Dreamwalker

by Russell James

  Something banged at the far end of the basement. It sounded like a small can hitting the floor and rolling a few feet.

  An image of an enormous rat popped into his head. It would be no surprise in this neighborhood. His skin crawled.

  He saw a broom leaning against the wall. He picked it up to tip the scales in a man/rat struggle, if it came to that.

  He crept down the length of the basement. The cold from the block wall seeped through his damp shirt. His knuckles went white against the broomstick he held up and over his shoulder. Scenes from a half-dozen bad horror films flipped through his mind. The potatoes were at the end of the row. Another rustling noise sounded behind them.

  A puff of cold air blew through a small, rectangular window near the top of the wall, propped open with a broken stick. Leaves littered the basement floor beneath it. At his feet to the right, a small purple backpack leaned against a bag of flour, one of the inexpensive packs parents picked up for their children at K-mart.

  No rats. Just some kid looking for cans of beer or Reddi-wip. Pete relaxed.

  “All right,” Pete said in a voice as adult as he could muster. “I know you’re in here. C’mon out so no one has to get hurt.”

  A thin black boy with close cropped hair stepped out from behind the potatoes. He wore a black hooded sweatshirt and jeans. He could not have been old enough to shave, and probably weighed a hundred pounds, including the two dirty white plastic sacks in his hands. Foodstuffs pilfered from the basement peeked out of the top of the bags. Sweat beaded on the boy’s upper lip. His eyes stayed riveted to the broom in Pete’s hands.

  “Don’t hit me, man,” the boy pleaded. “It’s just some food. No point in gettin’ violent over food. I’ll leave it here, we part ways and both go about our business. No harm, no foul.”

  “Drop the bags and sit down,” Pete ordered.

  The two bags hit the floor and the boy sat. Pete stepped between the white sacks and the boy’s backpack.

  “What’s your name?” Pete asked.

  “Tyrone White,” the boy answered.

  “Break and enter much?”

  Tyrone looked down at the floor between his feet.

  “Well?” Pete prodded.

  “We gotta eat,” he muttered.

  Pete pushed open the white sacks at his feet with the broom. The torn bags contained bread, a jar of peanut butter, a jar of jelly, and four potatoes. If Tyrone was stealing for kicks or resale, he had much better choices available than these. He was either telling the truth, or his fellow gang members were health-conscious vegetarians.

  “Who’s ‘we’?” Pete asked.

  “My baby sister an’ me,” Tyrone answered. “There ain’t no food in the house ’cause Momma’s back on drugs. We ain’t got no money, so I do what I gotta do to keep it together.”

  Pete looked over at the stolen items again.

  “There’s not much here,” he said.

  “Only takin’ what we need, dude,” the boy replied. Some indignation bled through. “That’s lunch and dinner for three days. I knows it ain’t right to steal, but I ain’t doin’ no more harm than I need to.”

  Pete glanced into the unzipped backpack. A worn copy of a math textbook within had PROPERTY OF ATLANTIC CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS stamped on the side. A notebook lay next to it, and a graded history test. The name on it read TYRONE WHITE. Big red numbers at the top announced a grade of 94.

  “Whatcha gonna do?” Tyrone asked. “You gonna call the cops?”

  “No, I’m not calling the cops,” Pete said. He propped the broom against the wall. “Where’s your mother?”

  “She comes and goes,” Tyrone said. “She get on methadone and do all right, then she get back to heroin and go off the edge. She disappear for a while, then come back and get clean. She off the edge now. No one know where she at.”

  “Can’t you get some help?”

  “Whatch you mean?” Tyrone said, like Pete was the stupidest man in the world. “Anyone finds out ’bout this and Sis and I are in foster care in two different cities. Nuh huh. I ain’t leaving Sis to grow up alone.”

  “You do this often?” Pete asked. “Stealing stuff?”

  Tyrone puffed his chest out and tried to assume some street cred swagger.

  “All the time, man,” he said. “I work these streets.”

  Pete guessed this was the first time Tyrone ever stole anything, the first time he did what he thought was necessary instead of what he knew was right. A boy of thirteen going on thirty. Circumstance was about to scour a decent moral foundation from beneath him. The kid needed a break.

  “Here’s the plan,” Pete said. “I’m going to let you climb back out of that window before I nail it shut. The food stays. Meet me by the rear door of the restaurant at midnight after closing. Every night we trash some damn fine leftovers. Not stuff off people’s plates, but stuff we didn’t serve and won’t bother keeping. Rolls, entrees, you name it. I’ll bring that out for you and your sister. In return, you take it home and worry more about getting her to school each day than getting fed. Deal?”

  Tyrone’s face brightened like a sunrise.

  “Now that’s a plan,” Tyrone said. “You a man I can work with.”

  “You almost made the worst decision of your life today,” Pete said. “Could you live with yourself being a thief?”

  Tyrone looked off at the wall.

  “Worse,” Pete said, “could you live with your sister knowing you’re one?”

  Tyrone swallowed hard. Pete picked the backpack up off the ground and tossed it at the boy’s chest.

  “Get out of here. I need to go back to work.”

  Tyrone dashed past Pete to the open window. He paused and turned back.

  “There ain’t no tricks here, right? You ain’t settin’ me up at midnight for something?”

  “No,” Pete said. “It’s all cool.”

  The boy scrambled up and through the window. Pete closed it behind him. He picked up a sack of potatoes, hoisted it on his shoulders, and slogged to the top of the stairs.

  “What take you so long?” Papa shouted. “Potatoes in bag. You no have to dig for them.”

  Pete dropped the heavy sack at Papa’s feet.

  “Sorry,” he said. “A window down there was open. The lock’s broken. We’d better nail it shut tonight.”

  By the time midnight rolled around, Pete had secreted a pretty good meal behind the dishwashing station. He had six rolls, meatballs and pasta, and a piece of chicken parmesan that Papa declared “too scrawny” to be worthy, all wrapped individually in plastic. Pete scooped the stash into his apron and slipped out the back door while Papa D cleaned the grill.

  His breath came out in billows of steam and the cold air made the hair on his wet arms stand on end. One security light at the rear door dimly lit the lot. Outside its meager glow were just shadows and darkness. He stopped at the dumpster.

  “Tyrone!” he whispered

  “Yo, dude.”

  Tyrone stepped out into the light and shivered inside his thin sweatshirt. Pete grabbed the three bundles from his apron.

  “Here you go,” he said. “The stuff is first class. Come back tomorrow and we’ll see what else we’ve got. Leftovers aren’t stealing.”

  “I owes you big time,” Tyrone said. “Tyrone’s a man to pay his debts. You need a solid, this brother’s there.”

  “Just take care of your sister. That’s what you owe me.”

  Tyrone disappeared back into the darkness, food bundles clutched to his chest.

  Tyrone and his story stuck with Pete that night as he lay in bed. How many other desperate lives like that boy’s teetered on the edge in the city each day? He tossed and turned for over an hour.

  But when he finally nodded off, it was worth the wait.

  Chapter Twelve

 
A throne commanded the palace room opposite where the dreamwalkers wove Cauquemere’s nightmares. Against the universally gray walls, the gilded chair shimmered in the torchlight. Long, padded leather arms stretched past the edge of the seat, each end carved into the head of a spitting snake. The back rose over six feet from the chair’s elevated dais, and twin snakes adorned the top like two reptilian bookends. Between them a single, unblinking eye within a crystal ball scanned the room, Cauquemere’s viewing port while he masqueraded as St. Croix in the tactile world.

  Cauquemere sat on the throne, his long, leather coat open, twin snake medallion exposed. His peaked cap left his eyes in shadow. Two heavy, wooden doors flew open at the end of the room. A pair of decaying zombies entered, dragging Waikiki Simon forward by the armpits. The toes of his bare, blackened feet scraped behind him. His eyes darted back and forth across the floor. A new damp, red stain colored Simon’s dirty flowered shirt, the overflow from the dried blood caked below his nose. He apparently hadn’t embraced Cauquemere’s invitation.

  The hunters dropped Simon like a sack of dirty laundry at the foot of the throne. They took two steps back, wide-eyed, as if awaiting a reward.

  Cauquemere uncrossed his legs and grasped the end of the throne’s armrests. His fingers settled in the eyes of the carved snakes. He stood and looked down at the two anxious hunters.

  “Outside.”

  The two nodded repeatedly, accompanied by a light manic twitter, and backed out the doorway. The thud of the closing doors echoed in the room.

  Cauquemere reached up and removed his peaked cap and placed it on the throne’s seat. He adopted a compassionate look and sidestepped down the throne.

  “Simon, my friend,” he effused. “I am so glad they found you. There has been such a terrible mistake. Mindless brutes. Did they hurt you on the way in?”

  Simon looked up from the floor. He gave the room and Cauquemere a wary inspection. Drool dripped from the corner of his open mouth.

  Cauquemere guessed about half of what was going on filtered through to Simon. He would have to go slowly. He cradled the man’s arm.

  “Here, friend, stand up.”

  Simon rose cautiously, leaning away from the Prince of Nightmares.

  “Cauquemere?” he sputtered.

  “Yes, Simon, I am Cauquemere,” he replied in a soothing tone. “I assure you that my reputation is unwarranted. I apologize about your treatment. You really shouldn’t be here at all. We’ll get this all straightened out.”

  Cauquemere brushed some dirt off of the front of Simon’s Hawaiian shirt. Simon flinched. No harm came. He broke into a hesitant smile.

  “You are a mess, my friend. We have to get you into something fresh and let you get clean. Again I apologize about your escorts. It is hell finding decent help.”

  Somewhere deep in Simon’s tortured psyche, Cauquemere sensed a dormant seed split its casing and expose a thin, tender green shoot amidst a sea of gray ash. Hope. Excellent.

  “First on our agenda,” Cauquemere said, “we must reunite you with your wife. She will be worried sick.”

  A spark of life lit Simon’s dull eyes. The sprout in the ash unfurled a small, bright green leaf.

  “Karen?” Simon said.

  “Yes!” Cauquemere said. “Karen. I’m sure that you would love to see Karen again. She is waiting for you to return and finish your vacation on Oahu. We need to make that happen. I have fresh clothes and a fine meal waiting for you in the next room. We’ll get you all set before you see Karen. Would you like that?”

  Tears of gratitude welled up in Simon’s eyes. He grabbed Cauquemere’s hand and kissed it, like a pilgrim bussing the Papal ring. Cauquemere patted him on the back like a puppy.

  “There, there,” he said. “Nothing is too good for my guest. Let’s get you on your way.”

  He turned Simon toward the door and then paused. He’d have to coax the information from him. If he rifled through Simon’s mind, it would probably collapse.

  “Oh,” he said. “One thing you can tell me before you go.”

  Simon nodded emphatically.

  “You met someone,” Cauquemere said. He could not say “yesterday” since time had no meaning in Twin Moon City. “Out at the edge of the city in an old apartment. He was clean and calm.”

  Simon looked puzzled. Somewhere in his maelstrom of confused thought was the bit of information Cauquemere needed. He just had to get Simon to find it.

  “Think, Simon,” he said, mimicking patience he’d never mastered. “The gunners were after you. You hid in the apartment. You escaped out the back window, remember? There was someone in there with you. He would have felt different. He would have felt…brighter.” Cauquemere didn’t want to explain the psychic difference between dead Simon and the live dreamwalker.

  No look of recognition graced Simon’s face. Cauquemere wondered if he had erred. Perhaps the essence Simon left on the windowsill had happened before the dreamwalker arrived. If so…

  “You mean Pete?” Simon said.

  “Yesss,” Cauquemere coaxed. “Pete. Tell me about Pete.”

  “He spoke to me. He broke the velvet shield. Will he go to Hawaii?”

  Cauquemere didn’t have time to sift through the insanity.

  “Focus on Pete,” Cauquemere said. He placed his fingertips against Simon’s forehead. “Focus on Pete.”

  An orb formed in Cauquemere’s hand, slowly drawn from Simon’s forehead. Like pulling an orange off a tree, he extracted the single memory.

  He held the sphere in front of Simon. The softball-sized orb glowed and inside was the Simon’s-eye view of Pete Holm in the ravaged apartment. Pete moved toward them, bent down, mouthed something, and then the image reset to start.

  “This is Pete?” Cauquemere asked. An edge returned to his voice.

  “Yes,” Simon said. He grinned. Several teeth were missing. “Pete.”

  “What did you tell Pete?”

  “Nothing,” Simon said. “I just ran.”

  “Then who was with him?” Cauquemere asked. “Someone helped him if it wasn’t you. Who was with Pete?” Cauquemere let the orb rise into the air. It hovered above them.

  Simon began to concentrate, then looked confused, and then concentrated again.

  “I’m trying,” he struggled to say. “I can’t see it. It may be lost.” Simon’s breathing went shallow and fast. His eyes danced around like pinballs. “Whirling and swirling. Cascades of timepieces. Catch them like a fogbank.”

  Cauquemere grabbed Simon by the shoulders. He shook him and Simon’s head bobbed like a boat in rough water.

  “Focus on the moment,” Cauquemere commanded. He gave Simon a solid shake to emphasize each word. “Who…was…with…Pete?”

  Simon’s eyes went still and he closed them.

  “A girl,” he said, in a calm, clear voice, in the long-silent voice of Simon Cantwell. “In the shadows. By the window. Dark and dirty. No newcomer.”

  Cauquemere raised his hand to Simon’s head again. Another sphere emerged, this one dark and cloudy. Inside, a vague, dusky image of a girl, blonde perhaps.

  “This is her?” Cauquemere asked.

  Simon’s eyes drooped as he checked the orb in Cauquemere’s hand.

  “That’s all there is,” he pleaded. “It was so dark. Can I go back with Karen now?”

  Cauquemere spun the useless globe of Simon’s Rayna memory up into the air. It burst like a soap bubble. His look of disgust morphed into a wolfish smile. He put his hand on Simon’s shoulder.

  “Why certainly,” he said. “It is reunion time. Here’s how we’ll do it.”

  Cauquemere lifted both hands into the air, and a new larger orb appeared between them. He lowered it in front of Simon. “Here’s a love story for you. Watch closely.”

  A forest sprouted in the orb, the oak trees bare of leave
s. A thick blanket of gray clouds obscured the sun. Heavy black rope bound a woman at the neck, waist, arms, and ankles to a central tree. The statuesque woman wore a familiar set of light blue sweats. Simon’s eyes went dreamy.

  “Karen,” he whispered.

  Near the tree, a blazing pyre of logs sent a plume of smoke and sparks into the air. Two long, black iron rods protruded from the conflagration’s base.

  A man in a,hooded red cloak appeared. The cloak stretched down to the ground, the hood pulled forward to hide the man’s face in shadow. He stood beside Karen.

  Karen screamed in a high-pitched wail. Simon shuddered.

  “Your wife,” Cauquemere said, “your love, in danger.”

  Simon reached for the orb, but an unseen force stopped his grasping fingers inches away.

  “No, no!” Karen begged her attacker. Her head wagged back and forth. “Don’t touch me. Don’t!”

  The assailant knelt. His robe spread out across the ground like a pool of velvet blood. He grabbed the leg of her sweat pants with both hands and pulled. The fabric ripped at the seam, all the way to the hem, and exposed a shapely, pale leg.

  “Get away!” screeched Karen. She writhed in vain against her bonds. The twisting ropes drew blood at her wrists.

  The hooded man reached back to the fire and extracted one of the metal rods. The sharpened end glowed like a desert sun.

  “What do you want?” she pleaded. Sweat trickled from her brow. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

  The hooded figure plunged the smoking steel into her thigh’s soft white skin.

  Karen shrieked in pain. Simon whimpered. The sickly sweet scent of burning human flesh wafted from the orb. Karen’s leg twitched in spasms of pain.

  The man yanked out the iron rod. Seared muscle, bonded to the rod, tore from her leg with a rip. Karen’s sobbing screams found heights long lost to evolution. The man slid the rod back into the base of the burning kindling. Flames danced higher in roaring approval of the blackened skin offering.

  He extracted the second shaft. Two sharpened prongs at the end glowed bright red.

  The man pulled the hood from his head. As he turned, Karen recognized the face of her assailant.