The Waking Dreamer

by J. E. Alexander

  “Want to talk about it?” Keiran asked.

  Emmett stared out over Keiran’s shoulder at the long stretch of highway beyond the bus terminal. He wanted to be anywhere but here where the mundane elements of a lost life surrounded him: scattered people texting, children playing with each other, and piles of candy bar wrappers. In another place and time for any other person, these would have been simpler things.

  Never again.

  “I had to see a social worker once when I was fourteen. Lucy Janus was her name. Her office had this black and white photo of some urban skyline with a lemon-yellow sunrise overhead. I don’t know why I remember that—I couldn’t even tell you what the woman looked like now. Except that she had a stack of folders and my life was in one of them. She never made eye contact with me, just flipped through my folder while talking. And I kept my eyes fixed on that sunrise, wanting to be anywhere else but there.”

  Keiran only nodded as he looked down at the table, not making eye contact with Emmett, who stared blankly at his own hands.

  “She asked me all these questions. What I do for fun, what do I think of my teachers, do I hurt small animals, blah, blah, blah. And on and on she drones about movies—do I prefer them violent, do I know they aren’t real, do I think I’m a character in a movie. Anyway, I play along and answer her questions. After about ten minutes, she tells me we’re done, that I suffer from derealization, and to start taking the cocktail of pills she was recommending the nurse prescribe.”

  “What’s derealization?”

  “It basically means you’re disconnected from the world. You look out and see things and they don’t seem real to you. Perception is altered and everything feels separated from you.”

  “What did you say?”

  Emmett laughed bitterly and shook his head. “I should have just walked out. But I don’t know why—maybe it was just wanting to stay a while longer and stare at that lemon-yellow sun—but I told her she was wrong. So wrong. I told her that Jean-Luc Godard was right: truth really is found at twenty-four frames per second. Characters act according to their archetypes, and there’s always some kind of resolution in the end through which the protagonist finds meaning and experiences growth. Just because I preferred the consistency in film didn’t mean that I didn’t know the difference between make-believe and the real world.”

  “You said all of this at fourteen?”

  “It probably wasn’t worded as eloquently, and I may have said ‘like’ every four words. I can’t complain too much, because three years of selling those pills bought me my car. So, whatever,” Emmett snarked.

  He felt the bitterness of grief in the back of his throat, somewhere between his tongue and soul. “You know, Keiran, everyone who’s ever taken care of me has died. My birth mom. My foster parents. Every group home I’ve lived in was run by someone too sick or too old not to suffer a heart attack or die of an overdose. My life began with death, and it’s been death ever since. So this idiot social worker says it’s not healthy for me to relate so closely with movies. And all I thought was, either everyone dies and nothing means anything, or everything’s a lie and there’s meaning in the farce.”

  Keiran kept his eyes down, continuing to offer a quiet nod every so often.

  “So you ask if I want to talk about it, and I appreciate it. But I don’t know what to say, man. Everyone always seems to die around me. I don’t know why when I met you and Amala I thought it would somehow be different.”

  Keiran cupped his head with his hands. He cradled himself for a moment with a heavy sigh, pushing his hair back and stretching his arms in a fluid motion.

  “The first time I killed someone, I told myself the feeling would go away. That the face would stop haunting me whenever I closed my eyes. That I would reconcile what I’d done and find a way to settle the matter within myself.”

  “How long did it take?” Emmett asked.

  “It hasn’t,” Keiran answered

  “Well shit, thanks, K.”

  “I see his face every time I close my eyes to sleep. It never recedes, Emmett. It always hurts. And it bloody well should. That’s why we’re the good guys. When you finally feel it, it remains with you forever. That’s how you know that you’re still human … and not a monster.”

  Emmett felt a pinprick of emotion within him as Keiran said this, but he shook his head as if to will any thought of it from his mind. Not now. Not yet. It’s too soon.

  “So what about all of those people on the train?” Emmett asked, quickly finding something to change the subject to. “Do you think any of them made it out alive?”

  “Unlikely. I would suspect that the Revenants boarded at some point, overwhelmed the train’s crew, and when we were far from any major areas and it was dark enough to provide them sufficient cover, began their rampage. Chasing passengers into fires or slowly cutting people reaps the suffering they covet and use to appease their Underdweller masters.”

  Emmett sighed under the weight of the unknown world he was now part of. He considered the middle-aged couple seated on the other side of the terminal, watching them talk. What would they say to the nightmares Emmett had witnessed? Even if Emmett told them everything, given them proof, could they even believe their world was more illusion than reality?

  That Emmett still found himself in moments of wishing it were all fantasy told him otherwise. Watching how the husband doted on his wife while she smiled at him made Emmett think of the other helpless passengers aboard the train, running on instinct from an unseen attacker, pleading for mercy they would never find at the end of a cruel blade. They could never know the darkness that stalked the world.

  The darkness that seemed to breathe; shadows that concealed unimagined cruelties. Ellie’s dead, listless face melted away in his mind, replaced by a face so burdened by heavy wrinkles that it looked like an expression had been carved into a candle and then a flame lit atop its wick, sending melting wax down all sides. The Hag formed in his mind, and Emmett shuddered so visibly that Keiran noticed it, too.

  Perhaps understanding Emmett’s disquieted expression, Keiran shook his head quite suddenly. “No, Emmett. Don’t speak of her, lest you invite her attention to you.”

  “Can I even ask questions?”

  “You’re wanting to know what she is, I suspect,” Keiran said.

  “Death? You know, with a capital D.”

  Keiran shook his head. “No. Death isn’t a person; it’s the inevitable end of life. Personifying death gives you the ability to negotiate with it. But you can’t bargain with death. It is the end of your existence. It’s neither good nor evil. It just is.”

  “So what is she?”

  “Every culture has stories about her. Some say she greets the dead; others believe she’s a harbinger of disease; others that she’s a wandering spirit visiting places of great battle. But she is none of those things. She and her Black Hounds feast on the despair of the dying.”

  “An Old One,” Emmett said.

  “Yes. The normal conveyances of existence hold no interest for them. They are so old that creation holds little fascination for them. Immortal and thus removed from the moralities and ethics that bind all life, their motives are alien to us. They cannot be destroyed, and their powers are beyond ours. We avoid them at all costs.”

  Checking around him to be certain no one was watching in their direction, Keiran pulled his plaid sleeve back and leaned forward across the bench. “The Children are warded,” he said. Revealing his tattooed arm, he turned it around so Emmett could see the back of his tricep. Tracing one finger along the unusual markings running its length, he settled on a particular ring of swirling lines that entwined several runes Emmett did not recognize.

  “I am all but invisible to the Black Hounds, and only because I confronted and named her did the Hag deign to take notice of me.” He pulled his sleeve back down and settled back. “Naming an Old One is a matter for another time, Emmett. Trust me when I ask you to forget you heard it and never tell anyone
that I spoke it.”

  “Keiran, what she said about me—”

  “Old Ones speak in unintelligible riddles, and they do so for reasons known only to them. Perhaps they have lived so long that what some would call prophecies are simply patterns to them. Who can say?”

  “She knew things about me,” Emmett pressed. “When I opened my eyes, she knew I was an only child. Hell, she knew my full name!”

  “The eyes are a conduit for many beings. She knows you now, and whatever that should mean for your life, we will simply have to face it as it occurs. But talking of her more than necessary is just an invitation for her renewed attention, and I daresay you would benefit from less of it,” Keiran said with finality.

  Emmett understood Keiran’s gentle admonishment, and though he wanted to ask more, he stopped when he saw the bus pulling up to the terminal.

  Keiran motioned to Emmett. “Time can offer us distance. Let us hope for a quiet journey to the Lighthouse, yes?”

  Emmett stood from the bench. “Hey, just one more question, okay?”

  Keiran nodded. “Of course.”

  “These Old Ones … you said that they couldn’t see you. But one of them knows me now. If she comes back for me, can I be warded, too?”

  Keiran did not respond with words but a firm grasp of Emmett’s shoulder, nudging him toward the line forming to get onto their bus. “Pay no mind to what she said, mate. Not to deflate your ego, but the Old Ones have no interest in people, Emmett. Why expect that it would ever happen to you again?”

  Emmett did not respond to Keiran’s smile as they boarded the train, though something in his statement tugged at the back of his memory, leaving him feeling disquieted and apprehensive. For some reason, Emmett felt like that was not the case.

  CHAPTER 17

  As the bus drove east to Chicago, Emmett tried to sort through everything, reproving his guilt. Ellie had all but killed Sebastian and had tried to kill Keiran, two Bards who had saved Emmett several times over. Killing her, however tragic, was necessary to save his own life and someone he cared about. But then his mind would argue back: Couldn’t you have disabled her without killing her? Why didn’t you swing at her arm instead of her head? If you had to hit her, why do it so hard?

  When his mind challenged him, he burned with anger over those who had fallen trying to protect him and the innocent people who were unlucky enough to board his train. The image of Ellie’s face staring lifelessly at him would morph in his mind into the ashen, flat reflection in the window in his dream.

  Emmett had not shared the dream with Keiran. It lacked the gossamer surrealism of his life’s dreams─dreams of Amala, which he dared not share with Keiran, either. No, the dream felt too real. Sounds and smells were appropriately specific; the air itself held suitable weight; and when he looked at what should have been his own reflection, he saw Ellie’s face staring back at him as if he were looking through her own eyes at himself. It was just like the waking dream Amala had woken him from in Portland and promptly told him never to tell anyone of. What that ultimately meant, he could not say.

  He eventually grew exhausted thinking of Ellie and the train. He thought of Amala, feeling her holding his hands in the cave beneath Silvan Dea. And he thought of Belshazzar’s Feast, and Amala’s recitation of the words in the air above the king.

  Only a few days ago, Emmett had been preparing for a fateful drive through the cold interior of the Florida Panhandle. The words had always been there, seemingly meaningless and yet suddenly now one piece of a greater mystery. As if seeking some affirmation for his decision to abandon his Houstonian unlife, he had left seeking purpose in the promise of the open, unending road.

  Seated now on a bus driving through the Midwest and seeking sanctuary until he could be cured of a preternatural disease that would likely kill him, Emmett wondered if he had become Belshazzar.

  Will I be weighed and found wanting?

  The remainder of the bus ride was fortunately uneventful. With nothing to discuss of importance that couldn’t also be overheard, Keiran eventually kept Emmett distracted by talking endlessly about soccer. This had the added problem of confusing Emmett, who required a fair amount of education on how the sport worked and the basic politics of football clubs throughout the United Kingdom. Otherwise, the hours of Keiran discussing the particularities of the Dragons’ current roster held little attention for him other than it distracted him until their bus pulled onto the traffic-laden Chicago roadways.

  “Before we head to Nova Scotia, I’m going to need some more money. I have no way of knowing if the Revenants discovered information on our accounts,” Keiran told Emmett as they exited the bus. “An unattached financial source and full night’s sleep would both be ideal. Amala and I have a contact here in Chicago who can help us.”

  The Chicago skyline’s glimmering walls of glass that rose in every direction held a commanding, austere beauty to them. With their few remaining dollars, they caught a cab to Keiran’s contact. Between towering skyscrapers defiantly stood a rundown, two-story home with a poorly patched, slanting roof, boarded windows, and bricks littered with graffiti.

  Emmett raised an eyebrow at Keiran as he walked past him up the short steps to the front door. Keiran knocked three times before taking a single step back and brushing his hair aside, stiffening his shoulders straight and confident.

  “We’re closed,” a gruff voice barked from the other side of the door. “Can’t you read the sign?”

  Though Keiran did not look, Emmett did, and he saw a white board hanging from the side of the house. He could barely make out the words Food Pantry 10 AM through a swirling mess of gang characters layered over the sign.

  “I have not come for food, brother, but rather to be fed,” Keiran said simply. Something clicked from the other side of the door, locks tumbling and bolt after bolt unfastening. Finally, the heavy, burnished door swung inward to reveal an older gentleman stooped in its frame.

  Keiran held his arm straight down in front of him, and with a slow movement so as not to frighten the old man, pulled his sleeve up past his elbow. Emmett could not see the details of the man’s features, but after only a moment he seemed to step back from the doorway. Keiran turned and quickly motioned for Emmett.

  The door closed behind them, the old man’s hands turning many locks as he secured the door. A black gentleman in his fifties, he stood slightly shorter than Emmett and was round at his center with a balding, gray pate and brown eyes that squinted behind a pair of bifocal lenses. He turned to regard the two of them, his bristly moustache filling out his weathered face.

  Straightening his navy-blue cardigan pullover, he nodded and made approving sounds, stepping around each of them and examining them from all angles. He adjusted his glasses twice before dropping them to hang from a chain fastened to each end.

  When at last it seemed that his appraisal was finished, the old man’s face warmed considerably, and he held his arms open to Keiran. “I almost didn’t recognize you, boy! You keep getting bigger on me each time I see you!”

  The two embraced in the narrow hallway, and Emmett finally began to look around the home that they had stepped into. Nondescript but otherwise pleasant, the home had low ceilings and old wood floors. Framed portraits of an old woman and young girl lined the walls, neither of whom Emmett recognized.

  “The examination was a bit much, don’t you think?”

  The old man waved a hand at him. “This old man’s eyes had to be sure, the way they play tricks on me nowadays.”

  “Emmett, this is Mr. Derrick Williams.”

  Emmett held a hand out and nodded. “It’s nice to meet you, sir.”

  “Call me Derrick, son. ‘Sir’ was my father.”

  “I’m glad to see the house is still standing, albeit in some state of disrepair. Why don’t you let us pay for a renovation?”

  “Ah, don’t you start with me. You just walked in. Everything’s new nowadays. Developers would rip this place right out from under me
if I weren’t serving meals here five times a week. Vultures,” he cursed before motioning for them to follow.

  They stepped into a small kitchen not much wider than their train compartment. A metal table with a pair of folding chairs was cluttered with unopened mail and clipped coupons. Stacked along the walls were tall piles of boxed canned goods and bags of rice, some standing higher than Emmett. As Emmett leaned back and looked down the hallway, he saw cases of dry goods all around the living room between rows of standing racks where all manner of clothes hung.

  Derrick motioned for them to sit down as he busied himself in the old refrigerator next to the sink underneath the lone, barred window that looked out on a skyscraper.

  “How are you, Keiran?” Derrick asked as he returned with a pair of glasses and a tall glass carafe of milk.

  “I am well, Derrick. Very well.”

  “And Amala? How’s my beauty doing? I do miss that beautiful smile of hers.”

  “She is well, too, Derrick. I’m certain that she misses you.”

  Derrick poured each of them a tall glass of milk and prodded them. “Growing boys need their calcium. Drink up!”

  Keiran and Emmett both smiled and obliged, and it was Emmett’s rumbling stomach that made him sheepishly mumble an apology.

  “We were passing through the area, Derrick, and we’re in need of your help.”

  “You name it, and it’s yours.”

  “We need to leave Chicago and need money and a place to rest tonight. Five thousand should be sufficient, I’d say.”

  Emmett had to hide his blanching face. Making little more than the minimum wage he could earn working at the local drive-in during the sweltering Gulf Coast summers, his discomfort with asking for money─particularly in amounts so large─made him squirm enough that he wanted to stand up and walk out of the room.

  “Done,” Derrick said simply, and noticing Emmett’s poorly hidden shock, he smiled in return. “The special account Annie set up for me just before she left still has thirty thousand or more sitting in it accruing interest every year. The bank is always calling me trying to sell me this or that, but I tell them to leave that money right where it is. You know I won’t touch it, but whatever you need from it, it’s yours.”