Sweet Dreams

by William W. Johnstone

  “Still no sign of Bud or Leo?” Maryruth asked, looking out the front window.

  “None,” Jerry told her.

  “And the black lady who runs the house is gone,” Heather said.

  The shepherd walked to the girl’s side. She patted its big head and the dog whined softly, obviously enjoying the affection.

  “I’m glad he’s on our side,” Voyles said.

  Maryruth walked over to Heather. “Do you remember anything about ... well about what happened in the dining room?”

  “Yes,” the girl said softly. “I remember all of it. But if you don’t mind, I would rather not talk about it.”

  “I truly understand,” Maryruth said. “Perhaps some other time.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The adults exchanged glances. Voyles was muttering under his breath about people who molest children. He was very grim-faced.

  “Marc?” Maryruth asked. “How about your experiences?”

  The boy gave Heather an odd look. “Sure. I don’t mind talking about it. I just hope it doesn’t ever happen again. That Clint Lancaster beat me up and knocked me out. When I woke up, he was burying me alive. I had blood all over my face. Then I was pounding on a wooden lid of some sort. It was awful. I was running out of air, couldn’t breathe. Then Shep,” he pointed to the dog, “came and dug me out of there.” He walked to the dog’s side and petted him.

  “Dog must weigh a hundred and fifty pounds,” Voyles said. “I read once that a full-grown German shepherd has the equivalent of eight thousand pounds of crushing power in his jaws.”

  “Looking at him,” Jerry said, “I don’t doubt it a bit.”

  “Let’s be careful, folks,” Voyles said. “Come on, Janet, you ready?”

  They walked up the curving steps and were soon out of sight. Maryruth went over to Jerry and took his hand.

  She smiled up at him. “I rather like you dressed in 1880 fashion. Where is your hat?”

  “I threw the damn thing away,” he replied, forcing a grin. “Believe me, I can live without it.” He looked at Vickie who was sitting on the floor with the kids, the dog standing guard. “If anything happens, Vickie give a shout, and we’ll come on the run.”

  “Don’t you worry about that,” the cop replied. “Loud and clear.”

  Several rooms were located just off the huge den of the mansion, and Jerry and Maryruth investigated them first. To their surprise, they found the rooms covered with at least an inch of dust and dirt. Cobwebs full of spiders—tiny to huge—clung to everything.

  “Gross!” Maryruth said, backing away into the hall.

  “Remember what Bud said,” Jerry told her. “They may not be real.”

  “You want to let one of those monster spiders bite you to find out?” she challenged him.

  “I think I’ll pass.”

  “I rather thought you would.”

  The study was almost as bad, but when Jerry spotted a gun cabinet across the room, full of rifles, shotguns, pistols, and boxes of ammo, he felt he had no choice but to plunge in and wade through the dust and dirt and cobwebs.

  Maryruth waited in the open doorway.

  Halfway across the room, a huge black spider jumped from its web to land on Jerry’s left forearm. Through horror-filled eyes, Jerry saw fangs protrude from the glistening, open mouth of the hairy creature. Frantically, Jerry slapped the huge arachnid from his sleeve and stomped on it. The spider turned to gooey pudding under the sole of his boot.

  “They’re real!” he shouted to Maryruth. “Stay clear.” He ran toward the gun cabinet.

  “Jerry!” her voice spun him around, stopping him. She pointed.

  A scorpion was scurrying across the dusty, littered floor, its tail over its back in striking position. It was the biggest scorpion Jerry had ever seen. Its tail was so large, he could see the cruel barb located at the tip.

  He spun, grabbed a bookcase, and turned it over on the scorpion, smashing it under the weight of the literary greats of all time.

  Then he raced toward the guns. Mustering all of his strength, he grabbed both sides of the oak cabinet and literally dragged it across the room, stumbling and falling into the hallway. The crashing cabinet narrowly missed his legs, its glass front splintered as it fell.

  Maryruth slammed and locked the door.

  “You all right?” she asked.

  Before he could reply, laughter rang out from the far end of the dark hall. Jerry, soaked with sweat from his exertions and from fear, looked up the hallway.

  Clint Lancaster stood framed by an eerie light, howling with dark laughter.

  Jerry crawled to his knees and glared at the man. “I’m going to kill you, you perverted bastard!” he yelled.

  Clint almost doubled over from laughter. “But my good man,” he said, “how could you do that? I’ve been dead for years!”

  7

  Just as the quartet of men reached the end of the city limits, the sky became sullen and a light rain fell to earth. It was an unnaturally hot rain, almost burning the flesh of the men dressed in short-sleeve shirts, and it stank, its foul smell causing their noses to wrinkle in protest.

  “What is that odor?” Kowalski asked. “I’ve smelled it before, but I can’t place it.”

  “Smells like a grave,” Bob said.

  No one said anything for a few moments.

  “And the rain is colored,” Kowalski noticed, rubbing at his arm. He jerked his fingers away. “Jesus!”. he cried. “It’s blood.”

  The men looked at their bare arms and began rubbing wildly at their flesh. They all ran toward a huge tree, hurrying to get under the low overhanging branches for protection.

  Soon the rain began changing its color, becoming a silver gray shade as it fell to the earth.

  “There!” Father Danjou said, pointing. “See how wavy and indistinct the house and the grounds around it have become?”

  The cops looked, all of them blinking their eyes and shaking their heads.

  A light mist hung around the Lancaster home, almost obscuring the mansion from outside eyes. A low fog clung close to the ground, thick, swirling in the light breeze. Moisture dripped from the huge oak trees on the grounds of the estate.

  “It looks ... evil,” Larry said.

  “I have a very ominous feeling,” the priest said. A sensation of doom.”

  “You just ain’t whistlin’ ‘Dixie’,” Bob agreed. He looked down at the ground and cried out in horror. “Good God!” he yelled.

  His shoes had turned into high-heeled cowboy boots, and the lower half of his trousers, from the knees down, were now gray striped.

  Kowalski stared at Vanderhorn, then looked at his own shoes. They were gone, replaced by boots. The lower half of his trousers were also gray striped.

  Larry’s clothing, and Father Danjou’s, had also changed. The priest’s shoes were gone, replaced by sandals, and from the knees down, he was dressed in a dark brown rough robe.

  “A monk’s clothing,” Danjou said, a half smile on his lips. “Very well. So be it.”

  Larry Rogers’ shoes were now high-heeled cowboy boots, his trousers were identical to Bob’s and Ski’s.

  The changes in the men’s clothing began rising higher; soon the metamorphosis was complete.

  The cops were now dressed as Western gunfighters, complete with cowboy hats and six-guns tied low. Gone were the priest’s black trousers, his shirt and white collar. He was fully dressed in a brown robe.

  “Larry,” Bob whispered the word.

  The captain looked at him.

  “I can’t back up,” Vanderhorn said. “My legs won’t let me go backward.”

  They all tried to back up. Some invisible but very real force field prevented them from doing so.

  “Now what?” Ski asked.

  “I don’t know,” Larry said.

  The trio looked at Father Danjou.

  “Now we go forward into the unknown,” Danjou said. “Now we are all committed. And may God grant us His ten
der mercy and favor us with His blessings during this dark journey.”

  The priest stepped forward and vanished.

  Kowalski looked down at his boots and striped trousers and six-gun. “A Polish gunfighter?” he said.

  “Let’s go, boys,” Larry said.

  The three of them stepped forward and vanished.

  Dick and Janet had stepped into utter silence. No sound came to them from the lower floor. They could not hear the crashing of the gun cabinet or Clint’s laughter.

  Nor did they hear Maryruth screaming as Clint lifted himself off the floor and sailed toward her. His eyes were red, his mouth open. He sailed right through her and disappeared into a wall.

  Janet looked behind her. The stairs were gone. In their place, a thick fog had appeared, obscuring the landing. “Dick? . . .”

  “We can get back. Just keep on believing that.”

  The couple walked slowly down the long hallway. It soon became apparent to them that the passage was an endless maze of dead ends, and of doors with yawning darkness behind them. Neither wanted to step into that darkness.

  Voyles took a pencil from his pocket. He marked an X at each turn and then drew a small arrow pointing in the right direction.

  “Least we can find our way back to the stairs,” Voyles said.

  “If the stairs are still there,” Janet said.

  They heard the same rattling they had heard the night before. The sound drew closer.

  Janet looked over her shoulder and gasped in shock and fear.

  The corridor behind them was enveloped in darkness, a darkness rimmed with crimson, the red staining the walls and the darkness moving slowly toward the man and woman.

  Janet stepped away from Voyles’s side and walked to the edge of the slowly moving red blackness. She touched the wall, inches away from the inky mass. She looked at her fingertips and began screaming. Her fingers were covered with blood.

  A hand reached out of the darkness and closed on her shoulder. Her screaming was abruptly stilled as she was jerked into the slowly moving ebony evil.

  Cold bony fingers began stripping her dress from her. Other forms rattled and trembled and moved about her, reaching out with stark white fleshless fingers to touch a bare breast, to scratch at a nipple, to lightly play at her pubic area.

  Outside the now-still wall of darkness, Voyles hammered at the blackness with his fists. The substance was rubberlike under his fists, seemingly impenetrable. Then the cop realized what the substance was.

  Human flesh.

  And it was alive.

  Voyles shuddered with revulsion. Steeling himself, forcing himself to do it, the cop put an ear to the living mass and listened.

  Very faintly, he could hear Janet screaming. There were muted voices, but they were indistinguishable from . . .

  He recoiled in horror.

  ... the voices of the wall of living flesh.

  The flesh was speaking.

  “No,” Voyles whispered. “This isn’t real.”

  But he knew it was.

  Inside the living wall of human flesh, Janet’s arms were held tightly by the cold bony fingers of the skeletons. She had been stripped naked. Empty eye sockets stared at her unemotionally.

  Inside the red-lit darkness, a sparkling began. Janet watched in pure horror as the sparkling took the shape of a creature unlike any she could have possibly envisioned in her deepest, darkest, wildest nightmare.

  The creature resembled a human being. It had arms and legs and a head. But it was grotesquely misshapen and deformed.

  And that thing hanging between its legs filled her with dread. The creature took its penis in one hand and worked the foreskin back and forth, slowly masturbating itself into thickness and hardness. The head of the organ glistened wetly.

  “I am Sanjaman,” it spoke in a hollow voice. “I welcome you to your new home.”

  Bony hands pushed the woman toward the Manitou. The hands tightened and lifted the woman off her feet, spreading her legs wide apart.

  “No!” Janet screamed.

  The Manitou grinned, exposing shark’s teeth behind its thick wet lips. “Yes,” it said.

  The Manitou lifted its long thick erection. The hands propelled the woman forward until she was pushed against the hot hardness.

  She screamed as the Manitou began its penetration.

  Outside, Voyles could hear the screaming clearly. He stepped back and jerked his pistol from his waistband. Aiming at the edge of the wall of dark human flesh, between the edges of blood and darkness, Voyles pulled the trigger.

  The wall of flesh shuddered and seemed to howl in pain. Blood poured from the bullet wound. A living hand worked its way out of the flesh, the flesh on the hand rotten and putrid.

  Voyles shot the hand.

  The fingers were blown off. They struck the floor and jerked and trembled. Voyles stomped on them with his boots, smashing them. He lifted the pistol and fired again into the edge of the wall of flesh. More blood erupted, bringing with it a smell of rotting flesh and old stale blood.

  The flesh separated from the wall, pulling into itself. Voyles fired again and quickly reloaded the six-gun. The separation widened, light pouring into the bleeding flesh.

  Janet was flung out of the wall to land with a thud at Voyles’s feet. There was blood between her legs. She was weeping uncontrollably.

  The wall suddenly erupted, spraying Voyles and Janet with blood and flesh. Voyles stared in horror at the Manitou.

  The Manitou howled with laughter at the sight of the gun in Voyles’s hand. “Fool!” It spoke in a hollow voice. “But I will let you live for a while longer.” The Manitou vanished.

  The punctured, torn, and bleeding wall of living human flesh began moaning as if in pain. The edges began closing, ever so slowly moving closer to Voyles and Janet.

  Voyles realized what the wall was trying to do: completely envelop them.

  He jerked the naked Janet to her feet and threw his coat around her shoulders. “Come on!” he yelled.

  She recognized the urgency in his voice and her fear overrode her shock and pain.

  They raced down the seemingly endless hall.

  The wall of bloody flesh moved ever so slowly and decisively after them.

  The three cops and the priest stood on the grounds of Lancaster house. They could sense the evil clinging to every living thing around them. It seemed to hang in invisible coils from the trees; it dripped in thin lines from the bushes; it swirled in thick fog around their ankles.

  “We have been transported back in time,” Father Danjou said. “How far back I have no way of knowing.”

  “Judging from our clothing,” Larry said. “I’d say about a hundred years.”

  Ski and Bob could but stand in open-mouthed shock, their eyes taking in the surroundings and the eerie silence of the grounds.

  They all heard the screaming. It seemed to be coming from the second floor of the huge three-story mansion.

  “I ain’t lookin’ forward to this.” Bob finally found his voice.

  “We have no choice,” Danjou said. “We cannot go back.”

  “How do you know that?” Larry asked.

  “I know,” the priest said.

  He walked toward the house. The men, in single file, followed him. As the cops walked, they checked their single-action, long-barreled sidearms. Five rounds in each, the hammers resting over empty chamber. The ammo loops in the gun belts were full of .44 rounds.

  The screaming from the house had stopped. Now the silence seemed thicker and more oppressive than before. The thick ground fog swirled around the men’s feet as they walked.

  Two forms suddenly materialized out of the fog and gloom. The quartet stopped.

  “More grist for the mill,” Bud said.

  Leo said nothing.

  “I can’t see you too clearly,” Father Danjou said. “Who are you and where are we?”

  “You are all standing between life and death,” Bud informed them. He then told t
hem the same things he had told the others: the boundaries, what they could or couldn’t do, and how the men could use their weapons.

  “We heard screaming a moment ago,” the priest said.

  “You will hear a great deal more before the next twenty-four hours have passed,” the old Indian said. “If indeed the hours do pass for you.”

  “And how do you know these things?” Danjou pressed him for a further explanation. “You are a medicine man acting for your Gods. I am a servant of my God. What makes us so different? Why have we” – he indicated the policemen—“been spared, and not the others? I am confused.”

  “All your questions may be answered ... or none may,” Bud told him. Not to your satisfaction. For some reason, you, as a man of your God, have been able to breach the gap between our worlds. I do not know how that happened, or how much power you might be able to wield. Those are things I cannot answer. But I can urge you all to be very careful.”

  “There is ... something about the both of you,” Danjou said, peering intently at the men. “Something misty. Am I imagining this?”

  Leo spoke for the first time. “We have crossed the river,” the old man said. “Soon we shall be at peace.”

  “I ... I don’t understand,” Larry said.

  Bud smiled. “We are dead.”

  8

  Voyles turned around and stopped his frantic running when he realized the endless rooms and the maze of corridors were not real.

  “Logic,” he panted. “Logic must prevail. The Manitou is real, obviously. I guess the wall of flesh is real, and the skeletons. But this,” he waved his hand at the maze, “is not real. Think, Janet; think only about the layout of the bottom floor. Our minds can beat this, I believe.”

  “What about that disgusting wall of flesh and blood?”

  “We can handle that, too,” he assured her. “It can be hurt; I saw that when I shot into it. It’s vulnerable. Concentrate on the floor plan.”

  Voyles had pegged it accurately. When both of them began to use their minds logically, to let reason override fear, the maze began to dissolve and the layout of the second floor was clearly defined.