The Devil's Dream: Book One

by David Beers

  At the end of the day, when she came to the elevator, Matthew stood waiting on her. He took a step to the side as she stepped on the elevator and then followed her.

  "How are you, ma'am?" He asked, looking down at the shorter woman.

  "Fine, thank you," she said, not bothering to look up at him.

  "My condolences for everything that's happening."

  "Thank you, but they're unnecessary. Worst things have happened to a lot better people."

  The rest of the ride down was in silence as Matthew scanned her out of the corner of his eye. Nothing remarkable, except her age. He'd seen her twelve years ago and she had been beautiful, but not radiant. Somehow that seemed to have changed. Her beauty faded, paled, but the non-existent radiance had bloomed. What she radiated, he wasn't sure, but something came off this woman as sure as heat from the sun.

  She exited the elevator and, again, he followed.

  He rode to Lucent's house with Manning, silent as they went. Moore had left sometime during the afternoon, and Matthew didn't think he would see much more of her during his time here.

  Worst things have happened to a lot better people. She didn't know what was coming. An endless forever of nothing. Consciousness without true form. A world of blackness yet full of thoughts that could never be spoken. Insanity was coming for Linda Lucent. No sight, no sound, no senses at all. Just the great ever-after of nothing.

  Better people? He could agree with that part.

  If the woman wasn't different, she was faking it well. That was fine. Everything was fine. He had another twelve hours before anyone discovered Horner's body, stiffening now. He made a call from Horner's cell phone to Manning earlier this morning, saying he was sick and he would have to call in today. Said hopefully they would get someone over to patrol with him, and Manning had said "they would or they'd answer to the F.B.Fucking.I." If Manning noticed anything different in his voice, his concerns were dissipated by the phone number calling him. Horner's name was on the caller I.D., who else could it be? When someone that Manning didn't know showed up, Matthew told him he was called in from the neighboring precinct. As Agent Moore said, no harm, no foul. They would notice tomorrow. They would send people out to Horner's apartment and find a cold body that once held his soul. For now, everything was fine.

  He and Manning watched the house and the sun go down behind it, no one coming or going.

  At 7:55 PM, Matthew pulled the blade from his breast pocket as casually as he might a pack of cigarettes and brought it across Manning's windpipe just as he had his partner's earlier that morning. Blood shot forward, hitting the steering wheel but not quite making it to the windshield. The man reached for his throat briefly, trying to stem the blood flow, but no to avail. His hands dropped to his lap and Manning's life was over. Matthew reached over and sat the man up right, doing his best to keep the blood off himself. That would not work for what he had planned.

  A few minutes later the next police car rolled in, containing two cops ready to switch shifts.

  Here came the hard part. Everything depended on how fast Matthew could move.

  He stepped from his own car and waved a friendly hand as the cruiser came to a stop behind him. He looked around the neighborhood, the sun down but plenty of lights still on inside houses. No one on the street though, no one taking the trash out this late. The people were getting ready for bed, watching television, not concerned with a single thing that went on outside of their homes. The window to the police car rolled down as Matthew came to it and the man inside had a brief moment of surprise as he realized it wasn't Horner walking to the door, but Matthew's smile relieved him of the worry—saying, it's okay, I'm a friend. You see this uniform? We're on the same side.

  Matthew leaned into the window, still smiling.

  "Been pretty quiet all day. Not sure if you guys heard, but there will be a new car following you tomorrow when she goes to work and comes home. F.B.I. ordered it."

  "Seriously?" The cop in the passenger seat looked to his partner, smiling.

  Matthew's hand flashed in and the blade caught the man right on his Adam's Apple. He pulled it out again just as quick, and jumped headfirst through the window, so that his feet were the only things hanging out as he stretched across the front seat. The cop in the driver's seat was reaching over to Matthew, gun in hand. Matthew's right hand just poked forward, the blade finding any tissues it could and slicing straight through them. He caught the man in the cheek, the right arm, the chest, and finally directly through his temple.

  The cop stiffened, his arms shooting straight out in front of him. He held them there and Matthew tried to turn the blade inside the man's skull, wanting to scramble whatever brains he was touching. The man's hands dropped and blood coughed out of his mouth and down his chin.

  Matthew pulled the blade away, allowing dark red fluids to drain from his face. There wasn't much fight left in the man, if any, but Matthew went ahead and drew the blade across the man's throat.

  He pulled himself out of the car, blood covering every part of his uniform but his shoes. He looked back inside, his own breathing heavy and the blade now an inanimate object in his hand. Blood still dripped from the driver's neck, and the passenger sat slumped with his chin touching the front of his collarbone.

  Checking the neighborhood again, he saw nothing. The world was still, quiet.

  He looked to Linda Lucent's house. Nothing he could do about the blood covering him, but not much she could do about him either.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Blood was spattered on his face and his wig sat nearly sideways on top of his head.

  He held a gun in his right hand, the blade that had done so much damage having been replaced.

  Matthew reached forward with his left hand and pressed the doorbell. He heard it chime through the house. Waiting, his breath finally calming down, he heard footsteps. Mrs. Lucent coming to the door, coming to answer whoever had called on her.

  He watched her face peek through the side windows. She saw a cop, a dirty, bloody cop holding a gun. There are better sights than that, but there are certainly worse ones too. He heard the deadbolt move inside the door and it cracked open.

  "Hi, Mrs. Lucent. I need to come in, there's been a horrible disaster out here and—"

  "There's no need to lie. I know who you are."

  They both looked at each other, neither dropping their eyes but neither moving.

  "That blood coverin' you, that mean the cops out there are all dead?"

  Matthew nodded and, as he did, Lucent shook her own head.

  "They should have just left me alone. I told them I didn't want them and I didn't need them, and now they're dead because of it."

  The porch light remained off, Lucent appeared more as a shadow to Matthew than a person, the light from the kitchen outlining her. He didn't point the gun at her, but left his arm hanging and the barrel looking at the floor.

  "There are more out back. I could scream and they'd come, but there's no reason for more people to die. They didn't think you'd get this far, so I can't be sure that you wouldn't take me even if they could get in here," She was rambling, talking to herself more than Matthew, reasoning this out in her own head. Matthew kept quiet, only listening. "Come on in, I guess."

  She turned around and walked back into the house, leaving him standing alone on the porch. He followed, pushing open the door and closing it behind him.

  "I'm glad you're here because I'm tired of waiting for you to show up. Ever since you got out, I hoped you'd show."

  She was headed towards the kitchen, towards the stove where a teapot looked to be heating up. She stood in front of it, her back to him. Matthew didn't enter the kitchen, but stayed in the hallway leading to it, not wanting to be within reach of the water gaining in temperature.

  "The truth is, I'm tired of being here. I'm tired of living as the widow of Garret Lucent, with everyone knowing what he really was."

  She paused, looking at the red teapot below her.<
br />
  "You taking me doesn't mean anything, you know that. There's no one to hurt here. Not me, certainly not Garret. Maybe I've lived alone this long for that exact reason. If you ever showed up again you'd have the power to take me but that was it. You wouldn't have the power to make me wish to live or the power to hurt anyone else with your cruelty. You'd be just like anyone else, wandering around in this world trying to find happiness through other people, but unable to. You won't find happiness here, that's for sure."

  Matthew cocked his head slightly to the left as he took in the information. He realized the person he had come for no longer existed. No one would beg him to stop. No one would cry. There was him and this woman in the kitchen, neither of them resembling anything like the human race.

  "You ruined my life and that allowed me to have a new one." The teapot started to whistle and she reached to the right, grabbing a mug with a bag of tea sitting in the bottom. She poured, steam coming up from the water as it transferred from one holder to the next. She placed the teapot on a dead eye and reached to turn the live one off. Setting the mug down on the stove, Linda turned around. "If your boy comes back, I hope he hates you worse than AIDS. I hope he hates you so much that you break with grief. I don't know if you'll be able to do what you're trying to do, but if you can, I hope it's all ruined when your kid sees all this. I hope he kills himself over it. That would fit this awful tale. His death to come full circle again so that you have to watch it."

  His hand white knuckled the butt of the gun, gripping harder each time she spoke of him, of Brand. It was her, her husband, her fucking life that took Matthew from him in the first place. Now she was going to sit here and judge him?

  "What right?" He asked, his voice low but spreading across the silent house with ease.

  "This has nothing to do with rights, only what I want. That's what I didn't know all those years that I lived with Garret. That I could want things and those things mattered. I want your son to come back, I want to help bring him back, and then I want him to kill himself while you watch. You took away my husband because he took away your child. I want to take away your life because you're going to take away mine. Hopefully it all works out."

  Matthew stepped into the kitchen, forgetting about the hot water or the cup of hot tea by her hand. It took all of him not to pull the gun up and end her right there in the kitchen, to put a bullet through her head and walk out the front door while the F.B.I. scrambled to get inside. He kept the gun pointed down, shaking in his hand.

  Linda picked the tea up and took a slow sip of it, dropping her eyes from Matthew as she did. She swallowed and placed the cup back before looking up. "Let's get this over with. Do what you came to do."

  Matthew walked forward, and with all the force he could muster, brought his gun down on her forehead.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  The Devil’s Dream

  By Jeffrey Dillan

  Chapter Seventeen

  Andrew Malone retired after he caught Matthew Brand. He wasn't an old man, but he was old enough. He was also a hero. He stopped a villain that the world had never had contact with before, one different from the Hitlers and Stalins, one who lacked the lust of Gacy. One who could have made Einstein stare in wonderment at the magic he performed with physics. Andrew Malone arrested Matthew Brand on a Friday, the weather just about as cold as it would get in Utah during the winter. Snow piled up in the woods and Andrew Malone looked on through a pair of binoculars at what had to be Brand's lair.

  The Unabomber would have admired the landscape. A log cabin in the center of a forest. All the trees surrounding the cabin must have been yanked from the ground years ago because only white, powdery snow grew across the property. Still, Brand couldn't see what was coming for him, not with the snow falling from the sky in such heavy amounts. Two hundred armed F.B.I. agents hid in the forest surrounding the house.

  The cabin was big, especially for being in the wilderness. Whether he built it himself or bought it off someone, I was not able to find out. There were papers saying both happened and in the end neither panned out. The house, high enough for five stories but only having one, could have been gifted from God directly to Matthew Brand for all the records it held.

  Guns were aimed at the cabin with one man, Andrew Malone, holding the bullhorn.

  The press told a story that made Andrew Malone a genius. Perhaps he was, but not here. He didn't arrive at this house in the middle of the Utah Mountains with forests surrounding it because of any extra brain matter inside his head. He arrived because, from all evidence, Matthew Brand wanted him to. Brand was always talking, to anyone that would listen, bragging about his conquests. He spoke with people who inhabited his victim's daily paths. He loaded videos on-line that racked up hundreds of millions of views. All of his actions point to a man who wasn't reckless, but wanted the world to see him for what he was—a true genius, taking his vengeance on a society that took all he ever cared about. The final cryptogram was hidden from the press at first and sent directly to Malone's office; it took exactly seventeen days to decipher—Hilman's age at his death. The police arrived at the cabin on December 14th, the day of his son's birth. The police reports show their arrival at 6:56 AM, five minutes before Hilman's birth certificate confirms his time of birth. Brand decided exactly when he wanted them to show, and even though he couldn't see with the snow falling around him, he had to know they were out there. He created that cryptogram with complete faith that the best cryptographers in the world would have the F.B.I. out in the cold at that precise time. Some might say it’s impossible, that only a deity could manage such a feat. Still, there they were, exactly as he wanted them. Either he planned it, or else the entire universe must be nothing more than a coincidence.

  Andrew Malone arrived when he was supposed to and he screamed into the bullhorn.

  "MATTHEW BRAND, YOU ARE SURROUNDED. COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR."

  The noise echoed across the cleared woods, snow covering the ground as if this was some naturalistic painting instead of a killing ground.

  Even now, it is still hard for me to imagine what Brand thought would happen. Did he think he would somehow be able to get away? Did he think he would be able to kill them? Or did he just want them to see what he had been able to do? There was no way out of the corner he put himself in, and yet, he orchestrated all of it—a suicidal puppet master.

  The police looked on at the house seeing no movement from inside.

  "BRAND, WE'RE COMING IN," Malone screamed into the open land.

  He gave a hand signal and his men launched three rounds of tear gas two hundred yards. Two smashed through windows and the other hit the side of the house, letting out its poison there. They waited, watching as the gas poured out of the broken windows, filling up the cabin. They waited for Brand to come out, snot and tears running down his face, screaming for relief.

  Nothing happened.

  Finally, the gas canisters emptied and all of the agents were left staring at a house full of poison, but no idea of what else it contained.

  "Move in," Malone said and they did. A huge circle of federal law enforcement officers enclosed on Brand's laboratory, taking sure steps, wearing gas masks and pointing automatic weapons directly at the log cabin in front of them. Everyone knew Malone wanted the man alive. It was unsaid, but Malone wanted a picture with himself and Brand on every newspaper in the country. This was a mission based on capturing Brand, not killing him.

  Men knelt in the snow, their knees destroying the perfect landscape. Twenty weapons surrounded the only the door into the place.

  Four men swung a battering ram and the wooden door was reduced to splinters and stray logs. Gas poured out and the cops poured in.

  They ran through the single large room that contained everything a house should, a bedroom, a kitchen, a bath, all of it in one open enclosure like a studio apartment in downtown Chicago rather than a cabin far away from civilization.

  Sitting in the middle of the room, on
the floor, with giant metal canisters surrounding him, gas permeating the air, and tubes of wires lining the floor, Matthew Brand wore a gas mask himself, smiling beneath it. Smiling and weeping, with a single switch in his hand. The switch's wire wound away from him, meeting those other tubes. He looked on at the army there to take him in, sobbing but unable to stop grinning.

  Later, they searched the house multiple times. They found no explosives, no guns, no possible way to defend against the onslaught of federal agents that he called there.

  The switch in his hand was to turn the whole thing on. To ignite the canisters that held cops suspended in limbo between life and death, to take their soul—as Brand would describe it to me later—and put it into the glass enclosure that sat behind him. The thing was a perfect sphere, all the wires from the room eventually leading to it. Brand brought them there to see his final work, to see what they hadn't been able to stop, and I suppose, what he believed they couldn't stop even then.

  His thumb moved to the switch.

  As he prepared to begin a new life, the cops looking at the insanity decided they weren't ready to see where exactly the universe ended. Either as a hive mind, or because they heard one bullet fire before any others, everyone in the room opened up. Bullets tore through everything that had been so painstakingly created, ripping through the large metal containers, shattering the glass globe, putting holes into every wall and wire they came in contact with. Matthew's hand moved the switch and he was met with the sound of twenty guns firing at once. His finger continued trying the switch, back and forth, back and forth, until the guns stopped and he sat there, with more brains than anyone in the world, wondering how his son wasn't behind him.

  Then a gun butt connected with the back of his head, and the next thing Matthew Brand saw was a jail cell.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Had Jeffrey not been three screwdrivers deep, he probably would have stayed at his car. He would have filled up quietly on the other side of the gas station, and then waited for Brand to pull off. He wouldn't have tested his luck.