by H. J. Lawson
I reach my hand out with my glasses to put them on the side by my clock, but the darkness enters my mind before I get there...
Chapter 8
Darkness surrounds me, swallows me as a hole dragging me down, down, deeper down. I feel as if I’m free-falling from the edge of a cliff. My body twitches and I fall, and crash-land against ground.
What the frigging hell? Dreams aren’t supposed to hurt.
I open my eyes. I’m lying on the road. People’s feet hurry past me. I flip onto my back. My hands and knees burn from the crash landing. Next to me are my glasses. I inspect them. Thank God they didn’t break in the fall. The thought makes me laugh. It wouldn’t matter if they did, it's just a dream.
I put my glasses on and notice a scratch on one of the lenses, making my eye travel to that, but only for a moment. That’s when I realize I’m in the frigging middle of a crosswalk. A sea of people swivel around to look at me. Some of them have their faces covered with surgical masks. Their almond-shaped eyes glance at me for a moment before the people continue their fast movements across the road.
There’s no Chinatown on Long Island, so I couldn’t have possibly sleepwalked here. It is just a dream, I remind myself. I’ve never dreamt about China, if it is China. Who knows? All the signs look like they’re written in Chinese, but they could be anything. I’ve never left America; the only other place I’ve been to is Texas on our annual family trip. Well, it used to be our annual trip. That’s now dead, along with my dad.
Stop it, Parker. Don’t derail the dream, it will only end up turning into the normal nightmare.
Okay, so this is definitely not Long Island, and there is no way I could have gotten to NYC’s Chinatown if I was indeed sleepwalking. I set my mind back on track to this cool dream.
The harsh smell of nicotine enters my lungs as I get to my feet; the smell is way worse than in NYC. People stare at me as I stand.
Oh crap, I’m in the same clothes I went to bed in: my Avengers boxer shorts, and nothing else. I close my eyes and imagine I’m wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.
I open my eyes, but I’m still in nothing but my boxers. This is weird.
The warmth from the sun beams down on my naked body. If this were real I would be in real trouble; sunburn would be having fun with my pasty body.
I place my hand over my nipples and move into the crowd, which parts as they see me. Maybe I should try this in real life—I could get to places a hell of a lot quicker. Nah, I don’t think I will try it.
Problem is I haven’t got a clue where I’m going.
The ground beneath my feet is warm. Every pebble pokes into the bottom of my naked feet, as if I’m really there.
It feels like something is stuck on my foot. I hop onto my left foot for a second and lift my right foot up to inspect what’s on the bottom of it. Chewed gum, yuck. I pick it off with my fingers and wipe them down on my boxers and keep walking.
This is probably the oddest dream I’ve ever had. It’s weirder than the whole naked-in-class dream I have at least twice a month. It’s always history, and Clara normally points and laughs at me.
There’s got to be a point to this, right? My subconscious mind must be looking for something.
I keep walking, hoping the dream will change and I’ll be somewhere a little more entertaining.
And just as in any good dream, my prayers are answered—well, in a weird, twisted way. A little girl weaving between the crowds runs toward me. She looks no older than five, and is speaking a mile a minute to me in a language I don’t understand. Why couldn’t she be a hot, older girl instead?
She wraps her tiny hands almost painfully around my thigh, looking up at me with big, almond-shaped brown eyes, her bangs resting perfectly above her eyebrows as desperation pours from her lips.
I want to help, but I can’t understand a thing she’s saying. I grab her wrists and try to pull her away, but she’s holding too tight. It feels like she’s trying to give me a Chinese burn.
I bend down to be on her eye level. “Where are your parents?”
More words pour from her mouth, none of which I can understand, but the words are full of emotions, and based on the speed in which they flow, she must be scared, very scared.
“Do you know this girl?” I reach out and snag the sleeve of a passing kid. “Can you help me? I don’t know what she’s saying.”
The kid jerks her arm away. What the hell? “Kimi, what the hell are you doing in my dream?”
Kimi looks at me with a puzzled look, like I’ve just told her she’s won the lottery as I rip her winning ticket up at the same time. As quickly as she appeared, she disappears in the sea of people.
“Hey Kimi, come back, help me,” I yell.
Then I grab hold of another passing person, a middle-aged woman who looks like she might have some experience with kids. “This girl needs help.”
But, again, the person doesn’t stop, just glances at me with confusion. Well, I must look odd, being a nearly naked whiter-than-white kid speaking a language they don’t understand.
I stand on my tiptoes, trying to see over the crowd. Maybe there’s a cop or someone who might help the girl. Instead of spotting a cop, I see a head of red hair bobbing through the crowd, standing out from the black hair surrounding it. I can’t really tell from this distance, but whoever it is seems to be headed straight for us.
Maybe it’s the girl’s mother. But their hair color is different. The sobbing girl’s hair is jet black.
I try to remove the girl’s hands from my thigh again, but she’s a strong little bugger. I can’t even get her to move a little lower so that she’s not tugging at the bottom of my boxers. If she doesn’t stop, this might turn into one of those naked dreams!
I look over the crowd again and spot that head of red hair. I can see that it’s a girl. A pretty girl. Her hair is long, pulled back into a tight ponytail, and she has intense brown eyes, not almond-shaped eyes like everyone else’s. Her eyes remind me of something, but I can’t quite place what. They lock onto my pale body, and they don’t look happy.
Why does she look pissed off with me? I don’t know what I’ve done. Problem is I can’t exactly run away, because of the little girl still attached to my thigh.
I hold my hands up, not really eager to get beat up by a girl, even in my dreams.
She rushes up to me through the crowd that seems to part for this strange white girl. She’s dressed in a tight all-black ninja-like getup, with a sweet, long, black leather coat, making her look a bit goth and kickass all merged together. In fact, she looks like an assassin sent to kill me. Cool.
She stares at me for a long second as though assessing the situation.
Then she speaks quickly to the child in whatever language these people speak. Chinese? Japanese? Thai? I still don’t know, and it really wouldn’t make any difference, since I don’t know any of them.
The kid responds, her hold on my thigh finally loosening.
“We have to go,” the girl in black says to me in a perfect American accent.
“Who are you? What the hell is going on?”
“Scarlet. The girl is Tora,” she says.
“I’m Parker.”
Scarlet’s eyes scan the crowd. “We don’t have time to talk now. We have to go.”
“Why are you in my dream?”
Her eyes narrow as she focuses on me again. “Dream?” She shakes her head. “No matter, we need to go now,” she says, gritting her teeth.
There is a shift in the crowd behind us. Screams erupt as people begin to yell, diving out of the way of something we can’t yet see.
Scarlet says something to Tora, and then picks her up and places her on her hip, like a mother would a small child.
Scarlet grabs my arm. “Run, now!”
Chapter 9
This girl—Scarlet—can run fast, and she’s carrying Tora. I’m glad she didn’t ask me to carry her, but also a little guilty. I have to really work to keep up with her. I�
�m not the athletic type at all; that was the old Parker, who died with his dad.
Somehow I manage to not lose her in the crowd. But it’s not easy. She switches direction as suddenly as a rat in a maze, moving through streets that I don’t even see until she disappears into them. Her backpack bounces with every step. Two black metal-looking rods stick out from the bag, and I wonder what they are for.
We run for what seems like forever through the chaotic chatter of people on the streets, but is probably just a minute or two. And then she ducks into some side streets and the crowd recedes, the sudden silence almost deafening to my ears.
Scarlet slows to a walk, but in a quick pace, her spine impossibly straight as she navigates through this city that must be familiar to her.
“Where are we?”
She doesn’t acknowledge me.
I have to walk at a slow jog to keep up with her. My lungs burn. I try to control my breathing so she can’t hear just how breathless I am. It’s bad enough that I’m dreaming about some hot chick who apparently just saved me from a bad situation, but it would be way worse to let her know just how out of shape I really am.
I need to think about superpowers, and take control of the dream, just like I try to do with my nightmares. What superpower should I give myself? Speed, strength, muscles? Yeah, all of that. I concentrate hard, but nothing happens. I’m still wimpy Parker in my boxers. This sucks!
Scarlet weaves into an alley, the rotten smell of old food mixed with urine lingering in the air, nothing like the nice smell of Chinese takeout.
“I think we lost them,” Scarlet says, lowering Tora to the ground. Tora pushes down her plaid skirt and T-shirt, which must have ridden up during the run.
“Lost who?” I ask.
Scarlet looks up and down the alley. “Vandir’s men.”
“Who’s Vandir? And who are his men?”
Scarlet stops her inspection. “You’re going to meet them now. Keep Tora safe, she’s the key.”
There is no one around us. “What do you mean?”
Scarlet nudges her head, and I notice a blimp in my sight, as if there is a floating see-through puddle hovering sideways above the ground. And with a blink of my eyes, two men are standing where the puddle was. They just frigging appeared from nowhere, this is awesome!
They look like they just stepped out of the movie Men in Black, dressed in pressed black suits—literally men in black. Scarlet seems to know the men. They walk into the middle of the alley to greet one another.
“Hey, Clint,” Scarlet says to one of them. He squints as she says his name. He doesn’t know her, but she knows him. “How you doing? How’s your family?”
His eyebrows rise as a cautious look comes into his eyes. “My family?”
“Did they enjoy that fried chicken last night? It sure smelled good. I almost wished I had time to stick around and eat a little of it. And the mashed potatoes? Where did your wife get that recipe?”
The one she called Clint steps toward Scarlet. His eyes narrow as he stares down at her. The man towers over her, yet seems nervous around her.
“What are you talking about? How do you know all that?”
“You should have seen your daughter Annie’s reaction when I transported her. It was really priceless.”
“What did you do to her?” he demands. “What did you do to my daughter?”
“Don’t worry about Scarlet,” the other guy says, grabbing Clint’s arm. “She’s just playing with you.”
Clint doesn’t seem to hear him. He pushes his sleeve up, exposing a silver watch on his wrist.
“If you did anything…” he says before he suddenly disappears as quickly as he arrived.
What the hell?
Scarlet begins to laugh. “I love playing with the new guy.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” the other guy says.
“Chill, Hector. I was just having some fun.”
“It wasn’t funny. You scared the shit out of him. He thinks you did something awful to his family.”
“It was a joke. You need to lighten up.”
“I’ve had my fill of your childish crap.” He thrusts a finger toward her, coming within inches of shoving it into her face. “If you don’t stop—”
“What are you going to do?” she demands, standing up to him even though he’s like a foot taller than her. “You going to teach me a lesson? You and Vandir’s army are all assholes.”
She starts to turn toward me. Her eyes narrow as they fall on me, then on Tora. Tora steps closer to me, and I place my arm around her.
Hector lunges toward Scarlet, his fists balled. I open my mouth to warn her, but even as the words are forming, she spins and lifts her leg, slamming her foot into his belly. Her coat flies in the air, following her like it's her cape. At the same time, a low cry of power comes from her lips as she slams the side of her hand into his neck and kicks him again in a place no man enjoys being kicked, making me wince as if I took the kick.
It all happens in a split second. In a flash, he goes from being the aggressor to being a lump of flesh moaning and groaning on the ground.
“What the… How did you learn to—”
“Bruce Lee.”
Chapter 10
“There’ll be more of Vandir’s men. We have to find a place to hide until we figure out what to do next.”
“More? Why are Vandir’s men after you? And who the hell is Vandir?'
Scarlet ignores me and starts down the alley, turning onto yet another back street that is pretty much abandoned. This time I make the mistake of picking Tora up. My lungs burn as I rush after Scarlet, jogging to try to keep up.
Was she serious when she said Bruce Lee taught her to do that?
Ridiculous. Bruce Lee died in 1973. Scarlet can’t be much older than I am, and I was born in 2000.
But then again, this is a dream. Anything is possible in a dream. And wouldn’t it be so cool to train with the king of martial arts? I think if I could travel in time I would train with him.
Maybe she can teach me a move or two. Wouldn’t that impress Clara? Next time Travis picks on me, I could bust out some karate moves.
After about a dozen blocks, Scarlet ducks into an abandoned warehouse.
My arms tingle as I drop Tora to the ground. It's a good thing we stopped when we did, since there was no chance I could continue carrying Tora.
“We can hole up here for a while,” Scarlet says.
“And then what?”
She shakes her head, too busy walking around the huge, nearly empty warehouse, checking the few windows that still have glass in them and checking behind closed doors to make sure no one is hiding there.
I wander around the abandoned boxes and crates scattered through the room, just to have something to do. Most of them are empty, except for bubble-wrap sheets that people wrap breakables in. I pass a sheet to Tora, since I used to like playing with it when I was a kid. She frowns and doesn’t take it. I squeeze one of the little bubbles together, releasing a pop. Tora smiles and takes the sheet, and repeats the movement I showed her.
I inspect one of the boxes, which has an address on it.
160-0021 Tokyo Prefecture, Shinjuku-ku, Kabukicho 1-20-2, Japan.
“Tokyo? We’re in Tokyo? This has got to be the coolest dream ever!”
“You’re not dreaming,” Scarlet snaps, taking me by surprise. I hadn’t even heard her come up beside me.
“Obviously I’m dreaming. How else can I be here?”
“I don’t know. You must have fallen asleep at the same time as me. That’s the only way I can explain it.”
“What?”
I look at her, a little confused. She insists I’m not dreaming, but admits that I’m asleep? Doesn’t one go hand in hand with the other?
“I take it from all these questions you’ve never traveled before?” she asks.
I shrug. “My parents used to take me to Texas, but that was years ago.”
“That’s not what I meant
, dumbass. I meant time travel.”
I snort as I bite back a giggle. “Time travel? Nobody can time travel.”
“You saw Clint do it.”
“That thing with the watch? Cool dream special effects. I’ve got a video game where people can use objects to stop time, so I figured that game had just worked its way into my dream.”
Scarlet shakes her head. “It's not a game, and it's not a dream. I can time-travel. Clint can. Bruce, too, when he’s not writhing on the ground, and apparently so can you.”
She turns away from me and heads for the window that overlooks the front of the building. She’s nervous, and that’s making me a little nervous.
“So you think I can time travel?” I ask, not believing what she says, but wanting to hear more from her.
“You must be, unless…”
“Unless what?”
“You’re just a dumb kid on a family vacation and wandered out of your hotel and are lost?”
“Hey, don’t call me dumb. Like I said, I’ve not traveled for years. I’m as confused about all this as you.”
“It just doesn’t add up right,” Scarlet says, peering out of the window.
I wipe my hand over the window, removing some of the dirt that has built up over the years, and look out at the view of Tokyo. It's pretty cool. Nothing like sleepy Long Island, more like New York City on overdrive. Everyone is rushing by, hurrying from one location to the next.
Tora’s getting more and more intense as she pops the bubble wrap, breaking the tension and making Scarlet and me smile.
“Did you really train with Bruce Lee?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“How is that even possible? He died like forty years ago.”
“Forty-two.”
“But how did you—”
“Time travel is a pretty useful thing.”
Time travel. The only thing I know about time travel is what I’ve learned in the games I play. And that’s not much. It doesn’t really interest me. I prefer games that are based on how many zombies I can kill in a minute, not the kind where I have to build societies or save the damsel in distress.
