DreamScapes by R. L. Stedman

Author:R. L. Stedman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wild Rose Press

Chapter Six

Old Enemies

Daylight seems to slide from the limousine’s black roof. Its door opens, and a woman in a tight white skirt and jacket emerges. Her sleek hair is white too, cut into a bob. The woman lifts her head like she’s seen me. Even at this distance, I can feel her malevolence through the window. Involuntarily, I step back. Oversized sunglasses hide her eyes, and her red lips seem to glow.

On my arm, the snake hisses, and across my neck, the web-like catcher tightens. Kevin’s face, pale as death. My right calf cramps in sudden pain. Estelle chews on her lower lip, and a drop of blood appears.

“Estelle?” Brendon asks.

“I’m fine.”

The memory of Charlene’s mouth on Kevin’s and that red, red tongue makes me feel sick.

“Jenny? What is it?” Brendon asks.

“We have to go,” I say, and stand behind him to snap off the brakes. Brendon’s injured leg, outstretched before him like a battering ram, makes it hard to navigate the doors, but I push him from the room.

“Wait a minute,” he says, half-laughing. “What are you doing?”

But I don’t have time to explain. Is Charlene after me, or Brendon, or Estelle? Or is it only a random coincidence that she’s appeared below, and she’s meeting someone completely different. But I remember Kevin’s face, when she’d phoned him that first time, and now I understand that fear he must have felt, and why he was so quiet.

I push Brendon along the ward, searching for a place to hide. Hospitals have hundreds of cupboards and offices. Estelle follows behind us, giggling softly. It’s like she’s drunk, or high.

My headache has returned, and my temples throb in time with the stabs of pain. Please, don’t let me throw up! It’s all I can do not to leave Brendon behind. I want to run and run, until I find a small, dark place, where I can hide like a frightened child. My snake is beneath the tattooed leaves on my left arm – I can barely see its face, half-hidden by leaves. My lucky spiral is silent, unmoving. But across my shoulder blades I feel the tension, building.

“Jenny! Stop!” Brendon says. He pushes his palms onto the tires, tries to slow the wheelchair. But these hospital-issue chairs are heavy, and the wheels keep turning through sheer inertia.

Some staff stare, but I smile brightly at them, like this is all normal fun, and they let us pass. Smoothly, I reverse Brendon’s chair at the double doors at the end of the ward. These doors swing back and forward like a galley door, so I back slowly into them, making sure they don’t bash onto Brendon’s leg.

In front of us are the service and visitor elevators and the third floor waiting area. It’s a busy place: gurneys pass back and forth. Some are occupied by patients hooked up to machines or oxygen, but a few are empty. People cluster by the elevators, watching as the lights flick up and down the board, and staff in scrub uniforms pass by.

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