Wake the Dream - Book One
Page 11
ice cream cone he’s carrying – his offering to the Lord of Memories – and kicks the tentacle with his boot. The thing screams and flops down; landing hard in the soil. Corbin continues walking.
Night follows slowly behind, holding onto a large black and white cookie while Lane carries a slice of pizza on a plate. He holds her hand, swinging it back and forth; completely at home in the graveyard. Lane is excited; not afraid like she should be.
A dead squirrel with twelve heads and shiny jagged razor sharp fangs hops out in front of her. She only laughs and shoos it away with the tip of her bright blue Keds. When a flying donut tries to take a bite out of her arm, she grabs it and eats it. It’s sugary and filled with buttercream frosting. Every bite is better than the next until her mouth is exploding with flavor.
Nothing terrifying here...
As they near a bunch of short gnarled trees, someone starts singing loudly; out of tune. Someone else is humming and there is clattering of plates and silverware. Night and Corbin go on high alert; Lane does not. It’s only a dream. She’s no longer afraid of the dreams and the memories; she survived the stabbing. She can survive everything.
Creeping forward, she hands Night her pizza slice and stops; hiding behind the trunk of a very wide tree and sneaks a peak around the corner.
A human figure garbed in black with long jet black hair and long sharp vampire fangs is busy fussing over an antique tea pot; pouring minty tea into a beautiful maiden’s goblet. The goblet is adorned with jewels and rainbow glitter. Her hair is the color of the sun and her face is fragile and small. Her dress is a light peach with a bow wrapped around her neck.
She drinks delicately from the goblet, spitting the liquid in his face. It’s only than that Lane notices that she’s tied to a gnarled tree chair with a strong brown vine with large green leaves.
The vampire un-jaded by her actions hums a scary haunting tune, pouring her tea from a different pot – this one like the strange 1970’s pots Lane and Tommy used to find at the town’s thrift store. The ugly green kettle is filled with pungent liquid that smells like warm vinegar mixed with apple sauce and honey.
There’s a jar on the table with a wingless pixie in it.
A strong hand grabs Lane’s shoulder, pulling her backwards but she refuses to budge; swatting Night’s clawed hand away. Bending down, she picks up a few wood chips, rooting through them until she finds the perfect ones. Pointy tooth shaped sticks.
Trying one on, she jams it up into her mouth; pressing on it tightly, letting go when she thinks it stuck; repeating the process to the other side until her vampire looking teeth look complete. Snickering, she bends down and sticks her finger in the dirt, sliming her hair with the chalky brown. Now her hair looks dirty; like the black haired vampire.
Next she drops down and rolls around in the dirt. Leaves catch in her clothes; attaching to her shirt and jeans like leaches. One latches onto her neck and starts sucking; instantly falling off unconscious. Her blood must be some sort of poison.
Quietly, she crawls over to a line of spiny bushes that had sprung up while she was rolling. A long vine with tiny little faces with open mouths lined with shark teeth chomp at her as she closes in; threatening to bite her. But she doesn’t care; standing up and climbing over the bush; feeling it bite at her wrist and her face. The mouth marks on her skin disappear instantly.
“Greetings my FRIENDS,” Lane steps out of the bush and enters into the small clearing surrounded by the bushes with mouths. “I’m so very glad to meet you.”
She tries not to eye up the glass jar on the table which has now morphed into a glass unicorn surrounding the poor pathetic looking creature. The pixie is crying big fat tears that leak out the bottom of the glass unicorn. The pink liquid cascades down the leg of the glass table; glowing blue when it hits the ground.
“Greeting FRIEND!” The vampire graciously pulls out a chair that magically materializes when he touches the air with a sharp fingernail. “Come SIT, join the tea party. Would you care for some blood? I stole it fresh this morning from an over ripe human. She was quiet lovely and very willing to offer me her juices after I tricked her.”
Lane accepts the chair and the stemmed blue glass goblet he offers her; sipping at the coppery sludge, resisting the urge to vomit. The vampire joins them at the table, smiling a wide toothy grin at her; tipping the cup made from sharp thorns to his lips; gulping the contents down in one shot.
“So,” The vampire eyes her up, taking in Lane’s disheveled appearance and fake teeth and dirt riddled hair and clothing. “What’s your name little one? …Haven’t seen you before!”
“Apple.” Lane names herself after her favorite fruit – a granny smith apple.
“Ah, Apple,” He coos, “What a wonderful name little one. And why little Miss Apple are you masquerading as a vampire; you SMELL very human and your blood SMELLS delicious. I would very much like to take a bite; take a drink from your neck. May I?”
Before Lane can say anything, the vampire is on her, his fangs piercing her skin; drawing blue blood. He immediately retracts his fangs and screams at the top of his lungs; the acids in her blood burning his mouth off.
Wake the Dream
There’s rumbling under her feet, the vibrations bouncing from her feet all the way to her skull; her body shakes from the movement. The world begins to blur as a strange film rises up from the ground, morphing the bushes into bubbles then red mist; the trees melt down to nothing. The sky begins to break apart, replaced quickly by the growing red haze.
Quickly, Lane grabs the glass unicorn with the pixie inside and hurls it at Night who she can barely see through the smoke. She is very relieved when she sees Corbin catch it and shove it into his back pocket. She can swear Night is screaming at her but then suddenly he and his brother are gone; disappeared as if they were never there. There is nothing but blood red mist everywhere.
Then eyes...
There are two. They open and blink one at a time; staring directly at Lane as she stands there terrified. An eerie sensation of fright washing over her like water run cold in the bath tub; then suddenly the earth opens up and she’s swallowed.
Sliding down a steep tunnel she explodes out of it like the force of a cannon ball fired, hitting ice hard. Rolling over, she looks down and freezes. Twenty Lane clones stare back, intent on watching her every move.
She cocks her head; they do too. She touches the glass, so do they. They smile back at her with super wide grins but she’s not smiling. Crawling away as fast as she can, she accidentally tumbles down a hole. The Lane clones surround her; grabbing at her hair, her face, her clothing and her arms. Pulling her in different directions like a puppy toy; just like the one Night has in his back pocket.
Screaming at the top of her lungs, the clones scamper away, watching her as she uncurls from the ball she was in; waiting to pounce on her. But Lane refuses to let them, taking off sprinting as fast as she can down the glass tunnel, stumbling into an opening in the ground; falling into a white room.
The door she fell through closes and she’s left in the white room all alone.
“Hello?” She whispers.
“Hello?” It’s her voice calling back.
“Where am I?” She cries.
“Where am I?” Her voice calls back.
“I want to go home!” She cries.
“You can’t go back.” Her voice giggles and laughs at her as Lane shivers and cowers. “You’re not ALLOWED to wake the dream. The dream is nearly awake; you’ve been captured by the dreamer; soon the Lord of Memories will come with her pet the Dream Monster; you’ll be sorry. And where is your offering for trespassing into her domain?”
Lane left her pizza slice with the twins. She has nothing to give.
“Don’t have ANYTHING do you?” Her voice snickers. “Boy you’re in trouble. And why do you smell so strange?”
Lane swears the air in th
e white room is sniffing her.
“You smell like a dream but you also smell human. What are you?” Her voice whispers; confused.
“I’m a HUMAN!” Lane cries; big fat tears streaming down her face. “And I want to go home. Night and Corbin will come for me; you’ll see!”
“Ion and Mayla’s children..? Oh I see…” The voice starts to disappear. “If they come to rescue you then I won’t hand you over to the Lord and her pet. Call to them. You have twenty minutes before the Lord and her pet comes this way; out for a walk through her lands. If they have come for you by then, then I’ll let you leave.”
“How will they know I’m here?” Lane whispers in between sniffles.
“I don’t know.” The voice sneers. “You’re the one trying to get their attention and have them come save you. I’m merely going to stay here and watch you try. …Should be very entertaining. Please give me a wonderfully good show; I’m looking forward to your failure. Very soon the dreamer will be completely awake and you will have woken the dream.”
The voice that sounds like her voice but isn’t stops talking and Lane is stuck in silence without a way to contact the twins. She sits there and sits there trying to come up with a plan but nothing. Lane has no idea what she’s supposed to do right now.
Deep in thought, she starts fiddling around with her pinky finger, bending it back and forth until she accidentally snaps it