Hideaway

the ceiling and things that lived under children's beds, it was a real fear. Brain damage.
    Since waking up in the hospital, reanimated, Hatch had been having bad dreams of unnerving power. He didn't have them every night. His sleep might even be undisturbed for as long as three or four nights in a row. But he was having them more frequently, week by week, and the intensity was increasing.
    They were not always the same dreams, as he described them, but they contained similar elements. Violence. Horrific images of naked, rotting bodies contorted into peculiar positions. Always, the dreams unfolded from the point of view of a stranger, the same mysterious figure, as if Hatch were a spirit in possession of the man but unable to control him, along for the ride. Routinely the nightmares began or ended—or began and ended—in the same setting: an assemblage of unusual buildings and other queer structures that resisted identification, all of it unlighted and seen most often as a series of baffling silhouettes against a night sky. He also saw cavernous rooms and mazes of concrete corridors that were somehow revealed in spite of having no windows or artificial lighting. The location was, he said, familiar to him, but recognition remained elusive, for he never saw enough to be able to identify it.
    Until tonight, they had tried to convince themselves that his affliction would be short-lived. Hatch was full of positive thoughts, as usual. Bad dreams were not remarkable. Everyone had them. They were often caused by stress. Alleviate the stress, and the nightmares went away.
    But they were not fading. And now they had taken a new and deeply disturbing turn: sleepwalking.
    Or perhaps he was beginning, while awake, to hallucinate the same images that troubled his sleep.
    Shortly before dawn, Hatch reached out for her beneath the sheets and took her hand, held it tight. “I'll be all right. It's nothing, really. Just a dream.”
    “First thing in the morning, you should call Nyebern,” she said, her heart sinking like a stone in a pond. “We haven't been straight with him. He told you to let him know immediately if there were any symptoms—”
    “This isn't really a symptom,” he said, trying to put the best face on it.
    “Physical or mental symptoms,” she said, afraid for him—and for herself if something was wrong with him.
    “I had all the tests, most of them twice. They gave me a clean bill of health. No brain damage.”
    “Then you've nothing to worry about, do you? No reason to delay seeing Nyebern.”
    “If there'd been brain damage, it would've showed up right away. It's not a residual thing, doesn't kick in on a delay.”
    They were silent for a while.
    She could no longer imagine that creepy-crawlies moved through the shadows on the ceiling. False fears had evaporated the moment he had spoken the name of the biggest real fear that they faced.
    At last she said, “What about Regina?”
    He considered her question for a while. Then: “I think we should go ahead with it, fill out the papers—assuming she wants to come with us, of course.”
    “And if … you've got a problem? And it gets worse?”
    “It'll take a few days to make the arrangements and be able to bring her home. By then we'll have the results of the physical, the tests. I'm sure I'll be fine.”
    “You're too relaxed about this.”
    “Stress kills.”
    “If Nyebern finds something seriously wrong …?”
    “Then we'll ask the orphanage for a postponement if we have to. The thing is, if we tell them I'm having problems that don't allow me to go ahead with the papers tomorrow, they might have second thoughts about our suitability. We might be rejected and never have a chance with Regina.”
    The day had been so perfect, from their meeting in Salvatore Gujilio's office to their lovemaking before the fire and again in the massive old Chinese sleigh bed. The future had looked so bright, the worst behind them. She was stunned at how suddenly they had taken another nasty plunge.
    She said, “God, Hatch, I love you.”
    In the darkness he moved close to her and took her in his arms. Until long after dawn, they just held each other, saying nothing because, for the moment, everything had been said.
     
    ----
     
    Later, after they showered and dressed, they went downstairs and had more coffee at the breakfast table. Mornings, they always listened to the radio, an all-news station. That was how they heard about Lisa Blaine, the blonde who had