In the darkness I could hear the churning of gears, the oiled wheels of arcane machines slowly grinding in awful revolutions that churned through the nightmare. Behind me was the horrible dark red glow but I could not turn for the lurid green light that had begun as a spark before me was growing in intensity and try as I might, I couldn't tear my eyes from it. From somewhere in the distance I could hear a woman's screams echoing throughout the vast chamber in which I knelt but even that abysmal sound was pushed from my mind as the intense acetylene glow filled my brain.
"This is just a dream!" I muttered through clenched teeth. "A dream!"
"Is it?"
There was something approaching me. I could sense it. A presence. A vast unclean entity filled the crimson shadows behind me and reached towards me with loathsome power. I could feel it its cool gaze upon the back of my neck where the hairs stirred. I tried to turn to regard it but the intense yellow green light held me as easily as if I had been chained to the ground.
It coiled about my ankle and slowly crept with serpentine grace along my leg.
"You were a virgin"
I was when I first met Mrs Browne. She was my friend's mother and for many years she was just a shadowy presence in the background of my life. I remember her as Mrs Browne, though her first name was often on my mother's lips.
She was standing in the doorway, watching me with a dark look on her face, taking in the sight of me and when our eyes met, her surprise had become anger.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
"What were you doing there?"
I was aroused. In those days I was often aroused, sometimes without my even being aware of it. As she spoke some of her hairs moved lazily about her small round head and it was that detail that impressed itself upon me. I seemed wiser than my years and instinct seemed to lend me the understanding of her mind. Although her tone was sharp and her eyes flashed like fire, her question was less of a rebuke than she must have intended for I understood without thinking that she had spent the last several weeks gazing upon me with a mind darkened by lust.
"And you replied"
Yes. I spoke with a hesitant confidence. I answered her truthfully and her face registered several emotions at once. Anger showed in her features, but so did hope. I particularly remember that hopeful look. It was terrible to see it. It was like an insatiable hunger. She paused to measure her words before she replied.
When she did speak, I noticed her voice had changed. It became broader somehow, deeper.
"As if the fragile veneer of culture and society had suddenly cracked"
Yes, I suppose so. I don't know. I didn't think of it like that. I can just remember how her voice seemed to be new... as if I'd never really heard her speak before.
"And her eyes?"
They didn't move. She stared at me as she spoke. No one had ever looked at me like that before.
"Perhaps I shouldn't have come," I said. I tried to feign an innocent air, as if I could offer her a way out, though really I had no idea what was going on. I didn't understand.
"But you were erect"
Yes. It was her eyes, the way she stared with those terrible dark eyes. I felt so ashamed though I hadn't done anything wrong. She paused again; she even went so far as to lick her lips.
I swallowed painfully. My throat was dry. The sight of her tongue, briefly wetting her lips sent a shiver down my back and my stomach seemed cold and hollow. I was so hard it hurt but all she did was stare at me. I must have understood, though I never thought about it. I had to move towards her. I had to initiate what had to happen next.
"Describe her."