Dreamwalker

by Russell James

  Indirect artificial light lit the other side. He stepped out onto a dirty, gray-carpeted room that was once a ground floor office. Rows of disheveled cubicles stretched out to the missing street-front windows. Weapons fire had shattered some of the cubicle walls. Burned and melted monitors stared back at Pete from each cubicle, cut down in the prime of their useful lives. White printed papers and the remnants of books littered the floor. Most of the acoustical panels in the drop ceiling were gone, and the few remaining light fixtures hung at crazy angles. The Twin Moon City branch of this business had been a bad investment.

  Pete picked his way across the room, stepping around shredded reports and broken glass. He passed a stupid framed motivational business poster on the wall. It had a picture of a runner climbing stairs in an empty stadium. Underneath him, it said DETERMINATION IS THE DIFFERENCE. But the cracked frame hung upside down, and the man looked more as if he was falling down stairs, not climbing them.

  At the front of the room was the receptionist’s desk. The shattered sign behind it read AMERICAN FINANCIAL. The blasted receptionist’s chair was reduced to wheels and a solitary stem. Pete ducked down behind the footwall.

  Outside, streetlights gave the familiar ravaged streetscape of Twin Moon City a pale, lifeless glow. The taller buildings of the business district made the street into a canyon. Furtive movement flickered in the shadows across the street.

  Pete shook his head. A city of souls reduced to a rat-like existence, hunted without rest. Visiting here without establishing residency was just fine.

  He wondered how he’d find Rayna. Last time, she had found him. She said she could feel when he arrived. He hunkered down out of sight and rested against the desk drawers.

  This visit, Pete was more attuned to the city. He sensed a subterranean flow running beneath his feet. Life force was being extracted, pulled in tiny streams in one direction, like veins returning from all over the body, back to the heart. Pete could almost take its pulse.

  The blat of a gunner Jeep’s exhaust reverberated in the artificial valley outside. The pop-thunk pattern of a firing machine gun peppered the air. Pete peered around the edge of the desk. The yellow truck speed closer to his building. The gunner randomly raked buildings’ upper floors with tracer rounds. Pete pulled back under the desk. He gauged if he could make it back to the closet door exit if the zombie crew decided to stop in and check their 401K accounts.

  The Jeep roared up. Rounds ricocheted around American Financial’s upper floors. Glass and stone chips sprinkled from the façade into the street like some hail from Hell. The Jeep exhaust changed key and retreated. The diminishing sound of the gunner’s insane laughter interrupted bursts of weapons fire.

  That had been way too close for comfort.

  The sound of footsteps crushing ceiling tiles came up behind him.

  “Pete,” Rayna whispered.

  “Right here,” he said. He pulled himself out from behind the desk and ran toward her voice.

  He found Rayna tucked into a shattered cubicle near the rear of the room. No longer the girl the beach, she was back in her Twin Moon City rags.

  “Aren’t you the brave one tonight?” Rayna said.

  “I don’t get it,” Pete answered.

  “You plopped yourself down one street over from Cauquemere’s palace,” she said. “Do you wave red flags at bulls as well?”

  Pete couldn’t take credit for this alleged bravery. He didn’t know why the tunnel came up in this building. He planned to case Cauquemere’s stronghold. Maybe his conscious decided on the mission, and his subconscious carried out the details. He had a lot to learn about traversing this dimension.

  “Just lucky I guess,” he said, “or unlucky if we get caught.”

  Rayna stood and grabbed his arm. Her touch was electrifying. There was something about this girl…

  She pulled him toward a steel exit door in the back wall. The door opened to a shadowy concrete stairwell. The air smelled stale and damp.

  “I’ll show you the layout from the roof,” Rayna said. “The stairwell is pitch black after we close the door. Just stick close. It’s five flights up.”

  She reached for his hand and Pete held it with reverence. The door closed behind them. The darkness was absolute.

  Side by side, they worked their way up, feeling each step one at a time. The cold steel of the banister slid through Pete’s right hand, Rayna’s soft skin warmed his left. They trudged up each set of risers, their shuffling feet resounding against the concrete walls. Pete lost track of the number of floors they passed. He began to worry this was some nightmare part of the dream, the never-ending stairway in the dark.

  Then he hit a wall.

  “That’s the door,” Rayna said. “Open it and stay low.”

  He crouched, groped for the doorknob, found it and turned. He pushed the door open in slow motion. A layer of small white pebbles covered the flat roof. The façade created a three feet wall around the roof’s perimeter. Rayna hit the ground and crawled forward on all fours. Pete followed. At the edge, he raised his head above the makeshift battlement and scanned the city.

  Cauquemere’s imposing palace covered a full city block two streets away, though it was more than a building. The lit windows of the twin spires seemed to search the city like the eyes of some feral beast. The rear battlements rose slightly higher than the front, as if the building was crouched in position to pounce. The ten-foot iron rail fence wrapped around the palace, but it was a toss-up whether it was to keep intruders out or to keep the predatory looking edifice within contained. The power that pulsed beneath Pete’s feet ran hard and fast to the building across the street that practically breathed with life.

  The rotting, impaled heads on the sharpened fence points had mouths frozen open is silent warnings. A swarm of Jeeps buzzed in circles around the palace walls and sent un-aimed tracer fire into the surrounding buildings. Though they appeared to lack a disciplined intent to guard the palace, one sight of him or Rayna, and the drivers of the damned would get laser focused. He’d seen that happen. Getting past them to save Estella was going to be a hell of a trick.

  “Is it always like that?” Pete asked. “Surrounded by those things?”

  “Every time I’ve seen it,” Rayna said. “It’s a non-stop party.”

  “How do you stop one of those hunters? Some of them are practically nothing but bones.”

  “Eventually,” she said, “they wear out. Skin and cartilage dry out as their energy drains. When there is nothing to hold the bones together, they collapse.”

  “Any way to speed that up?” Pete said.

  “Maybe. A few residents hijacked a Jeep once. About six of them overran a driver and gunner. They guillotined the driver with a street sign. He stopped moving for good, so maybe a beheading makes a difference.”

  Pete sensed a way into the palace. With a Jeep, disguised as hunters…

  “Where’s that Jeep?” he asked.

  “They got about two blocks before a pack of those things descended on them. Cauquemere personally tore them to pieces.”

  Pete bit his lower lip. “Then we need a way in there other than driving in the front gate.”

  In the distance, a gunner Jeep spun out of control and ran into the palace fence. It burst into flames and the heat began cooking off rounds in the Jeep’s magazine. Arcs of random tracers spewed into the air. Zombie hunters cheered and fired their weapons skyward in celebration.

  “Shouldn’t be a problem at all,” Pete deadpanned.

  The pack of Jeeps ground to a sudden halt at the palace entrance. The drivers shook their decaying heads once or twice, as if trying to comprehend something. Then the gunners snapped to. They swung their machine guns until all barrels pointed at Pete and Rayna’s observation point. The drivers let loose a fit of group convulsive laughter. All the Jeeps screamed to life. In groups of four, they bro
ke from the gates of the palace, each band headed for a different side of Pete’s building. No matter the direction traveled, the gunners kept their sights on the office rooftop. They were well out of range, but that wouldn’t last.

  “They found us,” Rayna said.

  The two ran back into the stairwell. The rooftop door closed behind them and plunged them into darkness. Pete scrambled blindly after Rayna. His feet hit and missed steps. He gripped the banister with both hands to hold his balance, afraid any fall would take them both to the bottom.

  They burst back into the office. The distant thunder of the ragged Jeep engines heralded the hunter’s arrival. Rayna turned to him.

  “Get back home,” Rayna said. “Make us a plan.”

  “Come with me,” Pete pleaded. “I have a safe place for you.”

  Even in the shadowy light of the ruined office, the incredulous look in Rayna’s eyes was unmistakable.

  “I can’t leave Estella,” she said. “A few minutes with you in Key West is one thing, but I can’t leave her here to fight for her future alone. She can’t hide from the evil in that castle. Neither should I.”

  Pete’s heart fell. He’d assumed she felt the same passion he did. Maybe, if he could show her what he had to offer…

  He pulled the gold skeleton key from his pocket and pressed it into her hand.

  “If you need it, this will guide you to safety,” he said.

  Rayna held the key in her open palm. It spun and pointed to the closet door in the back wall.

  “Follow where it points,” Pete said. “I’ll be there.”

  Rayna’s fingers closed around the key. She looked ready to protest.

  Two machine guns opened up in front of the building and slammed hot lead into the rooftop. Rayna bounded through the remains of a windowsill and into the night. Pete ran into the closet and leapt straight down the earthen shaft. He landed hard on the balls of his feet and dropped to his knees. He sprinted forward and put some space between himself and Twin Moon City. He turned back to the shaft, held both hands out in front of him and snapped them across each other.

  The walls of the tunnel turned liquid. The brown mass flowed from both sides and into the center. It solidified into a new wall.

  He staggered down the tunnel to the open trap door in the distance. He tried to sort through all the emotions that swirled within him: the panic of having hunters on his heels, the relief of escape, the disappointment of Rayna’s reaction to his offer. Could he have mis-read her by such a wide margin? Could everything he felt so strongly be completely one-sided?

  He stared up the shaft into the mansion.

  He didn’t build that mansion up there all his life for nothing. It was there for the two of them. He knew it. They’d end up there.

  All he needed now was one hell of a rescue plan.

  Rayna stopped running a dozen buildings later. She ducked into the remains of an upscale coffee shop and collapsed against the wall. She worked to catch her breath and realized she still held the gold key. She opened her hand. It sparkled. The key balanced on her palm and spun one quarter turn to the right.

  She whipped her hand out from underneath it like it was on fire. It fell and clattered on the cracked tile surface. It lay there, looking more burnished now against the filthy floor.

  What had it pointed to, really? Sanctuary? Escape? Surrender?

  She’d come here to save Estella, but somehow found Pete. Back in the tactile world, he’d have been a keeper. She felt something the first time a window opened and she met him in one of his dreamwalker excursions, something more than just the relief of being the hell out of Twin Moon City. So why the revulsion when he gave her the key?

  First, guilt. She needed to free her sister, not leave her to Cauquemere’s tortures while she hid.

  Second, reality. She was dead. Buried alongside her sister somewhere in Philly. Pete was alive. No amount of warm feelings and good intentions would ever bridge that divide. Any dumb ideas sailing in that direction needed sink. Now.

  She stood and stretched. The street looked clear. She crouched to leap through the window and paused. The key caught her eye.

  With a quick scoop, she grabbed it and shoved it in her pocket. She vaulted through the window and ran for home.

  Chapter Twenty

  Pete was up and out of DiStephano’s early the next morning, even before Mama D hit the coffee and bagels. He only had a few hours of sleep, but he’d catch up. Sleeping on a bus was easy.

  Pete had plans for his first day off. He had to find out more about the real world life of the girl who now filled his sleeping one.

  He knew Rayna’s sister’s name was Estella and that they had both died in Philadelphia on the same night. She said Estella called her in the late spring, so the deaths probably happened last summer. That should be enough information to put him on the path to more. He just had to get to Philly to find the trail.

  He could find an internet café and surf for some details here in Atlantic City, but becoming acquainted with Rayna in cyberspace was too impersonal, too remote. He wanted to walk the streets she walked, see the sights she’d seen. Then maybe he would be a step closer to knowing the real Rayna.

  Normally the idea of testing his VPD against a strange environment would keep him home. But not today. Not for Rayna.

  Stop #1: free internet access at the public library. The Philly papers would surely have covered the simultaneous deaths of two sisters. Stop #2: all depended on Stop #1.

  The bus schedule in the Ithaca station said there were regular Atlantic City-Philly runs several times a day. He could leave in the morning and be back in the evening, with a bunch of hours in between to search the City of Brotherly Love. He could keep expenses within the limited funds on his debit card. A paycheck from DiStephano’s was going to be quite welcome.

  At just after 7:00, Pete plopped in a window seat near the rear of a rumbling diesel bus. As it passed over the causeway out of Atlantic City, he felt like a Greyhound regular. A petite older woman in a flowered hat was the only other passenger, seated directly behind the driver. Pete was fine with that. The quieter it was, the better he would sleep. If he snoozed through the trip, he could hit the ground running.

  Atlantic City died out fast as the bus found top gear heading west. Rural New Jersey took its place. Much to his surprise, the southern part of Jersey really was the Garden State. Dairy farms and harvested fields stretched out from the Atlantic City Expressway. It was nice to replace Atlantic City’s faded colors and prominent grays with the bucolic explosion of fall’s turning leaves and green grass.

  The rear tires added a low steady hum to the drone of the bus exhaust. Pete settled back in the seat. A hypnotic succession of fence lines passed beside him. He closed his eyes, and before he knew it, the swaying bus rocked him to sleep.

  Cauquemere paced his palace in unbearable frustration. He’d dispatched his hunters as soon as he sensed the dreamwalker in Twin Moon City. They had the building surrounded in minutes, yet he still escaped. How could the dreamwalker slip in and out of his city so quickly?

  The dreamwalker wouldn’t have left so quickly unless he’d picked up whatever information he was looking for. Someone had to be here to deliver it, and the mystery girl from Simon’s dusky memory was the only candidate. Yet he’d only felt the dreamwalker. Only when he walked in the girl’s footsteps, like at the brownstone, did he even get the slightest whiff of her scent. This had never happened with any resident of Twin Moon City. Everyone registered in his personal census.

  Elusive dreamwalkers and phantom residents, disconcerting tiny rips in the fabric of world. He needed to mend them. Fast.

  A disturbance caught his attention, like the twitch a spider feels when a fly hits the edge of its web. Cauquemere sensed a victim, outside the palace walls, outside Twin Moon City.

  From the power of the sensation,
this wasn’t just any victim. The dreamwalker had fallen back asleep. This time his soul was clearly visible, not obscured as it had been earlier last night. The prey was out in the open.

  Cauquemere moved in for the kill.

  Pete’s eyes snapped open to the scream of a siren. He lay on a gurney in an ambulance. With each swerve of the truck, his gurney rolled a few inches sideways. Tall, unfamiliar buildings whisked by the tiny windows in the rear doors. Horns blared and the occasional screech of brakes bounced off the vehicle’s sides. Two clean-cut, male paramedics were on either side of him. One rooted through some type of medical kit. The other monitored a data screen of flashing vital signs.

  Pete tried to sit up. A thick black strap girded his torso. Similar bindings held his ankles and wrists to the polished silver side rails. He pulled against all four. Nothing budged.

  Fear welled up inside him. The last thing he remembered, he was on the bus. Had there been an accident? He didn’t feel injured.

  “Hey,” he said to the paramedics. “How did I get here?”

  The two didn’t respond. The one on the left kept rummaging in the medical kit. The one on the right stared at the vitals display like a gambler at a slot machine.

  An alarm on the vital signs monitor blared. The displayed pulse rate went into free fall. 60…50…40. The eyes of the paramedic watching the screen lit up as if it just came up three cherries.

  “We’re losing him!” he shouted with unabashed glee.

  Pete felt fine. If anything, his pulse was racing.

  “Hey, hey, I’m all right,” Pete said. “That thing’s out of whack.”

  No response. Pulse rate 30…20.

  “Give him adrenaline,” the paramedic said, still transfixed by the monitor screen. “Super dose. In the heart.”

  “Super dose?” Pete said. “What’s wrong with you two?”

  The other paramedic pulled a huge needle from the bag. The bright green liquid within glowed like a nuclear pile.