Dream Stalkers

by Tim Waggoner

  “Hey, caffeine is one of the major food groups, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Jinx looked really uncomfortable now. “Look, nothing personal, but it’s best if I go in alone.” He lowered his voice. “It’s not a place for the, er, un-jesterish, if you know what I mean.”

  “It’s a clowns-only joint?” I asked.

  “Oh no,” Jinx said. “Everyone’s welcome. But, you know. Clowns.”

  I nodded in sudden understanding. “Anyone can go in, but no one but other clowns would want to.”

  Jinx smiled. “Exactly.”

  I tried to imagine an entire coffee bar packed with nightmare clowns, most of them wired to the ceiling on caffeine. I had absolutely no desire to take a single step toward the place, let alone set foot in it.

  I thought for a moment. It wasn’t as if Jinx needed my permission. We were equal partners. But Dr Menendez had advised us to remain in close physical proximity, and there was the issue of the assassins. I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea for us to split up any more than we already had. But it would be for a few minutes, and Jinx was far more damage-resistant than I was, especially in Nod. The sheer amount of Maelstrom energy in the environment would allow him to heal even faster than he could during nighttime on Earth. Besides, no assassin would be dumb enough to enter a place filled with clowns. And no one would hire a clown Incubus as an assassin. They’d be just as likely to kill everyone else in the vicinity – including themselves – as they would their target.

  “All right,” I said. “But only if you pinky swear you’ll restrict yourself to decaf.”

  For Jinx, a pinky swear is an inviolate vow. I don’t know whether it’s a psychological thing or part of his intrinsic clown nature, but he literally cannot break a pinky swear.

  He nodded, stepped forward, and held out his hand, pinky extended. I stepped forward, did the same, and we locked pinkies and shook our joined hands up and down three times. When we were finished, we broke apart.

  “See you back at the station in a few,” I said.

  Jinx grinned. “Enjoy your rotavirus.” Then he turned and headed for Misery Loves Company, giant shoes slap-slap-slapping as he walked.

  Russell looked at me. “Let’s make sure to tell them to hold the rotavirus.”

  I nodded absently as I watched Jinx head for the coffee bar. There was something about this that was bothering me, but I couldn’t put my finger – pinky or otherwise – on what it was.

  * * * * *

  “There are a lot of humans in here,” Russell said. “That’s a good sign.”

  “True. Smells like an orangutan’s armpit, though. Kind of spoils a girl’s appetite.”

  “Maybe the salad bar won’t be so bad.”

  “Want to bet on it?”

  “Not really.”

  We started toward the salad bar. The restaurant looked like any generic family buffet place back on Earth – lots of tables and chairs, faded carpet, walls institutional white, and half a dozen serving stations with heat lamps dehydrating already tasteless food.

  There were a good number of Incubi present, but Russell was right. At least two thirds of the patrons were human. So, even if the food tasted like overdone ass, it wouldn’t poison us. Probably.

  We were within a few feet of the salad bar when vertigo hit me again, and the next thing I knew, I was looking at a room filled with chalk-white faces.

  “What do you think it means?”

  The clown who asked this question was short, fat, and heavily tattooed. He wore a black leather vest with no shirt underneath, leather pants, and cowboy boots. Nails had been driven halfway down into the top of his head, and dried blood had crusted around them. And as disturbing as that was, the large gauge piercing in the middle of his forehead – a piercing that had removed a section of his forehead – was worse. He’d inserted a clear plastic plug into it so that a portion of his brain was visible.

  At first, I had no idea what he meant, but then I realized that Jinx had been holding out a piece of paper for the other clown to inspect. I turned it around to read it, and saw that it was the sign that someone had taped to Jinx’s back during the fight in Wet Dreams.

  Are you clown enough?

  I looked up from the note and fixed Nail-Head with what I hoped was an intimidatingly psychotic glare.

  “I think it means that someone’s been fucking around with me, and I don’t appreciate it.”

  Nail-Head looked at me for a moment, as if what I’d said surprised him, and then he brayed mad laughter. The other clowns in the bar joined in, filling the place with insane cackles, maniacal giggles, and disquieting chortles. It was a good thing I had Jinx’s bladder now, else I might have peed my pants.

  I took a quick glance around to get my bearings. Misery Loves Company looked like a typically bland corporate coffee shop, a sterile place that tries to be hip but which is completely lacking anything close to personality. I have to admit that the severed clowns’ heads hanging from the ceiling by chains was a unique touch, although I could have done without seeing their eyes blink or their tongues licking the tips of the meat hooks protruding from their mouths.

  The place was a coulrophobic’s personal hell, and, even though I’d more or less adjusted to having a nightmare clown for a partner, that didn’t mean I was now in love with clowns. Far from it. The clowns at Misery Loves Company were quite diverse in their own way. Both genders and all body types were represented, as were various races – although most had the ubiquitous chalk-white skin of their clan. Some were post-modern, like Nail-Head, while some were old-fashioned, like images brought to life from nineteenth century circus posters or medieval jesters plucked out of time. Their outfits ranged from standard clown looks such as threadbare hobo clothing and candy-colored blouses, to costumes from various Earth cultures – Asian, Hispanic, African… It was like a goddamned Clown History Museum display made flesh and blood.

  I recognized several of the clowns present as members of the Bedlam Brothers troupe from the Circus Psychosis, and I also recognized the hula-hooping clown who’d approached us, the first one who’d asked Jinx if he was clown enough.

  When the laughter died down, Nail-Head sneered at me.

  “We may call ourselves the Unholy Fools, but that doesn’t mean we suffer actual ones. You know what your problem is, and you know what’ll happen to you if you don’t fix it ASA-fucking-P.” He jerked a thumb toward the heads dangling from the ceiling.

  “You tell him, Lowbrow!” someone yelled, and more laughter followed.

  The clowns all held white cardboard cups with plastic lids. Some of them held cups in both hands, and, as they watched me, they sipped their drinks, and I felt my guts turn to iced water. Being surrounded by a room full of caffeinated nightmare clowns was like standing on top of an active nuclear bomb – a situation to be avoided at all costs.

  What would Jinx do if he were here? I asked myself.

  I leaned close to Lowbrow, bared my teeth, and in my best imitation of Jinx at his most menacing, I said, “I’d like to see you try.”

  Instantly, every clown in the place pulled a bladed weapon from somewhere on their person: knives, axes, saws, cleavers, and other implements that I couldn’t name but which would slice and dice me to bloody pieces just the same.

  I held up my hands.

  “Empty bravado!” I exclaimed. “That’s all it was! I’m well and truly terrified at the moment. If I was wearing underwear, I’d drop several loads in my shorts right now.”

  Lowbrow held an obscenely large butcher’s knife, the blade speckled with rust and old blood. His eyes were wild and his hand trembled, and for a moment I thought he was going to attack. But then his hand steadied and the madness in his gaze diminished. He nodded and tucked his knife away inside his vest. Slowly, and more than a little reluctantly, the rest of the clowns put away their toys as well.

  “Consider this your last warning, Jinx,” Lowbrow said. “You need to put on your big clown panties and start acting li
ke a true fool. If you don’t, we’ll be coming for you.” He smiled, but there was no mirth in his expression. “Now get your fucking coffee and get the hell out.”

  I looked at Lowbrow and for a moment I really wanted to reach inside Jinx’s jacket and see if I could pull out Cuthbert Junior. I had no idea if I could perform that feat of magic while in Jinx’s body, but it would feel so sweet to grab hold of Cuthbert’s handle and swing the hammer right into the plastic circular window in Lowbrow’s head. But I restrained myself, turned, and headed for the counter, where a clown barista held out a cup of coffee for me. Written on the side in black marker were two words: Decaf and Loser.

  This time I did reach for Cuthbert Junior, but just as I felt my fingers close around a wooden handle, vertigo struck, my vision blurred, and, when it cleared, I found myself standing in front of a salad bar, a horrible taste in my mouth. Russell was looking at me oddly.

  “I guess you really like beets, huh?” he said.

  I looked down at my hands and saw they were covered with purple-red juice. I looked at the bar and saw an empty bowl with a tiny puddle of beet juice in it. My tongue was tingling, and I felt a burning in my chest.

  “Jinx, you asshole!” I shouted.

  And then before Russell could ask what was happening, I turned and made a dash for the bathroom. I managed to get three-quarters of the way there before the projectile vomiting began.

  Eight

  “I forgot you were allergic to beets. Seriously!” Jinx paused. “Still, I wish I’d been there to see it. When you puke, Audra, you really puke. It’s truly a thing of beauty.” He turned to Russell. “I don’t suppose you recorded it with your wisper? I’d love to see the video!”

  “Afraid not,” Russell said.

  Jinx sighed. “Too bad. I could’ve posted it on SpewTube.”

  My throat felt as if I’d swallowed ground glass and I had a headache. Worst of all, I couldn’t get the damn taste of beets out of my mouth.

  The five of us stood on the platform, along with a couple dozen other people, waiting for the Loco-Motive to pull into the station. The train was fifteen minutes late, and Mordacity was beginning to get antsy. Waiting patiently wasn’t one of his talents.

  Jinx hadn’t asked me what had happened in Misery Loves Company after we’d switched bodies, and so far he’d shown no sign that he was interested in finding out. I, on the other hand, had a number of questions for him, but now wasn’t the best time to ask them. They could wait, but not for too long. I needed to know who or what the Unholy Fools were, and what they meant by the message they’d been sending Jinx. Are you clown enough? It had sounded ominous before, and, after my experience at the coffee shop, it had taken on even more sinister overtones.

  I would have to find an opportunity to speak to Jinx about it alone. One quality both of his Aspects shared was that they were deeply private people. It would be hard enough getting him to open up to me. No way would he do so if anyone else were around.

  A train whistle sounded in the distance, announcing the Loco-Motive’s imminent arrival. The sound was more of a shriek than anything else, and it sounded as if it were comprised of a chorus of voices instead of merely one. The night train is a dream archetype that’s been around ever since the first locomotives began appearing in England in the early 1800s. It takes an Ideator of uncommon psychic strength – and an equally uncommon level of fear – to bring the larger Incubi into existence, but, even so, a number of nightmare trains have been manifested over the last couple centuries. The Shadow Watch became aware of them, brought them to Nod and – through a process not even the Watch’s M-gineers or Somnacologists fully understand – the trains combined into a single nightmarish construction: the Loco-Motive.

  The skeleton of some ancient prehistoric beast that never existed outside of dreams forms the train’s framework. The bones are lashed together with leathery lengths of tendon with panels of black metal filling in the gaps. An old-fashioned cowcatcher juts from the front of the Loco-Motive, a wicked-looking wedge of highly polished and well-honed steel. The cowcatcher was smeared with streaks of blood and shreds of sinewy meat stuck to the edges, indicating that something had been suicidal enough to get in the train’s way. It has a single headlight which blazes a baleful crimson, and smoke the same color billows from its stack. From the way the Loco-Motive looks, you’d expect it to make some sort of ungodly noise as it moves – the rumbling growl of a titanic beast spoiling for a fight, or maybe the labored wheezing of a hodge-podge machine that shouldn’t exist, parts grinding and straining, always on the verge of falling apart. But you’d be wrong. The Loco-Motive is almost entirely silent; the only sound it makes is a soft sizzling, punctuated by an occasional loud pop! like meat in a frying pan. It’s a sound that never fails to unnerve me, and, as the Loco-Motive braked and began to slow, I found myself wishing, as I always did when forced to ride the Loco-Motive, that Nod had a highway system or air travel. But then again, given how chaotic, crippling, and corpse-making traffic can be on the roads in Newtown, maybe it’s just as well that Incubi aren’t operating vehicles – terrestrial or aerial – through the land.

  The stench of burning flesh filled the air as the train stopped, and I swallowed to keep from gagging. After what the beets had done to me, the last thing I wanted to do was start vomiting again.

  The door in the first car opened and the Conductor stepped out. He wore the railroad’s standard blue uniform and cap, but there was nothing in them. The cap hovered in the air above the collar, giving the impression that it rested on an invisible head. Whatever the hell the Conductor is, he’s damn creepy, even for Nod.

  Passengers began disembarking and patrons on the platform pushed by them, eager to climb aboard and get settled. Very few of them had luggage of any kind. Incubi tend to travel light.

  Mordacity headed for the first passenger car, most likely because it would be easiest to defend if we were attacked. I’d have preferred to take the last passenger car to keep us as far away from the engine’s stink as possible, but I couldn’t argue with his strategy, and so the rest of us followed.

  A lot of the seats were already filled, either by embarking passengers or passengers who had yet to reach their stop. We needed five seats close together, but the most we could find was three. Jinx walked up to a pair of passengers who were sitting by the empty seats, a couple who were conjoined at the face. They only had one nostril between them, but Jinx removed his tattered, gore-stained jacket, draped it over his left arm, and raised his right – making sure to get his armpit as close to the lone nostril as possible. The conjoined couple let out a muffled scream, flung themselves into the corridor, nearly knocking Jinx down in the process, and fled the car as swiftly as their combined bodies permitted. Jinx then donned his jacket once more and with a grin gestured to the now-empty seats.

  “I’m not sitting there,” I said. “Not until the stench dissipates.” The Loco-Motive’s stink was one thing, but the full unfettered force of Jinx’s body odor can strip the paint off a wall at thirty paces.

  Mordacity had no sense of smell in his Night Aspect, so he sighed in exasperation and moved past me to take one of the seats the couple had vacated. Bloodshedder surprised me by padding over and squeezing her bulk into the seat next to him.

  “I think she likes you,” Russell said to Mordacity.

  “She likes the bones he’s made out of,” Jinx said.

  As if confirming this, Bloodshedder looked at Mordacity and licked her chops.

  Russell, Jinx, and I took the other three seats. Russell and I sat on two seats across the corridor from the others, and Jinx took a seat behind us. An Incubus had the window seat next to Russell, although, since the creature looked like a giant pile of nail clippings without any obvious sensory apparatus, I doubted it had taken the seat for the view.

  We sat for several minutes while the rest of the passengers got on and freight was offloaded and new freight was onloaded. Maybe fifteen minutes in all. During that time we ke
pt an eye out for the Gingerdread Man and Demonique – or anyone suspicious – but we didn’t see them and no one else set off any alarms.

  Nod is a more-or-less flat circle. Oldtown, as you can guess from the name, was the first settlement, and it occupies the center of the circle. The rest of Nod’s sections proceed outward in concentric rings, like ripples in a pond. After Oldtown comes Newtown, then the Cesspit, the Murk, and finally the Edgelands. The Loco-Motive’s route is an ever-widening spiral that, at least to observers, appears to begin in Oldtown and move out from there. But, since the Loco-Motive’s tracks are a Mobius strip, they technically don’t have a beginning or an end.

  The Conductor stepped onto our car and then the doors closed of their own accord. He didn’t shout “All aboard!” or call out our next destination. You need a physical body to produce sound.

  The train whistle let out a single, long blast that sounded like the combined wailing of all the doomed souls in Hell. At the signal, everyone took out his or her ticket and held it up. The Conductor walked to the front of the car, and then turned around to face us, if you can use the word face to describe the action of a being that has none. He did nothing obvious, didn’t raise his arms, didn’t so much as twitch his hat, but all of our tickets vanished. I knew from past experience that the same thing had happened in the other passenger cars too.

  Normally at that point the Loco-Motive would begin moving. But the train remained still, and the Conductor remained motionless. One by one, we looked around, confused, until we saw one of our fellow passengers sitting in the rear of the car. He was still holding up his hand, and held between his fingers was his still very visible ticket. The Incubus was humanoid, with gray pebbly skin like a rhino and a huge rooster head, which was also covered with gray hide. He was dressed like an extra from Grease – black leather jacket, white T-shirt, jeans, and black boots. His eyes were like large black marbles, and they were trained on the Conductor, who appeared to have focused his attention on the Incubus in turn. Rooster-Head began to tremble under the Conductor’s scrutiny.