by Linda Marr
FEARLESS DREAMER
By Linda Marr & Genie Davis
Fearless Dreamer
By Linda Marr & Genie Davis
Copyright © 2017 Linda Marr & Genie Davis
All rights reserved.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
Prologue
My name is Elle Jennings. I am 16 years old. And I am dead.
I have never been alive. I have never had a mother and father who loved me. A younger brother whom I adored and often had to protect. Friends I giggled with, and told my secrets to. The promise of romance. I’ve never had any of those things.
I have only had the dream. Or what I thought was a dream. A nightmare that is my life. I am not yet sure how it will turn out.
All the same…
My name is Elle Jennings. I will hold on to that. Even though I know it to be a lie.
It all started with the dream. And that always started the same.
CHAPTER ONE
Sometimes I just want a cloudy day. A thundercloud, a rainstorm, a thick haze on the horizon.
I was cutting through the park after soccer practice – on yet another sunny day. In the distance, the city skyline sparkled. Beyond it was the Pacific Ocean.
The green leaves on the oak trees rippled like waves in the breeze, reflecting in the pond that marked the center of the park. I stopped to watch golden koi swimming across the surface. And that was when I saw him. Blonde hair, broad shoulders, about my age - another wavering reflection in the water. I looked up quickly.
There he was, right across the pond from me. He kept appearing over and over again. Who was this guy? He didn’t go to my school. This is a small town and I know most everybody in it.
The first time I noticed him was months ago at the Stop and Shop by school. He was grinning at me from behind the cover of a motorcycle magazine. Back then I thought maybe I knew him from a party or something. But when I went over to talk to him, he was gone. Like he’d disappeared into thin air. That’s what always happened.
“Hey there,” I called out.
But he just kept looking at me with that slightly mocking smile, acting like he knew all about me.
He raised his hand and gave a slight wave.
“Why are you following me?” I asked.
But again, he didn’t reply.
He wasn’t going to disappear on me this time. He was still standing at the edge of the pond, just watching me, friendly and relaxed, like we’d known each other all our lives. So I ran toward him.
“Hey,” I called out again. “I want to talk to you!”
But right as I reached his side of the water, he started off into a cluster of oaks.
“Stop, wait!”
Charging into the trees after him, I caught a glimpse of his hair and I sped up. I was yards away, a few feet away, then my foot caught on a rock and I fell. I scrambled up quickly, but once again – he was gone.
Back out on the street, there was no sign of him, either. I stood there for a moment, listening for the sound of a car engine. But there was nothing.
Now I was late to pick up my brother, Troy.
By the time I got there, he was the last kid left on the elementary school playground. Troy was sitting on a swing, all alone. At seven years old, he was small for his age, skinny, with straight brown hair in a bowl cut. He liked it that way.
“Sorry I’m late,” I raced up, and held out my hand.
“That’s okay, Elle. I knew you’d come, you always do.”
“That’s right, Troy. I do.”
Troy was different than other kids his age and I felt like I had to protect him.
We walked down the street past the rows of white picket fences that bordered our neighborhood. All the houses neat brick Colonials with wide, lush green lawns.
I held Troy’s hand as we crossed Main Street, still thinking about the guy in the park. Why would he run away?
There was a small alley between the town library and the drug store, and I squeezed Troy’s hand tighter as we neared it. Sure enough, as usual Jeremiah Bell was there leaning against a wall, his clothes dirty and torn, gray hair long and matted. I heard he’d been in a county home for awhile, but he must’ve gotten out again.
I hurried Troy past the alley, but not fast enough. “Be warned! Be warned,” Jeremiah shouted.
I pulled Troy down the street. Jeremiah was still shouting after us. “The world is ending! It’s dissolving around us. Be warned!”
“The name Jeremiah means God exalts,” Troy said.
“Really, Troy?” I said.
“Yes, Elle. Names are always right,” Troy said firmly, with the conviction that only a seven year old could show.
Troy had an endless fascination with telling people the meaning of their names. He always believed a name described a person perfectly.
But nobody would be exalting anyone who was as certifiably crazy as Jeremiah.
“Do you remember what your name means, Elle?”
I did, but Troy so liked telling me, that I didn’t have the heart to stop him. “No, Troy, what?”
“Bright one, shining one.”
“Maybe on the soccer field,” I laughed.
“It’s Greek,” Troy added, seriously.
What was name of the guy in the park, I wondered. And what would Troy make of it?
I ruffled his hair affectionately. “Come on,” I said, “we’ll be late for dinner.”
***
I sat at our kitchen table watching Troy push his mashed potatoes into the shape of a flower, wondering if he could ever just eat his food for once.
We were almost finished with dinner, and again, my mind wandered back to the guy in the park. I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
“Nice sunflower, Troy.”
“It’s a Jonquil,” he corrected.
“I can see that now.”
Troy smiled. And I couldn’t help smiling, too.
“Historically, lots of artists played with their food,” my mom laughed. “Like Picasso.”
Spoken like an art history professor, but she probably just made that up.
My dad turned his attention to me. “You doing okay, Elle?”
Spoken like the pediatrician he was.
He was either talking about my dream or the stupid accidents I kept having. The only two flaws he saw in my otherwise perfect life. Personally, I’d have to throw in boredom.
It was the dream that was the most troubling. I’d had the same recurring nightmare since I was a small child, but now it was happening every night. When I thought about it, that’s when the accidents started, too. The last one was the worst - during a Memorial Day soccer match I slammed into another player and ended up in the hospital.
“I’m fine,” I said, reassuring both my parents. I saw a troubled look on my mom’s face; she was the one who worried about me - way too much.
“I need to get to my homework though,” I said, getting up from the table. I wasn’t a little kid she needed to comfort anymore, and I didn’t want to talk to them about my dream.
When I was a child my mom would sing to me, always the same song, our
song, she called it. “Beautiful dreamer wake unto me, starlight and moonlight are waiting for thee.” She’d lean close. “You’re not just beautiful. You’re fearless. You’re my fearless dreamer.”
No song was going to take away the dream now though. I had to be fearless on my own.
***
All the same, as I sat in bed, I hated to turn out my light. I knew the dream was there, just waiting for the dark.
But my homework was done, my face washed, soccer team texted. Nothing left to do, nowhere else to hide.
I reached for the switch.
“Goodnight, Elle.”
My mom was standing in my doorway.
“’Nite mom.”
She didn’t move. In the light from the hall, I could see her scar through her nightgown. It was several inches thick and ran down her side from her torso to her leg. My mom was hit by a car as a girl. It was no wonder she worried so much about my accidents.
“You sure you’re doing okay, honey?”
It wasn’t only my clumsiness she was concerned about, it was my dream.
“I don’t want you to ever be unhappy,” my mom said.
“I’m not,” I told her. “I have the best family in the world.”
My mom smiled. “How about if I take you shopping soon And then we can have tea, just like we used to. A real girls’ day out.”
“I’d love that.”
My mom left, and when I heard the door to my parents’ room close, I knew I couldn’t delay going to sleep any longer. I slipped into bed, turned out my light, and pulled my comforter tight around my shoulders. My sheets were cold, and I shivered. You’d think I’d be used to the dream by now. Fearless, as my mom said.
But as I closed my eyes, I wished I could dream about the guy in the park, or a soccer match. Anything else.
I felt a stab of panic. Every time I had the dream, it went a little longer, a little further. How far would it go tonight? In spite of my fear, part of me wanted to know.
Burying my face in the pillow, I’d barely closed my eyes – and there I was back in the dream.
As usual, my eyes were shut in the dream, too. I was lying on my back, floating in some kind of bath water, only it was so soft and warm I had trouble telling where my body ended and the water began. I was content just to be there. Just to be. But as I lay there, a voice was prodding me to open my eyes and leave that watery womb. It happened the same way every night, and I had no choice but to obey.
My eyes flickered open, my vision was blurry, like after an optometrist put drops in them. I was staring up at an enormous domed ceiling covered with gigantic, writhing red snakes. The snakes were thick as tree trunks, yet somehow they managed to hug the ceiling, their enormous bodies pulsing over each other.
My heart lurched - at any moment one of those monstrous snakes would strike. I tried to twist away, but that’s when I realized - I was completely paralyzed.
The taste of a now familiar sweet and sour terror began to collect in my throat. I frantically tried to move again. But my limbs floated limply in the warm water.
I wanted to scream, to yell for somebody to yank me away, not only from the snakes, but from the horrible helplessness building up in me like steam. But when I opened my mouth, my voice was paralyzed as well.
My eyes darted up to that awful ceiling again. In spite of everything, a sensation of relief washed over me. My vision had finally cleared. I could see those snakes weren’t snakes at all, but some kind of piping that bumped and bent under the weight of a reddish brown liquid surging inside. I watched the pipes, mesmerized. There was an incredible amount of them, an immense tangle that seemed to go on forever.
Where was I?
A sound slowly rose in my head like the suggestion of a siren before it started to blare, only thicker and stickier. The sound grew louder until my head felt as though it was going to explode. But I still couldn’t move.
Keep calm. I murmured those words to quiet my racing mind. Keep calm.
I glanced up again. Every few feet a red pipe extended down from the tangle on the ceiling, swaying precariously as it stretched downward. For a moment I was hypnotized by the endless droning siren, and by the movement of that red liquid twisting in those pipes.
Gradually I found I could turn my head slightly to the side. That’s when I saw - spread out across the endless room, rows and rows of enormous glass boxes maybe ten feet long and at least half as high. All of them were filled to the brim with a clear pink liquid. And in every single box, floating on the liquid was a person, their eyes shut, like they were asleep.
Every person had a small red pipe sticking out of the middle of their bodies. My eyes widened.
It was the same thing I understood every single night, as though it was the first time I was seeing it. The pipes were sucking the blood out of those people and carrying it up to the ceiling.
That same sickly sweet and sour terror rose again. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the tubes red with blood, piercing those naked bodies.
This was a dream, yet it never seemed to matter. My fear was just as fresh, just as sharp every time. It was then I looked down and there was my body, floating in the same pink liquid, with the same kind of tube sucking red blood out.
As I watched, a drop of blood escaped from the place where the tube was connected. One bright red bubble grew, bigger and bigger until it burst like bubble gum, trickling across my skin, slowly spreading on the surface of the liquid I was floating in. And then it dissolved, absorbed into more watery pink.
I gasped. My head pounded. There was a time and a place for rational thought and this was not it.
By now, I usually could wake myself. Cold, clammy, shaking, but safe in my own dark bedroom. Why couldn’t I do it this time? I couldn’t feel my body at all, only the lukewarm liquid. A new wave of panic filled me.
Enough. I had to get out of this dream. I had to do it now. I scrunched my eyes closed and willed myself to do whatever it took to wake up.
There was a loud pop. My eyes snapped open again.
The thin pipe broke. Two strong male hands were lifting me out of the tepid pink liquid. I was struck by a piercing cold, and by the terrifying thought that this time the dream was not going to let me go.
CHAPTER TWO
I was free. Free from the glass box filled with the pale pink liquid. Pink with my blood.
Strong male hands were lifting me up.
My head tilted to one side as if my neck wasn’t strong enough to hold it. My entire body felt weak, incapable of moving. I glanced down. I was wearing flesh-colored formfitting elastic, the kind my grandmother used on her legs to keep circulation moving.
What did this mean?
The man quickly pressed a clear plastic plug in where the tube had connected to my body. His hand was large and pink and freckled, as if its owner has been out in the sun too long. Fuzzy golden red hairs curled up over broad knuckles.
Around me, the air was freezing.
I opened my mouth to call out. But the man with the fuzzy knuckles pressed his hand over my lips, and whispered in my ear, “Be quiet, you’re going to be safe, I’m taking you somewhere safe.”
I never felt less safe. Or more alert.
There were rows and rows of people in those glass boxes that went on endlessly, as far as I could see. There were hundreds of them. Thousands. He was carrying me down those rows. An alarm blared. I was scared beyond belief. Stay calm. My teeth were chattering. Stay calm.
The man was whispering something else. I had to focus to hear.
“Hold on,” he said tossing me over his shoulder like a sack. I tried to get a look at his face, but I could barely move my head.
The man yanked out a gun and shot at one of the tubes in the ceiling. It broke - a tidal wave of blood crashed across the room. Dark forms of people rushed through the blood, yelling as my abductor and I raced past the glass boxes of bodies.
“You’re going to be okay,” he reassured me again.<
br />
Like I’d ever believe him. I opened my mouth to scream for help. This was my dream. I had to scream, no matter what this man said. But when I opened my mouth, no sound came out.
He carried me past a heavy metal door, and we flew across a thickly carpeted lobby.
Suddenly we were outside.
My eyes teared at the white light slicing straight into the back of my brain. It was cold and bright - dazzling. I closed my eyes fast, aware of the sounds of people chasing us from behind.
The man turned around and fired the gun again. I couldn’t believe this. This was a dream. Why wouldn’t I wake up? I tested my eyes once more, squinting them open. Another stab of pain cut across my head.
What was happening to me?
The man raced to a battered old car, yanked open the door, and dropped me face down on the back seat.
I visualized pulling myself up, throwing the car door open and tossing myself into the road. But my thoughts were useless because my body wouldn’t cooperate. I couldn’t move.
And I was so cold. I hadn’t realized how cold I was. And how scared.
I heard the man get in the car, turn the ignition, and then we roared away.
We drove fast. My body shook with each bump of the car as I lay face down on the seat. The beat-up leather smelled of sweat. My eyes watered and my face slid against the seat. Who was this man? What did he want? What was he doing in my dream?
“Help,” I croaked. My voice sounded feeble, like I hadn’t spoken in years.
My body jerked as the car stopped. I heard the man climb out. The car shook slightly as he opened the back door.
“Keep your eyes closed,” he instructed. “The light’s going to hurt.”
No kidding, I already knew that. But closing my eyes was the last thing I intended to do again. If this wasn’t a dream, someone was bound to rescue me, and I wanted to make sure I could describe this man when they did.