The Eyes of Darkness

dreams were not sent like ethereal telegrams from spirits or gods or demons. Her sudden gullibility dismayed and alarmed her, because it indicated that the decision to have Danny's body exhumed was not having the stabilizing effect on her emotions that she had hoped it would.
    Tina got up from the bed, went to the window, and gazed at the quiet street, the palms, the olive trees.
    She had to concentrate on the indisputable facts. Rule out all of this nonsense about the dream having been sent by some outside force. It was her dream, entirely of her making.
    But what about the horror comic?
    As far as she could see, only one rational explanation presented itself. She must have glimpsed the grotesque figure of Death on the cover of the magazine when Danny first brought the issue home from the newsstand.
    Except that she knew she hadn't.
    And even if she had seen the color illustration before, she knew damned well that she hadn't read the story— The Boy Who Was Not Dead. She had paged through only two of the magazines Danny had bought, the first two, when she had been trying to make up her mind whether such unusual reading material could have any harmful effects on him. From the date on its cover, she knew that the issue containing The Boy Who Was Not Dead couldn't be one of the first pieces in Danny's collection. It had been published only two years ago, long after she had decided that horror comics were harmless.
    She was back where she'd started.
    Her dream had been patterned after the images in the illustrated horror story. That seemed indisputable.
    But she hadn't read the story until a few minutes ago. That was a fact as well.
    Frustrated and angry at herself for her inability to solve the puzzle, she turned from the window. She went back to the bed to have another look at the magazine, which she'd left there.
    The gas company workman called from the front of the house, startling Tina.
    She found him waiting by the front door.
    "I'm finished," he said. "I just wanted to let you know I was going, so you could lock the door behind me."
    "Everything all right?"
    "Oh, yeah. Sure. Everything here is in great shape. If there's a gas leak in this neighborhood, it's not anywhere on your property."
    She thanked him, and he said he was only doing his job. They both said "Have a nice day," and she locked the door after he left.
    She returned to Danny's room and picked up the lurid magazine. Death glared hungrily at her from the cover.
    Sitting on the edge of the bed, she read the story again, hoping to see something important in it that she had overlooked in the first reading.
    Three or four minutes later the doorbell rang—one, two, three, four times, insistently.
    Carrying the magazine, she went to answer the bell. It rang three more times during the ten seconds that she took to reach the front door.
    "Don't be so damn impatient," she muttered.
    To her surprise, through the fish-eye lens, she saw Elliot on the stoop.
    When she opened the door, he came in fast, almost in a crouch, glancing past her, left and right, toward the living room, then toward the dining area, speaking rapidly, urgently. "Are you okay? Are you all right?"
    "I'm fine. What's wrong with you?"
    "Are you alone?"
    "Not now that you're here."
    He closed the door, locked it. "Pack a suitcase."
    "What?"
    "I don't think it's safe for you to stay here."
    "Elliot, is that a gun?"
    "Yeah. I was—"
    "A real gun?"
    "Yeah. I took it off the guy who tried to kill me."
    She was more able to believe that he was joking than that he had really been in danger. "What man? When?"
    "A few minutes ago. At my place."
    "But—"
    "Listen, Tina, they wanted to kill me just because I was going to help you get Danny's body exhumed."
    She gaped at him. "What are you talking about?"
    "Murder. Conspiracy. Something damn strange. They probably intend to kill you too."
    "But that's—"
    "Crazy," he said. "I know. But it's true."
    "Elliot—"
    "Can you pack a suitcase fast?"
    At first she half believed that he was trying to be funny, playing a game to amuse her, and she was going to tell him that none of this struck her as funny. But she stared into his dark, expressive eyes, and she knew that he'd meant every word he said.
    "My God, Elliot, did someone really try to kill you?"
    "I'll tell you about it later."
    "Are you hurt?"
    "No, no. But we ought to lie low until we can figure this out."
    "Did you call the police?"
    "I'm not sure that's a good idea."
    "Why not?"
    "Maybe they're