“So, Don, I think you were going to tell me about what happened after the project finished?” I asked casually, quirking one eyebrow and giving my most winning smile. Don just glanced up, pointed to his mouth, and shook his head in negation. Clearly there was no stopping him before he finished eating.
I decided to kill some time by people watching while he ate. The restaurant was quite full, and I noticed that more than one customer was gawking at the growing mound of wrappers in front of us as a fifth burger was finished within ten minutes. That wasn’t really fair, because we didn’t even have the largest pile of food: a family of five (extremely large) people seemed to have ordered two meals each. Surprise, surprise, when one of them quit eating long enough to speak, they turned out to be American. On the other hand, there was a table of pretty good-looking girls sitting in front of the Americans, and I used the excuse of wanting to clear off some of the empty wrappers to get close enough to check them out.
There was one particularly stunning blonde in the group, but nowadays I’m just a birdwatcher, not a bird hunter. I was just about to turn back to our table when I noticed a guy in a Man U jersey standing outside and casually doing some crowd watching from almost exactly where I had earlier; clearly, I wasn’t the only one who found that a convenient spot. I didn’t think that Don would have the resources to have anyone follow me, and the odds were probably a million to one that this had anything to do with my meeting, but instincts honed by years of battling nightmares convinced me that I should at least keep an eye out for that guy.
When I got back to the table, I saw that Rutland had been taking a break, but much to my annoyance, he started eating a chicken burger just as I sat down. Another wrapper had landed on the just-cleared table while I was gone, so I consoled myself with the fact that I wouldn’t have to wait for long with the pace he was consuming. The man could stuff food down his throat faster than a Fifa official could stuff a bribe down his pocket. I had expected him to be hungry and not turn down a meal, but I couldn’t figure out where he was putting all of the food, and his thin frame didn’t suggest that he normally consumed in these quantities. In fact, as I watched him shoveling down the last of the chicken burger, he looked to almost be in pain.
“Don…are you okay?” I asked, worried about the look on his face. The man’s eyes flicked up to me, and I could see a shocking level of desperation flashing in their depths. He swallowed and with a clear exertion of willpower managed to quit eating long enough to speak.
“I’m sorry; it’s one of these damned attacks. It’s their fault. Ever since we…” But he couldn’t finish the sentence before his hand, seemingly of its own volition, reached out and shoved a palm full of French fries into his mouth, choking off his words. It wasn’t until another couple of minutes had passed and he’d finished the rest of the food in an excruciating-to-watch frenzy that Don was able to continue, a torrent of words pouring out.
“Do-don’t interrupt. I thought I could hold it together, but this is the worst attack yet. It all started with that damned company. That redhead with her big tits and inviting smile. I shouldn’t have done it, their firm was miles behind on all the measurables, they had just a few years’ history, it was almost impossible to find a reference, and there were just the three of them with half a dozen back office staff, but I couldn’t stop myself. From the first meeting, it just seemed like they were the way to go. Like a vision, or a dream of the outcome floated in front of me…” The man took a shuddering breath, held his visibly swollen stomach, and groaned softly before continuing.
“They all whispered in the office that it was Ena’s big rack that caused me to choose them, but those whispers all went away when they came in and fulfilled every promise. I was the star of the office, the bold thinker who arranged the contract that saved our bacon for the quarter. Everything was going great, and I was happy to leave a reference on their website. Everything was going great until…” Don’s eyes lost focus, and I saw his neck starting to swivel back toward the menu at the front of the store. Was the man actually considering ordering more food? I knew that no one who wasn’t Andre the Giant could eat that much food without serious consequences, and I was worried that if he went for more now, I’d never get the end of the story out of him.
“Don! I need to know what’s going on with OMG. They’re bidding for some work with my office and frankly, some weird damn things are happening. I need you to focus.” The last words came out whipcrack sharp, and Don’s head snapped around.
The former executive’s eyes locked on to mine with a fevered intensity, and he held my gaze while continuing: “I went on vacation. They awarded me a week in Barbados as a bonus. I should have been drinking rum punch and sunning on the beach, but all I could think about was them. I had seen their vision, and they’d made it happen. I should have been happy. I should have!” With that, Don struck the table top. I assumed that people were staring, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his electric-blue gaze. He continued: “All I could think about was OMG. Was there other work that they could do? When I couldn’t come up with anything, I started getting these attacks. Every night, I’d wake up in a cold sweat, afraid that I’d let them down somehow, and every day, I’d find myself losing control at some point. By the time I was ready to come home, it was already too late. I got drunk on the flight and shoved a stewardess over extra peanuts. I knew it was wrong when I did it, but I just had to have more food. It took two passengers to hold me down. As you might imagine, there was a welcoming party waiting for me at Gatwick. That little stunt cost me my job. From top to bottom in just a few weeks.”
He paused for breath and leaned toward me before continuing, his face now only separated from mine by half a table width. “It didn’t end there, though. I should have only spent a couple nights in a cell, paid a fine, gone on a no-fly list. But no—the attacks kept coming. It wasn’t just hunger, it was every emotion. They’d pound, pound, pound against me a couple of times a day; I’d be enraged, horny, hungry, jealous; all of my basest desires coming out. I fought in jail, ended up in there for months extra. I spent almost everything I had on legal fees to get out. I was an executive; I used to negotiate multimillion-pound deals every week. No one could read my poker face then, but now I can’t control any of my emotions. I can’t hold down any job. I lost my flat, and I’m down to buying secondhand clothes and renting a cheap hotel a couple of nights a week to stay clean.” Don’s head started to swivel back toward the counter, and he finally broke eye contact, closing his eyes to avoid looking at any more food, clearly still in the grip of whatever had caused him to eat until the point of pain. My belly was filled with ice water, and I wanted to just stand up and get away from this man, afraid that whatever was affecting him might somehow rub off on me.
“Mr. Adler…” His voice was raspy and breathless again. “The worst…worst thing is that I can’t sleep anymore. I haven’t slept through the night in months. Every night, it comes and takes me, and every day, the cravings are stronger: to fight, to feed, to fu…breed. I haven’t been able to really explain this to anyone before tonight, but being around you seems to have opened up some kind of dam inside of me.” He paused while a wave of pain threatened to fold him over at the waist. I thought of the way that Janice’s and Phil’s behavior had changed when they came near to me, and I shivered in the heat and humidity.
After a slight pause, his lips started moving soundlessly, but his eyes remained closed. I didn’t think that he was aware I was there anymore, but suddenly his voice strengthened to a whisper, causing me to lean forward until my ears nearly touched his lips so that I could make out his words. “…it’s all spilling out, but is it all coming out? Can I stop it, or is this the point when I stop? Mr. Adler…for the love of God…OMG…RUN!”
CHAPTER 20 1945–2030, Sunday, August 2, 2015
***Julian***
Don’s last words exploded out, half deafening me. I sat back abruptly, striking the hard plastic of the swivel chair, which sent jolts
of pain through my half-healed ribs. Sucking in pained breaths, for a moment I didn’t know whether he meant that I should run from OMG or from him. Any confusion on that point was cleared up a few moments later; Don lurched to his feet with a snarl, his green army surplus jacket swirling behind him as crumbs of food spilled on the floor. I rolled backward over the top of the seat and landed hard, catching only part of my weight on one arm. I heard a woman scream, and by the time I had regained my feet, a young black woman and her two pigtailed six- or seven-year-old twin daughters were climbing over tables, trying to get away from the jerky-limbed scarecrow of a man perched on the edge of their table.
“DON!” I bellowed at his back, using all of the not-inconsiderable power of my lungs to draw his attention away from the women. It was a technique that I’d used thousands of times in combating nightmares, luring them away from their helpless prey and getting them to come to me. Of course, I thought to myself, usually this kind of thing only happens when I’m asleep. Pinching myself hard on the leg, I swore softly when I didn’t wake up. I might just be in deep shit. Again.
Disappointingly, my concerns were well founded, Don swiveled his head toward me and his mouth dropped open, causing a torrent of half-eaten food to fall to the floor with a plop. Then from that filthy orifice erupted a sound that I’d only heard once before and that I’d hoped I’d never hear again: like the bastard offspring of a horse with a broken leg screaming and fingernails on a chalkboard, out spilled the noise that had woke me up in a cold sweat a few nights before. Again, the sound alone caused lances of pain to pierce my brain until my vision swam, as capillaries in my nose burst and sent salty blood running down my face. I sank to my knees, maintaining a grip on consciousness through a potent combination of bowel-spilling terror and iron willpower.
Looking around as my vision cleared and my hearing returned, I saw that I’d been one of the lucky ones. All around me, bodies littered the floor and even over the groans of the other patrons, I heard an alarm going off in the kitchen. I scanned the room for danger but couldn’t spot Rutland anywhere. Suddenly, I felt hot breath, reeking of moldy hay and carrion, washing over the back of my neck.
“Hahahahhahaaaaahaaaa!” Laughter like broken glass filled my ears.
If I had thought a moment earlier that I was experiencing bowel-spilling terror, then I'd been like a man who thought by holding his breath he could imagine what it was like to drown. My side hurt, my head was spinning, blood trickled from my nose, and I could barely stand. Years of nocturnal experience told me that there was only one choice—run.
Experience is overrated.
Without warning, I whipped my head back, hearing a satisfying crunch as I felt Don’s nose flatten under the impact. Stars danced in front of my eyes, and I staggered forward, catching my balance on a Formica table top.
“This never hurts so damn much in my dreams,” I muttered under my breath as I turned to face Don. His face was stained red, and his patrician nose had been flattened against his face; his lips twisted back in a rictus of hate, and he actually hissed at me. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a crowd beginning to form outside the windows. A couple of people were holding up cell phones to film the action. I only had a half second or so to hope that at least one of them would think to call the police, and then I was fighting for my life. Again. For the second time this week.
Don’s body stalked deliberately toward me, taking a short detour to grab a handful of fries off of an abandoned table before jerking the entire thing out of the tile floor, bolts and all, and flinging the two-hundred-pound unit a dozen feet to land in front of the door, effectively blocking the entrance. He didn’t even notice the crunch of bone as his footfall crushed the hand of a young Asian man, sprawled on the floor in front of him.
The transformation that had come over Don was astonishing and horrifying in equal measure. I’d entered the fast-food joint with a surprisingly clean, sparsely fleshed, white-haired homeless man with a perfect smile; I now faced a creature that had twisted all of those attributes in a terrible fashion. His once-tidy clothes were covered in bits of food and smeared with blood, his stomach was distended grotesquely, his limbs were skeletal, and he shoved fries into a mouth where I could see shattered teeth grinding together in a way that would have left any normal man weeping in agony. Oh, and his eyes were a deep, obsidian black.
Smoke boiled along the ceiling, and I guessed that one of the deep fat fryers, left unattended, was beginning to overheat. In an instant, my mind snapped back into full focus, and I realized that the situation was much more serious than I had thought. I didn’t have time for an exact count, but there were at least forty people lying unmoving on the tile floor. Before, I’d been worried about the madman in front of me injuring them, so I’d been trying to distract him until help could arrive, but now it was clear that there was no way to know whether or not they’d wake up before the entire restaurant filled with smoke and flame. This was no longer a waiting game. I needed to either extinguish the fire or watch dozens of people die because of my curiosity and the desire to clear my name.
The thing-that-used-to-be-Don hadn’t missed the turn of events either; he stopped approximately five feet away from me, spread his filthy, blood-soaked arms wide, and ground out a feral, wordless roar of triumph.
Between me and the smoking pool of oil, there was either a high counter or a pair of locked doors. If I had been uninjured and well rested, I might have been able to turn on my heel and use the table separating us to buy enough time to cover the twenty feet to the machine before Rutland could grab me. However, I was nothing like well rested, and I still felt like I’d played chicken with a bus and lost.
Taking a deep breath, I slowly backed toward the counter. In my experience, rapid motion can often trigger an attack, and I hoped fervently that if I just kept shuffling slowly enough, I could cover some of the gap to the overheating unit. Of course, the experience I’m referring to is watching Jurassic Park. That strategy never works in dreams.
The madman lifted a hand, pointed one finger at me, and licked his lips hungrily. He then tapped his temple knowingly and pointed at me once more. I glanced toward the window again. Maybe two minutes had passed since this started, so a large crowd was pressed against the glass, phones in hand and gawking. There still was no sign of any help, and the thing behind Don’s eyes seemed to recognize that there was something different about me. That seemed bad, but maybe I could use it to my advantage.
“Yeah—I’m special all right. Leave the rest of these people alone. Let’s take this outside, and you and me, we can have a nice talk. Just let me sidle…over here and make sure that there isn’t any accident with hot equipment…”
The thing across from me didn’t seem to be buying it; it shook Don’s head back and forth, gestured at the people on the floor, and advanced on me again. Laughing. The bastard thing clearly thought that seeing a building full of people burning up would be funny.
In a single move, I grabbed a tray off the table behind me and spun on my heel, flinging a couple of fizzy drinks and a hamburger at my foe. Without arresting my motion, I dropped my center of gravity and pushed off on my plant foot like an American football player coming off of the line of scrimmage. The tray missed, but a full orange soda smashed into his face, spilling its contents straight into his eyes. With a howl of rage, Don’s body was launched blindly toward me.
If he’d connected, I would have gone down and never been allowed to get back up again. As things were, he passed so close over me that I could smell the strange, rotten-grass and dead-animal stink coming off of him before he landed with a crash, plowing through a cheap, gray pressboard tray-return point.
I lurched forward with two painful strides that brought me, staggering, to the counter. Pushing off with one hand, I intended to vault it (okay—to tumble over it) and keep going. Unfortunately, I hadn’t counted on the old woman passed out behind the till, and when I twisted to keep from landing on her, I came down awkwardly. Unsurp
risingly for a fast-food joint, the floor was covered in a slick layer of grease, and my left leg shot out in front of me, so that I did an impromptu version of the splits. I then gracefully face-planted with a clang on the side of a workstation, reopening the gash around my eye that I’d received from Phil a few days earlier.
Blood streaming down my face, I rolled forward. There were now only a dozen feet between me and the overheating cooking gear. Dirty black smoke was boiling up from the device, already covering the entire ceiling, and the level of oily obfuscation dropped lower with every second. Time was running out for the creature’s victims. I heard a thump behind me and guessed that Don was hot on my trail, but I stayed focused on my goal. Years at university spent working in food service proved more useful than all of my Dreamwatcher experience as I spotted the deep fryer power connection almost instantly and felt a wave of relief wash over me as I saw that it wasn’t hardwired into the electrical supply.
Ten feet. Down to hands and knees. I could feel the heat pouring off of the deep fryer. Eight feet. I clambered over a black man passed out in front of me. My hand slipped a bit on the blood pooling on the floor, dribbling from a wound where his head had connected with a table. Six feet. I felt pressure on my back as a hand tried to grab my T-shirt. With a ripping noise, I was free. Four feet. I stretched my arm out; inches separated my fingers from the plug. Hot oil spit and landed on the back of my neck, sizzling into my flesh and making me grit my teeth.
My world exploded in pain. Again.
Once more, hands were wrapped around my neck, and I was jerked violently upward, unhealed bruises and abused muscles screaming in agony as my whole weight dangled from them. From inches away, Don’s face pressed close and black eyes bore into mine. Blood wept like tears down his visage, and his teeth were set in a rictus of effort as I thrashed. I tried to snap my head around to connect with his already broken nose, but he flung me down hard, so that my shoulder smashed into a worktop and my head hit the tile floor with sickening force.
Dream Job (The Dreamwalker Chronicles Book 1) Page 11
