IF: Bad Dreams

by Clayton Smith

  IF

  Clayton Smith

  Part IV: Bad Dreams

  Chapter 1:

  On the Subject of Nightmares

  Cole glanced uneasily from one door to the next. They were all different, and all foreboding. “How do we choose?” he asked nervously.

  “Just pick one,” Willy whispered, his voice uncharacteristically quiet. He was still visibly shaken. Now that the doors had expanded themselves into a wide circle, the burlap sack that had once been Willy’s own nightmare lay crumpled in a heap less than a stone’s throw away. The nightmare was part of the circle with them, and Willy couldn’t take his eyes off of it.

  “Which ones are the bad ones?” Emma asked nervously, tugging at her shirt.

  “All of ’em,” the cowboy muttered. “That fairy sent us to the Place of Doors. Every last one of ’em leads to a nightmare.”

  Cole crossed his arms, trying to ward off his own creeping fear. “So we just…pick?”

  “That’s what I said.” Willy grumpily pushed past Cole and reached out for the knob of a broken, battered wooden gate. “Let’s just go die.”

  “Wait,” said the Stranger. Willy froze. His hand still bore the mark of the rock that had taught him the first lesson about reaching for doors against the Stranger’s wishes. “We don’t know what’s on the other side. It could suck us in like quicksand. We gotta be prepared.”

  “Prepared how?” Cole asked.

  “The dreams on the other side of these doors exist in another place: the Nightmaring, way out on the dark side of the Boundary. The doors take you there like lintels. Understand?” The children nodded. “The rules are different in nightmares. Things are…” The Stranger hesitated as he searched for the right word. “…slipperier. Things can change fast in nightmares. Even more than in regular dreams. Be on your toes, and stay together.”

  Etherie raised her hand, as if they were still in school. The Stranger hitched an eyebrow in her direction. “Once we go in, how do we get out again?” she asked.

  “There’ll be another door. It may not look like a door. It might look like a…like a hole, or a portal, or a gateway. We find that door and head out. Understand?” He looked at each of the children in turn, demanding confirmation.

  “I don’t wanna go!” Emma wailed, bursting into tears. She pulled up the hem of her shirt and buried her face into it. Her bare belly heaved with her sobs. “It’s Cole’s stupid imaginary friend—make him go!”

  “Yeah, you go, Coleslaw,” Willy demanded. “Go find your stupid broken IF by your stupid broken self.”

  Cole’s throat suddenly felt four sizes too small. Tears welled up in his eyes. So much for making friends, he thought. Though they were right, of course; this had been his problem all along. It was his fault they were in the Boundarylands at all, his fault that they were about to enter a world of nightmares; that Willy had already faced one of his own; that Polly was lost, wandering alone somewhere in the infinite world of imagination, probably scared to death. It was his fault they might never make it back to the real world alive. It was his fault for being cruel and for being embarrassed about his own lack of imagination.

  Willy was right. Cole should go on alone. This was his nightmare to face.

  But before he could say so, the Stranger spoke. “No,” he said. “Even if it were the right thing to do—and it ain’t—it wouldn’t do the rest of us any good to stay here. Once you’re in the Place of Doors, the only way out is through the Nightmaring.” He waved an arm toward the gap between two nearby doors to remind them of their predicament. The doors slammed against each other, blocking the path. “We’ve got no choice. And besides,” he said, indicating the entire group with a little twirl of his finger, “you’re friends. Friends stick together.” The way he said it, it wasn’t a question. It was a fact.

  The other children looked at each other guiltily. They realized that this sniping, which used to come as second nature, now felt wrong. And it was because what the Stranger said was true. Before, in the real world, they were anything but friends. But now, they’d come so far in such a short time, and they’d been through so much…they were friends, and not a single one of them could deny it.

  “Sorry, Coleslaw,” Willy said, staring resolutely at the ground.

  “There’s no need to apologize,” Cole said, giving him a relieved smile. Then he added, “But thanks for saying it anyway.”

  “Besides, we need to find Polly,” Etherie reasoned. “That’s a responsibility we all share.”

  The Stranger nodded. “We all go together.”

  And so it was settled.

  Though it still left the question of which door to go through.

  “That one,” Cole whispered quietly, pointing at a great steel door farther down the line that looked like it belonged to a walk-in freezer. “It feels…safer for some reason.”

  “Feels just as dangerous to me,” the cowboy muttered. But one door was as good as the next, so the decision was made. They gathered in front of the door, its huge silver handle gleaming even in the dim moonlight. The Stranger gripped it and turned back to the children. “Remember: stay together, find the door. And be ready for anything. Got it?”

  The children nodded. “Got it.”

  The Stranger took a deep breath. “Then let’s go.”

  He pulled the handle, and the door swung open to the nightmare on the other side.

  Chapter 2:

  In Which Hope Becomes a Most Viable Option

  Miss Twist ushered Gaia into the classroom and slammed the door shut behind them. She leaned against the door, breathing heavily, as Gaia tumbled into the room, wailing as she spilled across the floor.

  “My hand! My hand!” the IF cried, waving her right arm madly through the air. It ended in a transparent stump just below her wrist now—her right hand had vanished completely. “The right hand of Mother Nature has been taken!”

  “You’re not the only victim of theft!” cried the Servant. He turned his head so they could all get a good look at his right ear. Or, at least, they got a good look at where his right ear would have been, if it, too, hadn’t disappeared. “I’ve lost my best ear!”

  “My foot is fading away,” Mr. Puffles said sadly, holding out his left leg as proof. “Oh, nooooo.”

  “We are all disappearing!” Frau Mütter exclaimed. She held up her left hand, which had become translucent. “What is happening to us?!”

  Miss Twist turned and peeked out the classroom door, checking the hallway for Principal Ortenour. The coast was clear. She closed the door and turned the lock. “All right,” she said, turning to face the IFs, “first and foremost, everyone please remain calm.”

  “I am calm!” the Servant shrieked, jumping up and down on his chair.

  “Maybe calmer than that,” Miss Twist suggested with a frown. She crossed to the front of the room and perched on the edge of her desk, biting nervously at her bottom lip. “The truth is—well, I’ll just come right out and say it. The truth is, you’re disappearing because the children are in trouble.”

  The IFs gasped.

  “What sort of trouble?” Frau Mütter demanded.

  “Serious trouble,” Miss Twist said, frowning hard. “The connection between you and your Anchors, it kind of…plays the odds,” she explained. “While they’re healthy, imaginative children, you’re all strong, fully-formed IFs. But, you see, if they become endangered, the connection between you shifts. And right now, the connection between all four of you and your Anchors seems to have decided that there might not be a connection between you at all for very much longer.”

  “Impossible!” snapp
ed the Servant. “How can a connection between Polly and myself know better than either Polly or I what will befall her?”

  “It’s complicated,” Miss Twist said, closing her eyes and rubbing the bridge of her nose. “But please trust me, it’s true. It’s how things work. I’ve spent many years studying the relationships between Anchors and IFs in my time with the Authority, and I’m telling you, the children are in trouble.”

  “We have to go save Emma!” Mr. Puffles said.

  But Miss Twist shook her head sadly. “We can’t,” she sighed.

  Frau Mütter nodded slowly. “If we go in after them, the portal will close behind us.”

  “Who cares?” wailed Gaia. “The subsistence of Mother Nature is vital to the survival of the planet!”

  “Indeed!” the Servant said, crossing his arms and turning his nose up into the air. “I can’t believe I’m saying it, but I agree with the barefooted one. We should go in after the children. Their lives depend on it, which means our lives depend on it!”

  “Selfless as always,” Frau Mütter snapped, her voice heavy with sarcasm.

  “Maybe they won’t come out where they went in,” Mr. Puffles said helpfully. “Maybe we don’t need a doorway to the Way Station anymore. Maybe it’s okay if it closes.” He cradled his disappearing leg close to his belly and added sadly, “I have to save Emma.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Miss Twist cut in. “It doesn’t matter where they enter or where they leave, it may be different in the Boundarylands, but this is the one and only portal into this classroom. No matter what door they take out of the imaginary realm, they’ll have to pop back through this portal.” She slapped her hand against the chalkboard, leaving a handprint next to the edge of the sparking pink doorway.

  “If we go through, the children will be stuck in the Boundarylands forever,” Frau Mütter grumbled.

  “If we don’t go through, they’ll die there instead!” the Servant shrieked.

  Miss Twist held up her hands defensively. “We don’t know that. They’re with the Stranger, he may lead them through their troubles yet.”

  “Oh, he’s done a wonderful job so far,” the Servant sniveled. “He led them straight into whatever danger they’re in now.”

  “But he warned us the entire imagining was dangerous now, didn’t he? And we let the children go through anyway,” Miss Twist replied. “We all bear some responsibility, so let’s not start pointing fingers. It won’t help anyhow. We just have to hope the children will persevere through the danger. They are their own best hope.”

  Frau Mütter brightened then, and she considered Miss Twist carefully. “What about you?” she asked.

  “Me? What about me?” Miss Twist said.

  “You aren’t anchoring any of the children. You could pass through without making the portal weak. And you are a Certified Administrator of the Imagination Authority, you can travel freely in the Boundary. You can go after the children.”

  But Miss Twist shook her head. “If the Stranger is right, and the Authority has been disbanded, then I’ll never make it through the station. My certificate from the Authority is my passbill, and if the Authority was dissolved, not only will they not let me through, but I imagine they’ll have me arrested on sight.”

  “And if the kingdom is a dark place now…” Mr. Puffles said, his eyes wide with the horror of what might happen to Miss Twist if she were arrested in the Boundarylands. He shuddered at the thought of it. “Emma wouldn’t want that.”

  “I’d go if I thought it would help. Arrest me, torture me, banish me to the Nightmaring, I don’t care, I would do it if I thought it would help the children,” Miss Twist said, her throat welling up with emotion. The way she said it, not a single one of the IFs doubted her words. “But they’re deep in the imagining by now, and even with the power of the Authority, I’d be lucky to track them.”

  The Servant sighed. “I don’t care for it one bit,” he said.

  “But it’s what we must do,” Gaia added, sniffling from the classroom floor. She held up her arm and was dismayed to see that it had now faded all the way up to the elbow. “I fear we’ll have to wait, and hope,” she said quietly, studying her disappearing hand. “This human woman is right. We must all work together to hope that the children persevere.”

  Chapter 3:

  In Which We Learn That Not All Dolls Are Child-Friendly

  Cole didn’t even remember barreling through the door. As soon as the cowboy opened it, Willy had sprung through the doorway, followed closely by Etherie and Emma, and Cole didn’t want to be last. So he squeezed his eyes shut and jumped forward, tripping over a clump of grass just in front of the door and pitching headfirst and blind into the nightmare.

  He hit the ground hard. It felt damp and crumbly under his hands. He pulled himself to his knees and opened his eyes.

  He was alone in a dark tunnel far underground.

  “Hello?” he squeaked. His voice fell dead against the wet, muddy walls of earth. The tunnel was pitch black, except for a sourceless glow that fell directly on him and extended for about three feet in all directions. It was like he was dead-center in a spotlight shining down from the ceiling.

  And he was alone.

  “Emma? Willy? Anybody?” He pushed himself to his feet. His shaky legs threatened to give out from under him, but his knees held. He brushed the dirt and mud from his jeans and peered into the darkness, but the mysterious light that shone down on him made it impossible to see anything beyond its edge. He took a step forward, and the light moved with him; he took a second step, and a third…so did the light. He hopped forward, then skipped quickly backward, and the light kept pace with him perfectly, always holding him directly in its center.

  Outside of his three-foot radius, he was completely blind.

  “HELP!” he screamed. There was no response. Not even an echo.

  Had the others left without him?

  Cole fell into a full panic. His heart pounded in his throat, and he began to feel dizzy. His veins pulsed with the adrenaline of fear.

  Stay together, he thought. Find the door.

  Then he heard something creeping toward him in the darkness.

  The sound started out so soft, so far away that he first mistook it for a ringing in his own ears. But it grew louder, closer, forming itself into a queer, screeching giggle, high-pitched but small. It sounded the way a rat might sound if it could laugh.

  It was coming from the darkness in front of him.

  He began shuffling backward along the tunnel, away from the squeaky laughter. It advanced toward him, growing louder and louder, moving quickly. He hurried, feeling his way with one hand along the curved wall, nearly falling over dirt clods as he backpedaled along the path. The laughter grew closer and closer.

  Cole turned and began jogging along the tunnel. He couldn’t see the ground until it was right under his feet, so he tried to focus on stepping carefully, but the giggling was just getting louder and louder…closer and closer. Cole hurried even faster, keeping his eyes glued to the ground in front of his feet.

  He was so focused on his steps that he didn’t see the wall ahead as the tunnel took a sharp turn to the right. He slammed into it at half-speed, and stars exploded in front of his eyes. He cried out and slid down the wall, crumbling onto the dirty floor in a heap. For a second, he couldn’t tell which way was up, and he lay on the ground, stunned.

  When his vision cleared, he was staring up into the eyes of a giggling demon.

  It was a small doll made of cornhusks. It had stiff arms and legs and a knobby head, crisscrossed with cracks and held together with fraying twine. There were two small eyes drawn onto the doll with marker, and a nose, but no mouth. Even so, the laughter was coming from its dry, crackling throat.

  It hung above him, jangling maniacally in the air. Then Cole saw the long piece of twine that wrapped aroun
d its neck and led up another eight inches to a stick, the other end of which disappeared into the darkness. But something was holding it, jerking it silently up and down, causing the hysterical little doll to bounce from the little noose around its neck. “It’s a marionette,” Cole whispered numbly.

  He couldn’t see what was holding the stick and controlling the doll-creature’s dancing, but he could hear it breathing in the darkness. It inhaled and exhaled slowly, rhythmically…deeply, with a raspy, rumbling breath.

  The creature lowered the marionette, and the giggling doll danced closer to Cole’s face. Cole scrambled to his side and tried to claw his way to his feet, but he slipped in the mud and fell back to the earth on his stomach. Shrill laughter filled his ears, and then a loud sizzling sound. White-hot pain shot through his back, and Cole screamed. He lurched forward, craning his head back to see what had burned him so badly.

  It was the doll, of course—the nightmarish doll, screaming with laughter, had burned itself into his back like a brand. It jangled on the end of its noose and moved in again, this time pressing into his leg, just below the calf, burning right through his jeans. Searing pain clenched Cole’s whole body. He screamed again, pulling himself forward on his belly and scrambling to his feet.

  He began to run. He sprinted through the tunnel, limping as fast as he could. The spotlight ran with him, keeping him exposed to the laughing doll and whatever lumbering demon controlled it. They followed at his heels, the marionette never breaking in its hideous laughter, HEE HEE HA HEE HA HA HEE! Every time the tunnel broke to the right or to the left, Cole slammed into the wall, and the doll caught him, sizzling its hot fire into his skin.

  “Help me!” he screamed. “Please!”

  But there was no one in the tunnels to hear.

  He pushed on, winding his way through the maze. His legs felt like rubber, and he had a deep stitch in his side. He slowed down, just for a second, just to catch his breath, and the doll burned him again, just below the shoulder. He screamed and leapt forward, pushing his tired legs, ignoring the pain in his side.