Death Match

Although it is three in the morning, the bedroom is bathed in merciless light. The windows facing the deck of the pool house are rectangles of unrelieved black. The light seems so bright the entire room is reduced to a harsh geometry of right angles: the bed, the night table, the dresser…

Only this time, the bedroom isn’t that of a victim. It’s familiar. It belongs to Lash.

Now he moves around the room, flicking off switches. The brilliant light fades and the contours of the room soften. Slowly, the nocturnal landscape beyond the windows takes form, blue beneath a harvest moon. A manicured lawn; a pool, its surface faintly phosphorescent; a tall privet hedge beyond. For a minute he fears there are figures standing in the hedge — three women, three men, now all dead — but it is merely a trick of the moonlight and he turns away.

Beyond the bed, the bathroom door is ajar. He drifts toward it. Within, a woman stands before the mirror, brushing her hair with long languid strokes. Her back is to him but the set of her shoulders, the curve of her hips, is instantly recognizable. There is a faint crackle of static electricity as the brush glides through her hair.

He looks into the mirror and his ex-wife’s reflection stares back.

“Shirley. Why are you here?”

“I’m just back to collect a few things. I’m going on a journey.”

“A journey?”

“Of course.” She speaks with the authority of dreams. “Look at the clock. It’s past midnight, it’s a new day.”

The brushing sound has now morphed into something else: something slow, rhythmic, like regular pulses of static from a radio. “Where are you going?”

“Where do you think?” And she turns to face him. Only now it is Diana Mirren’s face looking into his. “Every day is a journey.”

“Every day is a journey,” he repeats.

She nods. “And the journey itself is home.”

As he stares, he realizes something else is wrong. The voice isn’t Diana’s. And it is no longer his ex-wife’s. With a shock that is not quite horror, he realizes it is the voice of Liza. Liza, speaking through Diana’s face.

“Silver!” he cries.

“Yes, Christopher. I can hear you.” The dream-figure smiles faintly.

The strange rhythmic sound is louder now. He hides his face. “Oh, no. No.”

“I’m still here,” Liza says.

But he will not look up, he will not look up, he will not look up…

“Christopher…”