Razorblade Dreams: Horror Stories

by Mark Lukens

  “You just don’t realize how much control you have yet. You still need to keep meditating. You need to get to that plane between the waking world and the dream world, with one foot here and one foot there. The more you do that, the more you will train your subconscious to control your dreams.”

  “I know,” she said, and she really did believe him—she’d already seen it beginning to work.

  “Try to straddle both worlds as you meditate this weekend. Try it several times a day. And as you meditate, I want you to think of a place you want to go to in your dreams, a place you know well, a place where you feel safe and comfortable. It can be a made-up place or a real place, but it must be your place, a place you can control. Try to go to this place over and over as you meditate. Get your subconscious used to going there.”

  Cassie did as Saul instructed, practicing the exercise as she meditated. She chose a beach she’d gone to on vacation years ago. She didn’t remember the beach perfectly, but she just kind of invented a lot of the details as she pictured it.

  And that night she dreamed of that beach, and she dreamed of it again on Sunday night.

  On Saturday night there had been dead things washing up onto the beach. She turned around in her lawn chair and saw the masked man up on the sand dunes, floating just above them, watching her. She had squeezed the metal ball to wake herself up.

  On Sunday night he wasn’t at the beach, and it felt like she spent hours on that beach alone, under the warm sun with the smell of salt in the air. The waves crashed to shore in a rhythmic beat. This time she had constructed a tall brick wall around her in every direction, the back of the wall running along the dunes, the sides of her enclosure running down to the ocean and disappearing under the water.

  “He can’t get inside of this wall,” she told herself in the dream. “I’m safe now.”

  She woke up on Monday morning feeling refreshed for the first time in weeks. She couldn’t believe how happy she was, and she couldn’t believe how much a good night’s sleep could restore her mind, body, and spirit. She was ravenous, and she cooked eggs and potatoes. It was still early, and she got ready for work, excited to be going back. She felt hopeful for the first time in a long time.

  *

  Everyone at work noticed that Cassie was back and feeling better, even her boss.

  “So Saul’s helping?” Zoe asked when Cassie had a break.

  She couldn’t help smiling. “I never thought it would work. I mean, I can’t fly yet. At least I don’t think so. I haven’t even tried.”

  “I’m so happy for you.”

  “Thank you so much, Zoe. If you hadn’t helped me, if you hadn’t introduced me to Saul . . .” Cassie let her words trail off. She was going to say that she would’ve gone crazy. But she had promised herself no more negative thoughts—Saul had made her promise that. And she was never to make negative thoughts verbal, never to speak them into existence and make them powerful.

  “No,” Zoe said. “You helped yourself. Saul just showed you the way.”

  *

  Over the next few days the masked man still visited her dreams, popping up less often, but still showing up unexpectedly and bringing his horrors with him. She’d had to squeeze her “wakeup ball” several times to escape those dreams.

  She’d invented more places to go in her dreams. Sometimes she could get away by herself, but sometimes he would find her.

  On Friday afternoon, she went to see Saul for their session. They began with meditation for twenty minutes, and then they drank some tea and talked.

  “I think you’re ready now,” he told her.

  “Ready for what?”

  “Ready to go after this stalker.”

  Cassie’s heart felt like it was frozen for a moment, her whole body motionless. “I . . . I don’t think . . .”

  “He hasn’t come after you in your waking life,” Saul said.

  “The photos of my house on my phone,” she protested.

  “Just empty threats. That’s all.”

  “You don’t know that.” Her words didn’t have much conviction behind them.

  “He’s just a bully. Psychic stalkers usually are. He just wants to torment your mind, but he doesn’t have the guts to do it in real life. I bet if you go after him, if you stalk him, he’ll run.”

  Cassie didn’t think so.

  “May I see your notebook?” Saul asked, his hand already out like he knew she wouldn’t refuse his request.

  She handed the notebook to him.

  He flipped through some pages, his reading glasses slipped down low on his nose. He stopped after a few moments of skimming her words and looked at her. “There’s a place in a lot of your earlier dreams—some kind of abandoned factory or something. Metal pipes on the walls, electrical wires, something dripping.”

  “I don’t want to go back there.”

  “It’s obviously a place where he feels comfortable, a place where he feels powerful. You have to go there and find him, chase him.”

  Cassie didn’t say anything.

  “I know you’re scared of this man. That’s what he wants. But he’s just a bully. I promise you that. You show him that you’re not afraid, and he’ll run.” Saul paused, staring at her for a moment. “You want him to stop, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded, a smile spreading on his lips. “Then stop him.”

  *

  It took two more nights of meditating, of practicing to keep one foot in the waking world and one foot in the dream world, before she decided to try to go after him. She told herself that she needed more practice meditating, but what she really needed to do was to work up her nerve. It was scary talking about her masked stalker in Saul’s home, but it was absolutely terrifying when she was by herself, getting ready for bed in her “sleep sanctuary,” knowing that soon she wouldn’t have one foot in the waking world anymore, soon she would be fully immersed in the dream world . . . in his world.

  It took these last two days to not only work up the courage to go after this man, but also to become angry. She knew now that she needed to get to the point that she was angry and tired of him terrorizing her.

  “I am the master of my world,” she told herself, trying to relax as she meditated. “I am the master of my body. I am the master of my dreams. I will conquer my fear.”

  She let that wave of anger wash over her. She was mad that this man had invaded her dreams, her thoughts, her privacy. He had roamed around in her dreams, finding her phone number, learning the layout of her house, learning so much about her life, using it against her. She was so angry now that she felt like throwing stuff around, punching the walls, screaming. But she didn’t do any of those things because she was even angrier at herself for being afraid.

  “I’m so tired of being afraid,” she whispered to herself. And then she answered herself: “Then do something about it.”

  This man, this stalker, this bully—he had watched her, prowled the shadows of her dreams. Well, she would do the same thing to him. She would stalk him now.

  An hour later Cassie lay in bed, the cats curled up in their usual spots, bathroom door ajar, light on, air conditioner turned down low. She had her bottle of water and notebook beside her alarm clock on the table next to her bed. She had her “wakeup ball” in the palm of her hand, her fingers relaxed.

  She was ready.

  She closed her eyes and . . .

  . . . she was in the abandoned factory that the masked man liked to frequent. The massive, corroded pipes ran down both sides of the wide hall, disappearing into the darkness that seemed to go on into infinity. She heard that dripping sound, like something poisonous was seeping out of those long-forgotten conduits of metal in which God-knew-what used to flow. Tangles of bare electrical wires ran alongside the pipes. She stood on a cracked and rough concrete floor. Those reddish-orange and green lights came from somewhere. That mist or steam or fog swirled around like a London street at night.

  Cassie took in all the de
tails. There were clues here; she just needed to see them.

  Her stalker hadn’t revealed himself yet—maybe he wasn’t here yet. Not asleep at this moment or not in this part of his dream world yet. As much as the masked man seemed to love chasing her, maybe even he needed breaks now and then so he could . . . what? Pursue others? Were there others that he tormented? Maybe he needed a break to dream of other things. Maybe he flew in his dreams like Zoe did. Or maybe he had erotic dreams. Judging from what she’d seen so far, she didn’t want to imagine what dark things turned her stalker on.

  She looked down at her leather cuff, the studded metal ball dangling from the smaller leather strap buckled around her hand. She stared at it for a moment. This was so strange, almost like she was thinking in her dream, almost like she was awake.

  For a panicked moment she thought she really might be awake.

  Was she awake?

  Her fingers automatically closed around her wakeup ball, squeezing harder until she felt the dull spikes dig into her flesh.

  But then she backed off. No, not yet.

  She began walking. She would see where this place went to. But then she stopped. Why should she keep walking down this tunnel of pipes, conforming to this world that he had created?

  She turned to her left, facing the lines of old rusty pipes and wires. She lifted her hands up and pushed them apart like she was pushing back invisible drapes . . . and the world of pipes and wires and darkness faded away, revealing a brighter world beyond it. She could see the city street out there, people walking past. She went out onto that street, but this time she didn’t brush by them politely, this time she pushed them out of the way with slight gestures of her hands, watching their shocked expressions as they were pushed back by a powerful, invisible force. Each person’s face had the same expression, an exact replica of the one before it.

  Were those expressions the stalker’s expression? Were they a collection of his subconscious feelings?

  She saw the little girl standing off to the side of the street, no piggy bank this time. Her white dress and light hair stood out among the dark and gray mass of people that seemed to be melting together into a mist of shadows at the periphery of her vision.

  “You’re making him mad,” the little girl warned.

  “Good,” Cassie said. “Where can I find him?”

  For a moment the little girl didn’t answer, and now Cassie saw the fear on her face.

  “Does he haunt you, too?” Cassie asked.

  The little girl still didn’t answer.

  But Cassie didn’t need her to answer the question, she already knew. “Where does he go?”

  The girl looked out at the street.

  The crowd of people backed out of the way, revealing the empty street. Buildings lined both sides of the street, like some kind of downtown area of a city that she’d never been to before.

  Cassie looked back at the little girl. “What’s your name?”

  The girl seemed on the verge of tears. “You’re going to make him mad.”

  “I don’t care. What’s your name?”

  “Jenna.”

  “Everything’s going to be all right, Jenna.” Cassie turned back to the street. The buildings seemed to have moved slightly, parting a little like the crowd of people had done. Everything in this world seemed to be in a constant state of flux.

  Someone was running down that street, running past the buildings, running away from them.

  It was him.

  She chased the man, trying to catch up to him.

  The buildings all around her shook, cracks winding through the concrete and stucco, windows shattering, glass, dust, and tiny scraps of paper raining down on her.

  But she was getting closer, catching up to the man in black.

  A building toppled over in front of her, about to crash down onto her and crush her. She almost gave in and squeezed the wakeup ball, but she threw her hands up like she was going to catch the falling building.

  “Stop!” she yelled at the building.

  And it stopped, hanging there over top of her. Even the dust and shards of glass froze in the gray light.

  Cassie continued running underneath the frozen disaster, and she was suddenly in the middle of a neighborhood street.

  The man stood at the end of the street. He was still dressed all in black. He still had on black gloves and black boots. He still had his black mask on. But he seemed different now . . . smaller . . . scared. He turned and ran towards a house at the end of the street, a three-story Victorian home. He bounded up the porch steps and disappeared through the front door, slamming it shut behind him.

  Cassie walked down the street to the house. She stopped at the end of the street, reading the street signs of both streets: Bryant Street and Eighth Avenue. Then she looked at the front porch of the house across the street, the numbers of the house in big black digits, the last number cocked at an angle like it was loose against the siding and about to fall.

  She wanted to remember the address. Her pen was suddenly in her hand and she scrawled the address on her forearm.

  The house looked rundown, in need of repairs. The steps creaked as she walked up them onto the front porch. To her right, in the gravel driveway, were two vehicles. The one in front looked like an older car, maybe even from the eighties. The car behind it, closer to the street, was a compact car, maybe a Toyota or Nissan.

  Cassie walked up to the front door of the house and tried the door handle.

  Locked.

  She willed the lock to disengage and tried it again. But the door handle still wouldn’t budge.

  *

  Cassie woke up and saw the address scribbled on her forearm and a pen beside her on the bed. She must’ve written it on her arm in her sleep. She got up and turned on her computer, pacing as she waited for it to boot up.

  “Come on,” she whispered. A moment later she sat down in the office chair and searched for the address. She figured her stalker must be in a nearby town because he’d driven by her home several times to take photos of it. After she entered the address into the search bar, a few suggestions popped up—but only one of them was in the next town. She punched in the address on Google maps, used satellite view and zoomed in until she was on the ground, facing the house from the street that T-boned into it—the same house she’d seen in her dream.

  Next, she searched through public records to see who owned the house. It was a woman named Nora Bennett. Cassie jotted the information down, searching Google for Nora Bennett, trying to find any information that she could. But Nora Bennett was a common name, and her search was getting her nowhere.

  She got up and looked at the alarm clock next to the bed. It was almost five a.m., but she was wide awake. Just the small amount of sleep she’d managed to get in the last week was such a welcome pleasure, such an energy boost. She needed to do something. She took a shower, then got dressed for work. She drank a cup of coffee while she fed her cats and packed a quick lunch to take to work with her. She filled a thermos she’d gotten for Christmas with the rest of the coffee and then hurried out to her car.

  But instead of going to work, she went to the next town. And forty minutes later, after following the directions on her phone, she found the street she’d seen in her dream. She parked her car halfway down the street that ran into Bryant Street, the old Victorian right at the end of the street.

  She sipped her coffee as she waited. The neighborhood was waking up around her, people walking to their cars and trucks, ready for another day of work.

  But Nora Bennett’s house was still dark. The front door was still closed. There were two vehicles parked in the narrow driveway between her house and the one next to it.

  What now? Should I knock on the door?

  She knew the woman’s name, but if the woman answered the door then how was she supposed to ask for the stalker? She didn’t know his name, or even what he looked like. She could ask if Mr. Bennett was home, but they might not even share the same last na
me.

  And what if her stalker answered? How would she even know it was him since she hadn’t seen his face?

  No, she needed a better plan.

  It was getting late. She needed to head to work.

  She started her car and smiled. At least she was starting to get somewhere. She swore she could feel eyes watching her, perhaps from one of those second story windows.

  “That’s right,” she whispered as she turned her car around. “I’m watching you. I’ll see you in your dreams.”

  *

  Cassie met with Saul after work. She was excited to tell him about the progress she’d made. She felt like some amateur sleuth in a mystery novel.

  “That’s great news,” he said.

  “But I don’t know how to confront him.”

  “Confront him in your dreams.”

  “Yeah, but if he runs back to his house, I can’t get in.”

  Saul nodded, but he had a strange look in his eye, like he wanted to tell her something but he was waiting.

  “The front door of his house, it’s like the metal ball you gave me,” she said as the realization hit her. “Right? I mean you said he couldn’t take the cuff off of my wrist in my dream because I had it locked in real life.”

  “Yes,” he said slowly like he was choosing his answer carefully. “I said that.”

  And then Cassie felt a chill running through her. She knew then that Saul had lied to her. He’d told her that if she locked that strap around her wrist that her stalker wouldn’t be able to unlock it in the dream. But it wasn’t true. Saul had tricked her subconscious into entering her dreams with a talisman that really didn’t have the power that she thought it had.

  As if Saul could read her thoughts, he spoke. “You gave it the power it needed. You gave yourself the power you needed.”

  And now she didn’t need the strap, the little padlock, or the wakeup ball anymore. She had learned how to control her dreams. “Does that mean I can unlock that front door if I want to?”

  “You can try,” he answered. “Only you know what you can do in your dreams.”

  *

  Cassie got ready before sleep, meditating and relaxing. She’d been thinking for the last few hours about what Saul had said.