“No!” Richard said. “I hold all the cards here.”
“No you don’t, Dick,” Soren said, spitting out the last word. “Ken was telling the truth about knowing your identity. Even now, your wife is being questioned by police. We know what you are. You have one gun, we have one gun. You’re not getting out of this unscathed. And there’s nowhere for you to run.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Sara could see Richard smiling. Then he started laughing.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” he said.
“Enjoy what? Us kicking your ass?” Soren replied.
Sara glanced at Ken, who hadn’t responded. Then she understood why. The police officer was staring ahead in a vacant stare, his eyes glassy and unfocused. It was the exact expression that Alex had worn all evening.
Ken was asleep. Somehow Richard had done to him what he’d earlier done to Sara. He was trapped in his own dream.
She waited for Soren to respond, but when she looked back at him, he was now wearing a similar expression.
“Welcome to my nightmare, fellas,” Richard said.
“Let them go,” Sara said.
She tried to struggle against Richard’s grip, but it was too strong.
“But this is the best part,” Richard said. “This is where we get to see them kill each other.”
Chapter Sixteen
Soren found himself standing next to a cabin by a lake. It took him only a moment to recognize it. It was the cabin where John had died. But it had burned down seven years earlier.
“Oh no,” Soren said. “Please not here.”
He struggled to remember how he ended up at the cabin, but his mind was fuzzy. He found it difficult to think, as if some serpent had coiled around his brain and was squeezing it.
Had he been talking to someone? He fought to remember, but it slipped away, just beyond his reach. An image of Sara flashed through his mind. But she wasn’t there now. He was standing alone outside the cabin.
And that was where he intended to stay. There was no way he would go back inside that place. He’d nearly died there. And what he had lost… he couldn’t face it.
Near the entrance to the cabin, he saw a rusted old sign. He took a step forward to get a better look. The letters were faded but he could still make out the message: “Closed at Dark.” The words jarred him. That sign hadn’t been here before. He’d been to this cabin dozens of times. He’d seen the sign somewhere else recently, but not here. As he looked at the sign, he realized he was in a dream. Worse than that — a nightmare.
At that moment, he heard a shout from inside the cabin. For a split second he thought it might be John calling to him. But the voice was far younger and more high-pitched.
“Help me!” Alex screamed.
Soren forgot all about his plan of staying put. He sprinted to the door, nearly ripping it off its hinges. He ran inside to find the cabin in shambles. The table and lamp by the door had been knocked over, the sofa had been yanked from the wall, and several pictures had fallen to the floor. Someone was tearing the place apart.
“Help!” Alex screamed again, this time from upstairs.
Soren ran without thinking, taking the steps three at a time. When he reached the second floor, he found a long hallway with several closed doors. An uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu settled over him, remembering hiding with John in one of the rooms off to the right. But he couldn’t think about that now.
“Alex, where are you?” he yelled.
There was no reply. Soren opened the first door on the right, which he remembered having two bunk beds. But the only thing inside was his old friend Mikey lying in a pool of blood. Mikey was holding his hands to his stomach, trying to keep his insides from falling out. He looked up when Soren entered and then reached a bloody hand out toward him.
“Help me, Soren,” Mikey said.
Soren shut his eyes. It wasn’t real. It was only a dream. But when he opened them again, Mikey was still on the floor, staring at him accusingly.
“Don’t leave me, Soren! Don’t leave me again!” Mikey yelled.
“I’m sorry, Mikey,” he said.
Soren stepped back and shut the door. He knew in his heart that Mikey was long past saving. He went to the next door to the left, dreading what he would find behind it.
Edward, another old friend, stood in the center of the room, staring at him. He was obviously dead, his flesh half rotted off his face. Soren could see bits of bare white skull underneath. Yet Edward’s eyes stared at Soren with a malicious intelligence.
“Welcome back, Soren,” Edward said.
He took a shambling step toward Soren and held out his skeletal arms.
“We’ve missed you,” Edward said.
Soren slammed the door. He was breathing hard and his hands were shaking. Whatever was doing this to him was trying to rattle him — and it was working. He couldn’t remember what he was supposed to be doing.
“Help!” Alex’s voice screamed, his voice coming from the end of the hallway.
Soren ran toward the door, knocking it open. To his relief, none of his dead friends were inside. Instead, he found Alex tied to a bed. His body nearly sagged in relief.
“Is that really you?” Alex asked.
Soren nodded his head and crossed over to him.
“You have to hurry,” Alex said. “He’s coming back.”
“Who?” Soren asked.
But he knew the answer. His mind felt sluggish, but with Alex in front of him, he could suddenly remember what had been eluding him. He had been at an old playground, facing off against… the dreamweaver. That was who Alex was talking about. Somehow the creature had forced him into this nightmare.
“I keep trying to wake up, but he won’t let me,” Alex said. “After mommy left, he brought me here. I’ve seen pictures of my daddy in this place.”
Soren started working on getting Alex untied, but the knots were tight.
“It was your grandparent’s cottage,” Soren said. “Your father loved it here.”
Soren succeeded in getting one arm free when he heard a crash downstairs. Someone started bellowing. Alex tensed up and Soren put an arm on him.
“I’m going to get you out,” Soren said. “I promise.”
He worked frantically at the knot on the other side of the bed as he heard more loud noises coming from below. He didn’t know if the dreamweaver could physically hurt them or not. The images he’d seen in the hallway had been threatening, but they hadn’t actually attacked him. Soren wondered if the dreamweaver’s whole plan was to simply try and scare him to death.
But now that he remembered what he was facing, he would be ready for whatever came through that door. It would probably be a zombified version of John, something that could terrify him and Alex both. But if he couldn’t hurt them, the key was trying to find a way to wake up.
There was another large crash, this one on the second floor. He heard a man’s voice yelling.
“Alex! Alex!”
Soren looked to see panic in Alex’s eyes. He managed to free the boy just as another figure came bursting into the room.
Ken looked hurt and bloodied and he was dressed not in his normal clothes but in an army uniform. It was torn in several places.
Some part of Soren was relieved to see it was Ken and not a zombie version of his friends, until he noticed Ken’s eyes. They were wild with fear, darting from side to side but not seeming to focus on anything.
“Ken, it’s just me,” Soren said.
Ken pulled a gun out from a holster on his side and pointed it at Soren.
“Step away from Alex,” he said. “You need to die. I’m going to make you pay for what you did to my men.”
Chapter Seventeen
Sara watched Ken point the gun at Soren.
Neither man said anything. Ken moved in slow motion and she watched Soren raise his hands in the air just as slowly. Their actions reminded her of marionettes, except there were no strings.
“How do y
ou like my little play?” Richard said, still holding her with the gun pressed against her head. “It’s harder than it looks to pull off. You have to make sure they move only when you want them to. And it’s not easy to induce just the right amount of fear and guilt to have them do what you want. It’s more of an art than a science.”
Richard eased up just enough that Sara could look to the side. He was barely paying attention to her any longer. He seemed to be concentrating hard on the two men in front of them.
But what drew her attention were the gashes on his face. They seemed to be pulsing at a high rate of speed. It was like watching a fish gasp for breath on dry land, gills flaring.
“Let them go,” she said. “You’re finished. Didn’t you hear them? The police know who you are.”
But Richard just laughed.
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” he said. “If I have to, I can disappear again. But I don’t even know if that’s necessary. I could shoot both of your would-be heroes myself, of course, but that won’t do. I need at least one of the bullets to come from the cop’s gun. When the police eventually find you, they’ll assume it was some kind of shoot-out. They won’t know what happened to the boy. And I’ll have an alibi that I was really in Baltimore.”
His voice sounded oily and overly familiar, but also strained. Though he was talking to her, his focus remained on Ken and Soren, neither of whom had moved. They stood there as if they were a movie that was paused, with Ken aiming his gun at Soren.
Yet she had the sense that both men were fighting what was happening to them. Ken’s face was covered in sweat and the arm holding the gun was shaking. There was no physical signs from Soren, but she thought when he had raised his hands, he was moving even slower than Ken. She hoped it was a sign of resistance.
She needed to do something, but she was still trapped in Richard’s grip. She felt it loosen slightly again, but not quite enough.
He had stopped talking to her and was looking at Ken and Soren. The gashes on his face were moving even faster now. They repulsed Sara, but she was beginning to wonder if they were the key to what Richard was doing.
Maybe the gashes were connected to his ability to induce nightmares. When she’d first seen him walk out of the forest, they’d been pulsing slowly. But now they were going full tilt. Aside from the shade, this was the first monster she’d ever encountered. Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that the gashes were the key to its powers.
“Enough chit-chat, boys,” Richard muttered. “Fight each other.”
Soren and Ken responded instantly. It was as if Richard had released some invisible grip on them both. Ken aimed his weapon, but Soren crossed the distance between them in a flash. He launched himself onto the cop and the two began struggling on the ground.
“That’s it, that’s it,” Richard said.
Sara decided to use Richard’s distracted attention to her advantage, trying to elbow him in the stomach with her left arm. But Richard easily stopped the blow, and grab her tightly.
“No, no,” he said, whispering fiercely in her ear. “Your death will come, but first you have to watch your two boyfriends die.”
*****
Soren raised his hands to the sky as Ken aimed the gun at him.
“Ken, I didn’t do anything to anybody,” he said. “I don’t know where you think you are, but we’re here to save Alex. This is a dream and we need to break out.”
Ken looked over at Alex for a split second.
“Did he hurt you?” Ken asked.
Alex shook his head.
“He’s right, Officer Ken,” Alex said. “This is just a dream.”
“I saw him!” Ken said. “I saw what he did to my unit. He’s not a man; he’s a monster.”
“Ken, it wasn’t real,” Soren said. “I’ve seen plenty of strange shit in here myself. You have to trust me.”
Ken’s lips curled into a snarl.
“Why should I? I know you’ve been sleeping with her. I saw that too.”
Soren looked again at Alex, who wore a confused expression. When he glanced up in Soren’s direction, Soren stuck out a finger on his hand and rotated it close to his temple in a classic “he’s crazy” gesture. Soren saw Alex give him a hint of a smile.
“Ken, nothing in here is real,” Soren said. “You have to break free.”
Soren could almost see him trying. His face was covered in sweat, and he seemed to be fighting against an urge to shoot Soren on the spot.
“No,” Ken said. “What I saw was the truth. You killed them; you’re going to take her from me.”
Soren knew he was out of time. Ken was a lost cause. He either made a move now or Ken was going to shoot him. He didn’t know what would happen in the real world, but he remembered the cop had an actual gun in his hand the last time he saw him. Soren didn’t like his odds.
He sprinted across the room, hoping his sudden movement would catch Ken off guard. The cop tried to aim his weapon, but Soren was too fast. He jumped at Ken, knocking him to the ground. The gun scattered across the cabin floor.
They landed in a heap, and Ken looked momentarily dazed. Soren made a move to go after the gun, scrambling across the floor, but Ken yanked him back and punched Soren in the face.
Soren felt like he’d been hit with a hammer. He cried out, putting his hand to his cheekbone. Ken tried to turn himself over, looking where the gun had fallen.
But Soren pounced on him, launching a series of blows at Ken’s head. He forgot what his real purpose was. He’d never liked Ken, not since he’d first met him at the police station. The idea of him and Sara being together was repulsive to him. And this was his chance to beat the guy to a bloody pulp.
His first two punches connected, hitting Ken in the nose and bloodying his face. But the cop held up his arms to block the next punch and then kicked out with his right leg, sending Soren sprawling.
When Soren landed, his neck snapped back, hitting his head hard against the floor. He tried to get up again, but his vision was blurry. He could just make out Ken crawling across the floor to the gun.
Soren frantically wiped his eyes and tried to clear his head. When his vision cleared, he saw Ken’s hand close around the gun.
“No, no, no, no,” Soren said.
He made another attempt to rush Ken, but he knew it was going to be too late. As he moved, he saw the cop, still lying on the floor, bring the gun around and aim it at Soren’s head. He was a dead man. He saw a sudden blur of motion and then the gun went off.
*****
Sara watched Soren run toward Ken as he lay on the ground pointing the gun. She knew he’d never make it in time, but there was nothing she could do.
At that moment, however, she saw Alex break free, suddenly running again. Both she and Richard screamed at him.
“Alex, no!” she shouted.
But her fears of Alex being caught in the crossfire didn’t come to pass. Instead, she watched as her son kicked the gun Ken was holding just as the weapon fired.
She saw Soren go down, but she didn’t wait to see what else had happened.
As soon as she knew Alex was safe, Sara slammed her foot onto Richard’s leg as hard as she could, and then knocked the dreamweaver’s gun out of his hand. It went flying into the grass.
“You bitch!” he screamed.
But Sara rounded on him, delivering a swift kick to his groin. Richard doubled over and Sara didn’t hold back. She kneed him in the head, sending him sprawling backward. She looked at Alex to make sure he was still safe, but then hurried to keep up her assault.
Sara pounced on Richard and punched him in the two gashes on his face, hoping her guess about his abilities was enough. She hit him again and again. The dreamweaver began screaming in agony.
“Get off me,” he yelled.
But instead she drove her fist into the gash and tore at it with her nails. There was a ripping sound as she dug into his flesh. She grasped on the ground with her left hand for something — anything — that she
could use as a weapon and found a small stick. She jammed it quickly into the gash on the other side of his face.
Richard shrieked an inhuman cry. Before her eyes, she saw his face shimmer and change. The gashes disappeared and the eyes moved closer together and he became human again. Sara didn’t care. She kept on hitting the creature.
“Mom?” came a voice from behind her.
The man below her was bruised and bloodied, his eyes dazed. One of the gashes had healed around the stick, leaving it still sticking out of his face. Sara yanked it out and blood began pouring down his face. She stopped punching him, turning to Alex, who was staring at Richard in shock.
She stood up, giving Richard one more kick for good measure as she did so, and ran over to Alex. She hugged him close.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Alex nodded, his eyes wide.
“Sara, what happened?” Ken asked.
Ken seemed confused, like he’d just woken up. She supposed he had. She looked at the fallen figure in the grass on the outer edge of the playground.
“You shot Soren,” she said. “See if he’s okay.”
Ken ran over to where Soren lay.
Sara wanted to make sure he was safe, but she couldn’t bring herself to let go of Alex. She took his hand as she searched for Richard’s gun on the ground. When she found it, she aimed at the creature, who was still moaning in the grass. She couldn’t risk the creature getting back up again. This had to be finished.
She glanced back to see Soren sitting up and felt a wave of relief wash over her. He was alive, at least. It was only then she let herself admit she couldn’t have borne it if he’d died too. These past few days, she realized how much she’d missed him being a part of her life. When John died, she’d lost her fiancé and her best friend.
Soren nodded toward her reassuringly and Ken pulled him up. Soren put his hand on his shoulder but didn’t appear badly hurt.
“I thought you were a crack shot,” Soren said to him. “But it just grazed me.”
Closed at Dark: A Soren Chase Novella (The Soren Chase Series) Page 11
