Dreamwalker (4 page)

He travelled to America and over the next decade, he built Island Cabs from a two-car operation into a ubiquitous sight on the streets of Atlantic City. Heroin was the high-paying passenger, smuggled in by ship from Afghanistan, and only sold to trusted men, and only within the confines of his electronically shielded cabs.

Cops got suspicious, but St. Croix kept a tight rein on the operation, minimizing the number of officers he needed on the take. Anyone who compromised security or broke the slightest rule, knew that The Chair awaited them. The threat of The Chair made almost everyone careful. For those few who were not, Cauquemere had treasures from the world of nightmares to share with them.

After Manuel's visit to The Chair, it was time for Cauquemere to return to the other world, his world, where dreams were reality and his power absolute. He had groundwork to prepare there, a foundation on which to build the great events about to surround Island Cabs.

St. Croix laid the bloody tire iron back on his desk and sat down behind it. He propped his shiny alligator boots up on the desktop. He licked his thumb, leaned forward, and wiped a spot of red liquid from the toe. He buffed it with the cuff of his shirt and admired the shine. Then St. Croix leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. He relaxed, drifted off to sleep, and delivered Cauquemere back to the land of living nightmares.

Chapter Eight

When Pete Holm's shift finally ended, the new day was over an hour old. He had been awake over twenty hours and the last seven had been steamy, wet, and hectic. He took a wickedly hot shower on autopilot and collapsed into bed. A tidal wave of sleep swept over him. It pushed him down in a happy passage to his ever-active dream world.

Pete arrived back on the mansion ground floor. After an alienating day in Atlantic City, he welcomed the familiar sense of home and the inner peace the mansion always brought.

He remembered the screaming gray monster from his last visit to the plantation house. The shattered sunroom windows, the tropical plants exposed to the elements. He caught his breath and ran down the hallway. He burst into the sunroom.

All the glass was in place, gentle filters for the pale yellow sun of a beautiful spring day. The alabaster marble floor reflected the white clouds that passed above. Along the right side, the peace lilies' full white teardrop blooms nodded in his direction. Orchids dripped with color and the air smelled of honey.

Pete exhaled. Through the wonders of the subconscious, no harm done.

He left the sunroom and walked down the hallway. He stopped almost immediately. A new recess in the polished wood floor hosted a large iron ring. An unnatural wide gap between the boards created a three-foot square around the ring.

A trap door?

The mansion had never had a basement before. This would be fun. Pete reached down, grabbed the trap door's ring, and pulled.

The heavy door came up with a loud creak. A hand-forged iron chain held the door open just past vertical. A rush of cool, humid air delivered the mixed scents of mold and earth. A set of rough wooden steps led down into the dimly lit passage.

Pete looked down into the gloom, hesitant to enter this uninviting subterranean hallway. The pull kicked in again, the same pull that dragged him off campus yesterday, the same pull that drove him west into the down-and-out side of Atlantic City. And now it pulled him down, away from the calming mansion, warmth, and daylight. He took a deep breath.

The steps led to a narrow passageway hewn from the earth, barely wider than his shoulders. The walls bore the irregular scars of hand excavation but smooth hard-packed clay covered the floor. Looser earth made up the ceiling. Stray black root tips poked down at intermittent intervals. Burning white candles protruded from the walls every twenty feet. Dripping wax formed small, dry puddles under each one. The passageway stretched on with no end in sight.

The pull tugged him forward. He rubbed his damp palms against his jeans.

A hundred yards in, a rumble echoed from the tunnel's far end. Pete's heart jumped and he slowed his advance. With each step, the noise became more distinct. It was the ear-splitting sound of loud, unmuffled car engines.

The passageway ended with a sharp right turn, then a sharp left, a small “S” that kept the exit out of sight. Pasty, artificial light lit the mini-maze from the far end. Pete crept along the wall to the exit and found himself behind several boulders. Night had swallowed the mansion's spring day. A dark, starless sky spread out above. Twin moons hung low on the horizon, one darker than the other.

Pete had never dreamed of this place before. It sent a chill up his spine.

He climbed atop the boulders. A city street ran past. The rain-slicked asphalt shone in the moonlight. Two- and three-story brick brownstones, or what was left of them, lined the street. Nearly all the windows in the structures had been blown out and the few doors still attached hung wide open. Some walls had gaping, ragged holes blasted in them. Common elements of daily life littered the street. Shattered furniture, bits of clothing, a crushed toy truck. A rank odor of bloating carcasses lay heavy in the air. Amazingly, the streetlights all blazed.

Pete paused in confusion. Adventure dreams segued to the mansion, but mansion dreams never…

“Hurry, we need to get moving,” a voice whispered from his left.

He recognized the voice at once. He turned and saw Dream Girl.

She looked rougher than when they last met in the zoo. Her blonde hair was pulled back tight and the resulting pony tail pinned up. Worn, dirty black jeans hung loose at her hips. The cuffs of her denim shirt's long sleeves were reduced to shreds. Shadows darkened the undersides of her eyes and streaks of dirt lined her face. She still looked beautiful.

As with any dream, Pete just waded into the action.

“Which way?” he asked.

The roar of an engine thundered from a side street. Dream Girl grabbed his hand and pulled.

“Across the street. Hurry!”

They ran. Two headlights rounded the corner and turned toward them. The silhouette looked like a Jeep, but with some type of modifications. Pete hit the porch steps of the nearest brownstone just one stride behind Dream Girl. The Jeep's headlights lit their silhouettes against the building. A high-pitched, evil cackle rolled down the street and the engine went full throttle. Pete and Dream Girl dove headfirst through the front doorway.

She rolled expertly across the trash strewn floor, ending up back on her feet. Pete looked up in admiration from his prone position. She reached down and pulled him up by his collar.

“Don't stop now,” she said. “This way!”

She turned left and darted through a hole in the building wall. He caught a flash of Dream Girls' running shoe disappearing through a similar size hole in the wall of the neighboring building. Pete followed her through.

This brownstone was a mirror image of the one they left and in no better condition. The contents looked as if they'd been through a blender. Weapons fire had julienned what remained of the furniture. Pictures with cracked and broken frames lay on the floor like the owners' photographic tombstones. Bullet holes the size of silver dollars pockmarked the walls. Dream Girl leaned against the front wall and peered through the remnants of a bay window. Pete crawled up alongside her.

“They're here,” she whispered. “Stay in the shadows.”

A taxi cab-yellow, open-top, two-door Jeep screeched to an abrupt halt in front of the building next door. It stood a good five feet off the ground and the fenders were extended two feet to cover the oversized tires that sported a thicket of knives for hubcaps. Their sharpened points glistened under the street lights. The doors bore the stencils of crossed snakes, one black, one white. Pete recognized the symbol from the last nightmare he had, on the medallion around the neck of the gray screaming creature outside the mansion.

In the back of the Jeep rose a spindle-mounted .50 caliber machine gun. A belt of black and copper rounds snaked from the weapon into the bed of the truck. Standing behind it, training it on the first brownstone's entrance, was a gunner more horrific than Pete thought he could imagine.

The creature wore the remnants of a business suit. Its shredded pants flapped in the breeze. The jacket's missing right sleeve exposed the once-white shirt beneath, now nearly black with dried blood and dirt. The gunner's tie had switched to headband duties. By the look of it, it could be all that was holding the creature's head together.

The thing, clearly once human, had transformed into something else. Half its head was burned and horribly scarred. The sole remaining eye shot back and forth like a caged animal, out of sync with the direction of the head. The other half of the head was simply bone, all flesh and muscle blasted away by whatever broiled the other side. The eye socket was dark and empty. The creature spouted a maniacal laugh. Its withered hand pulled back the machine gun's charging handle to load it for firing.

The Jeep's driver was a similar ghoul, reduced to mostly skeleton and dressed in the matching green rags of a gardener's uniform. Its skull swung back and forth like a cattail in a breeze.

A second set of lights in the bumper came to life and lit the brownstone like a sunrise. With a scream of delight, the zombie ex-stock broker at the .50 caliber fired. Brilliant tracer rounds flew through the shattered windows. Spent shells and links pinged like metal rain onto the Jeep's floor. The vehicle rocked back and forth on its springs as it absorbed the massive concussion of the machine gun's recoil. Hundreds of rounds pounded into the building and churned the interior to dusty pulp.

Vaporized plaster wafted in through the window over Pete's head. The sharp smell of spent gunpowder followed it in.

Pete fought back a cough. This felt so
real
.

“They looking for us?” Pete asked.

“No,” Dream Girl said. “They're looking for anyone. We just happen to be here.”

Pete wondered why he had to ask. Even in his wildest adventure dreams, Pete always slipped into it seamlessly. Usually he already knew whatever backstory had led him to this point in time, and everything, no matter how bizarre, made perfect sense. But his subconscious had skipped the background briefing. He was flying blind.

The gunner in the rear of the Jeep ceased fire and laughed like a crazed hyena, head lolled back, lone eye staring at the two moons. The driver killed the extra spotlights and threw the Jeep in reverse. He punched the accelerator. The engine bellowed in response. Flames flew from the side-mounted exhaust. All four blade-studded rims spun in unison and the Jeep screamed backward down the road. The driver never even looked over his shoulder to steer. The city swallowed up the Jeep and the howl of the engine faded.

Something rustled in the shadowy corner of the room. Pete and Dream Girl spun to face it. Just outside the rectangle of illumination from the missing front window, a terrified man huddled in the corner. Pete advanced into the light and knelt beside him.

He was about thirty, but had a haunted, sallow look that aged him an extra twenty years. Long, solid-white hair stuck out from his head at odd angles. His eyes displayed the red irritation borne of lack of sleep, and dark gray bags had taken up permanent residence below them. He wore a stained Hawaiian shirt and a pair of dirty Bermuda shorts. Thick grime blackened his bare feet.

“I'm Pete.” Pete's voice sounded like someone trying to coax a kitten from a tree. “Are you okay?”

The man's eyes darted right and left, as if searching for an escape route. He clasped his hands between his knees and wrung them together.

“Are they gone?” he said. “Is it safe?”

“They're gone,” Pete said. This poor soul didn't look like he could take any other news. “Relax.”

“He can't,” Dream Girl said.

The man's hand wringing went to half-speed. But his eyes continued to search in what appeared an ingrained habit of eternal vigilance, as if the man no longer knew how to exist without being in motion.

“He's already past the edge,” Dream Girl said. “He's been hunted and moving for so long he's forgotten how to rest.”

“Almost safe,” the ragged man chanted softly to himself. “Almost safe. Make it one more day. Make it 'til dawn. Yes, I can.”

The man began to flap his arms over and around his head. His hands flexed open and closed in sync. His head weaved back and forth and his eyes rolled in their sockets.

“I'll spin the webs around me,” he said. His voice grew more excited. “Protective webs of cloaking violet. None will find me in the cocoon. Radio darlings send biscuits of redemption. I'll wake up in Waikiki with Karen. Sand and surf and only one moon.”

Pete touched his shoulder to calm him. “How long have you been here?”

The man stopped flailing, arms paused suspended in the air. His bloodshot eyes locked on Pete's. His face acquired an expression of amazement, as if Pete had just materialized out of thin air. He answered in a voice calm and level, far more terrifying than his wailing rants.

“How long is forever?”

The bedraggled man sprang to his feet and knocked Pete back to the ground.

“Nursemaids howl in silence!” the man screamed. “Get to morning! Wake on the beach!”

He catapulted himself out the front window and disappeared into the darkness. Dream Girl reached under Pete's armpits from behind him and helped him to his feet.

“Simon's almost fully gone,” she said. “It's been too much for him. A few more encounters and he'll turn completely.”

“Turn into…?”

The girl pointed out through the missing window.

“One of them,” she said. “Not the way he thought his Waikiki vacation would end the last night he fell asleep.”

A sympathetic twinge flexed in Pete's chest. He wanted there to be hope for Simon, even if he was a figment of Pete's own imagination.

“I'll dream he wakes up back in his resort in the morning,” Pete said.

“He won't,” the girl said. “There is no dawn in Twin Moon City.”

“Hopeless victims in a hopeless land,” Pete said. “My subconscious has knocked one out of the park tonight.”

“I'm Rayna,” she said. “We don't have a lot of time. You need to—”

The growl of engines cut her short. The sound filled the air outside the building and rumbled the brownstone's rotting floorboards.

“Damn,” she said. She stuck her head out the window and listened. “Multiple Jeeps, many directions. You need to go back right now. He sensed your presence here and the hunters are returning, this time in force. Get back through the tunnel and close it behind you.”

“Aren't you coming?” he said.

Rayna shook her head.

“No, I wish I could.”

A Jeep pulled up behind the building with a crash as it bowled over loose masonry. The sound of crazed laughter pierced the house.

“Leave a reflection and get going,” Rayna said.

“A reflection?”

She ignored his question. “Remember one thing…”

She grabbed a shard of glass from the floor. She gripped his wrist. With one quick slash, she put a deep scratch in his outer forearm. It hurt like hell.

“What happens here does
not
stay here,” she said.