Elizabeth Engstrom

Vivid Dreams

Literary fortune is a strange and fickle thing. In the 1970s and 1980s, hundreds of authors made their debuts during the horror publishing boom, and some of them, like Stephen King and Dean Koontz, went on to be household names, their works continuously in print, while others arguably just as deserving, such as Michael McDowell, had their works fall out of print and into neglect. One such author who hasn’t gotten her full due in recent years is Elizabeth Engstrom, who burst on the scene with When Darkness Loves Us (1985), which sported a laudatory foreword by sci-fi great Theodore Sturgeon, and which earned good reviews and a cult following. A follow-up, the inventive vampire novel Black Ambrosia, appeared in 1988. And though Engstrom never really went away – she’s continued publishing and has numerous books to her credit – her early works went out of print and were long scarce and expensive on the secondhand market. We included two of Engstrom’s books in our Paperbacks from Hell series, and she also has one in our Monster, She Wrote collection. We’re delighted to be helping readers discover (or rediscover) her books, and the response has been phenomenal, with many hailing Engstrom’s work as a revelation. The following tale was written specially for this volume and will no doubt be welcomed by the author’s many fans, new and old.

‘These sleep aids have some side effects,’ the doctor said as he wrote on a little white pad. ‘Take one only when you absolutely need it.’

‘What kind of side effects?’ Constance nervously twisted the white sheet in her arthritic hands, ignoring the pain.

‘The most common complaint is strange, very vivid dreams.’

‘Oh, I don’t mind that.’

‘It’s a narcotic, so I’ll leave this at the nurses’ station.’ The doctor ripped the prescription from the pad and stood up. ‘If this doesn’t do the trick for you, let the nurses know.’

‘Thank you,’ Constance said. She didn’t like pills and didn’t want to take a sleeping pill, but the pain in her legs was so severe these days that nothing they gave her settled it down. She hadn’t slept a night through for months. The idea of falling softly to sleep and waking refreshed to a new day of pain in her crippled legs was so attractive that she wanted one of the magic pills immediately. She didn’t want to have to wait for the prescription to be filled, but she knew that patience was a virtue.

‘I don’t like him,’ Nina said from her bed on the other side of the room. ‘He’s my doctor too, but he’s not long on bedside manner.’

‘I don’t have to love him,’ Constance said. ‘If he can find me a solid night’s sleep, I’ll be forever in his debt.’

Nina snorted.

Soon, the nurse came in with Constance’s dose of pain meds, which lightened her mood and made living in this wretched nursing home more tolerable, but did virtually nothing for her twisted, aching legs.

Her day went by as all days before, and she assumed, all days until her death, with a sponge bath, bed linen change, the burly attendant putting her on the commode and helping to clean herself afterward, a game or two of cribbage with Nina while they were both up in their chairs.

Then lunch, a nap, and an hour of some stupid romance book on tape that the church ladies brought in, then television until the nurse turned all the lights out and Constance was left to suppress her moans of pain all night long until daylight softened the windowsills, and the routine started all over again.

But not tonight. Tonight, after dinner, the nurse brought a new yellow pill, the one that the doctor had prescribed, and Constance eagerly gobbled it down, then lay back and waited for those mysterious, vivid dreams that would take her out of pain and into the sheer joy of slumber.

When she opened her eyes, she was on a hill, overlooking the sleeping city. The small, misshapen moon shone high above. Constance took a step, and then another. She could walk! Her legs were as long and strong and straight as when she had been a teenager, running on the track for her old high school team. The night was balmy and her favorite little yellow cotton sundress felt perfect.

She tested her feet and legs out, running around in a circle, and then as her confidence built, she ran down the street. The only sounds she could hear were her old, favorite tennis shoes slapping moist pavement, and her breath as it came effortlessly in and out of her lungs.

What a glorious feeling, to run again, to run as fast as she could, until she could barely catch her breath. Then she slowed and stopped, hands on her knees, bent over to stave off the stitch in her side. Her hands looked like the hands of a young person, fingers straight, skin clear, not painfully twisted with arthritis, thin-skinned with blue veins popping out of liver-spotted skin.

She was young again!

‘Hello.’

Constance straightened up and saw a little girl leaning against the trunk of a big tree. ‘Hello.’

‘Want to have some fun?’

Fun! Constance wasn’t sure she knew what fun was anymore. ‘Sure.’

‘Let’s go!’ The little one took off, sprinting down the street, and Constance took off after her, thrilled to be quick, agile, and able to keep up.

They ran for what seemed like miles, Constance luxuriating in the feel of the wind blowing through her long, red hair, perspiration cooling on her skin.

The younger girl stopped in front of a vaguely familiar building, long and low, with many windows. ‘Shhh,’ she said, then waved Constance to follow.

They walked quickly and quietly through the dewy grass and then behind a series of bushes, to peer into the darkened rooms.

Constance, stunned to paralysis by the image of her young face reflected in the window, couldn’t see beyond the glass to look inside until the younger girl punched her on the shoulder. ‘See?’ she asked.

Constance brought her hands up around her face to shield out the moonlight and she saw two hospital beds in the room. Slowly, she recognized the little figurines on one bedside table, the cheap pictures on the wall, the robe hanging over the foot of the bed.

‘Not that one,’ the girl said. ‘This one, over here.’

Tiny Nina seemed lost in the enormous bed, sleeping soundly with her mouth open. Constance felt a rush of affection for her roommate that she hadn’t felt before.

This was all so very weird.

‘Let’s kill her,’ the girl said.

‘What?’ Constance awoke with a start, and it was morning.

She had slept through the night for the first time in years, and she felt wonderful. Even the pain in her legs wasn’t as severe as usual.

Those pills were indeed magical, vivid dreams and all. She could definitely put up with vivid dreams of youth and health and vitality.

That evening, she told Sally, her favorite nurse, that she wanted another of her sleeping pills, as the one the previous night had done her so well. Sally frowned, and read the label, striking terror into Constance’s heart. What the hell did they care if she got addicted to some stupid drug? She was old and sick and in pain and would die soon anyway. Sooner than later, if she had anything to say about it. This was no way to live, and if a good night’s sleep with strange, vivid dreams was all she had to live for, they should not deprive her of that.

‘Please?’ she asked in a tiny voice, inwardly furious that she had to beg for something that should be her right to take.

Sally shook one out of the bottle into her hand and handed her a glass of water.

Constance pulled her covers up and waited eagerly for sleep to take her to the land of health and vigor.

‘Hi,’ the girl said when Constance arrived back on top of the same hill. ‘Ready to go for a run?’

‘Yes!’ Constance said, and they took off down the hill, flying like the wind.

Soon, she was out of breath and they stood again in front of the familiar building, the nursing home. ‘This way,’ the girl said, and they walked through the foundation shrubbery on the north side. ‘This room.’

They both peered into the room, and Constance saw old Esther McCoy in her bed, a line of spittle attached from her lower lip to the pillow. Old Esther spent her days in her wheelchair, bent over so her head rested on her knees, moaning.

‘Let’s kill her,’ the girl said, and Constance believed that there could be no greater act of mercy.

‘Okay,’ she said, and then in the strange way of dreams, they were in the old woman’s room.

‘Put a pillow over her face,’ the girl said, and Constance did as she was told.

The old woman put up no fight at all. It was as if she were on the brink of death anyway – as she surely had been for months.

‘Good.’ The girl nodded her approval as Constance put the pillow back where it belonged, and just like that, Constance awoke to Sunday morning, and time to get ready for a wheelchair ride to the little chapel.

The first thing the minister said was that prayers needed to be said for Sister Esther McCoy, who had passed in the night.

Constance felt the flush of shame, and she dared not look around, lest everyone in the chapel see the guilt on her face. She heard nothing else for the entire sermon.

Just a dream, correct? It was all just a dream. Strange, vivid dreams, the doctor had said. Surely this was all just a huge coincidence.

Still, that night, she asked Sally for another sleeping pill.

‘Those are addictive, honey,’ Sally said.

‘So what?’ Constance snapped. ‘You deny an old woman a good night’s sleep because of some stupid fear that I might get addicted to it? You try being stuck here in this bed with these legs and see how well you sleep the night through.’

Hurt, Sally left the room and silently brought her back a pill and a glass of water.

The little girl was at the same place, and without asking, Constance knew where they were headed when they began to run. The night air filled her lungs with freshness and joy, and when they arrived back at the nursing home, she felt none of the remorse at the passing of old lady McCoy that she had in the chapel that morning.

‘Not me again,’ Constance said. ‘It’s your turn.’

‘Okay,’ the girl said, and then they were in the room of Mr Miner, the old railroad engineer. Blind, deaf and of no use to himself or anyone else, the girl picked up the pillow and held it down over his face.

As with Mrs McCoy, he put up no struggle whatsoever, and soon the deed was done.

And it was morning.

‘Did you hear?’ Nina asked. ‘Philip Miner passed in the night.’

‘It’s about time,’ Constance said.

‘I agree.’

After two nights of good, sound sleep, Constance felt good enough to be helped into a wheelchair go to the smelly cafe­teria for lunch, the first time she had made an appearance there in years. Kate, the aide with all the tattoos, wheeled her in and found her a place to sit at a table with other ladies who were younger, or at least more ambulatory. Everyone seemed glad to have Constance join them, but she was not up for small talk, she was looking around the room to see who might be the next candidate to be put out of his or her misery.

She saw several.

That night, she asked for her pill and countered Sally’s hesitation with a stern look. She was going to take no crap about it, and Sally complied. Constance knew a note would be made in her chart, but she didn’t give a shit.

She and the little girl ran through the night. Soon they were back at the nursing home, drawn there as if by a magnet. The little girl navigated them back to her own room.

‘That one,’ she said.

‘That’s Nina,’ Constance said. ‘She’s still full of life.’

‘She’s not,’ the girl said. ‘Let’s kill her.’

‘You do it,’ Constance said. ‘If she’s your choice, then you have to do it. I can’t, because she’s my friend.’

‘That’s the job of a good friend,’ the girl said. ‘You’re her friend, and that’s why you have to do it.’

‘No.’ Constance was adamant. ‘You have to do it.’

‘I can’t. And it must be done. Come on.’

They entered the room through dream magic, and a moment later, Constance stood over her friend’s bed. She looked at the girl and saw a greedy eagerness on her face. ‘I’ll miss her,’ Constance said.

‘Do it,’ the girl commanded.

Reluctantly, Constance picked up a pillow and approached her old friend’s bedside. Nina slept quietly and peacefully, but as the pillow came down, she opened her eyes and looked Constance in the face.

Did she nod, just before the pillow snuffed out her air?

There was more fight in Nina than in the others, but not all that much.

The girl, standing behind her, laughed and then just as Nina gave up her ghost, the girl sighed. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly.

In the end, Constance knew that she had done her old friend a favor, just as the girl had suggested.

But when she put the pillow back and turned around, the girl was gone.

She immediately awoke to commotion coming from the other side of her room. Before she could chase away the cobwebs of her dreams, attendants had wheeled Nina’s bed from the room with Nina’s lifeless body still in it.

Constance felt a pang of loneliness, as her companion of so many years had now gone. No telling what kind of roommate she’d get to replace her. One who played cribbage, she hoped.

The next night, Constance ran like the wind, but her little companion failed to show up and join her. She ran and ran until she thought her heart would burst with the exhilaration of it all, and when she awoke, Nina’s family was there to clean out her personal belongings.

‘Excuse me,’ Constance said, and Nina’s eldest daughter, box in hand, turned around. ‘Might I have something to remember your mother by? We were such good friends.’

The daughter looked down at the open box she carried. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Here’s a picture of Mom when she was younger.’ She picked out a small framed photograph and handed it to Constance.

The photograph was of the young girl in Constance’s dreams. Somehow, Constance was not at all surprised, only that in her final moments, Nina had been so treacherous as to manipulate Constance to do her bidding, and then left without offering Constance an escape route.

‘But who’s to take care of me?’ she asked no one in particular.

‘The nursing home,’ Nina’s daughter said as she walked out. ‘That’s why you’re here.’

‘No! That’s not what I mean!’ Constance shouted. ‘I mean who will take care of me?’

But by that time, they had all gone and she was left alone with her pain.