Grahem Masterton
Death Dream
   
   
   
   
   
   One
   
   
   John discovered the scratches soon after Lenny had gone to sleep that night. Six deep 
parallel gouges in the corridor wall, a little above head-height, straight through the 
new floral wallpaper and right into the plaster, V-shaped and narrow, like marks made by 
a lino-cutter or a thin-bladed chisel.
   'Goddamn it,' he swore, touching the torn wallpaper with his fingertips. The 
decorating had been finished only last Wednesday, and he had lectured Lenny for five 
minutes about treating the walls and the fresh white paintwork with respect. This house 
was their new beginning, the opening of a fresh and happy chapter in their lives. For 
Lenny to have defaced it so soon was just as upsetting as if he had said that he hated 
Jennifer, and that he hated their new life together.
   This wasn't childish carelessness. This wasn't wear and tear. This was a gesture of 
hostility and rejection, and John felt more annoyed with Lenny than at any time in the 
past three years.
   'Goddamn it,' he repeated. The scratches were too forceful to have been done by 
accident. Lenny hadn't just run a toy car too enthusiastically along a flower-patterned 
racetrack; or smashed a Transformer robot too violently into a make-believe cliff. This 
was deliberate. Premeditated, tongue-between-teeth, and deliberate.
   John took three deep breaths. Then he walked the length of the corridor to Lenny's 
bedroom at the end. It was hot in there, and dark, and smelled of rubbery new carpet. 
Lenny's bed stood against the far wall. Lenny himself was lying on his back with his 
mouth open, his cheeks flushed, one hand still holding the Gobot he had been playing with 
when he fell asleep.
   John stood over the bed for a while, letting his eyes grow accustomed to the darkness. 
Lenny was nine - which meant that he was still young enough to do some really ridiculous 
things, but old enough to inflict some serious damage when he did them. He was 
curly-headed and blond and almost pretty, except for that wide, impish grin. He looked so 
much like his mother that John sometimes found the tears pricking the corners of his eyes 
even though he hadn't been thinking about Virginia at all.
   'Lelly,' Virginia had called him, because of the way he had tried to pronounce his own 
name when he was very small.
   John had allowed Lenny to grieve openly for his mother, the same way that he had 
allowed himself to grieve openly for her. Some people (especially his own mother) had 
thought that he'd allowed Lenny to grieve too much. There had been a bad eighteen months 
of tantrums, wildness, uncontrollable violence. Once, after Lenny had thrown paint around 
at school, John had almost believed that he had lost his son altogether, that Lenny would 
spend the rest of his life screaming and kicking and refusing to understand that people 
die whether you want them to or not, and that can sometimes include your own mother.
   However, he had tried to be patient with Lenny, and he had persuaded Lenny's teachers 
and his friends to be patient, too. Gradually, Lenny's behavior had improved; and John 
would never forget the day that
   Lenny had come home from school and put his arms around him and said nothing at all, 
and John had known that at last Lenny had come to terms with losing his mother.
   These days, John didn't allow Lenny to throw tantrums. He expected cooperation, and 
friendship, and trust. The memory would always be there, but the grieving had to be put 
behind them; life had to go on. Last May, John had found a new job as production manager 
for the Philadelphia News and had sold their old house in Newark; and late in October he 
had met Jennifer and soon asked her to marry him.
   John wondered if Lenny might have resented all of this upheaval, without outwardly 
admitting it. Maybe Lenny felt that, by selling the house in which they had lived 
together, by changing his job, and by falling in love with Jennifer, John had somehow 
betrayed Virginia and tried to erase her memory. After all, they couldn't visit the grave 
anymore, not regularly, not like they used to when they still lived in Newark.
   Maybe that was what the scratches in the wall were all about: a dumb protest against 
his new life. A mark to show that even if John didn't care about Virginia anymore. Lenny 
did.
   Lenny began to snore a little. John was still angry with him, but he didn't really 
want to wake him. Lenny's eyes were shifting under his eyelids in REM sleep. He was 
dreaming, about something. Baseball? Star Trek? His mother? John didn't want to wake him 
in the middle of a dream.
   All right, young man, he thought. This can wait until morning. But don't expect me to 
feel any better about it then.
   A shadow fell across the doorway. It was Jennifer, looking for him.
   'Is he all right?' she whispered. 'I wondered where you were.'
   'He's okay.' John tiptoed back out of the bedroom and closed the door. He kissed 
Jennifer on the forehead; he still loved the freshness of their marriage, the excitement 
of loving somebody new. The little tyke just scratched the wallpaper. Did you see it? I'm 
going to flay him alive tomorrow. Forty-five dollars a roll, and he's torn it.'
   He led her back along the corridor and showed her the scratches.
   Jennifer frowned at them. 'Did Lenny do those?'
   Jennifer reached up and touched them. They look awfully high up for Lenny to have done 
them. And he must have used a terrific amount of strength, to dig in that deep.'
   'Who do you think you are - Sherlock Holmes?'
   Jennifer smiled, and gave him a quick kiss. 'Don't be angry with him, John. I'm sure 
he didn't mean to do it.'
   'He didn't mean to dig half a dozen darn great grooves in the wall? It probably took 
him most of the evening!'
   They went down the curving, white-banistered staircase. The corridor and the stairs 
were carpeted in pale apricot, and the walls were covered in green-and-apricot flowers.
   'It couldn't have taken him any time at all,' Jennifer remarked. 'He was playing 
Trivial Pursuit with me for most of the evening. Then he had his bath, came down for his 
milk and cookies, and went straight to bed.'
   'Well, maybe he did it yesterday evening and I just didn't notice it before,' John 
grumbled. 'Do you want a drink?'
   Jennifer went through to the sitting room and sat down. 'I'll have a martini if you're 
having one.'
   John went across to the drinks table. A chilled glass jug was waiting on the tray. 
That was the only domestic service that Jennifer ever did for him: mix him a jug of 
martinis so that it would be ready when he came home from the office.
   'You have a spare roll of that wallpaper, don't you?' Jennifer asked. 'I could get 
Mr.. Kahn to come around to fix it tomorrow.'