by Paul Seiple
"I see you've made yourself at home, Michael. Maybe I'm in the wrong business. I hear head shrinks make a killing."
Father Abraham was only half kidding. He wasn't your typical preacher. With a gut cresting just above his belt, like a dam that could break after a few more burgers, and a warming personality, jolly was a fitting word to describe the man. He didn't treat religion like a horse pill that must be swallowed, straight with no chaser. Father Abraham was an expert at weaving the Bible's teachings into any situation without turning things into a head-on collision with damnation. Over the years, I became more comfortable with him. I'm not sure I was ever comfortable enough to discuss the dreams. But there came a point that the bloat of keeping them bottled up became too much.
"I had another dream."
Father Abraham's fingertips disappeared into his gray beard. As he scratched his chin, a bead of sweat formed on his balding head. Not surprising, even though it was a chilly sixty-five degrees in the room. Overweight men tend to sweat more. I know. I used to be a fat kid. Hell, I'd sweat from just getting up to get more chips. That was before the growth spurt evened me out.
"Did it end as the others?" Father Abraham asked, wiping the wetness from his forehead with a Jesus Saves bandana.
If my mind hadn't been so preoccupied with the dream I probably would have made some distasteful joke about Jesus turning water into wine. But I couldn't shake the girl's face. Her fright. Her pain.
The dreams started when I turned eighteen. At first, I brushed them off, blaming them on watching horror movies while under the influence of way too much alcohol. At twenty-one, I stopped drinking and joined the police academy as a tribute to a fallen hero — my father, James Callahan, who for twenty years was the police chief of Winston Salem. I spent my teen years worrying that my father would be killed by some raging lunatic with a gun and an aversion to being locked up. The raging lunatic turned out to be lung cancer. After being diagnosed, he was gone in three weeks. I wish he had lost his life to the gun-waving degenerate. Not because it would be more heroic. I can't catch cancer; lock it up for the rest of its life, knowing every day will be hell trapped inside a six by eight foot room. Cancer is the criminal that gets away with the perfect crime and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
I figured the long days at the academy coupled with going cold turkey would send the dreams crawling back under the rock they came from. That was not the case. They got worse. More vivid. More real. The violence was gut-wrenching, even for a guy that ate while studying crime scene photos. Each sequence of dreams ended with the life of an innocent being stolen by the hands of the same sadistic killer with a familiar face.
"Yes, I killed her." I said.
"They are just dreams, Michael."
Father Abraham's tone was comforting but not convincing.
"It's more than that. She is real. She's blond, tall, long legs. I can see the horror on her face as she runs through the woods for her life. I hang back, watching, feeding on her fear. My mouth is watering with hunger at the thought of ending her life."
"Michael, that's something like Ted Bundy would do. It's not you. You have to separate yourself from the job. Take a vacation."
Father Abraham had been a confidant for as long as I could remember. He kept me on the straight and narrow when the teenage demon wanted to derail me. He mentored me when I came face-to-face with evil. He was the only person I could tell this secret — I murdered women in my dreams. But he was nothing more than an outlet to ease the bloat for a little while. He dismissed my dreams as a product of being a homicide detective. It felt good to talk about them even though I knew there would be no breakthrough. He couldn't make them stop. Father Abraham was convinced I wasn't a killer. I was one of the good guys.
"In a way, I guess it does sound like something Bundy would do," I paused, trying to assure Father Abraham that I appreciated him, before dispelling his theory. "And before you ask, I'm not reading anything about Bundy at the moment." Normal guys read Sports Illustrated. I read Serial Killers A-Z.
Father Abraham scratched his chin and nodded. "Tell me about those murders last week?"
The murders in question were actually a murder-suicide. We responded to a call after a resident on Ashburn Avenue reported hearing gunshots. We arrived to find a husband and wife sinking in pools of blood on the kitchen floor of their home. I knew what Father Abraham was trying to do. Last week there was a murder, this week a dream. But he was wrong. While violent death was shocking. It was just a job. Blood splatter was a part of my life. When you see something so often, it creates a numbing effect. Witnessing death in its most horrific forms would never get easy, but you couldn't blink if you wanted to survive as a homicide cop.
"Not much to tell. A domestic. Murder-suicide. Blew his wife away with a shotgun. Then took the coward's way out."
"Was she a blond?"
"Gray hair. At least thirty years older than the girl in the dream."
Father Abraham jotted something in a notebook he kept on an end table, next to his recliner. The contents of the notebook always intrigued me. It went everywhere with him. Father Abraham kept notes of all of our meetings. I assumed he did the same for everyone he loaned an ear to. A way of keeping straight everyone's screwed up lives. It's funny; Father Abraham was much like a psychiatrist. Only his payment was black licorice. He loved the stuff. He would accept nothing else. He always said that the Lord put him here to lighten the darkest paths.
"I know that you think the dreams are a result of what I see at work," I said, adding a hint of defeat to my voice in an attempt not to insult Father Abraham's wisdom.
He leaned forward and put his hand on my shoulder. "You can't wash away those images. No amount of holy water can cleanse the mind after seeing such evil. There's no way you don't carry it home with you. You're a man of strong, unwavering faith. You're a hero. You look evil in the eye without blinking. You would die to protect those you serve. There are angels on Earth, Michael. You're one of them."
The murky brown water sloshed as I tapped the side of the mug. No sleep and barely able to make out my reflection in the coffee, I questioned the possibility that I was a vampire. Sleep deprivation causes delusions. My eyelids felt weighted. One wrong move and I could have keeled over. The bitterness of the watered down coffee made my mouth twitch. The feeling you get right before you vomit. I kept drinking. The alternative was sleep and with sleep came the dreams.
The dreams first began as a crime scene. I was a bystander, not a cop investigating a crime, but just someone gawking at the horror, not much different than passersby at an accident. I was eyes without a face glancing at blood-splattered walls and dead bodies positioned in unnatural poses. As the dreams progressed, I started to witness the crimes through the eyes of the killer; from the first moment he chose the victim to the power he felt when he ended her life. I felt every last breath on my cheek. Heard every last plea as life faded away.
With each dream sequence I saw more of the crime. Morbid build-up to keep me coming back. In the last dream I saw victim's face for the first time. I would make eye contact when I took her life. I never knew her name, but she was real to me. Someone's daughter. After the kill scene, a new victim would appear just like the cliffhanger of a television show. New season you murder the blonde with the long legs. Can you stop yourself?
After the murder, after she closed her eyes, I never saw her again, making her impossible to identify. Every murder immediately turned into a cold case. I chased the imaginary victim, determined to catch her, to feel a heartbeat, to make her real, to avenge her death, but most importantly, to assure myself that I wasn't insane.
Sometimes months would pass between the dreams. Sometimes they would come right after each other. There was no pattern. No warning signs for me to look for. No "don't drink caffeine or eat spicy food before bed." Nothing. I was defenseless against the unconscious stories my mind told.
It all started with a homeless girl. Easy practice, no one's
looking for her anyway. I learned the killer's thought process. A nameless face from the streets that no one would miss makes excellent prey for a rookie serial killer. The dreams progressed to the killer stalking the girl, watching her every move, not unlike staking out a criminal. There was a fine line between the way the killer and a cop worked. He knew her routine. He knew when to take her.
The blonde in the woods was the fourth victim. The kill scene happened less than a week ago. The culmination. The end. The death of an innocent. The gratification of playing God. I saw it all through the eyes of the stalker. Felt every spike of adrenaline in the chase. I was the killer.
In the beginning, I thought I might be clairvoyant. A sixth sense runs in my family. At least my mother thinks so. Growing up, she would tell me to stay away from Grandma Callahan because she was a witch. But looking back that was probably mother-in-law issues. I was never one to put much faith in the paranormal, but it was the only logical answer I had for the dreams. Crimes never crossed the line to reality.
I had two hours before my shift at the Twelfth Precinct. I didn't have cable television, just an antenna with aluminum foil bunched around the tip. A trick I learned when I was younger. My television was a present for my sixteenth birthday. It was old and had seen its better days, but I rarely watched anything. Which was a good thing since reception was poor in my apartment. The concrete walls supplied a formidable barrier, blocking out much of the trash of daytime television.
I turned on the T.V. only to be greeted by static — a haunting lullaby for heavy eyes. I dozed for a few minutes before a loud knock jarred me. I sprang up from my hand-me-down plaid couch and reached for my gun, a .38 short colt. It's what my father carried. Instinct took over, even though it was probably just kids playing outside. They liked to play kickball in the middle of the street using parked cars for bases. There was a park two blocks east, but to play there would make too much sense.
I walked to the door, with the gun at my side. Looking through the peephole, there was no one there. With my finger on the trigger, I opened the door. A yellow envelope that had been wedged between the screen and wood doors fell to the porch. Written in black ink across the front was my name. The handwriting was hurried, sloppy; it looked like a child wrote it. I opened the envelope with a pocketknife, careful to not disturb any evidence. The cop in me took over. Everything had the potential to be a crime. I pulled out yellowed paper. A typed note.
Reading the words made the dreams reality. The horror was coming true. Someone claiming to be the Morning Star mentioned the girls, the dreams, and me, by name. I clenched the paper and closed my eyes, hoping to wish it away. Instead, I saw her, the homeless girl from the first dream sequence, hands tied and bound to the floor. The killer's silhouette crept behind her. A burning singed my throat. I opened my eyes, leaned over the porch railing, and vomited. My head dizzied, but my mind was never clearer.
The future I hoped to avoid was finally here. The nightmares were real.
Two
While propped against a brick wall and reading a copy of Fortune, he watched her. He lifted the magazine from the newsstand when the cashier had his back turned. He wasn't big on the financial market. That was his father's thing. The magazine was only cover. He wanted to fit in, which was something that just wasn't happening. The three-piece suit wasn't helping his disguise. His wardrobe clashed with the atmosphere of despair that wafted through the air of downtown Winston. To the seasoned eye of a killer, the suit could be viewed as an amateurish mistake. It made him the fish out of water. It made identifying him all that easier. His height already put him at a disadvantage in that department. He was tall — much taller than the average man. He didn't care. And then there was the blood. There would be blood, plenty of it — enough to ruin the suit. Again, he didn't care. His father always told him to dress to make an impression. He straightened his tie and fixed his eyes on the girl.
She looked dirty, but there was something pure about her. A glow surrounding her told him that she was the one. She was to be the first of six. He watched her for weeks, leading up to this moment. There couldn't be any doubt. Senseless killings weren't part of the plan. Death had to mean something.
Ashley Harris called the streets of downtown Winston home. She had nowhere else to go. A runaway since the age of twelve when she escaped from the hell that was Carmichael Orphanage. At nineteen, Ashley was a street veteran. Dressed in a dingy ski-jacket, two sizes too big, with a tear from shoulder to elbow that allowed down feathers to escape gave her the illusion of sprouting wings. Her dirty jeans were ripped at the knees. She wore scuffed boots that sloshed when she walked, Ashley projected more of a cloudy day than a sunny one. Yet her homeless family saw the brightness. She had a way of making sun shine on the dreariest of days. They called her Sunshine. Having a nickname was the unwritten rule of the streets. Real names weren't used, everyone was hiding from something.
The nickname Sunshine was fitting for Ashley. If she had a sandwich, she shared it with friends, even if she hadn't eaten for days. If she had soda, she would take a swallow, savor the sugary sweetness, and pass it along.
He watched Ashley hug a man in a wheelchair. The older man, at least in his mid-forties sat on the corner, strumming a broken guitar, singing 'All for the Love of Sunshine.'
He dropped the magazine and walked across the street.
"I love that song," Ashley said.
Pipes stopped singing and smiled. His tongue snaked through the gap where his front teeth used to be. "You might have been a baby when this song was written, but I'm sure Hank Jr. had you in mind when he sang it."
Ashley grinned. Pipes started singing the chorus. His voice cracked with every other note.
The man moved closer, tapping Ashley on the shoulder. "Excuse me, but can you tell me how to get to the Pearson building?"
"Look at that fancy suit," Pipes said. "You a pimp? Got some change? I know 'Superfly'."
Ashley turned; her face void of color as if she saw a ghost. For a moment her smile faded, and then it was as bright as when Pipes sang to her. "Sure is a nice suit," she said to Pipes before turning back to the man. "It's a few blocks ahead. I'm going that way. You can catch a ride with me if you like."
Taken aback by Ashley's politeness, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a twenty. "Thanks. I've been walking in circles looking for it," he said, handing the bill to Ashley.
"Give it to Pipes." She pointed at the dented coffee can with the word "Tips" written across a Chinese take-out menu taped to the front. "He deserves it more than me. His voice is like a thousand angels singing."
Pipes smiled and returned to singing off key as the twenty floated down to the can.
"Come on, I'll take you there," Ashley said, taking the man's hand. His touch was ice, but she still smiled. She turned back to Pipes. "Have a good day, Pipes. And never stop singing. The world would be silent without your beautiful voice."
Pipes winked and paused at the chorus of 'Ain't No Sunshine,' and said. "Will do. And you never stop smiling, Miss Sunshine. The world would be a dark place without your smile." Through his smile, Pipes's tongue darted through the gap in his teeth as if to wave goodbye.
Ashley felt a warming in her cheeks. She shook her head and looked at the man in the suit. "It's just up there a ways. I'll have you there in a jiffy."
The man didn't say a word.
"So, what's your nickname?" Ashley asked. "If you're on these streets, you have to have a nickname."
"I don't have one."
"Mine's Sunshine. Pipes gave me that about six years ago. I like it. It makes me feel good knowing that I can brighten someone's day. Especially around here."
He nodded.
"You really don't have one?" Ashley asked.
"What?"
"A nickname? Your friends didn't have one for you when you were younger?"
"No."
"I guess there isn't going to be any small talk, huh?"
He stopped walking, but still he
ld onto Ashley's hand causing her to stop as well.
"I know who you are," Ashley said, without facing him.
"Who I am?"
Ashley turned to the man and smiled. "You're the man in my dreams. I knew you would come for me. You seem much more nervous in person."
The man lost his train of thought. Confusion swirled. The idea of running away crossed his mind. She knew him. She knew he was there to kill her. It was a prophecy. Ashley would die at his hands and so would the next five. Did they all know him? Were they waiting for him? He gathered his composure and asked, "You've seen me in your dreams?"
"Of course. And you've seen me in yours, haven't you?"
He ignored the question. "You're not going to run?"
"Nope."
He cocked his brow. "Why not? In my dream, you run."
"In mine, I don't," Ashley said. She grabbed his hand and dug her nails into the flesh. "I won't give you the satisfaction of chasing me. I'm not afraid of death."
Ashley's fingertips tingled as if her hands were waking from sleep. The nylon cord rubbed against her wrist causing the skin to burn raw. Her fingers were going numb. The icy sensation meant the cord was cutting off her circulation. She showed no fear. She wouldn't give him the pleasure. She took slow breaths. She wasn't about to feed his desire with her panic.
The cold concrete against her bare back sent a wave of chills through Ashley's body. A strong smell of mold caused her head to ache. Darkness surrounded her. The only light came from a citronella candle sitting on a milk crate.
"How long have you been watching me?" Ashley asked, her voice as confident as when they first met.
"A few weeks. I had to make sure you were one of them."
The sound of metal scraping distracted Ashley, but only momentarily. His shadow elongated against the wall like a monster reaching out to grab her. The image brought Ashley back to the killer in front of her.
