The Cove

unconscious on the ground in that small sliver of land next to the Hinterlands.

    "Nothing to say, Sally? I cut back on the dosage so you could talk to me." She felt a sharp slap on her cheek.

    "Look at me, Sally. Don't pretend you're off in outer space. I know this time you can't be." He slapped her again.

    He grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard.

    "Is James all right?"

    He stopped shaking her. "James?" He sounded surprised. "Oh, that man you were with in The Cove. Yes, he's fine. No one wanted to take the risk of killing him. Was he your lover, Sally? You only had him a bit over a week. That's moving fast. He must have been desperate.

    “Just look at you, all skinny and pathetic, your hair in strings, your clothes bagging around you. Come on, Sally, tell me about James. Tell me what you told him."

    "I told him about you," she said. "I had a nightmare and he helped me through it. I told him what a piece of slime you are."

    He slapped her again, not too hard, but hard enough to make her shrink away from him.

    "You're rude, Sally. And you're lying. You've never lied well and I can always tell. You might have dreamed, but you didn't tell him about me. You want to know why? It's because you're crazy and I'm so deep a part of you that if you were to tell anyone about me, why, you'd just collapse in on yourself and die. You can't exist without me, Sally.

    "You were away from me for just two weeks, and look what happened. You're a mess. You tried to pretend you were normal. You lost all your manners. Your mother would be appalled. Your husband would back away from you in disgust. As for your father, well-well, I suppose it's not worth speculating now that he's shuffled off his mortal coil."

    "Where am I?"

    "Ah, that's supposed to be the first thing out of your mouth, if books and TV stories are to be believed. You're back where you belong, Sally. Just look around you. You're back in your room, the very same one decorated especially for you by your dear father. I've kept you under for nearly a day and a half. I let up on the dosage about four hours ago. You took your time coming to the surface."

    "What do you want?"

    “I have what I want; at least I have the first installment of what I want. And that's you, my dear."

    "I'm thirsty."

    "I'll bet you are. Holland, where are you? Bring some water to our patient."

    She remembered Holland, a skinny, furtive little man who'd been one of the two men to stare through the small square window while he was hitting her and caressing her, humiliating her. Holland had thinning brown hair and the deadest eyes she'd ever seen. He rarely said anything, at least to her.

    She said nothing more until he appeared at her side, a glass of water in his hand.

    "Here you are, Doctor," he said in that low, hoarse voice of his that lay like a covering of loose gravel in all those nightmares, making her want to be drugged so she wouldn't realize he was around her.

    He was standing behind Beadermeyer, looking down at her, his eyes dead and hungry. She wanted to vomit.

    Dr. Beadermeyer raised her and let her drink her fill.

    "Soon you'll want to go to the bathroom. Holland will help you with that, won't you, Holland?"

    Holland nodded, and she wanted to die. She fell back against the pillow, a hard, institutional pillow, and closed her eyes. She knew deep down she couldn't keep herself intact in this place again. She also realized that she would never escape again. This time it was over for her.

    She kept her eyes closed, didn't turn toward him, just said, "I'm not crazy. I was never crazy. Why are you doing this? He's dead. What does it matter?"

    "You still don't know, do you? You still have no memory of any of it. I realized that almost immediately. Well, it isn't my place to tell you, my dear." She felt him pat her cheek. She flinched.

    "Now, now, Sally, I'm not the one who tormented you, though I must admit that I enjoyed the one tape I saw. Except you weren't even there, you were just flopping back, your eyes closed, letting him do what whatever he wanted.

    "You didn't have any fight in you. Why, you were so out of it, you barely flinched when he hit you. But even then you weren't afraid. I could tell. The contrast, at least, made for fascinating viewing."

    She felt gooseflesh rise on her arms as remnants of memories flooded her-the movement of his hands over hers, the pushing and slapping, the caressing that turned to pain.

    She heard the bed ease up and knew that