by Mark Lukens
Zoe continued her thoughts with no prompting from Cassie. “This man, he’s locked on to you somehow, and he’s been able to invade your dreams, and to some degree control your dreams.”
Yes, as crazy as it sounded, that seemed to be right. “But . . . what am I supposed to do? I don’t know who this guy is . . . I can’t even see his face in the dreams. He uses a restricted number, which is most likely on a throwaway phone or a number that’s been bounced around the world several times. My neighborhood policeman pointed all of that out to me.” She stopped talking, inhaled, and let out a long breath. “I just don’t know what to do,” she repeated in a softer voice.
“Have you ever heard of lucid dreaming?”
“Yeah,” Cassie answered automatically, but then she wasn’t quite sure if she really knew what it was or not.
Zoe waited for her explanation.
“Yeah, I’ve heard of it,” Cassie said. “But I can’t really explain it.”
Zoe helped out. “Lucid dreaming is when you’re able to control your dreams.”
Cassie nodded. That would sure be useful to her right now.
“I can lucid dream,” Zoe said. “I’ve been able to do it for years. I can fly in my dreams if I want to. Go where I want, see what I want, do what I want.”
Cassie was instantly jealous. In her dreams, like most people’s dreams she guessed, she was a helpless hostage carried along by her subconscious whims and a stew of images it served up.
“My dreams are like watching a movie every night,” Zoe continued quickly, getting excited now. “A movie I get to choose and control. It could be an action movie one night, or a suspense movie the next night. A romance . . . even erotic dreams.” Zoe smiled, and the faintest blush reddened her cheeks. But then she was all business again. “I learned how to do it from this guy named Saul. He’s the best.”
“But could I . . .?
“Anyone can learn,” Zoe said, grabbing Cassie’s wrist with both of her hands for the briefest moment in a fit of excitement. She was like a child recounting her vacation at Disney World. “It takes some time and effort and practice, but anyone can do it.”
And then Zoe froze for a moment as a monumental idea astounded her. Her eyes widened in shock, her jaw literally dropping, the wad of gum she’d been chewing nestled against her molars. “Oh my God . . . let me hook you up with Saul. He could totally help you.”
Cassie started to automatically decline, but then she stopped herself, willing to listen to Zoe’s proposition.
“He’s a little expensive,” Zoe warned.
Any amount of money right now seemed reasonable to Cassie for one night of peaceful sleep.
“He’s so nice,” Zoe continued.
“Let me think about it,” Cassie finally answered.
Zoe seemed a little disappointed, almost like it was a personal rejection, but it wasn’t enough to make her give up. “Let me talk to him, get you an appointment. It might take a few days to get you in, but I’ll let him know that you’re having an emergency.”
“He’s that busy?” Cassie asked, trying to imagine the line of people waiting to learn how to fly in their dreams . . . and do other things.
“He does more than just deal with dreams.”
“Is this guy a psychiatrist?” Cassie asked, not even trying to hide the suspicion in her voice.
Zoe sighed. “He has a medical degree, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I’m asking if he’s a shrink.”
Zoe still seemed to be dodging the question. “He specializes in natural cures, a holistic path. He’s a spiritual guide.”
“A spiritual guide?”
“Just meet him for one session,” Zoe begged. “Just a meet-and-greet. No obligation.”
Cassie nodded, and Zoe exploded with glee, hugging her.
*
When Cassie got home, she made a strong pot of coffee. Then she looked up as much as she could find on the internet about lucid dreaming. She sipped the coffee—she had abandoned the strategy of forcing herself to sleep with alcohol and sleep aids (not together of course) and decided on forcing herself to stay awake as long as possible until she hopefully collapsed into unconsciousness from pure exhaustion. She unplugged the landline to her house phone and turned her cell phone off, and then she went back to work on her computer. She felt a little better, like she was actually doing something now about this man who claimed to visit her dreams.
There were many different variations on what Zoe had called lucid dreaming, but it all came down to the ability of being aware of one’s own dreams and to eventually control them. She also looked up any information about psychic attacks, and what she’d found was pretty scary stuff. She went back to the lucid dreaming websites and jotted down some notes. A few of the websites recommended grounding herself in reality throughout the day to remind herself that she wasn’t dreaming (and the thought of not being able to tell whether she was dreaming or awake throughout the day sounded terrifying). There were many variations of grounding oneself, usually using objects, but the simplest way was to use one’s own hands. One simple grounding test was to touch the fingers of her right hand to her left palm. If her fingers couldn’t go through the flesh of her left palm, then she was awake. But if they could travel through her flesh, then she was asleep, but also aware that she was asleep.
Cassie sat in her office chair in front of her desktop and looked down at her hands. She touched the fingers of her right hand to her palm, irrationally afraid for a moment that her fingers were going to easily slip through her flesh . . . but her fingertips touched solid flesh.
A sip of coffee.
She also had her bedtime strategy, which made up a consensus of what many of the websites recommended. She needed to make her bedroom and her bed into some kind of sanctuary of sleep—no TV, radio, computer, cell phone, excess light, no stimuli of any kind for an hour before going to sleep; and better yet, meditation before going to sleep.
Yeah, she was going to meditate after six cups of coffee.
Besides turning her bedroom into a sleep sanctuary, she was to reinforce the grounding exercise many times throughout the day, and she’d touched her fingers to her palm quite a few times as she looked up more information tonight. The idea of the exercise was not only to reinforce the idea that she was awake while doing the exercise, but also to plant the action in her subconscious so that it would show up in her dreams. She was so sleep-deprived right now that she was willing to try anything.
Two hours later, after a hot bath and a light dinner, she meditated for half an hour before lying down in bed. No TV, no phone, no computer, no music, no distractions, just like the websites had instructed. Nothing but relaxation as she lay there, and two more rounds of touching her fingers to her palm.
She left the bathroom light on (acting on the promise that she had made to herself), but kept the door nearly closed to keep the bedroom somewhat dark. The cats were curled up in their usual spots at the foot of the bed.
It didn’t take Cassie long to drift off to sleep, feeling more relaxed and somewhat more positive than she had in the last week.
And then the dreams began . . .
In the dream, she was back in that endless ironworks factory—something Freddy Kruger might’ve called home—and this environment wasn’t something that felt wholly created from her own mind, but more like something implanted there by someone else. But at the same time the factory felt different, like there might be something different about this dream.
She heard the footsteps echoing from the darkness.
He was coming—the man in black, the tormentor of her mind, the stalker in the leather mask.
Cassie looked down at her hands, amazed that she was able to do so in her dream, amazed that she had this kind of control already. Maybe she too would be able to fly in her dreams soon like Zoe did, or maybe even have an erotic dream that she controlled. She poked the fingers of her right hand into the palm of her left hand and . . .
&n
bsp; . . . her fingers went through the flesh of her hand easily.
It worked. She was in the middle of her dream, and she’d been able to control what she was doing.
But when she tried to pull her fingers out of her left hand, they were stuck. Somehow the flesh of her left hand had closed around her fingers, trapping them in her hand. She pulled and pulled, but she was stuck. Her flesh was fused together.
And he was coming. He was running towards her now from the darkness, his heavy boots thudding on the floor and echoing off the halls of abandoned machinery and rusty pipes that dripped some kind of dark poisonous liquid.
Cassie ran away from the sound of the footsteps, her linked hands swinging uselessly back and forth in front of her like she was running with handcuffs on. She turned a corner in this crazy maze of pipes and wires, and she saw the man. He stood twenty feet away in a haze of fog, dressed from head to toe in black.
Cassie turned around and ran back the other way.
But he was in her path again. He didn’t have the straight razor in his hand this time . . . no, this time he had a chainsaw, the motor running, puffs of smoke pouring out of it, the chain whirling. “You need some help getting your hands apart?” he asked, laughing.
And then he rushed forward, swinging the saw down on her right wrist, cutting it apart, blood spurting, bones snapping.
Cassie bolted awake, her breath caught in her throat, her heart slamming in her chest, eyes wide. She’d never had a panic attack before, but she imagined that this is what one felt like.
She started crying again. She cried so much now. A helpless feeling blanketed her, threatening to crush her soul. Everything seemed so hopeless. If she didn’t get some rest she was sure she would die soon, or go crazy. Her health was declining. She had dark circles under her eyes. She wasn’t eating. She felt tired, but jumpy. Things skittered at the edges of her vision. And these suffocating waves of anxiety and depression washed over her again and again. She was ready to give up now, ready to let this man kill her in her dreams. She’d read before that if you died in your dreams, then you died in real life.
Well, she was ready.
“What am I saying?” she cried into her hands. She pushed her fingers into her palm to make sure she was awake, hoping to God that her fingers wouldn’t sink through her flesh easily.
“Oh God, I’m going crazy. I’m losing it.”
She had to get up. She needed to walk around for a minute even though her legs felt weak and shaky.
A few hours later, after the sun had come up, Cassie called Zoe. She knew she had woken her friend up early on a Saturday morning, but Zoe was instantly awake, instantly concerned.
“What’s wrong?” Zoe asked. “Another nightmare?”
“The worst one so far,” Cassie answered, trying her best not to cry. “I’m ready to see that friend of yours.”
*
Zoe managed to get Cassie an appointment with Saul on Monday afternoon.
Cassie took off from work a little early (which her boss was all in favor of after she told him that she had a doctor’s appointment—she saw a hope in his eyes that the doctor she was seeing would get rid of whatever affliction was ailing her and bring back his old employee).
She drove out of town, barely remembering most of the drive. She knew it was dangerous to drive in her sleep-deprived condition, but she felt a little better today, somewhat optimistic that this friend of Zoe’s—Saul—could possibly help her; he seemed like her last hope. She’d managed to get some sleep on Sunday. The nightmare man didn’t visit her in every dream. She figured that if the nightmare man really was a person psychically invading her dreams as Zoe believed and not a figment of her own imagination, then this man couldn’t be sleeping all the time and waiting for the chance to invade her dreams; there had to be times when their sleep schedules didn’t link up, and that’s why Cassie had been trying to sleep at different times throughout the day, catching catnaps when she could.
Twenty minutes later Cassie was far outside the city, suburbs giving way to larger homesteads, some with cattle grazing in the fields. And then she came to a mailbox (a sturdy wooden one that looked like a homemade craft project) with the numbers of the address on it that Zoe had given her. Beyond the mailbox was a dirt drive that led into a patch of woods.
This was someone’s house? Zoe hadn’t told her she was going to someone’s house. She thought she was going to see a doctor in an office, a professional. Now she began to wonder if this Saul guy was really a doctor. Knowing Zoe, this guy was more likely some New Age hippie.
Maybe she had the wrong address—she couldn’t completely rely on her foggy brain these days. She checked the address in the text message that Zoe had sent her as a reminder. Same number, same road.
Maybe Zoe had written the address down wrong.
Maybe she should call Zoe.
It was almost two o’clock. Almost time for her appointment.
Cassie set the phone down, deciding to drive down the dirt trail and at least see the place. Her phone was right beside her on the passenger seat in case she needed to call Zoe.
After rounding a bend, the dirt trail opened up to a parking area in front of a one-story home that looked like it had been some kind of cottage at one time, but the cottage had expanded over the years with addition after addition, yet everything seemed to flow somehow, almost like the home was an extension of the nature all around it. The home was built of wood planking. Slate tiles were layered on the roof. Everything was painted and finished in earthy tones and textures.
Cassie parked with the front of her car pointing towards the porch that ran most of the length of the front of the home, then wrapped around to the L-shape part of the house that jutted out on the left. No dogs barked or ran up to her car . . . that was a good thing. She watched the simple wooden door underneath the porch roof. She expected to maybe see some kind of sign advertising Saul’s services. Instead she saw potted plants everywhere and wooden outdoor furniture. Wind chimes and bird feeders hung from the edge of the front porch and from tree branches in the yard. In the corner of the L-shaped porch was what looked like some kind of rock structure, probably a water fountain of some kind.
She was about to call Zoe when the front door opened, and an older man dressed in faded blue jeans and an untucked white button-down shirt stepped outside. He had holes in the knees of his jeans and long gray hair tied back into a ponytail. His skin was bronzed from the sun, and he had no shoes on his feet. At least six or seven necklaces hung around his neck, and he had even more thin bracelets and bands on his wrists.
An ex-hippie, just like Cassie had suspected. And knowing Zoe, she realized that she must be at the right place.
The man smiled at her, walking to the edge of the porch by the steps, giving her a friendly wave.
Cassie turned her car off and opened the door. She got out, but remained by her open car door for a moment. She smiled at the man. “Are you Saul?”
“I am. And you must be Cassie.”
Cassie nodded. She grabbed her purse and shut her car door. She walked up to the porch and extended a hand in greeting to the older man. She was shocked when he grabbed her, hugging her. It wasn’t an offensive hug, but a genuine and caring gesture, one Cassie hadn’t felt in such a long time.
The hug was brief, and then Saul pulled away. He looked older up close, but his age seemed deceiving. He could’ve been anywhere from his early fifties to his late sixties. He was thin, but healthy-looking with lean, ropy muscles underneath his tanned skin.
“Come on inside,” he said with a warm smile.
Cassie followed Saul inside his house where there were more plants, more water fountains, more hanging things: dreamcatchers, chimes, other artwork. A Buddha statue dominated one corner. Christian crosses decorated the walls along with a primitive wooden carving that looked like it might be from South America. One far wall was a massive network of bookcases crammed with books, but not scholarly, show-off books—these shelves held a
mishmash of multi-colored spines, hardbacks mixed with paperbacks, some of the books lying on the tops of the stacked ones; these were books that someone actually read, studied, and enjoyed. Pieces of low, comfortable, and overstuffed furniture were situated around the large room. Brightly-colored area rugs covered parts of the bamboo flooring. The place was a mixture of contradictions, both cluttered and comfortable, somehow spacious but cozy at the same time.
They walked past the kitchen on the way to an archway off of a dining room that led to another room in the back. The kitchen’s surfaces were mostly wood, stone, and stainless steel. The counters were cluttered with jars of what looked like herbs. Copper and metal pots and pans hung from hooks near a behemoth of a stove and brick oven.
“We’ll talk back here,” Saul said, leading her to the archway.
Cassie figured this back room was Saul’s office, but it was more than that. The first thing she noticed as she entered the vast room were the large panels of plate-glass windows that looked out onto the pool and deck area with tropical vegetation and shrubs surrounding it. There was a Japanese garden feel to the area without it actually being one. Inside the office were more Far East influences: bonsai plants, another stacked stone fountain (this one turned on, the water gently splashing down the flat stones), Hindu tapestries, a shoji screen in one corner. It was so peaceful here, and Cassie couldn’t help feeling a lot more at ease after only a few minutes.
“Please sit.” Saul gestured at two recliners that were positioned catty-corner from each other with a large wooden table between them that had intricate scrollwork around the edges. Atop the table was a Japanese paper lamp that towered at least two feet up from the table, a set of heavy wooden coasters, and a box of tissues.
Saul waited for her to select a chair, neither of the pieces of furniture seeming to be his “doctor’s” chair. Everything so far seemed so informal, like she was meeting with a new friend.
Cassie sat down and looked at her shoes. “Oh. Do you want me to take my shoes off? I didn’t even think about it . . .”
