The Dickens Mirror Read Online Free PDF

pain.
    Because I got hurt. This
thing
appeared all of a sudden, out of the dark
. Shivering, he hunches his shoulders and folds in on himself.
Cold
. In the dream, there was snow, a real blizzard. Then, from the dark, this big
something
came and … 
pain. Blood. And I got hurt, I got really, really hurt
. An explosion next? He thinks so.
    And then I died
. The words are the mental moan of a kid ready to puke his guts out. God, this makes no sense. He took psych. You can be scared to death in a dream. You can think you’re running like crazy but really in slo-mo, even though the slavering thing chasing you is a whisper away, a hair’s breadth. In anightmare, you might even see the knife or ax or claw. But you shouldn’t die. At the moment the ax whizzes down or the monster opens its mouth, you ought to wake up.
    Only I didn’t. I died in my dream. I
felt
it happen. I-I f-felt …
    He has to stop this. He’s fine. He’s awake now and in bed, in his own room, not out on the ice watching his life drain away in a hot, steaming red pool to mingle with gasoline.
Gasoline, what the hell … Come on
. He puts a hand to his chest.
Just calm
—
    His thoughts stumble.
What?
Hair rising on his scalp, he mashes his hand to his ribs, right below his left collarbone.
What, WHAT?
No, that’s not possible! He’s sitting up. He’s in
bed
. He’s not
dead
.
    So then where the hell is his heart?
    2
    IT’S AS IF he just has to think the word. Because, all at once, a knot swells behind his ribs. His chest heaves as if what’s inside is just now shaking awake. A second later, he feels a knocking in his throat as his heart vaults to life.
    Okay
. His lips throb with the wild gallop of his pulse.
You’re fine. Relax
. He … he was just freaked out. Anyone would be after a dream like that. He shivers again, the tiny hairs prickling on his neck. Best not to think about it.
Maybe sit up, read …
    Wait a second. Leaning forward, he sweeps blindly with outstretched hands. Where are his covers? He’s
freezing
, and it’s so
dark
—blacker than pitch—but he has no blankets. There are no sheets puddled around his waist. He shuffles his ankles but feels no spaghetti twist of a top sheet or rumpled wool.
What?
Stretching, he gropes but feels only the icy knobs of his bare toes.
Hunh
. Probably kicked off the blanket, or maybe it’s balled up with histop sheet. And why the hell is it so dark? Twisting to his left, he drops a hand for his night table.
Has it ever been this dark
—
    It is then that he realizes: his hand is still falling. Because there is no night table.
    What?
He goes rigid as a post. That can’t be right. But there’s no mistake: his hand is lower than his left thigh, and
that’s
when he figures out that there’s no mattress either. His palm’s simply hanging there.
But there’s got to be a mattress. I’m
sitting
on it. What’s going on?
    The scream that followed him out of the nightmare and which he hasn’t let go of is a knuckle in his throat. There is something beneath his legs; he
feels
it … but is it really his bed? Cautiously, he shuffles his legs, listening hard for a squeal of box springs, feeling for the mattress’s many small dimples and quilted hillocks. The blackness beneath him is perfectly smooth, like … 
ice, I remember ice and gasoline
 … and there is no sound, no whisper of skin over a sheet or even a mattress pad.
    He is balanced, in midair, on … nothing.
    3
    THIS IS NUTS . There
has
to be something here. A person can’t be in
nothing
, much less
on
it.
But maybe that’s why it’s so dark
. Nothing
would be that way. Limbo would be like this
.
    And he’s just died. Okay, yeah, in a dream … but maybe at the end of your life, that’s what dying’s like.
    No, my heart’s beating
. But it wasn’t there five seconds ago; he had to think it into existence, didn’t he?
No, I’m breathing. I’m
thinking.
I feel
. As if seconding this, his heart gives his ribs a good