by Amy Plum
“That part worked,” I say back. “Now you have to survive.”
“The pacemakers must have been turned off with the power,” Ant’s paramedic says. “Mine’s beginning to flatline. Starting resuscitation by defibrillation.”
“Same here,” says Cata’s EMT.
“Mine’s already flatlined,” says the man monitoring Sinclair.
Fergus’s eyes lose their focus. As I listen, his heart stops beating. I pick up the paddles and step back.
Everyone’s counting out their own beats as each of us tries to resuscitate our subject. I apply the first charge. Fergus doesn’t react. I lean in close enough for him to hear. “Come on, Fergus. You’ve already resurrected once today. Let’s make two times a charm.” I apply the paddles again and press the charge button.
There is an explosion at the door as Drs. Zhu and Vesper burst into the lab. Their beet-red faces drain white with shock as they register the scene in front of them. “What in the name of God is going on in here?” yells Vesper. Zhu just stands there in shock.
I look down at Fergus, whose head has rolled to the side. The Tower makes a clicking noise as all the monitors restart at once, and there’s Fergus’s heartbeat . . . going strong. His second round of defibrillation worked.
Zhu walks up to me, gives me a look of pure hatred, and shoves me aside as she checks Fergus’s vitals. Fergus turns his head slowly upward, opens his eyes, and blinks. “Hey, Doc! Looks like we’re back.”
Zhu lets out this half shriek, half gasp and turns to the paramedics. One by one, they step back and reveal successfully resuscitated subjects.
Cata blinks and raises her hands to her lips. “Thirsty,” she says.
Antonia peers at them through half-closed lids. It looks like she’s been to hell and back. “Could someone get my parents?”
Sinclair turns his head as the doctors approach. “Hey, it’s our favorite sleep specialists,” he says, his voice a rasp. “I just want to say . . . great job curing our insomnia.” His eyelids begin to sag as his words slow. “Tell the others . . . it isn’t over.” His eyes roll back as the beeping of his heart rate monitor slows into a steady rhythm.
“Muscle tension relaxed, brain waves in delta,” reports the paramedic standing by his side. “He’s slipped back into the coma.”
Zhu tears herself away from the subjects and marches over to me. “Explain. What are you doing sneaking back here? What have you done?” Vesper joins her and hunches over me menacingly.
“I haven’t done anything,” I say. “And I’m not sneaking. I left and went to dinner. And when I finished, I realized I’d forgotten my bag and came back to get it. I signed in with the receptionist. You can check!”
They wait, listening, so I continue. “When I came in, it was dark in here and the Tower was off. So I called the paramedics, like you had me do before. And when they got here, they asked me to help with the resuscitation.”
Zhu narrows her eyes. “You have something to do with this. I can tell.”
I lift my hands and try for the most innocent expression I can muster.
“They’re alive,” Vesper reminds Zhu.
Zhu’s shoulders slump, and she lets out a sigh so deep, it’s like she’s been holding her breath for the last nine hours. “They’re alive, but are they healthy? Let’s start checking vitals and getting them warmth and nourishment. Someone notify the parents immediately.”
They walk a few steps away before Vesper turns around. “Don’t you even think about leaving now,” he says. A muscle twitches beside his eye. I can tell he knows something, but even he doesn’t know what it is. “Do you have your notebook?”
“It’s in my bag.” I gesture toward where I dropped it beside the door.
He turns away from me. “You have a lot to catch up on, Jaime. Better start writing.”
Epilogue
Jaime
IT’S BEEN SIX MONTHS SINCE THE EXPERIMENT occurred, and you won’t be surprised to hear that it will be the last of its kind. Zhu and Vesper quietly ended their research and are moving on to delve into the intricacies of fatal familial insomnia. They have already located the gene sequence and are taking the first steps toward finding a vaccine that will eradicate the disease completely.
And for the record, they never did ask me what really happened. My suggestion during the test about shared dreams had been too far out there for them to accept, so they preferred not to push me on what I thought had occurred. Ignorance is bliss, I suppose. Or at least, it keeps you from doubting your very sanity.
The clinic settled out of court for the deaths of BethAnn and Remi. Brett’s family didn’t sue. This had been their last-ditch effort, and no one had really thought it would work. Besides, with Zhu and Vesper turning their attention to curing the disease that took their son, Brett’s parents were comforted that his experience had served as a trigger for action in the medical world.
The sleepers were up-front about everything. They answered all questions honestly, but no one believed that what they had experienced were anything more than hallucinations: delusions created by minds that were fighting to survive.
Osterman used my notes in court, although I refused to testify in person, knowing that I would have to lie. I passed premed with flying colors and, with the help of my adviser, secured a grant that will see me through medical school. I’m still set on specializing in public health. I had a friend make an architectural drawing of the future Detroit Free Clinic. It hangs on the wall above my desk.
Antonia, or Ant, as she makes me call her on the occasional times we have seen each other, made the courageous decision to skip high school, and this month she started university. The paper she wrote for her applications, laying out her spectrum theory of neurologically based behavioral differences, had universities fighting over her. She’s on a full-ride scholarship and has about a million internship offers. She ditched the chullo and gloves as soon as the experiment was over, and is merely thought of as “eccentric” by her new friends in her dorm.
Cata went to court and won a conviction against her father for child abuse. Her brother and sister were taken in by Barbara, who I have met on a couple of occasions. She is the kind of person who thrives on caring for people, which is a good thing, because with Fergus already having moved in, she had a full house.
It took Fergus under two weeks to settle things at home. He took the bus and arrived in Tennessee with his whole life in a suitcase. Barbara set him up with a local artist—one you’ve probably heard of—who is mentoring Fergus and showing him how to grow and develop his own style.
Cata enrolled in a college close to Barbara’s house, and is majoring in journalism. Her goal is to become a writer and live in upstate New York in a cabin in the woods where the snow falls deep during the winter and she can write in the light of a crackling fire. Funnily enough, that plan would work perfectly for Fergus as well, since he wants to be near—but not too near—the New York art world.
He sent me one of his paintings, which has pride of place on my miniscule apartment wall. It takes me back to that day when the impossible became possible and I took a risk that could have cost me everything. Instead, that choice has set me on the road to the life I always dreamed of, and saved the lives of what I hope will be three enduring friends.
Sinclair passed away soon after the experiment. Convinced by the doctors that he would never wake from his coma, his parents had him unplugged from life support. On an anonymous tip, all three of the deaths he had been linked to were immediately brought to court, and he was convicted in absentia, bringing peace to the families of the deceased.
A couple of weeks ago, on one of those whims you never think you’ll follow through on, I visited his grave. It was well situated under an oak tree on one of the cemetery’s rolling hills. On the front of the gravestone was the typical information: name, birth date, death date, and words about beloved son. But for some reason I decided to walk around the back. There, inexplicably carved into the marble with
an expert hand, were a clock, a knife, and a key.
Acknowledgments
A huge remerciement to my editors at HarperTeen: Tara Weikum and Christopher Hernandez. For THREE WHOLE SERIES you have been the gentle hands that nudged me in the right direction. You asked the questions I needed to think things through and bring the best I had to the stories. Huge gratitude to both of you.
Thank you to the lovely Stacy Glick for finding Dreamfall and Neverwake a home with HarperTeen.
Thank you to Jenna Stempel for creating yet another incredible cover. The way you wove Dreamfall and Neverwake together into one beautiful nightmare is truly a work of wonder. And to Janet Robbins Rosenberg and Alexandra Rakaczki for performing their own magic on my crimes against punctuation. You are copyeditors extraordinaire.
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my sensitivity reader, Jenna Gephart, who read both books from an Aspie teen’s point of view and gave me her thoughts. She and her lovely mother, author Tina Gephart, invited me into their world and opened my eyes to the host of amazing people involved in the autism spectrum community. Thank you, Jenna, for loving Ant and for reassuring me that I got her right.
Thank you to James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, and Kirk Hammett for letting me reprint lyrics to “Enter Sandman” in Neverwake. Metallica’s song was constantly going through my mind as I wrote the nightmare sections of the book. It fits the story perfectly.
Neverwake had three wonderful beta readers: Lori Ann Stephens, Kayla Canfield, and Claudia Depkin all weathered through one or more drafts for me. Fergus, Cata, Ant, Jaime, the rest of the gang, and I are all extremely grateful for your comments and cheerleading. Laura Lam, thank you for confirming that my Small World scene was creeptastic enough. It’s good to know someone else is terrified by those smiling dolls.
Thanks to my parents for renting the most terrifying run-down antebellum mansion in Alabama—the old dean’s house of Samford University—during my junior and senior years of high school. Complete with an ancient bathroom connected to my bedroom, dilapidated concrete shower rooms underneath the house, and an Olympic-sized swimming pool filled with green sludge and rats. I planned this book as a teenager while lying in my bed listening to the house creak and imagining the Flayed Man and the bloody slime dripping through the ceiling. How could anyone possibly live there and not write about it?
Thank you to my friends for your encouragement and cheerleading during the planning and writing of Neverwake, including Kim Lennert, Diana Canfield, Alex Goddard, Mags Harnett, Cassi Bryn-Michalik, Christi Daugherty, Jack Jewers, Gretchen Scoleri, and Celeste Rhoads. Having your love and support means the world to me.
Thanks to Dr. Lewis Foss for advice on how to manage the lifesaving techniques Jaime needed at the end of the book. Giving fictional medical advice when you’re used to dealing with real-life situations is quite a stretch, and I appreciate the support!
Thank you to Cata for telling my teenage story the way it would have gone if I had chosen a different path. To all of those who lived through abusive childhoods, I wish you healing. To all of those still living with abuse . . . don’t be afraid to tell someone about it, even if you don’t think they’ll believe you. Report it. Protect yourself. Let Cata inspire you to take that step so that you don’t have to handle it by yourself like I did.
Thank you to Humphrey for inspiring Remi. May you rest in peace.
Thank you to the visionaries behind the horror films that Fergus and I binge-watched to prepare for this book, including Friday the 13th, Carrie, It, Children of the Corn, Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Zombieland, Let the Right One In, Rosemary’s Baby, The Shining, Amityville Horror, The Exorcist, and so many others. Also, thank you to Flatliners and The Matrix for being major influences for Dreamfall’s world-building.
Thank you to my children for egging me on to make things scarier, especially the brainstorm on how to make the amusement park creepy AH.
And above all, thank you to my readers for their enthusiasm over Dreamfall. Especially to those who said they don’t read horror, but read Dreamfall because I wrote it, and ended up falling in love with the characters. What an amazing compliment! And for all of my readers: thank you for allowing me to entertain you with the stories in my mind and the characters of my imagination.
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About the Author
Photo by Julie Trannoy
AMY PLUM is the international bestselling author of the Die for Me series and the After the End series. She spent her childhood in Birmingham, Alabama, her twenties in Chicago and Paris, and several more years in London, New York, and the Loire Valley. Now she lives in Paris and swears she’ll never move again. You can visit Amy online at www.amyplumbooks.com.
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Books by Amy Plum
Dreamfall
Neverwake
The After the End series
After the End
Until the Beginning
The Die for Me series
Die for Me
Until I Die
If I Should Die
Novellas
Die for Her
Die Once More
Inside the World of Die for Me
Copyright
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
“Enter Sandman” Words and Music by James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, and Kirk Hammett
Copyright © 1991 Creepy Death Music (GMR)
International copyright secured. All rights reserved.
Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard LLC.
NEVERWAKE. Copyright © 2018 by Amy Plum. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.epicreads.com
Cover photographs by ollo / Getty Images (forest) and Gary Turner / Arcangel (carousel)
Cover design by Jenna Stempel
* * *
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018933337
Digital Edition JULY 2018 ISBN: 9780062429926
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-242990-2
* * *
1819202122PC/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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