The Island of Charon. 8. 4. The Nightmare

THE ISLAND OF CHARON

a novel in the series
"PLAYING ANOTHER REALITY"

CHAPTER 8. FRIDAY, the 13th

8.4. THE NIGHTMARE

At 11:00 p.m. I received a message from Mark.

“Will you come down?”

And for some reason I got frightened immediately… frightened to death!

“What if… it’s not Mark? I’ll go downstairs now, and there is the Beekeeper! Or… there is not only Mark, but also the Beekeeper! Or maybe… the Beekeeper is going to ambush us on the way to the house where Mark is staying overnight! Ugh! I would never think I can be afraid of anything on Ammouliani!

Maybe, it’s better to invite Mark to stay at my place. But the walls are so cardboard here! There would be immediately some thoughts and suspicions…”

And suddenly I thought,

“Why? Why should I ever meet Mark? I can answer him ‘No’ right now! This whole stupid story is about nothing! After all, I understand that there will be only emptiness further…”

Yes, I clearly saw on the inner screen right in front of me the black square! The gaping ominous emptiness that would begin to absorb me, if not from the morning, then surely from the late afternoon…

“Why then all this time have I been drawn to Mark with a diabolic force? Does such an attraction between people happen for nothing? Have we been walking towards each other for so many years for the sake of just one night? What is so fateful that should happen here and now?”

However, I forced myself to calm down, took the phone and the key to the room and went silently mouse downstairs, thank God, without meeting any of the inhabitants of the house.

I opened the door and stepped into the darkness of the black-book night, which silence was broken only by the monotonous prayer of the cicadas, and almost immediately someone grabbed me by neck like a kitten.

“Shhh!!!” Mark whispered in my ear. “Hello!”

And I… jumped up and down for joy, and we finally…

…hugged!!!

He took my hand and led me to his place, asking about all sorts of nonsense. At a neighboring house, where a small but “super” market was open until midnight, Mark stopped.

“What do you want to drink?” he asked me.

“Nothing,” I smiled. “I don’t drink. At all. You know I don’t.”

“And… juice? Coke? What do you want?”

“Nothing… just to see you…”

“Me too,” Mark smiled like a child and squeezed my hand. “Well, then let’s order coffee or tea from Maria. She’ll bring it up.”

“I don’t want her to…”

“She won’t tell anyone about you, don’t worry! Let’s go…”

“I still can’t believe you’ve come,” I said, glaring at Mark with my eyes.

“Why?” he wondered.

“In general, all this is… so strange… Then… you see, we are completely different…”

“Really?! And I thought we were the same!” Mark smiled. “But why? Why are we different?”

“Well, oh… I don’t know how to explain it to you…”

“Don’t explain. Well, it’s hot here in your Greece,” Mark suddenly sighed, “or rather, in ours!”

“You are very tired! You need to sleep instead of meeting me.”

“Tired, yes… all these flights and roads… Will you stay until morning? But I have to get up at six to catch the boat to Ouranoupolis before the ferry leaves for Daphne.”

“And with whom are you going to Athos?”

“Alone.”

“Straight up to the Mountain or to some monastery?”

“To the Mountain, as everybody who is strong enough. Dreams come true. To see you and to climb the Mountain myself,” Mark smiled again. “But, if you like, come to Ouranoupolis on Sunday morning. Let’s meet on my way back. Shall you?”

“Okay,” I smiled.

“God, what a blessing that Mark is here and with me now! Thank God!”

We approached Mary’s house. She was sitting at the entrance and weaving lace. Mark asked me what I would like, tea or coffee.

“Maybe… even coffee…”

He spoke to Maria in Greek, and we went up to the top floor.

Mark opened the door to his “mansion”, turned on the night light, closed the door, hugged me and started kissing my neck.

“Maria will be here soon,” I reminded him.

Mark sighed and reluctantly stepped aside.

“I’ll go to take a shower,” he said. “It’s so stuffy! Turn on the air conditioner. Or shall we go together? Let’s go! I want to bathe you…”

“We’ll have a bathe later,” I smiled.

“In the bay? Tonight?” Mark said, entering the bathroom, and turned on the water.

I laughed and heard a knock on the front door, located directly opposite the bathroom. I opened the door and saw Mary holding a tray with tea and coffee.

I smiled and thanked her in Greek, taking the tray, when suddenly behind her… the Beekeeper appeared! He rushed into the bathroom and…

…everything happened instantly and simultaneously: I screamed in horror, the tray crashed to the floor, the cups got broken, and the sound of a falling body rang out in the bathroom.

Maria froze, paralyzed with fear.

I came to my senses and entered the bathroom. The water was pouring, and there was no Beekeeper inside. I found only the unconscious body of Mark, sprawled on the tiled floor. He even had no time to undress!

“Mark! MARK!!! Wake up! No! Please! Don’t die!!! No!!!”

However, Maria was the first to come back to herself from my cry. She helped me to drag Mark from the bathroom to the room.

There was no blood, no wounds on his body.

And what happiness! Mark opened his eyes.

He gave us a strange look, and then sat down on the floor, apparently trying to understand, where he was and what had happened to him.

“Go away,” he said gloomily to Maria, and she immediately left us alone with the shards of cups on the floor…

“Mark, you scared us so much! How are you?”

“Fine. I just slipped and fell.”

I sat down next to him.

“Listen, Mark… You need to have a rest. It’s not right. I’d better go. You’re very tired. And on Sunday then…”

Mark looked at me furtively and somehow malevolently.

“Don’t take offense, please!” I hugged him and tried to kiss on the cheek, but he grabbed my hand abruptly and threw me on the floor.

“Tell me,” he whispered grimly.

“Tell you what?”

“That you want me.”

“Of course,” I said to calm him down.

Mark smiled smugly, let go of my hand, and got up from the floor. I got up, too, and began picking up the shards of the broken cups, but Mark stopped me.

“Leave it.”

“Okay, then I’ll go. See you Sunday!”

“I’ll see you off,” Mark said categorically.

We went downstairs in silence. Maria was sitting at the entrance, looking gloomier than gloomy, but mechanically continued to weave her lace.

“Are you sure you’re okay? Is your head spinning?” I asked Mark again, just in case, on the way to Panagiotis’ house.

“I’m fine,” Mark repeated grimly.

I was terribly embarrassed and… scared… By all the saints, I could swear, I had seen the Beekeeper slipping into the bathroom!

“Was he eager to kill Mark?! But then, where did the Beekeeper disappear? Did he walk through the wall? So was he really a ghost? God, what a creepy and utterly confusing story!”

I looked at the clock. It was 11:30 p.m. The black-book southern night, cicadas, Mark and me…

“Romantic!” I would have said the day before…

We reached that very cactus bushes, right in the middle between Panagiotis’ and Maria’s houses, where a barely noticeable path began to lead down into the bay, to my favorite wild beach with a view of the Holy Mountain.

Mark stopped and looked into my eyes grinning.

“‘I want to bathe you’, ” he quoted ourselves. “‘We’ll have a bathe later’. ‘In the bay? Tonight?’ Have you ever gone swimming at night, Alice?”

I was about to say “No” and to convince Mark to go to bed instead of swimming when suddenly…

...at the entrance to Panagiotis’ house, I noticed ...the Beekeeper!!! He was waiting for us!!!

At the same moment my phone rang, and Sofia’s number appeared on the screen.

“Alice, are you okay? I’m just closing the shop and going home. I decided to call you, just in case. My soul isn’t calm for you somehow!”

“Everything is okay, Sofia, I’m fine,” I tried to be the absolute calmness, despite the gloomy expression on Mark’s face, who mutually disliked Sofia and involuntarily shuddered at my mentioning her, and despite the ghost of the Beekeeper, waiting for us at the front door of Panagiotis’ house. “Sorry, I’m already sleeping. See you tomorrow!”

And what could I tell her?! That I saw spirits everywhere again, in which phenomena Sofia didn’t believe, or that I had left the house against her instructions, risking my life for a meeting with a “non-handshakable” Mark…

“Okay, let’s go swimming,” I nodded to Mark, trying not to think about the ominous ghost.

Suddenly Mark turned to face Panagiotis’ house, and his gaze stopped on… the Beekeeper!!! The already gloomy Mark blackened his face and cursed!

“My God! Does it mean… the Beekeeper isn’t a ghost? Or Mark is able to see ghosts, too?!”

However, Mark grabbed my hand, and we ran to the sea. He jumped into the water with a run and swam towards the Holy Mountain, saying something in Greek and, it seemed to me, rather mockingly.

“Come here!” Mark shouted, swimming away from the shore.

I was wearing the thin silk dress, bought on Ammouliani to meet Mark, but I didn’t take it off, because I heard some rustles in the bushes behind me!

“Damn, the Beekeeper noticed us after all!”

“Hurry up, Alice!” Mark shouted again.

And without turning around, I stepped into the water and swam.

Suddenly the Wind was back! The clouds began to run across the Sky. Lightning flashed, and the timid rain instantly turned into a tropical downpour.

“Come here,” Mark whispered and hugged me, as I swam very close.

It seemed that my consciousness, tired of constant failures in the matrix of template programs, was agonizing. I saw with peripheral vision the outlines of the very same Giant Ship in the distance and, turning towards the shore, in another lightning I noticed… the Beekeeper!

He was approaching us… walking on the water surface!!!

Mark looked into my eyes, and something malicious flashed in his eyes.

He grinned along with another lightning flash, and then, under a clap of thunder, he grabbed me by my hair with both his hands and sent me underwater with furious force…

“…Water, water, all around is water, and a panic horror seizes me. I try to float up to the surface, but for some reason I can’t, and… I’m suffocating…”

…in Mark’s iron embrace!

I saw his face, distorted with gloating and… The Beekeeper, who held out his hand to me at the very moment, when I was bursting from the inside, but I grabbed his hand as clutching at the last straw and swam out.

“Sorry, Alice,” the Beekeeper said, “but now it’s time for you to go to the Ship…”

I looked back for some reason and…

Mark pulled me out of the water and dragged to the shore.

“Alice, let’s go!” the Beekeeper insisted.

Mark began to laugh hysterically, and then to whip my cheeks, muttering something malicious and occasionally looking at the Holy Mountain. My beautiful silk dress was ripped by him with frenzy.

“Mark, why? What for?” I asked quietly, unable to believe the happening, but he didn’t react.

“Alice, let’s go!” the Beekeeper pulled me by hand away, and I heard the familiar music, coming from the Ship.

The Wind died down. Thunder moved away. I gave a look at the Holy Mountain, but I saw the Giant Ship, it had come very close.

The music was getting louder and louder. It was the music from the very movie about Space, the Black Hole and the frozen Time, in which we all would exist forever, at every point of “here and now”.

And I saw Michael. He descended from the Ship smiling and walked towards me on the water.