The Dream Machine: Book 6, The Eddie McCloskey Paranormal Mystery Series (The Unearthed)
Read The Dream Machine: Book 6, The Eddie McCloskey Paranormal Mystery Series (The Unearthed) Online
Authors: Evan Ronan
They’re watching her dreams…and seeing the future
At a remote federal facility, researchers are watching—
literally watching
—test subjects’ dreams on computer screens. Alison, a teenage patient, is of particular interest because her dreams seemingly come true.
Eddie McCloskey, paranormal expert, versed in the occult and in debunking bad science, doesn’t put much stock in dreams. He’s studied the paranormal literature as much as anybody, and he’s convinced there’s a perfectly good explanation for all dreams.
But when Alison dreams about a catastrophic accident and a terrible crime, the shadowy federal agents Eddie worked with in Oregon come calling again. Eddie and the feds are racing against the clock. Are the dreams predictions, or merely intimations of what
might
happen? Can the future be altered?
This is no ghost hunt, but they need Eddie McCloskey’s lateral thinking if they’re going to get the job done here. Because they’ll soon discover there’s something else, something even more sinister, about Alison’s dreams…
The Dream Machine
is a paranormal thriller told at a breakneck, unrelenting pace.
WHO WILL LIKE IT: Fans of supernatural suspense, ghost and paranormal mysteries, in fact paranormal activity of all types! Especially if they love Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Jim Butcher, Jonathan Maberry, and smart, sci-fi and paranormal thrillers like MINORITY REPORT, INCEPTION, and THE MATRIX.
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the dream machine
evan ronan
TABLE OF CONTENTS
In 2008, Japanese scientists for the first time recorded human dreams using functional magnetic resonance imaging technology.
In 2015, American scientists working out of an undisclosed federal facility figured out a way to build upon what the Japanese started…
Tim, my dead brother, rarely visited me in my dreams anymore.
Just after his murder, it had been frequent. But that was years ago. Now the rareness made his appearances stand out. We were standing outside the Moriarty house in the middle of the night, a chill in the air and the smell of leaves burning somewhere.
“He’s still connected,” Tim said.
“I know,” I said, even though I didn’t know whom Tim was referring to.
“You can find him.”
“I know,” I said again, still not sure who we were talking about. Why didn’t I just ask? I wanted to. But it was like I was trapped inside my body, watching Some Other Eddie interact with my brother.
“Don’t you want to?” Tim said.
Then a half-recognition came to me. Some part of me understood what Tim was talking about, though the other part of me—the conscious part of me?—did not.
“Yes.”
“He’s still connected,” Tim said again.
The dream world began to shift. I felt Tim tearing away from me, just like he had on the steps of that house…his artery cut…the blood seeping out of his belly, all over my hands, my clothes.
And I got that feeling I’d never see him again.
“Tim!”
But he’d turned and was walking toward the Moriarty house, ignoring me.
“Tim!” I was going to lose him forever. Again.
Without looking back, he waved at me to follow but I couldn’t move. I looked down at my feet, willing them to take a step. But I was rooted to the ground on that dark, chilly night, back in my town, where I’d grown up, where I’d gotten arrested, where I’d been convicted, where I’d left.
But maybe I’d never left. Maybe you could never leave certain places.
When I looked back up, the setting had changed. I was in a vaguely familiar living room. It was dark, the only light coming from the high beams of a passing car outside. A window was open above me. I was sitting on the floor, a can of beer in my hand.
I didn’t drink anymore…
“Eddie.”
“Ana?”
In the darkness, I could sense her. Sitting on the floor, only a few feet away. An urgency in her voice, in her breathing.
In
me
.
“I knew you’d come back,” Ana said.
“How long…”
“Almost too long since we investigated the town-wide hauntings. Almost too long. Eddie, I…”
“What is it?” I asked.
Out of the depths of my mind, I remembered I was in a serious, committed relationship to a beautiful, intelligent woman. That I had a ring. That soon I was going to pop the question.
But Ana was right here. So urgent. So needful.
“Eddie, I almost gave up.” Her voice was thick with emotion.
“Ana…”
“I’m so glad you came back.”
After we had debunked the town-wide hauntings, Ana had gotten the strength to dump her dead-end boyfriend. And then, outside her apartment building, she’d told me, breathlessly, that she’d wait. She’d wait for me. I wasn’t worth waiting for, but she was willing.
But I was in love with another woman…why was I dreaming about Ana?
“Eddie.” Her hand on my chest, her other hand taking the beer from me and putting it aside. “Eddie.”
Her lips soft, parting, yielding. Her tiny body revving like an engine at the start line, all pent-up energy, ready to explode. Three parts of me: guilty, lustful, confused.
How was I in this room right now?
“Eddie, forget about her,” Ana said. “Forget about Sumiko.”
Ana didn’t know about Sumiko. She couldn’t. And the incongruity made me remember: this was just a dream.
Just a dream.
I snapped awake.
***
I groped blindly for my notebook on the night stand to write it all down. I’d been awake a heartbeat but already the details of the dreams were receding, submerging, scattering.
I couldn’t find my notebook. I kept it within easy reach on the night stand for just this purpose. Sometimes a good idea came to me in sleep and good ideas were few and far between, more precious than any metal. But the notebook was gone.
I sat up.
Think. Remember.
Tim. I’d been dreaming about my brother. We were standing outside the Moriarty house in the middle of the night. He’d told me something important. But what was it?
What was Tim trying to tell me?
Next to me, Sumiko stirred in her sleep. Her tiny body was half-wrapped in the sheets, like she was coming out of a cocoon. The sight of her made me recall the other part of the dream.
Ana.
Oh God.
Why had I been dreaming about Ana?
I hadn’t seen her in…awhile. My sleep-fogged brain refused to do the math.
I was about to propose to Sumiko and I’d been dreaming about Ana. What the hell was wrong with me?
And Tim…where had we been? What had he said?
When I reached for the strand connected to Tim, Ana slipped away. When I reached for her, Tim vanished.
What was I dreaming about?
A profound, but disproportionate sadness overcame me. It was just a dream. I’d have more. No use in getting all bent out of shape—
Ana! I’d been dreaming about Ana. But why? What was my subconscious trying to tell me?
It was pretty obvious.
Are you sure you want to marry Sumiko?
But that was assuming the dream carried a message. I was reasonably smart, at least smart enough not to go down the rabbit hole that dreams were. When we slept, the brain continued to fire. The dream was just our mind’s way of making sense of the random firings. Nothing more.
It didn’t mean anything that I’d just dreamed of Ana. It sure as hell didn’t mean I shouldn’t propose to Sumiko. She was everything I ever wanted in a woman, and also everything I didn’t know I ever wanted.
I laid back down amid the sweaty sheets and Sumiko stirred again. Gently, very gently, I spooned with her. Her body responded and she hmmmmed as we fit ourselves together, like two well-worn puzzle pieces.
“Again?” she murmured.
Truth be told, I was still guiltily excited from my dream about Ana. As much as I wanted to, it would have been…wrong. Disingenuous. Somebody else had started my engine, so it wouldn’t be right to finish the race with Sumiko.
I kissed the back of her head. She’d cut her dark hair short and it was still damp from the shower we’d shared, which of course had kicked other things off.
“In the morning, baby. You sleep now.”
“Quickie…” she murmured.
That did it. I could draw a sharp line between my excitement from the dream and the pressing desire that stirred now. This was all for Sumiko.
But she’d been working long hours of late, courtesy of a spate of an unusually high amount of crime in her relatively small town. As much as I wanted to go in for seconds (actually, thirds) and explore that amazing body of hers, I also wanted her to sleep. She needed it. We’d have our fun tomorrow morning.
All morning long. I had nothing else on the calendar.
Sumiko hmmmmmed again and I listened to the rhythm of her breathing slow as she went back to sleep.
I stayed like that a long time. Sumiko made tiny little heartbreaking, cute sighs in her sleep. Her thighs were smoother than a politician. When I began to regret my decision not to fully wake her and checked the clock for the umpteenth time, I got my increasingly horny ass out of bed and padded silently into the living room.
I powered up my laptop and decided it was a good time to post something new on the blog, something I never did often enough. Stan, of course, was better at this, firing off three or four posts a week despite having much less free time than me. If it weren’t for him, any visitors coming to our website would have been disappointed by my, at best, fortnightly inane ramblings.
I was still impressed by our website. It was professional, classy, subtle, and sleek. Wisely, I’d left the design to Stan.
Searching for inspiration, I reread old posts and static pages and like always found myself back at the beginning.
The Rosselli Investigation.
Though I knew it better than anybody, I read all the content on this static page from start to finish. The summary was accurate but never seemed to capture the essence of the investigation. The website copy explained that Eamon Moriarty had haunted the house subconsciously, while still alive. If you believed Eamon (and I normally didn’t), he’d had no idea he was haunting this house while we investigated the strange goings-on.
I was about to start a new post when the last thought struck me.
What if Eamon hadn’t been lying?
What if his subconscious—call it his
id
—had been haunting the house without his knowledge?
What if it still did?
And with a start, I realized that was what Tim had been trying to tell me in the dream. Eamon was still connected to the house.