The Devil's Dream: Book One

by David Beers

  Matthew reached in and grabbed the two of them, one arm around each, and pulled. It was like dragging a piano across a floor without wheels, dead weight probably close to two hundred and fifty pounds. The car was parked so that anyone looking from the curved road would only see a man lifting something heavy, but the cargo was blocked from view. He tugged, grunted, and began moving the two of them. He pulled them from the car and their taped feet landed with a thud on the asphalt. The man's head still sagged forward and that wasn't a good sign. Matthew stopped moving and readjusted to feel for a pulse in Jerry's neck—still there, but faint. His hands went back to gripping as he dragged them into the warehouse.

  He closed the door behind him, locking the padlock on the inside this time. The air smelled clean in here and every time he breathed in it reminded him that he was pleased to birth his son here. The place smelled as if life hadn't touched it yet, like Matthew was breathing in air that had never been inside human lungs before, had never witnessed the horrors of this world. That's what he wanted his son to smell. That's what he wanted his son to experience this time around. Matthew might have forty years left in this life, but he would spend those next forty making sure Hilman saw nothing but the pleasures Earth had to offer.

  The knife Matthew found was a bit rusty, but it would do for the tape. He cut both prisoners free, the man simply falling to the floor. Marley tried to stand and run, but her muscles deceived her, causing her to collapse face first on the floor. Tape still covered her mouth, so instead of a scream, only a painful grunt escaped. Matthew squatted, watching the young girl trying to get back up. No matter the age, that instinct to live was all powerful. To keep breathing just a little while longer, even if only a few moments—humans would go almost any length for another five minutes of heartbeats. The knife rested in his hands and his hands on his legs as he watched Marley struggle, her arm pushing a foot off the floor but her legs unable to put any real weight on them. She slipped back to the ground as she tried to rise, and then sobbed. Exasperated. Scared. Realizing that Mommy wasn't showing up and that the end was here. That she was going to die, and for a child her age, this must have been the first time she'd ever truly realized it. Life was finite, as was she. Dreams, hopes, wishes, None of it mattered when the universe decided you were done. Or cops decided. Or Matthew decided. In the end, it all came to the same result—your heart stopped beating and you died.

  Matthew stood and walked to her. He grabbed Marley’s hair and lifted her up so that she saw the knife in his hand.

  “Shhh,” he said. “No more.”

  Matthew lifted her up and in his arms, as if she was his bride rather than prisoner. He brought her to a gurney and strapped her down quickly. No words came from the little girl. No struggle.

  To Jerry Moore. That was who Matthew needed to deal with first, to make sure that Jerry was up and running before his life expired. Once the tubes were connected, Jerry's mind could go wherever it wanted, but his heart would keep beating and his blood flowing until Matthew decided it could stop.

  He hoisted Jerry onto the gurney and turned him on his back. The man's face hadn't improved any, maybe worsened. Waxy grease covered the bruises and cuts like he was a boxer in between rounds. Matthew stripped the man of his clothes, leaving him naked, lying on the metal table. Matthew went to his tools and wheeled them over. Incisions first. Wires and tubing second. All this would end in just a few hours.

  Matthew put sanitizer on his hands and then a scalpel between his fingers.

  He got to cutting.

  * * *

  Allison shouldn't have come—protocol certainly didn't allow it—but the only way anyone would keep her from this industrial park would be to lock her up. Art wasn't going to do that.

  Fifteen cop cars and two SWAT vans pulled past the security gate, no one slowing to speak to the guard.

  They weren't too late. It'd only taken them an hour to get here and their best calculations put Brand an hour away yet. When he pulled in, they would be here waiting and Allison would draw her gun and shoot him dead the second she saw him. He would have no chance to hide behind Jerry or Marley. No, when Matthew Brand showed up, he would die.

  She rode in the car with Art, seeing him for the first time with a vest on and his weapon drawn. He normally wore suits and kept his badge in his wallet. He looked out the window, not smiling, not sweating, just still. He'd done this before.

  "Were you here the first time?"

  He nodded.

  "Did you see Brand?"

  He nodded again.

  "What was it like?" she asked.

  "Just like the book said. He planned the whole thing. He sat there and laughed at us like we couldn't stop him if we wanted." He paused, but didn't turn from the window. "It was like he thought we were only a part of his mind and he could do what he wanted with us."

  "And this time?"

  "I wish he knew we were coming this time too. I wish he thought we were just pieces of his mind, pawns he could move. It was easy that way."

  The car rolled along the road, back to the warehouse Dillan gave them. Lackluster Lane. Her gun rested on her knee and she wouldn't holster it until Brand had enough bullets through his chest to make sure he never moved again. Then she would drop the gun and lie down next to it, her hands behind her head. Art could arrest her for murder and they could figure out what would come next, but her daughter and husband would still have a next.

  She saw the Buick. Parked at the end of the road, empty and quiet like a cemetery.

  "Fuck," Art said.

  He pulled the radio from his waistband.

  "Alright everyone, it looks like he's here. Set up a perimeter twenty five feet out from the building. Surround the structure, up on the curbs and grass. I don't want him able to run anywhere except directly into our arms."

  Cars went to the left and right, speeding up as they realized what was happening: no one was coming to meet them—they were late. Cars and SWAT vans jumped curbs, opened their doors and peered over windows holding automatic weapons. Allison had seen setups like this countless times, both in practice and in real time.

  Except now, they were assaulting the building that held her daughter. They were attacking the place her husband lay in, bruised and beaten.

  Allison's car stopped fifty feet from the garage door and the two agents in the front hopped out, one positioning himself behind the front of the car and the other behind his door. Art looked to her.

  "You can stay in here if you want; I'd prefer it actually but we don't have time to argue."

  Allison opened her door and stepped out of the vehicle, her gun at her side.

  Art opened the hatchback and pulled a bullhorn from it.

  "MATTHEW BRAND. THIS IS THE F.B.I. COME OUT OF THE BUILDING WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR."

  * * *

  Matthew heard the words as clearly as he had ten years ago. Sound particles ran into air particles and transmitted the voice of another to his eardrums.

  HANDS IN THE AIR.

  He heard it and couldn't believe it. No one was outside. No one knew where he was and if they did, they certainly hadn't arrived this quickly. He looked back down at the man before him; Jerry's brain had swelled and so carving into his skull wasn't possible as the brain might have simply split through the opening. Instead a clear glass tube stuck out of where his eye once lived. The eye, for its part, hung on the man's cheek, not completely removed. The tube ran to a metal box and the box ran a cord to an outlet. The tube was causing an expansion of Jerry's brain cavity, the pain would have been unbearable if the man was conscious—his bones actually stretching with air being pumped in. He wouldn't die and that's all Matthew needed.

  Jerry was almost hooked up, almost ready to go. Wires ran from his other eye, sunk deep into his brain, all the way to the Conductor. Matthew hadn't bothered with any plans to keep the man alive indefinitely, because once this thing started, Jerry could die. Another hour was all he needed, just to get the girl on the gurney and�
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  "BRAND. COME OUT NOW."

  Matthew looked down at his hands. They were shaking. Because he had heard it the first time. Because he knew that the voice screaming for him meant this was over. Because they had found him.

  Jeffrey Dillan.

  Matthew let him go, had searched out others he felt were more important. A mistake of such huge magnitude that he couldn't remember why he made it. Here he stood, an hour or two away from meeting his son, and it would never happen—the people outside wouldn't let it.

  Jerry Moore was ready. The other two people were ready. He had three, one an infant, but still alive. Would that be enough?

  He continued staring at his shaking fingers while his mind ran through calculations, determining the time needed and the likelihood of success.

  It can happen. He wasn't completely sure; he couldn't be, but he thought it possible. Matthew took in a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to silence his mind and body, trying to focus on what was about to happen. On what he had to do.

  When he opened his eyes, his hands were still.

  "BRAND, YOU CAN COME OUT, OR WE CAN COME IN." The words moved through the thick brick walls as if they were little more than lace. Nothing the person outside said mattered. They would come for him and all of this would be over, but maybe he could see his son again, if only for a moment. Maybe before they put him in a gas chamber somewhere, he could see Hilman one last time.

  Matthew's body moved. Pushing the newest gurney into place. He traced all of the wires to each of the appropriate holes, both on the bodies and the Conductor. Thirty seconds later he stood behind the Conductor, the long tube that would make everything happen. He looked at the large glass square. That's where his son would be; right there, and no matter what happened when the cops entered, he would be speaking to Hilman.

  He pressed the large button on top of the Conductor. As a metal lever lowered inside, a large whoosh of air pushed out of the bottom, staring the process.

  "BRAND. WE'RE COMING IN."

  * * *

  "Bomb the first door, then flood in. Parker and Lane, left along the wall. Branch and Ward, to the right. Stanford, Price, you guys go down the middle. I'll meet you in there."

  Two SWAT officers ran to the door, placing a round explosive on the metal, and hurried back. Five seconds later sparks, fire, and smoke rose from the controlled explosion, and as the fire spread across the metal, the smoke grew too, creating a screen for anyone that wanted in.

  "Go," Art said into his radio and the crews ran toward the smoke with Allison watching fifty feet back, neither her nor Art moving yet. The cops ran at the smoke, disappearing inside.

  "Should we go?"

  "Yes. Keep your gun up, but be careful, there's a lot more of us in there than him."

  They ran, listening to the silence in front of them, hearing no gunshots, no noise at all.

  Five feet from the smoke screen—Allison about to run in with absolutely no knowledge of what she would see on the other side—the silence that permeated the warehouse disappeared.

  * * *

  Matthew saw them curving around the walls of his laboratory like water through a creek bed. Their eyes were scanning the entire place, but they still hadn't seen him; his thin body lost behind such a large piece of equipment. They would see, as soon as they looked closely, but by then he hoped it would be too late for everyone in the room.

  What came next wouldn't need any guidance from him. All he had to do was sit here and wait. The smoke screen their explosive created was blowing inside the warehouse, but not destroying his vision of the process taking place in front of him. He saw the blood, the organs, all of it being sucked from the bodies and pulled toward the Conductor. Bits of brain, pieces of liver, all of it flowing through the tubes as the Conductor did its best to empty the bodies. Three bodies, not ideal, but perhaps enough.

  The fireworks started as the first drops of blood were pulled into the Conductor, and the high whining sound of compression and electricity began inside. Only Matthew could hear it though, the gun shots drowned out the noise for everyone else.

  * * *

  Allison and Art ran through the smoke, despite the sound of high powered machine guns firing. They knelt three feet in, guns pointed up and out, without either saying a word. She scanned the room, small explosions seeming to erupt all around her and men screaming to her everywhere. Some screamed in pain, others screamed orders, but she didn't know what anyone was saying. She heard the thud, thud, thud, thud of automatic weapons all around her, and then felt the sharp rip of a bullet pass by her shoulder.

  Allison flattened herself against the ground and saw Art lying next to her, both of them looking at each other.

  Sweat dripped from her brow and fell to the cold concrete her face touched. The bullets kept flying, hitting the walls behind her and streaking straight through the brick, leaving dust floating in their wake.

  "WHERE'S IT COMING FROM?" She screamed through the noise around her. Art pointed his gun at the ceiling, and Allison turned to look.

  She saw and understood.

  Five huge guns hung from the ceiling, each of them on a large pole with a motor attached at the top of each pole, so that the weapons could swivel. The guns some huge caliber—something Allison had never seen before, and a large trunk on each pole fed them ammo, everything powered by the motor. They swung around slowly, each one dealing with a certain area of the warehouse, and none of the bullet sprays overlapping. The bullets were puncturing walls and traveling deep into the cement floor. Their swivel seemed to cover an area of fifty feet with fire, and the guns turned slowly, showering down bullets and casings in a steady and calm state. Everyone was pinned to the ground. The gun pointing in Allison's direction barreled bullets straight through the smoke screen, and only luck had kept it from ripping them apart as they charged inside. She moved her eyes across the wall, looking at men doing exactly as her and Art were, seeing others slumped dead on the floor. Fifty-fifty, maybe? The screams from the well and wounded alike were slowing down now, and only the deep, thumping sound of gun fire filled the room. Everyone was looking for cover. No one willing to move with the ceiling raining bullets.

  "HOW LONG CAN THEY LAST?" She screamed at Art.

  He lay on his stomach, his gun out before him, scanning the room as well.

  "FIVE MORE MINUTES!"

  "THE MIDDLE, ART. THE MIDDLE IS SAFE."

  "WHERE WE ARE NOW IS SAFE!"

  It was, the guns were firing over their heads, a safe ten feet away, and if everyone stayed where they were, they could outlast this onslaught and move forward when it was over.

  A fresh scream shot into the air from Allison's right. Her head darted to look, wondering who had fucking moved into the path of the gun. Before she could find out, more screams sung out and a bloody mist filled much of the air. Allison saw people trying to crawl away, to move further into the warehouse. Bullets carving through legs, leaving them nearly stumped humans, soon to be stumped corpses as they bled out.

  "THEY'RE MOVING IN. THE GUNS ARE MOVING IN!" Art screamed at her.

  She felt the bullets behind her, what had once hit the walls and shot through the open warehouse door was now connecting with the ground directly behind her feet, chewing up the concrete floor. Allison lurched forward without thinking, Art following, both of them army crawling forward, while the guns slowly aimed inward. She heard screams as those around her didn't figure it out in time, didn't understand that the guns were not only swiveling, they were now aiming closer to the middle of the room. How many people had run in here? Seventy? How many were left? And where the fuck was Brand? She kept crawling not waiting for the guns to stop and fix on a spot. A group of men were huddled in the center of the room, all lying face down and looking out at the people crawling towards them. The guns weren't pointing in the middle, everything there was clear. Allison wanted to get up, to run forward and jump into the middle of the group, hoping the guns wouldn't reach her, but if she stood, a bu
llet would take off her face.

  The guns were gaining. She had made progress for a bit, leaving the flakes of concrete exploding from the floor, but even as she crawled she felt them again, sprinkling across her ankles. There wasn't any time. She wasn't going to make it before the gun above split her open like a ripe melon.

  "KILL THE GUN!" She screamed to Art and flipped over on her back, her gun facing straight upward. She aimed immediately and released rounds into the gray metal machine gun above her. She didn't know what exactly to hit, only hoping that her bullets would destroy whatever machinery lived inside that allowed the weapons to continue churning out missiles.

  A hot puncture of pain struck her foot but she didn't look down; she just kept firing, because if she didn't that pain would spread across her entire body.

  The gun above moved slightly to the left, going through its swivel, bullets pouring from its mouth and then...it stopped. Stopped moving, stopped firing. Allison listened to the dry click of her own gun as she kept pulling the trigger, not realizing that the immediate danger was over.

  She saw Art's hand on her weapon and he forced it to her stomach. Both of them lay there, staring at the ceiling, still listening to the other guns blasting away and people screaming.

  “SHOOT THE FUCKING THINGS!” Art screamed out, trying to be heard above the constant thumps from the weapons above.

  No one answered, not with their voices anyway, but Allison heard automatic weapons firing, mixing in with the sound of her own piece and the drum of the bullets raining down. The officers alive, the ones near, they were firing too.

  Allison kept pressing her trigger, but hers was little good compared to the weapons SWAT carried. She watched as the bullet holes ripped through the metal death above, shutting down each gun in front of her one by one.

  She turned around to fire at Art's side, her gun raised at the ceiling, and then realized it wasn't firing anymore either. The only sound arising around her was that of men dying: the sound of agony, of blood leaking onto the floor rather than passing through veins. The dying would all be dealt with later. Her daughter, her husband, those were the only things that mattered right now. She swung her gun to the center of the room, the team there untouched and cautiously climbing to their feet. Her eyes searched, looking for danger, for Brand, for Marley or Jerry.