Dreams of Gray

by Maurice Lawless

  Dreams of Gray

  By Maurice Lawless

  Published by Red Iris Books

  Dreama Cargill is in trouble. She woke up naked, cold, and sporting a back mural. Where did it come from? Tattoos aren’t her usual scene. Then again, neither is blood and a strange attraction to the woods at night. Something is changing her, and not for the better. Can she unravel the mystery before the moon calls her to kill?

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DREAMS OF GRAY

  Copyright © Maurice Lawless, 2011

  Published by Red Iris Books

  ISBN-13: 978-1-937733-06-3

  ISBN-10: 1-937733-06-8

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or any portions thereof, in any form.

  Red Iris Books

  Website: http://redirisbooks.com/

  Email: redirisbooks@gmail.com

  Twitter: @redirisbooks

  Cover by SM Reine

  Interior design by Red Iris Books

  1

  Waking up naked was usually a good thing for me. It meant I'd had a particularly nice night dancing at the club, followed by a little horizontal dancing with a cute guy (or girl, if I’m really drunk). I usually wake up content, warm, and relatively unharmed. So maybe I'd have to pluck my bra off the ceiling fan and sneak out without waking up my friend-for-an-evening. It was all par for the course.

  But waking up cold, wet, and dirty was new. I’d never had to pick leaves and mud out of my hair before, and this was the first time I had to wander aimlessly through a damp forest for most of the day before I figured out where I was. I ran barefoot and bare-assed from bushes to trees to random parked cars and climbed into my apartment through the bedroom window to avoid being caught without a stitch to my name.

  It was one hell of a way to start the week.

  I skipped work that day—big surprise, right? Something about waking up naked in the woods two miles from my place really makes me drag. It took me a solid hour to scrub off the caked mud and leaves, and that wasn't mentioning the freak-out that followed realizing I'd joined the ranks of the heavily inked.

  I sure as hell should've remembered how I got that tattoo. It took up my entire goddamn back! It looked like some weird cross between runes and a tribal armband a meathead might get on a date, and it ran from the tops of my shoulders to the small of my back.

  It didn’t make sense. I'd never liked needles. They had to pretty much sedate me growing up whenever I needed a shot. Sedative before the sedative in some cases. What could I say? I was a biter. I’d never set foot inside a tattoo parlor, much less sat through the hours—no, days—it would take to get that amount of ink put on. It didn’t even feel tender, and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t unconscious for a month while it healed.

  After my shower, I took another look at my back. There were six runes, staggered in two rows of three. The intricate patterns surrounding the runes looked more like something you’d see on a Scottish coat of arms.

  Looking too closely made me shiver, and I was sickened to see the tattoo shiver with me. This was a part of my skin now. It would take months of painful laser treatments—and permanent scars—to get it off, and I couldn’t even remember how it got there.

  I covered the evidence with a towel and retreated to my bedroom. I don’t remember much after that. I must've fallen asleep because my phone woke me up. The ring was "Highway to Hell”, which meant it was my only friend at work: Peggy Jane Mackenzie, or PJ, as she preferred.

  I reached for my phone, still mostly asleep. It took a few tries to hit the answer button.

  “Hello?”

  “This is your 7:30 wake up call. You coming over or what?”

  I looked at my clock radio. “Oh crap. Sorry. Yeah, just let me get dressed.”

  “Someone over there I should know about?”

  PJ was very open about her sex life. Too open. She expected the same amount of details from me and was constantly disappointed.

  “No. I was just more tired than I thought. Nodded off.”

  “Well, get dressed and get over here. Or skip the first part. Might make the drive more interesting.”

  “Whatever. See you in a bit.”

  I rolled over and looked at the ceiling, then down at myself. I was still naked. Save the occasional weekend delight, I generally slept in something. I get cold easily.

  Not only was I less shocked than I should've been with everything in the open, I was actually warm. I pulled on panties, jeans, and a top, and when I went to check the thermostat, it read what it always did: 75. It felt ten degrees above that. I made a mental note to call the office and get the dial fixed.

  I looked at myself in the mirror on the way out, and then I sighed and went back to change my top. My usual ones showed too much of my neck. I wasn’t ready to breech the subject of the ink with PJ. I settled on the same top with a light jacket that had a collar. It would have to do.

  2

  PJ answered the door in jean shorts and a halter top. Her curly red locks were cinched up behind her head in a bundle that looked close to bursting.

  “Hey, ho.”

  She’d already started the movie, and her coffee table was cluttered with a wide array of snack foods. Most were frozen dairy products, sweating sweet rings onto the bills and junk mail beneath.

  “Hit me, girl,” I said, and I settled onto the couch.

  She handed me a spoon like a surgical nurse might pass a scalpel. I stabbed the nearest pint.

  “You cold or something? I’m burning up today. Cute jacket though.”

  She noticed. Crap.

  I tried to let it slide. It worked for about half an hour, which is when my back tickled from a dripping bead of sweat. I finally gave in to the urge to shuck the jacket.

  PJ was enraptured by Russell Crowe on the screen, feet tucked under her and hair (now free of the clip) spilling out in a wild, bloody spray behind her. I sighed. Hopefully, she’d be too drunk or tired to notice black vines visible on the back of my neck.

  PJ got up and shuffled forward to the kitchen, and I stood up and stretched. She whistled a cat-call.

  “You slut!”

  I’d stretched facing away from the kitchen and gave her a clear shot of the very thing I’d been hiding all day. Smooth move, Ex-Lax. “What?”

  “Don’t play coy with me, whore. I saw that tramp stamp. When did you get it?”

  My face probably matched her hair at this point. PJ was already back in the living room, and seriously invading my personal space.

  “Come on, strip. I want to see.”

  Before I knew it, she was hiking my shirt up. My whole back was quickly bare to her scrutiny. I heard her gasp. “Oh shit.”

  I wrestled my shirt back down and retreated to the far end of the couch. My eyes welled up, and my cheeks heated to the point of boiling. But PJ wasn’t looking at me at all. A strangely confused expression gave way to her sly smile.

  “I had no idea you were such a freak, Dree. That’s hot.”

  I laughed in spite of myself, even as I looked away so she wouldn’t see the warm stream of tears.

  “When did you get it done?” she asked. “And how the hell did you keep it a secret?”

  I didn’t want to tell her. I didn’t want to tell anyone. I wanted to quietly endure the pain and scars and get it erased. Return to normalcy. She sat close to me, and her face went serious.

  “What’s wrong, Dree?”

  I collapsed into her, and she wrapped her arms around my shoulders. Somewhere between my sobs, I said, “I don’t remember
.”

  That snapped PJ back to herself. “What the fuck, Dree? That’s one holy fuck of a hangover if you don't remember a back mural!”

  I withdrew and rubbed my face dry. “Really, PJ. I don’t remember how I got it.”

  I recounted my morning to her. She smiled faintly at my description of running back home naked, but at the end, she was all business.

  “We need to get you checked out. Do a rape kit or something. Maybe they slipped you a roofie.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Fuck yeah I do. Whatever they knocked you out with must have been pretty damn strong to take your memory and keep you from punching their lights out. I know how much you hate needles.”

  She was already up and milling around the apartment looking for her keys.

  “PJ, I—I’d rather just move on, you know? So I had a bad bender of a weekend and woke up in the woods. I don’t feel like I was raped or anything. I’m fine. Not a bruise.”

  Saying that dumped a whole new set of awkward questions into my head. Why didn’t I have any bruises, or scratches, at least? I’d slogged through a forest naked and broken into my apartment, for God’s sake. It’s a wonder I didn’t look like a prize fighter.

  “Bullshit, you’re coming, and I’ll have them strap you down if necessary. We’re getting to the bottom of this.”

  She didn’t wait to hear my answer; she snagged my arm and dragged me bodily all the way to the nearest emergency clinic.

  3

  An hour later, I sat awkwardly in a gown on the exam table. The butcher paper crinkled under my bare ass. I would have been mortified if I weren’t convinced somewhere in my head that this was a bad dream, and I’d wake up in my own bed with one motherfucker of a hangover and a back as pale and unmarked as the day I was born.

  The doctor came in and PJ laid into him. “About fucking time you sauntered in!”

  I shushed her with a wave, and she sat down, but she continued to glare at him.

  The doctor seemed more interested in my clipboard than me.

  “All right, Miss-“

  “Dree. Call me Dree.”

  “Okay, Dree. In a minute, I'll have a nurse come in and examine you. We need to document everything, you understand?”

  “I do.” I turned to PJ. “I'll be okay. Could you wait outside?”

  She gave the doctor an appraising look that told him she found him wanting, and then she left. The doctor sat on a stool and finally looked me in the eyes.

  “How far we go is completely up to you. We can treat you for injuries and not do a kit. I would recommend you get an STD panel, but anything more is entirely your choice.”

  I seriously considered telling him I just wanted to go home. Maybe take a sleeping pill or something. I’d had a long day.

  But what if PJ was right? What if they did rape me?

  “No,” I sighed, “it’s probably best to go ahead and do it.”

  “Okay. I’ll come back when it’s done and check on you.”

  I nodded. He left and was replaced by a short Hispanic woman in scrubs She carried a tackle box in one hand, and a small digital camera in the other.

  There really wasn’t anything to document. Aside from the ink, there wasn’t a mark on me. I told her about the woods and my trip back to the apartment, but I left out the part about the tattoo.

  She seemed disappointed when I told her I’d showered twice since then, but she tried to get something from my fingernails and hair anyway. She probed a few other less pleasant areas as well.

  She treated me like a victim. I guess, in her eyes, I was.

  “Okay, Dree, we need to get some blood now to do a few tests on it. Is that all right?”

  My heart rate immediately sped up. “I’m—a little jumpy around needles. You might want to restrain me before you poke.”

  She smiled indulgently. “No problem. Lie back for me.”

  As I lay on the table, she fiddled with something on the side. An extension with a Velcro strap pulled out, and she secured my arm on it.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “Is there one on the other side?” I asked. “I’ve decked people before. Nothing personal, understand. I can’t really control it.”

  She paused, gave it some thought, and ended up securing my other arm on another extension. I lay there like a crucifixion victim and stared at the ceiling.

  “How strong are those straps?”

  She laughed a little. “I’ve seen big, burly men kick and scream and not get out. You’re probably fine.”

  “Okay.” I took a deep breath and looked away.

  She dabbed my arm with disinfectant, and I shut my eyes. I tried to think of anything other than sharp, pointy things going into my flesh. I failed miserably.

  My vision went bright white the moment she stuck the needle in. When the white faded, I was on the floor in PJ’s lap. My arm was sore, and my gown was covered with blood.

  “Wha—?”

  “Jesus, Dree. You’re a hell of a fighter with those needles. I would have come sooner, but I thought someone had shot a dog. ”

  I saw the nurse nearby, unconscious and bleeding from her temple. Doctors and nurses rushed around the cramped exam room. I felt an immediate and jarring sense of responsibility and said a little too loudly, “I’m sorry! I told her I don’t like needles.”

  The rest of what I said was lost in sobs against PJ’s chest. It was only then that I realized I wasn’t moving right.

  “Why can’t I move my arms?” I asked.

  I heard a loud rip, followed by two heavy metallic thumps, and my arms were free again.

  Jesus, I’d ripped the extensions right off the chair! How did that happen?

  I pulled my arms in close to my chest, and PJ ran her hands through my hair. She rocked me like a child.

  “Shh…it’s gonna be fine, Dree. Just take some deep breaths.”

  PJ eventually coaxed me into the next exam room and I was coherent enough to let them sedate me before they took blood. It wasn’t what I’d call a unanimous decision.

  “It’s necessary, David,” one doctor said. “Just do it.”

  “She’s barely a hundred pounds! Too much could kill her,” the other protested.

  They probably thought they were being discreet, talking a good hundred feet from my room. I heard them just fine. It didn’t seem strange at the time.

  Finally, they came back. I didn’t have time to react to the first prick before my world went black.

  4

  I woke up in my own bed, and for a wonderful moment, I thought it was all over. No tattoo, no mad naked hikes, no assault with a deadly exam chair. PJ’s voice from beside me shattered the illusion entirely.

  “Hey you. Feeling better? You slept all day.”

  My throat was dry, but I crackled a response. “What did they give me?”

  PJ laughed. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  I glared at her. She drew back a bit and frowned. “Geez, Dree. Don’t look at me like that. Thorazine.”

  The name sounded vaguely familiar. Maybe from an episode of ER. “What’s that mean?”

  “It means you’re full-on psycho, chica. They use that shit on mental patients.”

  Now I was really confused. “Wait, what?”

  “You weren’t responding to the knockout drugs they gave you at first. You just acted drunk. Funny as shit, too. They had to use something stronger. They did a crapload of tests on you while you were out. They needed consent from next of kin. I gave them your dad’s number.”

  Thank God. My mother would have hopped the first bus from Alabama and refused to leave for a month. Daddy was much more practical.

  “Thanks for that, PJ.”

  “No problem. I called in for you at Woodspring too. Told them we both had a serious case of stomach flu and didn’t want to spread it around the office. HR folks eat that shit up.”

  “I’m hungry,” I said.

  “Of course you are.” PJ walked out
of the room and returned with a TV tray full of goodies: bacon, eggs, orange juice, and oatmeal. I even saw a couple little crescent rolls.

  “Crap, PJ. I had no idea you were so—domestic.”

  “Shh. Don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation to keep up.”

  We talked as I devoured breakfast. PJ said the doctors had tried to hold me on suspicion of drugs, but the tox screen came back clean. Finally, grudgingly, they'd released me the morning after we'd gone in with promises they’d call me immediately with any test results.