Rudge pushed the cassette into the recorder and snapped on the machine.
When Hilary heard the familiar, deep, gravelly voice, she felt a chill race down her spine.
Frye spoke first:
“I have this trouble.”
“What sort of trouble?”
“At night.”
“Yes?”
“Every night.”
“You mean you have trouble sleeping?”
“That’s part of it.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“I have this dream.”
“What sort of dream?”
“A nightmare.”
“The same one every night?”
“Yes.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“As long as I can remember.”
“A year? Two years?”
“No, no. Much longer than that.”
“Five Years? Ten?”
“At least thirty. Maybe longer.”
“You’ve been having the same bad dream every night for at least thirty years?”
“That’s right.”
“Surely not every night.”
“Yes. There’s never a reprieve.”
“What’s this dream about?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t hold back.”
“I’m not.”
“You want to tell me.”
“Yes.”
“That’s why you’re here. So tell me.”
“I want to. But I just don’t know what the dream is.”
“How can you have had it every night for thirty years or more and not know what it’s about?”
“I wake up screaming. I always know a dream woke me. But I’m never able to remember it.”
“Then how do you know it’s always the same dream?”
“I just know.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“Good enough for what?”
“Good enough to convince me that it’s always the same dream. If you’re so sure it’s just one recurring nightmare, then you must have better reasons than that for thinking so.”
“If I tell you …”
“Yes?”
“You’ll think I’m crazy.”
“I never use the word ‘crazy.'”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“Well… every time the dream wakes me, I feel as if there’s something crawling on me.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. I can never remember. But I feel as if something’s trying to crawl in my nose and in my mouth. Something disgusting. It’s trying to get into me. It pushes at the corners of my eyes, trying to make me open my eyes. I feel it moving under my clothes. It’s in my hair. It’s everywhere. Crawling, creeping…”
In Nicholas Rudge’s office, everyone was watching the tape recorder.
Frye’s voice was still gravelly, but there was raw terror in it now.
Hilary almost could see the big man’s fear-twisted face–the shock-wide eyes, the pale skin, the cold sweat along his hairline.
The tape continued:
“Is it just one thing crawling on you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Or is it many things?”
“I don’t know.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Just … awful… sickening.”
“Why does this thing want to get inside you?”
“I don’t know.”
“And you say you always feel like this after a dream.”
“Yeah. For a minute or two.”
“Is there anything else that you feel in addition to this crawling sensation?”
“Yeah. But it’s not a feeling. It’s a sound.”
“What sort of sound?”
“Whispers.”
“You mean that you wake up and imagine that you hear people whispering?”
“That’s right. Whispering, whispering, whispering. All around me.”
“Who are these people?”
“I don’t know.”
“What are they whispering?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you have the feeling they’re trying to tell you something?”
“Yes. But I can’t make it out.”
“Do you have a theory, a hunch? Can you make a guess?”
“I can’t hear the words exactly, but I know they’re saying bad things.”
“Bad things? In what way?”
“They’re threatening me. They hate me.”
“Threatening whispers.”
“Yes.”
“How long do they last?”
“About as long as the … creeping … crawling.”
“A minute or so?”
“Yes. Do I sound crazy?”
“Not at all.”
“Come on. I sound a little crazy.”
“Believe me, Mr. Frye, I’ve heard stories much stranger than yours.”
“I keep thinking that if I knew what the whispers were saying, and if I knew what was crawling on me, I’d be able to figure out what the dream is. And once I know what it is, maybe I won’t have it any more.”
“That’s almost exactly how we’re going to approach the problem.”
“Can you help me?”
“Well, to a great extent that depends on how much you want to help yourself.”
“Oh, I want to beat this thing. I sure do.”