by Taylor Kole
Justin’s throat dried. “Could be he just considers the Bible doctrine.”
Pastor K leaned back and appraised Justin. “Look, Justin. God is unknowable, right? But the Bible was written by men—no one disputes that. I live by the tenants written on the pages, but if there’s a Heaven, do I think dogmatic adherence to the church’s interpretation of Scripture is the only ticket to entry? I don’t.”
The hundreds of points and ideas Justin had hoped to bounce off Pastor K floated from him. “You think of the Bible as a guideline?”
“C’mon Justin,” Pastor K said. For a brief second, Justin saw behind the façade, saw that Pastor K had thought they shared a view on the subject, and seeing they didn’t, Pastor K reapplied the face he wore for the world. “I’m a minister. I believe Christianity is the only path to salvation: care about other people, admit your wrongdoings, forgive everyone for anything, tithe for the needy, loyalty to God, family, and country. You of all people know that.”
You just don’t believe in the promise of Salvation, Justin thought. Aloud he said, “I understand your point. My dream was intense. I’ve been chewing on it like a dog with his favorite bone.”
“Yeah, just hearing that dream moved me. I’ve never dreamed anything that intense. I’m jealous, but I bet if you searched the net, you’ll find a subset of people out there who have had similar dreams. Maybe they thought theirs were visions too. Maybe they started off thinking that but evolved to other conclusions. It’s something to check out.”
Justin nodded.
“Look,” Pastor K said. “I’m only human. Oftentimes people hold me to an impossible standard. Only you know what happened. I’m not ruling out God speaking to you.”
Justin continued nodding.
“In a nutshell, what did the dream mean to you?”
Justin took a deep breath and said what he’d been thinking. “I believe it was saying that humans are important and special. Unique in all the universe, but that we’ve already been given the best gift available: self-awareness, and freewill. So we should give thanks, and quit asking for more.”
Pastor K laughed. “So appreciate life, be happy with what you have.”
“Everyday is a blessing,” Justin said as he eyed a glazed donut, “and be grateful, because things can always get worse.”
THIRTY-ONE
Corey’s position on the couch gave him a view of Marci and Janey coloring at the dining room table. After allowing Marci two full days to digest the material, he read the legal brief. The ramifications could devastate their lives. Walt filed a restraining order on Marci and himself, a cease and desist injunction based on Walt’s false claim of intellectual infringement, and a defamation civil suit filed against Team Dream Incorporated.
For the tenth time that evening, Corey inspected his wife’s profile and marveled at her mind. With her stooped over a Strawberry Shortcake coloring book, tongue protruding from the side of her mouth, working as if a professional shader, he added a rapturous awe to his marveling.
Intelligence coursed through him. No one had ever disputed that, but Marci’s sharpness matched his, plus she could focus on six fronts simultaneously. She comprehended so much he often felt he had little room to flex his knowledge.
Looking beyond his family, out the glass sliding door, the darkness of a summer night signified Janey’s bedtime had passed. Ideally he and Marci would have a powwow while she slept, but with her still wearing daytime clothes, and Marci seeming to support the late evening, he needed to talk now.
“We’re going to need a lawyer.”
Marci replied as she continued coloring. “How will we pay this lawyer?”
The majority of their money was in the business account.
“We have some money,” Corey said, “but we need a lawyer.”
“The claims are such nonsense, I’m assuming we can weather the storm. The truth will come out, and then we counter-sue for enough money to buy an island.”
“I don’t want to move,” Janey said.
“That’s only because you don’t know how fun living on an island can be,” Marci said.
Janey tilted her head. “I could swim all day if we lived on an island.”
“And there’s birds—”
“—Marci.” Corey said. “We need a plan for this.”
Marci examined her drawing of Strawberry Shortcake prancing around a toadstool. “I’m still processing it all, but I feel, maybe after a bit of pain, it’s going to work out for us.”
“He’s a rich man with awesome lawyers who is claiming Dream Riders was his idea.”
“But it’s a lie.”
“You think the truth wins in court?”
“Here’s what we can prove,” Marci said. “We met with Mr. Labarge before we met Walt Zimbardo, that our websites were up before, that he contacted us.”
“Who’s to say we did anything for Mr. Labarge, that Walt won’t bribe him? Walt’s claiming he trained us in Dream Riding. It’s conceivable, even probable, he’s outlined a plausible false narrative.”
Marci swiveled in her chair and rubbed her palms against her knees. She softened her tone when replying. “We’re the ones with backgrounds in dream therapy and studies.”
“And he’ll claim that’s why he hired us as consultants, and then we stole his business.”
Marci glanced to Janey, who was focused on her coloring. Making eye contact with Corey, she said, “We’re going to have to go out there and settle this.”
“Go out where? Settle it how?”
“We’ll need to do another Ride to have enough money to go.”
“Have you read the complaint?”
“Of course.”
“If we Dream Ride, we’re in breach of a court order.”
“We can Dream Ride because the entire premise of his claim is bogus.”
“Not according to the laws that govern us.”
“No.” Marci shook her head. “I mean, he’s saying we stole his method of using lights, sounds, and gimmicks to influence a sleeping person, but we don’t do that.”
“I’m not sure we want to go into court claiming… powers.”
Marci looked to Janey. “Honey, why don’t you get your PJs on and brush your teeth. I can tuck you in in a minute.”
“Five more minutes, mom. I’m almost done.”
Marci moved behind their daughter, gently plied the crayon out of her hand, and kissed the top of her head. “It’s time for bed, honey.”
“Okay.” Janey hugged Corey, and scampered off.
Moving in front of the computer, Marci brought up a travel website. “We’re going to have to fly out there and resolve this. One or two days should be enough.”
“I’m not sure how you plan on resolving this? And what about Janey?”
She ordered two tickets from LAV to OHA.
“Janey can stay with Lisa, free of charge. We go to Chicago and play hardball. Maybe we won’t resolve it, but I have room to be flexible, if need be. Maybe we let him have all the gadgets; sign documents promising to never use anything like that if he promises to leave us alone.”
“He wants a working model of Dream Riding, and won’t stop until he has it.”
“We’ll do whatever it takes to stop him. How’s that.”
The transaction was declined—insufficient funds.
Corey tugged on his ponytail. “Did you use the business accounts?”
“No,” Marci said more to herself as she pulled up the bank site.
Five dollars and thirty-four cents in savings. Nothing in checking.
Even when finances were tight, they kept a few hundred dollars in emergency funds. Since Marci quit her job, they both enjoyed logging in to see the near five-thousand dollar nest egg.
“I don’t understand,” Marci gasped. “The lawsuit has no bearing on our personal account. I read it thoroughly.” Clicking the purchase history threaded a weight hook through Corey’s tonsils, and tossed out the anchor.
RECENT PURCHASE
HISTORY
$1,189.62 spent at Bugoutbags.com
$2399.00 spent at Bondagear.com
$843.56 spent at Legalnarcotics.com
Corey licked his lips when he read the third expense. The Padesky’s had used Legalnarcotics.com during their brief experimental phase.
The idea of Walt being aware of their experimentation phase lolled his stomach.
Corey and Marci lived honest, American lives, but with thousands of criminal offenses on the books, how could a person defend themselves against intelligent people with bottomless funding and an intent to indict?
Continuing down the purchase history showed expenses of a lesser margin, but equally fraudulent, starting a month prior with a donation to a white nationalist movement. A week later they purchased subscriptions to two online pornography websites.
Janey must have detected the tension because Corey heard the bathroom light click off without their daughter yelling to be tucked in. She called Smokey to join her in bed.
Two minutes passed in silence. The false light of the bulbs contrasted the dark of night. Most of the world slept comfortably in their security. Corey and his wife sat speechless.
A distinctly audible click, like the crack of a snapping twig, sounded from the backyard. The motion sensing flood lights activated, brightening the confined area.
Marci dashed toward Janey’s bedroom.
Corey rose and crept toward the corner of the slider for a view.
A man built like a trainer stood under the intense glare of four spotlights. He wore a black a ski-mask and dark goggles. He jerked at the possible sighting of Corey. A black pipe gyrated in concentrated circles in his hand.
Twenty feet, and a pane of fragile glass separated the men.
Movement behind the armed man brought attention to a second invader. A man wearing a matching black outfit straddled the back wall. He gripped the wall like a frightened horseback rider.
The spooked man had his gaze on the floodlights. He peered at the glass, looked at the skulking man, and flipped back over the wall, and out of sight.
The big man turned and stared at the empty space on the wall. A beat later, he returned his attention to Corey. No doubt the men arrived with an agenda, and the unexpected flood light, followed by the flight of his co-conspirator, left this man with a decision.
Marci appeared at the end of the hall and grunted to draw Corey’s attention. She blew air through her teeth, whispered his name, but he had nothing to report; no move to make. He was preparing for a fight or flight.
He heard her muttering to a nine-one-one operator.
The big man glanced back over his shoulder, down at the steel pipe in his hand, and once more at Corey. Finally, he pivoted, and in two strides and one leap, scaled the brick wall, and was gone.
“Yes, I’ll stay on the line, but hurry,” Marci urged.
Corey exhaled. Turning to Marci, he nodded, “They left. They ran.”
“They?” Marci said, then reported the update into the phone, which she held with one hand. The other clutched the silver cross, pointed end out.
Janey stood beside her mother, her hands resting securely on either side of the matriarch’s thigh.
Corey appreciated the versatility of the dagger/cross, and it would help even the odds when facing a lead pipe, but at that moment he wanted a gun. What fool stayed unarmed in a world where only you can defend yourself from an immediate threat?
The motion light clicked off, returning the backyard to an innocuous patch of desert. The darkness brought a mild solace, and allowed Corey to process some of the more glaring omens he had previously ignored. Namely, that as the wall-straddling man had tossed his leg over the wall in retreat, his pant leg lifted, and under the revealing bright lights, Corey noticed a fanciful sock: baby blue with diamond printing, seemingly made of cashmere.
THIRTY-TWO
Getting under shade was important in a desert. Shade often dropped the temperature ten degrees. During heat advisories, media outlets in Nevada instructed citizens to stay cool, and if they must travel outdoors, seek the cover of shade.
Corey, Marci, Justin, and Lisa, sat in Justin’s backyard under the shade of a free-standing cabana with a canvas roof.
Water splashed on the opposite side of a lawn the size of a putting green, where Chevy and Janey swam in the Collins’ above ground pool. They both wore arm floaties and kicked and frolicked under Madelin's attentive eye.
Corey and Marci had just finished updating their friends about the previous night’s perimeter breach and waited for a response.
“You should have drove straight here,” Justin said.
“Where did you sleep?” Lisa asked as she moved her tiger-striped sunglasses from her nose to the top of her blond hair.
“At the cheapest motel we could find,” Marci said.
“The ladies slept,” Corey said. Being a notorious heavy sleeper, he required more mental effort to reach the state. The swift manner in which his wife and child fell to slumber after all the turmoil still surprised him.
“There’s no sense staying awake when we need our strength for battle,” Marci said, and shared a smirk with Lisa.
“She’s right,” Justin said. “Make sure you rest. With all of this going on, you need your wits about you.”
Corey sensed the underlying concern in his friend’s advice. He had watched Corey dive into a pool because of a hallucination. His current fatigue resulted naturally. Intending for caffeine to help him make it through the day, he sipped his coffee.
Justin said, “I woke with a controversial suggestion for you. I prepared a little speech, which I’ve forgotten, and now, with this new development, my gut instinct seems like providence. But before I speak, I want to make sure we’re all up to speed on what’s happening. Like, with the Dream Riding process.” He stared at Corey, but Corey knew he was really asking whether or not Lisa knew.
“Lisa knows about Dream Riding,” Marci said. “If that’s what you mean.”
“It is,” Justin relaxed. “Has she experienced it?”
Marci shifted in her seat, “Not yet.”
“But soon,” Lisa added.
“To be fair,” Corey insisted. “She’s not fully up to speed.”
Lisa turned her attention to Marci, who rolled her eyes, “It’s not an important detail. But if you want to hear Corey’s wild theory, be my guest.”
Lisa faced Corey.
He started from the beginning, sharing his run-ins with the mucous-colored Jinni, the field of Jinn. And the darker Jinni inside Hittin Licks, but paused as he reached the narrative about a blue Being residing in Justin.
Marci rested her elbows on the table. “So that’s everything?”
“For now,” Corey said.
“If there’s more than that, just spill it,” Justin said.
Corey positioned his ponytail over one shoulder and shook his head. “There’s nothing else germane to our current crisis.”
The next few minutes passed with Lisa asking questions about the Being: their physique, their effect on the dream world’s emotions, Corey’s theory on prohibited contact.
Even having experienced the action, Corey found the truth hard to accept. Lisa lacking the temporal imprint of a Ride put her at a greater disadvantage, but she seemed to accept everything he said.
Seemingly done with quiz-time, Lisa addressed Marci. “Why wouldn’t you mention these Jinn?”
Marci breathed deeply, and used the following five minutes to explain her interpretation of the Jinn; how they represented a person’s subconscious.
By the diminishing amount of head nods, until Lisa simply stared, Marci’s argument seemed to be losing steam.
Despite his strong conviction, Corey remained open, somewhat, to the chance her view was the right one.
Philosophical point made, another minute lapsed in silence.
Lisa spoke, “I’m not religious. I mean, maybe I will be. I’m definitely spiritual, and I know ghosts are real, but I’v
e always figured I’d consider Heaven and faith when I reach my forties, like normal people. But if all of this is true…” Corey detected her subtle request to experience a Dream Ride first hand. “Then I lean toward Corey’s side.”
“Really?” Marci said as she sat back in her chair.
“Almost one-hundred percent. I mean, you both seen these things?”
Marci rocked her head as if she wasn’t sure.
“We have,” Corey said.
“For me it solves a huge mystery of random evil. My high school teacher was shot in the face by her husband, who, thinking her dead, then killed himself.”
Marci leaned forward and interlaced her fingers, “And how does that apply.”
“Like, I mean, why would he do that? The following year, when she returned to teaching, she still had no clue why he did it. They’d been married ten years. He had seemed like a normal guy.”
“Maybe a demon worked its way into his dreams,” Corey said.
“But that man, or anyone,” Justin added, “would have to have weakened himself with sin to let the demon in.”
“Jinni,” Lisa corrected.
Marci crossed her arms and huffed.
Lisa said, “And like, why would this current man, Walt, freak out? He has everything, and magically, when he finds his greatest ambition, he unravels and commits felonies.” She shook her head. “It seems insane without an outside force.”
“Well,” Marci said. “We can’t be sure it was Walt hanging from our wall.”
Justin shifted in his seat. Lisa blew out a breath. Corey smirked. It was Walt.
Walt and Cooper matched the body types perfectly, and fit with the henchman/boss interaction of the culprits. Most damning, how many people wore designer socks, made of cashmere, on a criminal venture?
Corey’s reason for speaking out had been self serving. He understood Walt and Cooper had peered at him through dark goggles. It’s hard for him to fathom that two men went to his home with nefarious intent, perhaps something as wretched as pummeling a husband and wife in front of their child. And, what if they were going to do more than beat them? To imagine anything beyond assault threatened to send Corey groveling at Walt’s feet.
