by Andy Briggs
“Well, you got me,” said Dan. “You’ve just punched my brain into the land of confusion.”
“You got a phone?”
Dan felt more comfortable with comprehensible threats. “Like the one you stole off me last month? I should have got you arrested for that only I had no phone to call the police–”
Maven snarled, flashing his perfect teeth. He gripped Dan’s arm so hard that it tingled as the circulation cut off. “You’re no hero, squirt. Condescending verbalization’s not going to gain you any approbation. Got that?”
“No!” squealed Dan convinced his arm was turning blue. “It’s like being beaten up by a thesaurus! What the hell are you talking about?” He felt somebody rummage in his backpack and Pith pulled the thermo cup out.
“What’s this?”
“A cup, you moron!” snapped Dan. He was rapidly losing his patience, and being bullied by somebody called Pith was an injustice in itself. Maven slapped Dan around the ear. It wasn’t a hard blow, but it sent his ears ringing and his balance disappeared as the floor turned to jelly.
Pith flipped the cup’s lid open and inhaled deeply - then gagged on the pungent smell within.
“Coffee? Urgh! I hate coffee, you little freak!” Pith threw the cup down.
“NO!” Dan tried to reach for it but it was too late. The plastic cracked on the flagstones and brown liquid spread across the concrete.
“Bet you needed that to stay awake, didn’t ya, freak?” grinning Pith, delighted with a deduction worthy of Sherlock Holmes.
Maven released his power grip on Dan’s now numb arm. “Laters, Morph.”
Dan stared at the coffee draining down the cracks between the flagstones. “Morph?” he said, more to himself.
Maven and his thugs were already several yards away but he heard, and spun around. “Morpheus - God of dreams, dingus! Don’t you learn anything in this place?”
The bell rang, summoning children to education. Dan rubbed the life back into his arm and turned away from the library. Without the caffeine perking him up the day was going to go a whole lot quicker.
“But of course, it was forced on King John by feudal barons eager to protect their own interests...” droned a voice so monotonous that Dan had already forgotten his history teacher’s name. “The most important change was... Mr Glass?”
Dan nodded dreamily. Yes, he was the most important change.
His eyelids dropped.
The teacher’s hand slammed on the desk so hard Dan jumped - his eyes flicked open to see the man’s hideous old face inches from his own.
“We will not be falling asleep in my lesson, will we Mr Glass?”
Dan’s cheeks burned the moment he realised that he had been nodding off. He heard giggling next to him. A group of girls were finding his embarrassment funny; amongst them Jade Harrow. Her long blonde hair was flicked from her face to reveal that dazzling smile... a smile that was aimed squarely at Dan’s discomfort. He came crashing back to earth as the teacher’s stale breath hit him.
“The Magna Carta is one of the most important events in history! Why is that?”
Dan tried to recall something. Anything. But his mind had confused reality with the swirling ramblings of his near-slumbering subconscious.
“Because... um...”
The teacher backed off, scowling critically at Dan. “I don’t know why I bother. Anyone else know the answer?”
Dan slid down in his chair as a sea of hands shot up around him. At least the embarrassment would keep him conscious until the end of the lesson. He glanced at Jade, but she was looking firmly at the whiteboard, oblivious to his existence.
Lunchtime came and went and Dan was pleased that he was able to stay awake. He had managed to find some loose change in his various pockets and slipped out of school to the nearby newsagents so he could buy an energy drink to replace the coffee. He didn’t like the taste but felt the immediate effects of the taurine it contained. Dan had once Googled the ingredients of everything he ate and drank to see if there was anything there that could account for his narcolepsy. Taurine was commonly found in bile – and the drink tasted like it too, but it worked as advertised.
He walked back to school with a spring in his step - narrowly avoiding Maven and his lackeys as he sneaked through the yards to spend the rest of his lunch in the solitude of the library.
The bell rang, marking the start of Dan’s next lesson. The one he dreaded the most: maths. Not that he disliked maths, he didn’t, but it was the one class he shared with Maven. Jade was there too, always giving Maven wide-eyed looks and flashed her dazzling smile at everything he said.
Dan sat in the corner and tried to shield his face with a textbook. The lesson was only five minutes in when a pen thumped into his book, followed by another. He tried to ignore the sniggering Maven and concentrated on the gibberish on the page. Trigonometry, what use was that in the real world?
Through the window he saw storm clouds gathering in the sky and swore he saw a flicker of lightning. He always felt nervous during storms. As a child, his grandmother had always sat with him in a dark cupboard during storms so they couldn’t see the lightning. She was convinced it would seek them out, strike them, and transport them to God knows where.
As he stared at the pages the equations danced around the paper, making them impossible to fathom. Heavy rain began hammering the window at the same time Maven hurled a heavy textbook at Dan’s head. Dan looked up in time to see the book before the corner cracked him on the forehead. His chair legs snapped and he toppled backwards, crashing to the floor.
He could feel blood from the gash on his forehead trickle down his face and his exploratory fingers confirmed he was bleeding. Maven laughed, pointing a finger at him. To make matters worse, so was everybody else, including the teacher.
Dan’s face contorted into a scowl and his fingers curled into fists - and at that moment the windows imploded into the classroom, showering glass over everybody, as a giant gorilla leapt through. It punched Maven to the floor, beat on his chest a few times then began chasing the mocking pupils as they fled, screaming, towards the door.
Dan closed his eyes. It was funny. The terror on their faces was worth it. Their terrified yelling sounded far off, as if on the edges of a dream. He shifted his arms to get more comfortable. The crashing noises increased, as did the wails of anguish around him, but the cacophony blended into soothing sounds of torment. He was sure he heard his name being called, but it was distant and growing fainter, besides, who would be calling his name?
The number of ambulances that had turned up had surprised Dan. Almost everybody in the class had been injured when the window shattered. Firemen were already erecting scaffolding as some incredible force, presumably from a lightning strike, had smashed parts of the supporting wall aside. The heavy rain wasn’t helping anybody, especially as it was now turning to snow.
Worried parents had arrived shortly after the police vans, which discharged officers who instantly began searching the grounds. Boris squeezed his Grandson’s shoulder and angled the umbrella to cover them both a little better.
“Are you sure you are not hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
“And you didn’t see anything?” Dan noticed the tension in his Grandpa’s voice.
“I must have fallen asleep,” said Dan. “Typical isn’t it? The only day an escaped gorilla trashes the school and I slept through it! What were the odds?”
At least that’s what the confused pupils thought they had seen. Nobody could give a clear description as the storm clouds had blocked the sun, turning day into night, and the room’s lights sparked and failed. They recounted how the fast moving beast had smashed desks and overturned bookcases before it bit a chunk from the teacher’s leg, broke various ribs, arms and legs of three students - including Maven - before smashing through the wall was it fled.
Boris squeezed his Grandson’s shoulder harder, but didn’t comment.
“Do you think they’ll find i
t?”
“I’m sure it’s long gone,” said Boris firmly.
“I wanted to thank it for beating up Maven,” said Dan, almost to himself. He had watched Maven being loaded onto the ambulance and heard he’d suffered several broken bones. Curiously, Dan felt an absolute absence of guilt.
“We should get you home.” Dan wasn’t going to argue with that. “And I think it best you spend the rest of the week out of school too.”
Dan wasn’t going to argue with that either.
An answer machine would be the solution to all her problems. Or at least the one she currently had. Marlow jammed the pillow over her ears and rolled over in bed. Unfortunately the threadbare pillow had little stuffing left and the ringing telephone showed no signs of abating.
With a grunt of effort, Marlow rolled from her crumpled bed, still fully clothed, a usual precaution as her spacious studio apartment was freezing. In a former life, it had been a sought after glamourous space, but a couple of years of neglect, and the lack of cash - and interest - had taken its toll. Marlow winced when she stepped on a cold half-eaten kebab on the floor. She felt the thick sauce ooze through the gaps in her socks. Tracing the landline cable snaking across the floor she kicked aside three empty wine bottles and found the yellowing plastic phone under a horde of home delivery menus she had gathered over the years. She cleared her throat with one long disgusting hawk, spat on the floor, then picked up the phone.
“Marlow Cornelius.”
An angry raised voice shouted from the other end of the line.
“What? Whoa, whoa, calm down. What?”
The one-sided rant continued with just a few grunts of acknowledgement from Marlow as she searched the apartment for her logbook. She eventually found it under a stack of newspapers and opened the thick ledger. It comprised of yellowing pages that progressively became newer as they reached the back. She found the most recent entries and ran a dirty finger down the column of names. She tapped the last name as the abuse from the phone continued. The job was only from the previous night so she shouldn’t need reminding, but her inability to dream was seriously affecting her memory. Dan Glass. It all came back to her.
“Understood,” she said, stopping the caller in mid-rant. “Your case was a little odd but - no I don’t - but... this is a family business handed through the generations...” She wiped her nose on her sleeves. Family business... didn’t she just know it was. A business she had been forced into...
Then a word cut through her inner monologue, a word she’d never heard before. One that sent a chill down her spine.
“Refund? No, no... look. I don’t do that. No… well, it hasn’t ever happened before. Look calm down. I’ll be right around and see what we can sort out.”
She slammed the phone down before Mr Glass could refuse. Never in her life, in the history of the business, had a Cornelius been asked for a refund. She better quickly nip this problem in the bud.
Chapter Three
Marlow winced when she sipped the coffee, which Bryony Glass had made at some unsafe industrial strength. Her taste buds had immediately shut down and she was surprised the drink hadn’t melted the cup. She shuddered involuntarily and glowered at Dan from across the kitchen table. The boy drank without any obvious signs of being about to spasm uncontrollably from the caffeine intake.
“So, let’s get this straight. It happened during the day?”
Dan shrugged. “I fall asleep all the time.”
His Mum and Grandpa swapped nervous glances.
“But the day?” Marlow couldn’t hide her incredulous tone.
“There have never been any... incidents during the day before,” said Bryony, giving a meaningful look towards Dan.
Marlow knew that look. She had seen it on hundreds of parents. It was the look that said the adults hadn’t informed their children what really happens when they fall asleep. Bastards. Marlow rubbed her eyes, why was she always the idiot who had to enlighten them?
Dan laughed. “Incidents? You mean like a gorilla barging into school? That must have been amazing.” His face scrunched in annoyance. “And I slept through it all,” he added with contempt.
“And you did say your services were, um... guaranteed,” said Boris Glass quietly.
Dan frowned. He might live in a perpetual cloud of tiredness but he was not dumb. Marlow felt the boy’s eyes bore into her.
“Who are you? You from the animal rescue? The zoo?”
“Sort of,” said Marlow leaning back in the chair and glancing out of the window. A few Christmas decorations couldn’t disguise the fact that the winter nights were rapidly pulling in, and the snow had continued throughout the day. It was almost the perfect weather for Them. “What do you recall?”
Dan shrugged. “Bits. I didn’t even know I was asleep. I dreamt of being in the lesson and... and kids were messing about.” Dan looked into his cup and Marlow could see that he was editing his recollection, whether consciously or not. “Then the windows smashed into the class. You know how sometimes your dreams are affected by the real world? Like an alarm clock goes off, but in your dream it’s a burglar alarm or something?”
That was outside Marlow’s field of life experience, so she remained silent but nodded politely.
Dan slurped his coffee. Apparently the detailed analysis of his dream was over.
“Has anyone told you what happens when you go to sleep?”
Marlow noticed both adults go rigid and slightly pale. She didn’t care, the boy needed to know the truth and the threat of having to issue a refund meant she needed to go the extra mile.
“The doctors told me all about my narcolepsy. It’s a neurological sleep disorder, which means I’m always tired in the day and can fall asleep instantly. I get cataplexy, which means my muscles go weak so I could even collapse asleep while standing in a queue. Which happens a lot.” Dan reeled off the facts as if they were a normal problem rather than a life debilitating disorder. “It takes most people ninety minutes to enter REM sleep, that’s when you dream. With narcoleptics it takes ten minutes. It takes me twenty seconds,” he added with a trace of pride.
Marlow was surprised by the kid’s straightforward attitude towards his condition. She had always made life a misery for anybody who was willing to listen to her own problems which, even she had to begrudgingly admit, were not as awful as Dan’s.
“That’s... right,” said Marlow trying to word her next phrase carefully. “But what I meant was, what happens when you go asleep.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Marlow hawked in her throat, before realizing she was in company. She swallowed it with a long slip on her coffee, then broke into a hacking choke for several seconds as the bitter taste pummelled the back of her throat. After Bryony gave her a glass of water and her eyes had stopped streaming, she continued, aware that the kid was regarding her as some kind of clown.
“When normal people, er, I mean most people have dreams they’re nothing more than figments of their imaginations.” She always found it difficult to describe dreams. It’s always difficult to talk about something you have never personally experienced before. “Even nightmares. They can be caused by all kinds of things: stress, watching a horror movie, some foods even mess your mind. Some people dream very vividly when they have nightmares, so vivid they think they’re real. They call them night terrors. They’re extremely scary, so severe that folks wake up screaming in cold sweats.”
“That has never happened to me.”
“No, that’s because you don’t find night terrors as scary as everybody else. Yours sort of numb you to the terror they give off so you don’t wake up. You see, you’re a special kind of kid. You’re a Conduit.”
“I’ve been called a lot of things before,” said Dan carefully, “but what’s a Conduit?”
“It’s a channel. Y’see, when you sleep you open up a portal between the nightmares, which are very real creatures that exist in their own dimension, and our world. They can come through.�
��
Dan’s eyes went wide. “Come through? You mean, monsters can just walk out of my head and into this kitchen?”
“Yup.”
Dan’s look of astonishment lasted for a whole ten seconds - before he barked with laughter and thumped the table with the palm of his hand so hard that the cups almost toppled over. “Ha, ha! That’s funny! You’re so funny!”
He continued chuckling but his mirth gradually faded when he realized the adults were not joining in. Their stony concern had no place for humour.
“Come on! You’ve got to be kidding!” said Dan. “What am I? Four? You can’t just tell me there’s a monster under my bed and expect me to believe it!” He glanced at his Mum and Grandpa and was alarmed to see they were nodding.
“You’ve seen the broken furniture in your room,” said Boris.
“You said I was sleep walking!”
“And the claw marks on the wall,” Bryony added.
“That was me acting out my dreams! You told me…” The hysteria in Dan’s voice was rising.
“They lied,” said Marlow calmly but firmly. She saw the adults bristle with indignation - but they had the decency to look guiltily away. “When you have nightmares, they are real creatures from someplace else, trying to push through into our world. They want to be here and your sort gives them the chance.”
Dan tried to speak, but the enormity of what he was being told stole his words. Plus, he disliked the term your sort.
“When you sleep, you’re the only one safe because they need you. Last night I was sitting at the end of your bed when a particularly nasty critter came through and tried to bite my head off. I shot it and threw it outta the window.”
Dan gasped. He had obviously noticed the broken window the instant he woke up that morning. “B-but Grandpa said a bird flew through it.”
