Dreamwalker

by C. S. Friedman

  The man with the clipboard looked around the chamber, and I realized with a start that he was about to turn in my direction. I fell back into the shadows as quickly as I could, nearly slipping on the wet floor in my haste. My heart almost stopped. Oh God, please don’t let him see me! I couldn’t even imagine what would happen if these people realized I was in the room spying on them.

  One second passed. Two. In all my life I’ve never felt time move as slowly as it did at that moment.

  Then I heard the sound of gurneys being wheeled across the stone floor. People walking back and forth. Suddenly there seemed to be many more people than had been there a moment before. I heard a lot of voices, mostly young, murmuring and laughing in the quiet way that students do when class is about to begin.

  The woman in the suit started speaking, and all the other voices subsided. “Ladies and Gentlemen, Masters and Apprentices, Journeymen and Aspirants: welcome to Terra Colonna. My name is Delilah Mason, and I will be your docent for this visit. If you would all be so good as to follow me, I will see to your orientation.”

  I could hear a number of people follow the sharp click of her heels as they moved across the room; the steel walkway thrummed as they stepped onto it one by one, their footsteps becoming less and less audible as they moved away from the main chamber. There was a bit of giggling in the distance, and then they were gone.

  The grey man said quietly, “You said there would be fourteen.”

  “The others were delayed.” The voice of his pale companion sent shivers up my spine.

  “I have a schedule to keep. When are they expected?”

  “Half an hour.”

  I heard a sigh of exasperation. “What about the Drake boy? Did he make it through all right?”

  I felt my heart lurch in my chest.

  “He arrived intact and in the right time sequence. But I’m told the exchange wasn’t well balanced. If he ever attempts to return home there could be consequences.”

  “Well. That’s not going to be an issue, is it?”

  Silence.

  “What do the Shadows want with him, anyway?”

  Silence.

  The grey man snorted. “All right. Have it your way. I’ll return in half an hour. Make sure the transfers are ready by then.”

  I heard someone leave the chamber. A moment later the strange geometric vision flared again, then faded, dissipating like golden smoke.

  And they were gone.

  I leaned back against the column, heart pounding, struggling to make some kind of sense of what I’d just heard. It sounded like my brother was still alive, so there was still hope. But why had they taken him?

  “Jesse!” The call was only whispered, but the place was like an echo chamber, magnifying the sound.

  I peeked out from around the column, and saw Rita and Devon standing out in the open. After a brief glance around the place to see for myself that the visitors were really gone, I joined them.

  For a moment we just stared at each other in silence.

  “How much did you see?” Devon said at last. I could hear in his voice how hard he was struggling to stay calm.

  I drew in a shaky breath. “The grey guy and the woman. And that undead thing, that came through the arch.”

  “I saw people come through it.” Rita’s voice was a haunted whisper. “The grey man pushed a trolley through the archway each time one of them arrived, and it …” she drew in a deep breath, “it disappeared.”

  “The timing of it seemed important,” Devon added.

  A balanced exchange, I remembered.

  I walked over to the nearest gurney, paused for a moment to gather my courage, then folded the top of the sheet back to see what was underneath.

  The body on the steel surface was that of a teenage boy. He looked dead, but when I put my hand on his cheek I could feel living warmth. So I took out my phone and held the screen to his lips. There was no fog from his breath, or any other sign of life.

  Devon and Rita uncovered the other bodies. Two adults and four teens. Most of them looked as if they were sleeping peacefully, until you noticed they weren’t breathing. One of them was a girl exactly my age; seeing her lying there like that made me queasy.

  “Caucasian male, 43,” Rita was reading from a form clipped to the end of one of the carts. “Blood type A+, 180 pounds, muscle tone 6. Single, no offspring, no siblings. Diabetes, allergy to dust mites. College professor. Musical talent.” She raised an eyebrow. “Conservative Republican.”

  “Creepier and creepier,” Devon muttered.

  Rita looked at me. “The Drake boy they were talking about. That’s your brother?”

  Lips tight, I nodded.

  Soon the grey man and his pale companion would return. More people would emerge from the crystal arch, ready to tour Terra Colonna. Our world. And meanwhile these unconscious bodies would be exchanged for them, and transported to … where?

  Wherever my brother is, I thought. A tremor of fear ran up my spine.

  “They came this way,” I murmured. “The ones who are hunting us. The ones who burned my house to the ground, trying to kill me. This is how they got here.”

  And this is how they will go home.

  I walked over to the body that looked so much like mine. In a short while this girl would be wheeled through that portal, into another world. A place where alien-looking grey men and undead tour guides—and God alone knew what other kinds of monsters—took little boys prisoners. A place where my death, and many other deaths, had been planned.

  There comes a point when so many crazy things have happened that your mind just can’t process them any more. Insane things start to sound reasonable.

  “We could go there,” I said quietly. I put my hand to the girl’s cheek. It was warm, so warm.

  “You mean … take their place?” Rita clearly thought I had gone insane.

  “You said the exchange was one-for-one. We know more visitors are about to arrive.” I paused. “They’ll send these bodies through to the other side, won’t they?”

  “Jesse …” From her tone of voice you could tell she thought she was arguing with a crazy person. “We don’t have a clue what’s out there.”

  “No,” I said softly. “We don’t. But we know what’s here.” I indicated the bodies. “And when will we have a chance like this again? Maybe never.”

  And what about these people? an inner voice demanded. Where will you hide them while you make your substitution? And what will happen to them once you’re gone?

  I looked down at the girl on the table. So still, so helpless. But she wasn’t hooked up to any kind of machine or IV, I noted. Which meant that whatever strange suspended animation state she was in, removing her from the gurney wasn’t likely to make a difference. We could hide her body behind one of the formations, where people passing through the crystal arch were unlikely to see her. Later on, when the aliens who ran this place discovered our empty gurneys on the other side of the arch and realized what we’d done, they would find her.

  And then what?

  My brother is gone, I told myself. How else can we find him, if we don’t do this?

  Devon put a hand on my shoulder; I could tell from his expression that the same thoughts had been running though his mind. “We could call in some outside help,” he said quietly. “Now that we know there’s stuff down here for them to see. There are people far better equipped than we are to figure all this out.”

  “And what will happen when they get here?” I demanded, turning on him. “They’ll cordon this place off. Seal all the entrances, station guards outside, do whatever it takes to keep the public from ever finding out about this place. Then the government will bring in its scientists, and they’ll study this arch molecule by molecule, write papers about it and conduct experiments and hold conferences and maybe, after years of that, start sending people through. One lost boy will be the least of their concerns.” I shook my head. “You think we’ll be able to sneak down here again, once that
starts? We’ll lose access to this place. Forever. A sacrifice to science, nothing more.”

  Devon said nothing, but I could see the uncertainty in his eyes. I couldn’t read Rita at all.

  “Aren’t you the least bit curious?” I asked her. “Don’t you want to know what’s out there?” I looked back at Devon. “Don’t you want to be the one who discovers a new world? Instead of reading about how someone else did it?” I was trying desperately to appeal to the science geek in him. Devon was the practical one, always thinking ahead. The guy who had thought to make chalk marks so we could find our way home. If I was going to dive headfirst into an unknown world, I definitely wanted him with me.

  But to my surprise it was Rita who spoke first. “Crap,” she muttered. “I’ve got nowhere better to go.”

  I looked at Devon. Still he said nothing.

  “We left notes at your house,” I pressed. “If we don’t come back in the next few days our parents will know where we went. They’ll send people down here, figure out what’s going on, and make sure someone comes after us.” I wasn’t actually sure that was true—once the government found out about this operation, three missing teens might be pretty low on their list of priorities—but it seemed to be the telling argument. Lips tight, he finally nodded.

  Moving inert human bodies turned out to be a lot harder than you’d think, especially when you’re trying not to bang them against tables or rock. As we positioned them behind a cluster of thick formations, Rita pointed out that our backpacks couldn’t ride on the gurneys with us without being visible. We didn’t want to leave them behind, so I jury-rigged a quick support line to hang mine underneath the tabletop, and the others followed suit. Thank God for duct tape. The sheets were just long enough to hide our packs from sight, assuming the fabric stayed in place.

  Then, one by one, we laid down on the sleek steel slabs, arranging ourselves like corpses. Rita covered Devon and me with our sheets, taking care to make sure they were arranged the same as the ones covering the other bodies. She had to arrange her own after that, and I prayed it would be convincing. The things these people might do to us if they discovered our little trick didn’t bear thinking about.

  No sooner were we settled in when we heard footsteps again. I tried to minimize my breathing as they approached, so that the rise and fall of my chest wouldn’t give me away.

  People walked around us. They talked. I concentrated on my heartbeat, my breathing, listing in my mind the thousand and one things we probably should have talked about before doing this … anything but what was happening in the world beyond my sheet. I couldn’t afford to react to events in the room, even reflexively.

  Then the strange pattern filled my brain again. Golden lines, dancing and weaving all about me. This time they felt familiar, as though I had seen them somewhere before. As though I should know what they meant.

  Suddenly the steel table beneath me jerked into motion. I held my breath for a moment—and then reconsidered, and risked one deep, slow inhalation to fill my lungs. You never knew when you might need air.

  The golden patterns surrounded me, caressed me, penetrated me. For a moment I was an integral part of them, and nothing else in the universe mattered.

  Then suddenly everything was gone, save my fear and my sweat and the cold touch of steel beneath my fingertips. We had left our world behind.

  Hang on Tommy! I’m coming for you.

  10

  BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS

  VIRGINIA

  MOONLIGHT SHIMMERED ACROSS the polished wooden floor of the mountain cabin, mottled leaf-shadows dancing along the polished planks as the wind shifted outside. Had there been anyone present, he might have heard the soft chirping of crickets, their normally shrill song muted to a low musical throbbing by the thick plate glass. Almost peaceful. After that he might have heard a rustling overhead, the quick patter of animal feet across the roof, and a scratching sound at the top of the chimney. Then movement inside the chimney itself, and the sound of something slowly descending. Then a pause, and a dull thunk as the metal flue opened.

  A large raccoon dropped down into the fireplace.

  It sat there for a moment, dark eyes alert, nose vibrating as it drank in the smells of the place. Then, when it had verified that the cabin was empty, it pushed past the fire screen and entered the living area.

  It began to search. Not as an animal normally does, instinctively following scent cues to their source, but methodically, geometrically, studying every inch of the place with its piercing black eyes, lowering its nose to test any item that seemed out of place.

  It paused at a side table and savored the trace aroma of hamburgers and french fries. A chicken nugget had fallen onto the floor when the table had been hurriedly cleaned. The raccoon glanced at it briefly, but otherwise showed no interest. It paused at the couch, its nose wrinkling as it drank in the traces of sweat, fear, and fire that clung to the crisp chintz.

  It paused in each bedroom, tasting the human scents that lingered on the sheets.

  It jumped up onto the dining room table and walked over to where two neatly folded papers were standing upright, tucked between a vase of artificial flowers and a marble napkin-holder. For a moment it cocked its head to one side, and a fanciful observer might have imagined that it was trying to read who they were addressed to.

  Then, with small and dainty hands, it drew the papers out.

  For Dad, said one.

  For Evelyn Drake, said the other. Currently in Manassas Hospital. Pls deliver. Tx!

  Opening the letters, the raccoon glanced briefly at their contents. Then it folded them again, took them in its mouth, and carried them back to the fireplace.

  And up the chimney.

  And out into the night.

  Other than the chirping of crickets, the cabin was silent once more.

  11

  OBFUSCATE GUILDHOUSE IN LURAY

  VIRGINIA PRIME

  WHEN TOMMY’S MIND FINALLY CLEARED, he found himself in what appeared to be a prison cell. The narrow metal bed he was lying on was bolted to the floor. A toilet seat without a lid was in one corner, and a sink and shelf table were bolted to the wall near another. There was a narrow horizontal slit in one wall through which a sliver of sunlight was visible, but it was too high up for him see anything other than sky. The walls were made of stone, so he wasn’t going to be breaking out that way any time soon. Ditto that note for the door, which was made of metal, with a mail slot in the center. The flap was on the outside.

  He didn’t know where he was.

  He didn’t know who had brought him there.

  He didn’t know what they wanted with him.

  He did know he must have been drugged with something pretty powerful, probably hallucinogenic in nature. Crazy, disjointed visions from the night before were still reverberating in his mind: a soaring arch with crystals exploding from its surface, a corpse-like man who trailed ghosts in his wake, a glowing pattern of golden lines that filled the air all around him. It seemed to be slowly clearing out of his head now, but the real world was still a little hazy around the edges. Whatever drug they’d given him, it had been a doozy.

  But that didn’t explain what he’d seen before he was drugged. He remembered with unnerving clarity the moment when he’d looked into the face of his attacker and seen something other than human features. It was the kind of face that belonged in a fantasy game, not a teenager’s bedroom. Was it possible that memory was real? He couldn’t even consider it without trembling.

  What the hell was that thing?

  Suddenly he heard footsteps outside his door: dull and heavy, a man’s stride. He levered himself up to a sitting position and then stood, trying not to look as anxious as he felt. His balance was a bit shaky, so he leaned against the bed frame to steady himself. As the door opened he drew in a deep breath, readying himself to run, or scream, or do whatever else the moment required.

  Two men were visible in the doorway. One was tall and pale and wearing a kne
e-length black coat that buttoned up to the neck, like a priest’s cassock. The other looked like a guard of some kind, and indeed, as the first man stepped into the room the second remained at the threshold, glaring at Tommy as if he expected some sort of trouble from him.

  As his visitor came into the light Tommy gasped and backed away, until the stone wall at his back made it impossible to move any further.

  The man wasn’t human!

  He had the same shape as a human being, and the same general arrangement of features, but there the resemblance ended. His eyes were too large for his head and they had slit pupils, like a cat’s. His nose was tiny and he had almost no lips, which made the cat-eyes seem even larger by contrast. His skin was a strange mottled grey, and the fingers peeking out from the long arms of his coat were considerably longer than fingers should be.

  Tommy recognized him. Not just from a thousand horror movies. This was what his kidnapper had looked like.

  His heart pounding wildly, he felt a powerful urge to flee, but there was nowhere to go. “Who are you?” he demanded, trying to sound braver than he felt. “Why am I here?”

  The creature looked at him curiously, as if Tommy was some strange kind of bug that had just crawled in the window, and he wanted to figure out what it was before he squashed it. “I am Alistair Wells, Master of the Guild of Obfuscates. I’m the one who ordered that you be brought here, and I’m the one who will ultimately determine your fate. So I suggest you do your best to remain on my good side.”

  The utter mundanity of the creature’s name, combined with its quasi-British accent, threw Tommy completely off his guard. “What … what do you want?” he stammered.

  “Ah. The cooperative approach.” The creature nodded. “Very good.”

  He nodded to the guard, who closed the door from the outside. “I have an interest in your dreams, Mister Drake. If you would be so good as to describe some of them for me, I might find myself well-disposed toward you.”

  Tommy blinked in astonishment. “My dreams? That’s what you want from me? My dreams?”