The high shimmer of a gong rattled the windowpanes. Zhangu drums beat out a steady warning of war. The heavy pounding matched the furious rhythm of Ling’s heartbeat. And just under the drums, rising, was a high-pitched, insectlike whine that made Ling’s skin crawl.
Glowing faces appeared at the windows and receded. Ling whirled around. At the bottom of the street, George Huang waited. He seemed carved of chalk. Lips as colorless as new corn twitched around a diseased mouth. Deep fissures erupted on his face, neck, and hands, his skin cracking open as if he were rotting from the inside. George’s mouth opened in a shriek. For a moment, Ling couldn’t think. She could only stare at the pale figure of George Huang, that thing between life and death, as his fingers reached toward her, clutching and straightening like a puppet’s. Then he dropped to a crouch and skittered up the side of the building like a fast-moving beetle.
Run, a voice inside her said faintly. Run. How to run? Why had her body forgotten this simple movement? Run. When she looked down, the street was a river of pitch. Slick hands emerged from the sticky ooze. They grabbed at her ankles. Ling gasped as the braces appeared on her legs, the buckles tightening and tightening. She cried out, and suddenly the dream shifted and Ling lay on a hospital bed, her back arching with pain as spasms ate away at her legs, the muscles dying.
Two neat lines of beds flanked the room, stretching as far as Ling could see, all of them occupied by dreamers. They sat up and turned their rotting faces to her, chorusing, “Dream with us dream with us dream forever dream with us dream dream forever dream.”
Uncle Eddie was beside her, his expression grim as he read her medical chart. “They never should’ve done it,” he said, placing the chart on the bed. The words swam: Subject #28. New York, New York.
Another spasm gripped Ling and she cried out in agony. A nurse swept the curtain around them. She bent her face close to Ling’s. “Would you like the pain to end?”
“Y-yes,” Ling begged.
“Then dream with us.”
Through a parting in the curtain, George appeared, and Ling’s mouth tried to form the words to warn the nurse, to say look, look, ohpleaselook behind you, but the words could only bounce around inside her head.
The hospital lights arced. In the flashes of light, George’s eyes shone bright as a demon’s.
“George. I’m sorry. Please. Please,” Ling whispered.
He looked at her for just a second as if he knew her. Then his mouth spread wide, the muscles of his neck straining as if he were trying to birth something from his throat. His fingers, wrinkled as funeral crepe, reached toward her, lighting first on her medical chart.
Don’t look, Ling told herself. Don’t look and it won’t be real. The insect drone was so loud Ling thought she’d lose her mind. And then there was silence. When Ling opened her eyes again, George was gone.
Words had been scrawled on her medical chart: “Don’t promise. Pearl.”
Ling heard her name being called. It sounded as if it were coming from another room, an adjacent dream.
“Ling! Ling Chan, where are you?”
“Henry!” Ling called.
Henry swept the curtain aside. He clutched the fabric as if it were the only thing holding him up.
“Henry? Are you really here?”
Henry managed a half smile. “It would seem so,” he said, and even his voice was weak.
“How did you find me?”
“If I were guessing, I’d say you came after me.” Henry took several shallow breaths. “I’d say you’re somewhere right now, sleeping with my hat in your hands.”
“Yes,” Ling said, remembering. “Yes.”
Henry stumbled to the bed. Red marks dotted his neck. “Ling. It’s time for a different dream now.”
“I can’t. I can’t. The pain.”
“You’re not feeling any pain, darlin’. That’s just a bad dream. You can wake up in your bed anytime you like.”
“No. We have to go back. Back to the tunnel. Wai-Mae. We have to end it.”
“All right, then.” Henry took Ling’s hand. “Why don’t you dream about the tunnel, Ling? You know the one I mean. And you and I are both there. We are both there.”
Henry’s words swirled through Ling’s head. She relaxed, and the hospital dream fell away. Ling was back inside the tunnel. The bricks glowed brightly with dreams trapped in service to the great machine of forgetting. Henry lay on the ground, weak and pale.
“Henry?” Ling whispered.
Bells. The lilting notes of a tinny music-box song. The rustle of blood-stiffened skirts. She was coming.