Beast of Dreams

by Cynthia Williams

* * * * *

  Shodan emerged from behind a bush to watch Karrick and the woman, whom he now knew to be named Amanda, stand up from the bed of ferns, figuring they would soon be readying themselves to continue on their journey to the compound. He knew time was running out for him; if they reached the compound, he might not get another chance to kidnap her.

  He was finding it extremely hard to focus on his plans, lately. He knew he was chewing too many of the Janus leaves, and everything seemed to be spiraling out of control. To force himself to think clearer, he had refrained from chewing the leaves for a day, but felt like he was ready to crawl out of his skin. It’s all Karrick’s fault, he thought. Fuck him. Everyone treats me like shit because of him. I’m going to fuck him up royally.

  His hands shook as he stared at them with bloodshot pale eyes. He turned over the one holding the hardened block of clay he had imbedded while still soft with barbs from the spider dart plant. Spider dart was akin to poison ivy in its effects on most humans, but for Karrick, who was highly allergic to it, it was deadly. I hope this shit kills him and when he’s fucking dead, I’ll chew leaves for a week.

  He was worried his plan might not work out because Karrick always carried the antidote with him in a pouch. His mother’s always mewling at him to carry it. I better take it from him after I hit him with the poison, otherwise, this will all be a fucking waste of my time. His blue eyes glared resentfully at Karrick, who was but a few hundred meters away and dressing in his leathers.

  Karrick’s heartbeat leapt as he took in the faint whiff of a wolfan who hadn’t bathed in weeks. Underneath the ammonia-like odor of old urine, he smelled the distinct scent of his enemy, Shodan. He hadn’t seen Shodan since he had exiled him for six months from the pack, as punishment for his insurrection. That the wolfan had come back to the valley was an ominous development. No normal wolfan would have violated the parameters of this sentence, knowing that it now meant he faced permanent exile.

  Karrick put his arm around Amanda and pulled her close as if to kiss her. “Put your suit on now,” he whispered into her ear. “Danger. I’ll explain later.”

  Amanda’s eyes widened and she nodded to him, showing she understood. Matter-of-factly, she strolled over to her backpack and other items and removed her suit from the bag she had put it into earlier. She stepped into it and closed the seams quickly. She then walked over to her washed clothes drying on the rocks and picked them up, bringing them with her to her backpack.

  On the pretext of packing her clothes into the backpack, she reached in and palmed the blaster her Uncle Sirus had given her just days earlier. She slipped the blaster into a loose, open pocket, ensuring it was within easy reach.

  Instead of putting her backpack on her shoulders as normal, Amanda carried it at her side in case she had to discard it quickly and run. Karrick noticed and nodded approvingly.

  Amanda raised her brows inquiringly and asked Karrick, “Are we ready to go?”

  Karrick gave her a quick perusal and softly said, “ARFF, sweetheart.”

  Amusement flickered in the eyes that met his. “Arff? What…?”

  He looked at her intently and whispered, “ARFF, like ARFF, something to do with repulsion?”

  “Oh!” She opened her wrist panel and turned on the Automatic Repulsion Force Field.

  Karrick sniffed the air again and determined that Shodan must be at least a hundred meters upwind. He stepped in front of Amanda and motioned for her to stay behind him but close. The two began walking, apprehension making them tread cautiously ahead.

  * * * * *

  Bethan stared hard at her stubborn husband, who was leaning back in his favorite chair, his arms crossed in front of his chest, matching her glare for glare.

  “No, Bethan.”

  “Yes, Alexander. I’ve been waiting for two days for him to bring her here, and he’s just lollygagging with her at the river.”

  “He’ll get here with her shortly. Maybe even within the next couple of hours.”

  “And what about Shodan?” she said, arching one eyebrow.

  He made a dismissive gesture. “Karrick can handle that idiot, no problem.”

  “That idiot hates Karrick with a passion. Look at how he behaved at the meeting.”

  “And Karrick gave him a few good knocks to loosen up some of his brain cells, didn’t he?”

  “He did at that,” she said, biting back a smile. “It’s the testosterone…you, Karrick, Carson, and Jadd. You’re all a bunch of Neanderthals. Thank god I have Nathan. He’s the only rational male around here.”

  “So spoken by the queen of the Neanderthals. I heard about the kick you gave Shodan in the balls after Carson dragged him into the hallway and left him there.”

  “I tripped.”

  “Bullshit.” He pulled her into his lap and wrapped his arms around her. “You, my dear, are more vicious, conniving, and downright meaner than—”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are. When you get worked up over our kids, or any of the pack’s children, you fight like a tigress.”

  “No, I fight like a wolfan—”

  “Yes, like a wolfan female who loves all her children and will fight to the death to protect them.” He brought his hand up and pulled her face to his for an intense, hot kiss.

  She melted into his arms for a minute, enjoying the kiss, but she knew her husband too well. Sex was his favorite way of distracting her when she was agitated, and right now, she was not having him take her away from the point she was trying to make. It was just too important. “Don’t sidetrack me, Alexander. I do think that Shodan is more dangerous than you think. In a fair fight, Karrick can beat him, but Shodan is sneaky, and he hates Karrick. He’s obsessed with the fact Karrick was made leader instead of him.”

  “We’ve been aware of that for awhile. Why are you suddenly more worried now than you were before?”

  “Because I get the sense that he can almost dream and it gives me the creeps. Remember when we talked about why Shodan can’t participate in dream communication? I said then that the clue to why he can’t do it is probably related to the fact we can’t look into his dreams, either.”

  “Yes, I remember. You said that maybe he doesn’t dream, so I ran a sleep evaluation on him. But Bethan, all results indicated that he dreamed. I checked the graphs myself and showed them to you. He clearly had patterns of beta activity—”

  “Yes, but he didn’t have rapid eye movement—”

  “His ranges were normal, Bethan.”

  “Barely normal in beta activity… Alexander, listen to me for a minute on this. When have you ever seen anyone in the dream state who didn’t have rapid eye movement? Something’s odd there. I also have had such a sense of blankness when I’ve tried to read him in the past. That’s just not normal.”

  “What did you mean earlier when you said that you can sense him dreaming?”

  “Not sense but…it’s hard to explain. Since he left, I’ve been worried what he might do to get back at Karrick, so I’ve tried to lock-in on him even though I know I haven’t been able to do it before. At times I can almost feel something going on in his mind. It almost feels like a dream but it doesn’t have the substance or pattern of logic that a dream would follow. A comparison might be that if a dream were made of cloth, what’s going on in his head is more like the first threads of a spider web being woven.”

  Bethan stopped talking and Alexander stared intently into space, deep in thought.

  “Bethan, I don’t have your abilities and I greatly respect your opinion. God knows where we would have been now if you and Ron hadn’t sensed that there was something wrong with our spaceship. I learned then not to ever take what you say lightly.” He turned her face to him and cupped it in his hands. “It’s unlike you to be this worried about Shodan. I’m going to take this hunch or insight you’re having very seriously. Let’s find Karrick and Amanda and bring them back to the compound, now.”

  * * * * *

  Shodan cupped
the clay weapon in his hand, readying himself for the attack. He watched Karrick stepping closer and closer to his hiding spot. Suddenly, Karrick stopped.

  “Shodan, I know you’re in there. Come out instead of hiding like a coward!”

  “I’m not a coward, Karrick; although I’m sure you wish I was,” Shodan said as he stepped out onto the path, approximately twenty meters forward of them.

  Amanda saw a creature that appeared wolfan, but his matted fur and bloodshot pale eyes made him look more animal than human. She could also detect a foul undercurrent, an odor that told her that he had not bathed in a long time, and probably laid at times in his own filth. She bit hard on the sides of her tongue to prevent herself from gagging.

  “Why are you following us, Shodan? You were exiled from the pack. You were told to leave our valley and not come back for at least six months.”

  “Who are you to tell me what to do? I’ve seen what you’ve been doing with this human female. You force yourself on her and have sex with her. You never get punished for anything, while I get punished for just talking to females and touching them.”

  “That is not why you were exiled, Shodan. You sought to divide the pack with your insinuations and even had the nerve to attack me. You needed to learn to be a part of our pack, not destroy it.”

  “You’re a weak leader, Karrick. There are many who think you’re leader only because your father set you up to follow Jarwok. I’m an alpha and more intelligent than you. I’m the one who found out more about the plants and animals of this world than any of the others in the pack. I would lead with my intellect, while you only lead the pack because of favoritism.”

  “Shodan, you’re making a decision right now that will affect the rest of your life. If you attack me now, it’s all over. You’ll not only be exiled from this valley, I’ll have you hauled to the Northern Steppes and left there with no food or water. You know I mean it and I’ll see it carried out personally. How long do you think it will be before the carnivorous worms get to you?”

  “Fuck you, Karrick. You’ve no right to decide for me. You’re the one who will die!” Shodan screamed as he ran at Karrick.

  Amanda reached into her pocket and pulled out the blaster, immediately taking it off safety and aiming it toward Shodan. She aimed it slightly forward of him knowing it would take about a second to pulse out the plasma ray. With resolve, she pulled the trigger.

  Shodan jumped hard to the left as he saw Amanda pull an object out of her pocket and aim toward him. A ball of white fire hit the path where he would have been just a second before. Vegetation burned along the sides of the path, and the sandy ground underneath where the ball had hit was now molten glass.

  Shodan shuffled back and, throwing himself deep into the surrounding shrubbery, ran into the adjacent woods, hiding from them while he figured out his next move. He watched Karrick turn to Amanda, and then suddenly twist away to run toward the burning vegetation. Karrick began scooping up handfuls of sand to throw on top of the blazing foliage near the path.

  “Amanda, don’t shoot that again! Some of the plants are very dry and the fire might spread.”

  “Okay, but if he comes back and tries to attack you again, I’m not ruling out using this as a weapon to save your life.”

  “Help me instead with this. It looks like the fire’s spreading!”

  Amanda perused the area trying to ascertain where Shodan was and failed to see him. Satisfied that they at least had a few moments to stop the spreading fire, she crouched down by Karrick and helped him shovel handfuls of sand onto the burning vegetation.

  Shodan moved stealthily through the woods, circling behind them. The smoke from the smoldering plant debris had worked much in his favor. As his heartbeat climbed back down, he saw a way to use it to his advantage. He moved slowly, as silently as he could, and crept up behind them until he was only a few meters away.

  Shock filled him as he saw Dr. Logan and Bethan approaching on the opposite path in the distance. Bethan screamed, seeing Shodan creeping up behind her son. The obsessed wolfan ran and jumped onto Karrick’s back, raking the barb-embedded clay across Karrick’s neck. He reached for the strap holding Karrick’s leather pouch and jerked hard, feeling it snap apart as the pouch fell into his hand.

  Amanda spun around, slamming the heel of her hand against Shodan’s nose, instantly breaking it and forcing him to let go of Karrick and fall back. She saw Karrick fall to the ground in her peripheral vision, and anger consuming her, began a series of kicks to his attacker intending to kill Shodan.

  Shodan screamed with the pain from his nose and the hard kicks hitting his torso and legs. He tried repeatedly to hit her back, even threw a large rock at her, but the blows kept bouncing off her. He narrowly missed getting hit by the same rock that flew back at him with as much force as he’d thrown it.

  Fear made his heart beat uncontrollably as she worked him over and he knew it was time for desperate measures. “He’s dying, Amanda. While you fight me, he bleeds to death. The poison I put in my weapon is seeping into his blood, cutting off his oxygen supply…”

  Amanda gasped and giving him one last hard kick to his ribs, quickly turned back to look at Karrick and saw that indeed, blood was seeping from his neck and he was having trouble breathing. Enraged, she turned back to Shodan and said, “What did you poison him with?”

  “You let me go and I’ll tell you.”

  “Tell me now, or you’re dead!”

  Fear, and a prideful desire for someone to know what he did, made him answer. “Spider dart. He’s highly allergic to it and you better stop his neck from bleeding or he’ll soon be dead.”

  “Run, you piece of filth!” she said, before turning back to Karrick to apply pressure to his neck to slow the bleeding.

  Shodan crab-walked backwards a few steps and felt an object near his fingers lying on the ground. He quickly looked back at Amanda to see if she noticed and picked up the object, adding it to the pouch he stole from Karrick before clumsily shuffling away from the scene.

  * * * * *

  Alexander and Bethan raced to their son, having watched the attack. Fear crawled through Bethan as she worried if it might be too late to save him.

  They reached him just as Amanda was applying pressure to his neck to stop the bleeding. She looked up at them with panic in her eyes. “Can you help us, please? He’s been hurt and poisoned with spider dart!”

  Alexander and Bethan crouched down by Amanda. Bethan spoke. “This is our son. If it is spider dart, he carries a pouch with him that has medicine in it to counteract it.”

  Amanda groaned, and told them, “I think Shodan took it when he attacked him.”

  Alexander ran his hand over Karrick and turned him over on his side trying to see if the pouch might still be there. “I can’t find it. He’s still breathing, so he has a chance, but he’s having a severe anaphylactic reaction. Bethan, run and get my doctor’s kit. Hurry!” shouted Alexander.

  Bethan kissed her son on his cheek and with her soul in her eyes, nodded to Alexander before running off to the compound. He knew she was screaming inside.

  Alexander spoke quietly to Amanda. “Please look around and see if Shodan may have dropped the pouch. Karrick’s chance of survival is very low without getting an injection from one of the vials of epinephrine in it. I can apply the pressure to his neck while you do that.”

  She let go of Karrick’s neck and Alexander’s hand replaced hers. She carefully searched the path in the direction where Shodan went, but no pouch was seen. Suddenly, she had an idea, and swirled around to run back to them.

  “Dr. Logan, you said that this is an anaphylactic reaction and Karrick needs epinephrine. Can you use oxyandrin?”

  “Yes, it would be perfect as that would oxygenate his blood as well.”

  Amanda opened up the right wrist panel on her suit and rapidly punched in several codes. A small vial popped out in her hand. She gave it to Alexander.

  Alexander looked at it and spread apar
t the fur on the upper thigh of one of Karrick’s legs and injected the auto-syringe into his son’s skin. “All we can do now is wait,” he said.

  Minutes later, Karrick’s eyes fluttered open as he gasped for air. He tried to sit up, but his father pressed him gently down again.

  “That’s enough, Karrick,” Alexander said. “You rest a bit. You’re recovering from a spider dart attack.”

  “My neck…”

  “Your neck is bleeding, but we’ll have that fixed, shortly.”

  “Amanda… Is she okay?”

  Amanda, who’d been wringing her hands together in anxiety, reached over and grasped his mane, kissing him solidly on the lips. “I’m fine, you big, bad wolfan.”

  All three turned to the sound of an engine, and Alexander smiled when he saw the aerolift landing with Bethan, Nathan, and Jadd in it. His wife had wasted no time getting the medicine or marshalling the resources to get it to Karrick as soon as possible.

  * * * * *

  Shodan’s lips thinned as he watched from his vantage point the aerolift landing, and Karrick being helped into it by his brothers. The fact that Karrick was still alive angered him. He’d have to find something else to get high on as well. The Janus leaves just left him too out of control for what he needed to do.

  Remembering the object he had picked up, his rage turned to cold satisfaction as he turned over the blaster resting in his palm. He imagined firing it at Karrick. That would be even better—to watch Karrick die by incineration.

  He threw Karrick’s pouch to the ground and crushed the vials inside by grinding his heel onto it. His face contorted with hate, Shodan vowed, “You’re going to die, Karrick, maybe not today, but soon…”

  Chapter 9

  Amanda climbed aboard with Alexander and Karrick to ride the aerolift back to the compound. It was a small aircraft, designed to only hold several people and saved for emergency situations. Bethan and her other sons elected to walk back.