, and a scone with a pot of jam, please.”
“I—very well.” She heard Wren fussing his way back down the hall toward the stairs.
Constance settled back into the pillows, closing her eyes again. Her sleep had been long and deep and completely dreamless—most unusual for her. She recalled the bottomless emerald green of the absinthe, the strange feeling of lightness it gave her—as if she were watching herself from a distance. A private smile flitted across her face, vanished, then returned again, as if prompted by some recollection. She settled deeper into the pillows, letting her limbs relax beneath the soft sheets.
Gradually, very gradually, she became aware of something. There was a scent in the room, an unusual scent.
She sat up in bed again. It was not the scent of—of him; it was something she didn’t think she’d ever smelled before. It was not unpleasant, really… just different.
She looked around for a moment, trying to trace the source. She checked the bedside table without success.