by Fawn Bonning
Suddenly, he moved toward her, crossing the room in three long strides, startling her with his quickness.
Attempting to appear unintimidated, she stood her ground, even as the snake began to prod intimately. She allowed herself one brief second to thank her lucky stars she’d chosen her two-piece flannel pajamas instead of her usual night shirt and undies.
“Does this feel like just a dream to you, beautiful?” he asked with a sneer, his eyes thirstily drinking in her reaction.
She met his icy blues with a grin, even as she felt a drop of sweat at her hairline threatening to trickle down her temple. She could practically feel terror oozing from her pores, could practically smell it on herself, so she did the first thing that came to mind. Throwing her head back, she laughed, and was actually surprised by the hearty, throaty sound of it. It sounded genuine, and she felt a surge of adrenaline when he staggered backward as if she’d slapped him in the face.
“Back, Wolly!” he snapped with a scowl, shooing the snake back into his fly and zipping haughtily.
With hands on hips, he regarded her suspiciously. Slowly, the wry grin reappeared. “My, my, my. We are impressed, beautiful,” he purred in the same buttery voice, his hand gingerly stroking his stubbled chin. “You are a most worthy adversary. Surprisingly so. We must admit, we were totally unprepared for such brazenness from one of your…upbringing. We stand humbled before you, M’lady,” he said, doing a ridiculous bow before her complete with the twirling of his hand. “Delightedly so. You are…a breath of fresh air. Intoxicating.” He leaned in close to breathe deeply of her scent, and she fought to keep from recoiling.
He leaned to her ear. “Aren’t you frightened?” he whispered. “Even an itsy, witsy bit?” He popped forefinger and thumb before her eyes with the narrowest of margins between them. “A teensy, weensy smidge?”
“Of you?” she snorted. “Why should I be afraid of a stupid dream?”
“Well, actually,” he said, pulling back to peer down at her, “that may have been true at one time. But thanks to your son… Lovely child by the way,” he added, his eyes peering over her shoulder to where Trevor rode feverishly, his breaths labored and the springs creaking. “Such lovely flaxen locks,” he said, his eyes drifting dreamily. “Such vulnerability, such…innocence takes our breath away.
His eyes refocused. “Where were we? Oh yes, thanks to your lovely, lovely child, this is no longer the case.” He sighed deeply, a contented sigh that seemed to go on forever. And then he smiled broadly, and she caught glimpse of a black ant scurrying along his pearly whites. “We have waited an eternity for a body with his unique…abilities. He is our God.” He nodded at this revelation. “True, there are those who would argue that God is too strong a word, and perhaps they are correct. He’s not our creator, per se. No, for that we must give credence to the totality of all that calls itself humanity. But he will give us life…our mater, if you will. And he will be our savior. He will save us from an eternity of the same humdrum, tedious, boring SHIT!” he spat, before quickly regaining control.
He gazed over her shoulder to where Trevor was swaying back and forth. “Yes,” he sighed wispily. “Our blessed savior. We will spend the rest of our days heralding his greatness,” he whispered, his eyes glittering in the darkness, “holding him forever in reverence.”
“As soon as he wakes, you’ll be gone,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Acccchh!” Suddenly clutching at his throat, he hacked loudly, and spit a large beetle into the palm of his hand where it squirmed on its back, its legs flailing.
It looked disturbingly familiar.
“You are correct, little lady,” he admitted, reverting back to his bandit drawl. “That is why he must never wake up.” Lifting the beetle, he bit off its head and proceeded to chew with a loud, crunching, open-mouthed grin. Gulping it down, he let out a soupy belch, before popping in the remaining half, its six barbed legs still flailing. As if it was a delectable treat, he licked the goo from his fingers, all the while watching her reaction—not so inconspicuously—from the corner of his eye.
She put on what she hoped was a convincing bored expression, even managing to suppress a wince when, after licking his forefinger, he bit it clean off at the middle joint and proceeded to chew with as much crunching relish as he had the beetle.
He gulped loudly. “Yum,” he giggled, holding his splayed fingers—minus one half—before her. “We do love us some finger sandwiches,” he said, smiling broadly. And then she did flinch and a muffled squeak escaped her as two fat flies crawled out of his severed finger and flew at her face.
Stumbling back a few steps, she swatted them away.
“Oh, now, beautiful,” he groaned, putting on a pout and shaking his head. “This from a dame who barely batted an eyelash when Wolly tried to stick it to her. And eating the ole finger. Man, that one always gets ‘em. But you were cool as a cuke, babe. An iceberg. Hell, a glacier. A fucking glacier, beautiful. It was artistry. Fucking Da Vinci, babe. Fucking Mona Lisa. But then you go fucking ballistic over a fucking fly? Practically do a back flip over a fucking little fly? Give us a fucking break here, beautiful,” he whined, wiping a hand over his face. “A fucking fly,” he muttered, more to himself than to her.
“If you’re quite through with your childish antics,” she said, “do you think you could take a hike so I could get a little shut-eye. I’m really beat,” she said, ending the sentence with yawn.
“Oh, yes, yes!” he squealed, clenching his fists. “That’s what we mean! That’s what we were talking about, beautiful! Our ice princess. We like your style, babe. Better watch it though, you gorgeous glacial goddess, you,” he warned, massaging his groin suggestively. “Wolly’s getting all hot and bothered. Puttin’ a strain on the ole z-teeth, if ya know what we mean there, beautiful,” he said, biting his tongue and nudging her arm with his elbow while winking incorrigibly. “What d’ya say? Slip out of them drapes and let us slide in our rod. It’s the heavy-duty kind. Expandable.”
She gave a derisive snort. “Sure, why not. Like I said, I could use a little shut-eye.”
“Oh…bravo!” he giggled, clapping his hands with fingers curved back to curtail the noise. “Our glacial goddess strikes again, and in exceptional form, we might add. With admirable swiftness. Touché!” he squealed, hopping into the stance of a fencer to mime a sword fight, jabbing at her repeatedly while she stood with her arms folded across her chest, attempting to appear bored.
He put a hand to his mouth to giggle. “And to think,” he tittered past his mutilated hand, “we were just going to slit your throat and be done with it.”
She felt her heart flip-flop.
“But then we would have missed this most superlative duel. Can you just imagine? You know,” he said, growing suddenly serious, “everyone and everything, even a good old-fashioned nightmare, likes a good challenge every now and again. Now us, we never, never, ever, ever, ever get that!” he whined like a spoiled child on the verge of tears, before quickly recovering his buttery smooth voice. “They groan and shake and shudder and sweat and scream and thrash and moan and beg and pleee eee eead.”
He began to pace before her as he spoke, his hand gestures grossly exaggerated, his facial expressions comically animated.
“That shit gets old after a while, know what we mean, babe? It’s like…we have the same job for what seems like forever and…we love our job, don’t get us wrong, and we’re good at it, the best there is even, the master of our trade, but we just want a little change of pace, a change of seasoning every now and then to spice things up, get our drift? A little cayenne pepper to get the buds ahoppin’ and the peepers apoppin’. Now you,” he breathed, stopping before her to gaze down with open admiration, “our luscious, red-hot, torchin’, scorchin’, Tabasco fiasco, have been utterly, deliciously mouth-watering. Wolly’s afire with desire.” Removing his hat, he used it to fan the thin wisps of smoke issuing from his fly.
Behind her, the springs stopped their groan
ing, and she watched his leering grin drop in immediate disappointment.
“Alas,” he sighed, “our time is drawing to an end. How very unfortunate. Your company has been the highlight of our long and illustrious career. No shit, my dear. But now—” His hand popped up with a knife in it, “we must get down to the shitty nitty gritty,” he whispered with a disturbingly amiable grin.
She could feel the sweat beading down her back. If she screamed, would Trevor wake up before this thing could slit her throat from ear to ear? She didn’t know…and didn’t want to find out.
“Oh, come on, now,” she said in a surprisingly calm voice. “Save that business for next time…after you’ve let me have a go at Wolly.”
“Huh?” His eyebrows shot up as his eyes popped wide and his jaw went slack. And then slowly, the maddening grin reappeared once again. “Oh, but you are delightful,” he breathed. “Truly a gem. Priceless. The hardest damned diamond we’ve ever seen, beautiful. Almost had us going there, our little ice princess.”
She thrust her palm to the bulge in his crotch, and a grunt escaped him, and then a strangled wheeze, and by the look on his face, one might have thought she’d kicked him there instead of grabbed him. “How about now?” she whispered huskily as she massaged urgently. “Gotcha going now, lover boy?” she asked, her face mere inches from his.
At the close proximity, she could see the smoothness of his complexion. Too smooth, flawless, not a pore in sight. Morticians wax came instantly to mind.
His wide eyes went inky black before he closed them. “Oh, yes,” he moaned. “Yes, beautiful…yes!” His tongue darted out to moisten his lips, and her stomach turned when she saw what it had left behind—a fat maggot wriggling along his lower lip. “Oh…yeeees!” he moaned, biting his lower lip in his excitement and severing the maggot in two.
She kneaded with more urgency, trying to ignore that the bulge was squirming beneath her hand. Taking advantage of his enraptured absorption, she glanced over her shoulder at Trevor. His mad dash to capture the robbers was over. His face was tranquil where he sat, softly patting the pony’s neck. His angelic face seemed so out of place in light of the horrors unfolding, his rosy lips slightly parted, his pale cheeks flushed.
She brought her eyes quickly back to the face before her—a waxy face contorted in an obscene grimace—just in time to see a hairy spider squirm from his left nostril, followed by two others.
Behind her, springs groaned as Trevor dismounted…
She shoved the wax man backward, and spun, throwing her body over Trevor just as he climbed into bed.
“Owwww,” Trevor protested sleepily. “Mommy!”
Craning her neck around, she searched frantically for the nightmare that she’d just confronted in the waking world.
Gone.
She felt her face contort in an ugly cry.
“Mommy, don’t cry, it’s okay,” Trevor cooed in a sleepy voice.
“Oh Trevor, Trev!” Cupping his damp, flushed face between her palms, she kissed him fiercely until he squirmed.
“What’s wrong, Mommy? Did you have a bad dream?”
Pulling back, she peered down into his concerned eyes. “Trevor, baby, what were you dreaming about?” she asked, gently pushing the damp curls—flaxen locks, the buttery voice had called them—from his forehead.
He pursed his lips and shook his head. “I think I was chasing someone,” he said. “A bad man. He was trying to get away, but Midnight’s too fast.”
“Midnight?” she asked. “Don’t you mean Black Beauty?”
“Nah.” He looked over her shoulder to the rocking horse. “Black Beauty’s just plastic, silly,” he said, shaking his head.
“Oh, baby.” Pulling him close, she hugged him tightly.
A buzzing sounded in her ear, and her eyes popped open when she felt a fly settle in her hair.
It was the impetus to what she would later refer to as her ‘fly swatting rampage’. Toys and books were hurled at the elusive target as the cowardly pest circled out of reach near the ceiling. Like a raging bull, she clambered after it, out of the bedroom and up the hall, grabbing anything she could get her hands on to throw as it made it’s slow, lazy progress through the house.
It was while rounding the corner into the living room that she jammed her toe into the corner of the wall. She heard the bone snap, felt the pain shoot up her leg.
“Shit! Ow! Ow! Goddammit!” Moaning and swearing, she hopped in circles, clutching at her injured foot, before hobbling to the couch, her tears flowing.
“Mommy?”
“It’s alright, baby. Mommy just hurt her toe. Come here. I need a hug, okay, baby?”
Trevor shuffled up obediently, and she hugged him fiercely. “Oh baby,” she sobbed. “Mommy’s so sorry. So, so sorry.”
“It’s okay, Mommy,” he said, pulling away. “We can put ice on it.”
~~~~
“Christ, Cher,” Cindy said from the driver’s seat, glancing down at Cheryl’s freshly cast foot. “You sure you didn’t break your leg?”
“Nope. Just my toe.”
“You got enough plaster there to put a new coat on my entire house.”
“Yeah, I don’t know. Doc Rhiman said something about the way it was broken. I can’t remember now.”
“And tell me one more time how you did it.”
“Yes, Cin, you heard me right. I was chasing a fly.”
“Okay, okay. Just wanted to make sure,” she said, suppressing a grin.
“Okay, if you must know, Cin….” She looked to the back seat where Trevor was giggling merrily with Cindy’s two kids. “There was another episode last night,” she whispered. “And something unbelievable came through.”
Cindy’s smile faded. She glanced nervously in the rearview before shooting a dark look in her direction. “What this time?”
“The lollipop man.”
“Oh, Jesus!” Cindy gasped.
“Yep. He was disguised as a bandana bandit and we had a pretty interesting conversation.”
Cindy groaned louder.
“Oh, yeah, all kinds of interesting things. He was mainly interested in getting laid.”
Cindy winced, glancing to the rearview again as she bit her lip and furrowed her brow.
“And he was kind enough to give me a peek at his penis, wasn’t that nice. Except it wasn’t anything as mundane as a penis.”
“Shhh!”
“It was a snake. Can you believe that? He called it Wolly, too. Isn’t that just hilarious?”
“Christ, Cher, would you lower your voice, please?”
“Oh, and did I mention that he had spiders living in his nose and ants in his mouth. Oh, and maggots, too. We mustn’t forget the lovely maggots.”
“God,” Cindy muttered.
“Oh, yeah, and he ate his finger for a little snack, doesn’t that sound just scrumptious? And that’s where the flies came from, crawled right out of his severed finger. See, I told you I was chasing a fly. Thought I was pulling your leg, didn’t you?”
She could see Cindy’s jaw working, the scarlet blotches mottling her cheeks. But she was on a roll.
“Oh, and did I mention that he discussed slitting my throat,” she added, and watched as Cindy’s knuckles turned alabaster-white on the steering wheel and her mottled cheeks turned putty-gray. “Yep, the only way I could persuade him not to was by promising Wolly a good ole time when next he popped in, pun intended, ha ha. Doesn’t that just sound like a night to look forward to?” she said, giggling.
“Stop it, Cher! This isn’t funny.”
“You’re telling me. I mean, I’ve dated some snakes in my time, but this…” She laughed louder, unable to stop herself.
Cindy gave her a sideways glance, her lips drawn into a thin angry line. “Did the Doc give you some pills or something?”
“Yep. Pain pills,” she said, patting her purse. “And some sleeping pills, too. Said it looked like I could use them,” she said with a snort. “But don’t go breathi
ng a sigh of relief just yet, sis. Pain pills aren’t hallucinogenic, the last I heard. I’m perfectly lucid. Believe me, I wish this was the pills talking.”
Pulling to a stop at a red light, Cindy peered over, her wide eyes pleading for her to stop.
A twinge of guilt twisted her gut. “Sorry, Cin,” she said, looking down to the hands resting in her lap. “I’m just so scared.” She brought a hand to her forehead, pressing to stave the tears. “He’s coming back, Cin. He told me…he’s tired of living through the dreams of others. He has this…this hankering to live life as an actual physical being, and, for reasons I don’t fully understand, Trevor can give him that.” She laughed bitterly. “His God. That’s what he called Trevor.” She sighed deeply, rubbing her hands wearily over her face. “But, in order for this…nightmare to live, Trevor can’t wake up. So he means to make him sleep forever.”
“Okay, okay, Cher, let’s just say you haven’t completely flipped your lid,” Cindy said as she made a left at the prompting of the green arrow. “According to your theory, doesn’t Trev have to be dreaming in order for this thing to exist? So, in essence, won’t he be committing suicide by killing Trevor?
“Oh, you mean you’re actually considering this enough to ponder on it? I’m touched, Cin.”
“Answer. Am I right or not?”
“You wouldn’t just be humoring your poor sister, would you?”
“Would you answer the question, please?”
“Okay, okay, I thought about that. But evidently not. Some things do survive his dreams. Small things, bugs, horse hairs, banana peels. This thing evidently believes he can too. God, Cin, I’m so tired,” she said, laying her head back on the head-rest with a sigh. “I haven’t slept in almost a week. Trevor’s life is at stake here and I can barely think straight. Jeff is gone for four more days, not that he would be able to help anyway,” she added, leaving out the fact that she believed Jeff’s throat would have been slit within seconds, had he been home. “But, I don’t know, I just feel so alone. This thing wants to kill my baby, Cin,” she said, stopping to clear her throat when her voice cracked. “I feel so helpless.”