by Jason Segel
“Another night in paradise,” Jack said. “Look over there. That one seems pretty interesting.” He pointed to a street in the distance where a giant crowd with torches and pitchforks was chasing someone the boys couldn’t see.
“Meh,” said Charlie, unimpressed. He pointed in the other direction, where an enormous blob was attempting to swallow an elderly gardener. “I’m more of a giant slug man myself.”
The people of Cypress Creek could be quite creative when it came to the Nightmares they conjured in their sleep. But as far as Charlie was concerned, nothing he’d seen was as disturbing as ICK’s dream.
“I’ve been having ICK’s nightmare,” Charlie told his brother. He hadn’t meant to confess. It had just come out.
Jack’s reaction was lighting fast. “What?”
“Every night when I go to sleep, I don’t have my own nightmares or dreams. I visit ICK’s nightmare instead,” Charlie explained.
“You do?” Jack said. “That’s crazy! Why didn’t you say anything?”
Charlie knew he should have come clean sooner, but he’d been too ashamed to admit that he and ICK shared something in common. “Because I don’t know why I keep having it,” he admitted. “She doesn’t want me there, and I don’t want to go, but I keep ending up in it anyway.”
“Maybe you’re there because you might understand it,” Jack replied sensibly. “What’s it about?”
“Sheep,” Charlie said.
He expected Jack to laugh or say something like “That’s not so baaaaaad,” but his brother didn’t even grin. It made Charlie feel better that someone was taking it seriously. “What kind?” Jack asked.
“Black sheep,” Charlie said. “Like the ones from the lullaby.”
“Do they bite or something?” Jack asked.
“Nope,” Charlie said. “They don’t do anything except eat and poop.”
“Oh,” Jack said. He looked stumped.
“I visited the dream again last night. I was going to ask ICK what scared her so much,” Charlie said. “I guess I was feeling a bit sorry for her. But she wasn’t in her nightmare. She was hanging out with a bunch of other Nightmares instead. Ollie Tobias said they were the scariest he’d ever seen.”
“Maybe ICK just wanted some company,” Jack said.
“I don’t think ICK’s interested in making friends,” Charlie said. “There’s gotta be another reason she’s suddenly so social. And that’s why we’re here. We need to find out what it is.”
—
Ollie’s description of the house from his nightmare had been very clear. It was a small white house on a street in the Netherworld’s Cypress Creek. Ollie said the buildings around it were run-down and abandoned, but the house where he’d seen ICK was one of the weirdest nightmare houses he’d ever encountered. What made it so unusual was that it didn’t look scary at all.
Charlie had expected to find the house right away, but he and Jack had been searching for hours, and they still hadn’t come across anything that matched Ollie’s description.
“It has to be around here somewhere,” Charlie groaned miserably. He and Jack had been down a dozen streets, past more graveyards, swamps, and haunted mansions than either of them could count.
Then they turned a corner and Jack stopped in his tracks. “Charlie,” he said, “I think we just found it.”
Charlie looked in the direction his brother was pointing. Sure enough, there was a pleasant-looking house about half a block away. Charlie felt his knees buckle.
“No,” he muttered. “That can’t be it.”
But it was, and Charlie knew it. The little white house was the only normal-looking building they’d passed all evening. And it just happened to be an exact copy of the one Charlie and Jack had lived in when their mother was still alive.
“I don’t get it,” Jack said. “Why is our old house here in the Netherworld?”
“Because I built it here,” Charlie admitted. The little white cottage was the scene of the worst nightmare he’d ever had. And now he was back. “This is where I said goodbye to Mom.”
“That was months ago, wasn’t it?” Jack asked. “I thought you beat that nightmare. So why is the house still here?”
When a Netherworld nightmare was over, its set was either reused or disappeared. No one else would have any use for Charlie’s old house. So if the little white building was still standing, there could be only one reason, and Charlie and Jack both knew what it was. Charlie’s nightmare wasn’t quite over yet. There was something inside the house that he still hadn’t faced. And now ICK was part of it.
Charlie felt the anger burning inside him. It had been ages since he’d been so furious. “Let’s go,” he told his brother. He couldn’t wait to get in there and drag ICK out of his dream.
“Charlie!” Jack rushed after him. “Wait just a minute! You’ve got to calm down!”
But Charlie didn’t want to calm down. He wanted ICK to leave his house. A horrible creature like her didn’t deserve to set foot in a place where his mother had lived. Charlie barged through the front door and came to a halt. Inside, the house was nothing but an empty shell. The furniture and decorations were all gone. There weren’t even any walls. But there was a door—right where the entrance to the cellar had been.
Before his mother got sick, that cellar had been home to Charlie’s worst nightmares. He still remembered how dark it had seemed from the top of the stairs. He’d been sure there were monsters down there that would snatch kids away and hide them from their families forever. Charlie had always sped up when he’d walked past its door.
“ICK’s got to be down there,” he told his brother.
Charlie opened the door to reveal a rectangular patch of pitch-blackness. The air that escaped from below smelled rank and rotten.
“Are you sure about this?” said Jack.
“Yes.” Charlie was terrified, but he couldn’t turn back. He reached out with his right foot and located the first step. “Take my hand,” he told his brother—for his own comfort as much as Jack’s. Together they were swallowed by the darkness as they climbed down the stairs.
“Where are we?” Jack asked.
“This is the cellar,” Charlie told him. “It used to scare me to death when I was little.” With every step, he felt as if another large weight had been placed around his neck. It wasn’t just fear that was dragging Charlie down, though. It was sadness as well. He’d thought it was gone, but some of it had been buried. Everything Charlie didn’t like about himself—the stuff he used to call the darkness—seemed to be there in the cellar. “I built this too.”
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Charlie was almost relieved to hear a voice in the distance and see a dim glow ahead at the end of a tunnel. As they walked toward it, the light became brighter and an enormous cavern appeared. And to Charlie’s horror, it was completely filled with monsters.
There were enormous yeti whose heads scraped the roof of the cavern—and tiny winged gargoyles that buzzed in circles around them. There were ghouls with no eyes and beasts that were almost entirely teeth. Charlie saw a wolf the size of a small car hungrily eyeing a beast with a man’s body and a deer’s head and antlers. In all his trips to the Netherworld, Charlie had never encountered such horrifying creatures. And while the sight was shocking, the smell was far worse.
As Charlie did his best to avoid breathing through his nose, one of the smallest creatures climbed up onto a rock in the center of the cavern. It was ICK, still wearing her schoolgirl uniform. Standing among the monsters, she looked like she was there not to lead the beasts, but to be sacrificed to them.
Yet when she spoke, the vast room immediately fell silent.
“You’re here because you’ve all heard of the prophecy,” ICK proclaimed in her lovely accent. “They say that the Netherworld will one day be visited by a human child with the strength to destroy it.”
She paused, as if to let the information sink in. When she spoke next, ICK’s voice had become far
more sinister.
“I am the prophecy,” she announced.
The monsters began to murmur among themselves. Some seemed awestruck, while others didn’t appear to believe her. Then a Nightmare with the head of a squid shot a long tentacle in ICK’s direction and wrapped it around one of her wrists. ICK grabbed the tentacle with her free hand and, in a remarkable show of strength, dragged its disrespectful owner to the front of the group. “Tell them how I taste,” she demanded.
The squid monster gagged. “Like human!” it managed to cry.
“Did you hear that?” ICK asked the crowd as she ripped the tentacle off her wrist and let the humiliated Nightmare collapse to the ground. “I taste human because I am here in the flesh. Just as the prophecy foretold! So believe me when I tell you now that the Netherworld’s days are numbered! This world will soon be reaching its end!” She paused, and the anger on her face was replaced with a sinister smile. “However…I am willing to spare everyone in this room. Those who swear their allegiance to me will live. I will guide you to safety. The rest of you will be left here in the land of Nightmares to perish.”
A Cyclops stepped forward to volunteer. “I will come with you,” he said. Then the brow over his single eye furrowed. “Umm…where are we going?”
“To the Waking World,” ICK said, speaking loud enough for everyone in the cavern to hear. “I can open the portal.”
Charlie felt his little brother grasp his wrist. “Holy moly, Charlie! She’s starting an army! She’s going to invade the Waking World,” Jack whispered.
But Charlie didn’t dare answer. A three-headed dog near the cavern’s entrance had just lifted its snouts and sniffed the air. The beast must have caught the scent of more humans. Before it had a chance to locate the source of the odor, Charlie quietly took Jack’s arm and pulled him back into the darkness of the tunnel.
The president of the Netherworld rolled down the window of her black limousine, and a demented-looking clown stuck his head inside.
“There’s no one left in the cavern, Madam President,” Dabney reported with a giggle. “I checked every nook and cranny myself.”
Medusa’s snakes slithered around her face. “And the mansion?” she asked.
“It’s safe and under surveillance,” the clown told her. “We sent Jack Laird back through the portal, and now we have two of our best Nightmares watching the building. They’ll make sure no one gets inside.”
“Are you sure two are enough?” Charlie asked. He was sitting beside Medusa in the plush backseat of her limo, which was parked in front of the old Laird family house. “It seems like a lot of Nightmares have joined ICK’s army.”
“Yes, and we know who they are,” Medusa told him. “Most of them are outlaws who used to work for the villain they called President Fear. If any of them show their faces, they’ll be arrested immediately and turned to stone.” She looked back at the clown. “Good work, Dabney. We’ll stop the prophecy from happening.”
But after she rolled up her window, Medusa didn’t seem quite so confident.
“I’m sorry it took us so long to get the news to you,” Charlie said. “Jack and I got lost in the dark down there. We must have wandered those tunnels for hours before we found the way out. It was one of the worst nights of my life.”
Medusa rapped on the window that separated the limo’s driver from its passengers. The engine started and the vehicle began to move. Then the gorgon reached over and took Charlie’s hand, careful not to scratch him with her blood-red fingernails, which she’d filed to dagger-sharp points. “You did the best you could, Charlie, and I am very grateful. But there is something that we must discuss, and I sent your little brother back to the Waking World so we could talk in private,” she said. “Can you tell me why ICK was inside your nightmare? How did she find out about the cellar?”
Charlie shook his head in shame. “You knew the cellar was part of my old nightmare? You knew it wasn’t over?”
“Of course I did,” Medusa told him, squeezing his hand. “Don’t be embarrassed. You left a few fears buried beneath the surface. It happens to people all the time. The biggest fears often take a lifetime to conquer. I’ve been hoping you’d realize and come back to deal with yours. But it seems ICK discovered your nightmare first. Do you have any idea how she managed to get inside it?”
“No,” Charlie said. “But I’ve been in her nightmare too. It’s all about sheep.”
“Man-eating sheep?” Medusa asked.
“No,” Charlie was embarrassed to tell her. “Just the regular kind.”
“You don’t say!” Medusa exclaimed. “How unusual.”
“What does it mean?” Charlie asked.
“I haven’t a clue,” Medusa admitted. “I may be president of the Netherworld, but I’ve never been able to interpret human dreams. Your kind comes up with some very strange things. Just look over there, for example! What do you suppose that means?”
She tapped the window beside her with one of her nails. Outside, a giant red spider was climbing the side of a building toward a window with Hello Kitty curtains.
“Yeah, I know everyone has weird dreams. That wasn’t what I was trying to ask,” Charlie said. “What do you think it means that ICK and I can share each other’s dreams?”
“Ah,” said Medusa. “Well, that’s exactly what I wanted to discuss with you. It doesn’t happen very often. And when two people end up sharing dreams, it usually means that they’re either related—or extremely close friends.”
“My mother and stepmother used to share nightmares,” Charlie said. “But they were best friends. I don’t know ICK at all. I’ve only spoken to her once—and we’re definitely not related!”
“That may be so,” said Medusa. “But there must be something that connects the two of you.”
“There can’t be….”
Medusa stopped him before he could argue. “I’m sorry, Charlie, but it’s true. You and Isabel Kessog are linked together, and you have to figure out how. The answer you find may help us stop her.”
Charlie turned and rested his forehead against the window. His fears had just been confirmed. He didn’t want to have anything in common with ICK. As the limo drove through the Netherworld’s Cypress Creek, Charlie watched ordinary people fighting off trolls or running from ghosts and desperately wished he could be one of them.
Soon the limo slowed and pulled up outside the Netherworld courthouse, where Medusa spent most of her nights hard at work.
The president of the Netherworld gave Charlie a hug. “I know that what I’ve asked you to do will be difficult, but I also know I can depend on you,” she said. “Now, would you like my driver to take you to the mansion?”
“No thanks,” Charlie said, sliding out of the car. “I could use a walk.”
He wasn’t ready to go back just yet. Charlotte and Jack would probably want to know what Medusa had said to him, and Charlie needed some time on his own to think. Wandering along the dark streets of the Netherworld, he could tell that the sun was rising in his world. As people woke up on the other side, there were fewer and fewer Nightmares left on the streets. But the sound of chanting in the distance told him there was at least one terrible dream that wasn’t quite over. Curious, Charlie jogged toward the sound until he found himself in a schoolyard where hundreds of people holding torches had gathered. The tines of metal pitchforks gleamed in the flames.
“GET THE WITCH!” the furious crowd was chanting. “GET THE WITCH!”
“Hey, what’s going on here?” Charlie asked a woman at the edge of the mob, but she didn’t respond. He tried once more before he reached out a hand. Sure enough, his fingers passed right through the lady. Charlie did the same to a burly man standing beside her, with the same result. They were figments, he realized. There wasn’t a real creature among them. They were all the product of some terrified dreamer’s imagination.
Charlie walked to the entrance of the school. Along the way, he passed straight through figments, but none of them
seemed to notice. When he reached the front doors, Charlie found them unlocked. Inside, the school looked perfectly normal—with no monsters in sight. Charlie’s footsteps echoed in the empty hallway, and he wondered if the dreamer had woken up from her nightmare. Then he heard glass shattering in a nearby room.
Charlie rushed toward the ruckus and found a woman in a science classroom hurling beakers and flasks to the floor. It took him a moment to recognize her without her black wig and red lipstick.
“Ms. Abbot?” Charlie asked.
The woman cringed like a hunted animal. Her eyes were wild and her muscles tensed. “Charlie,” she panted. “Are you with them now?”
“No,” he told her. “I’m real, but those people out there aren’t. They’re just figments of your imagination.”
The words seemed to mean nothing to the teacher. “You’ve got to go, Charlie,” she urged him. “They’ll be in here soon. If they find us, they’ll destroy us both.”
“No, they won’t!” Charlie said. “I promise, Ms. Abbot. It’s just a nightmare. Those people aren’t real. You can stop them!”
Suddenly they heard pounding on the front doors of the school. The mob was on the move. Ms. Abbot rushed to a window and threw it open. “They’ll be breaking down the doors any minute. Come with me! We might be able to make it!”
“Please don’t run, Ms. Abbot!” Charlie told her. “Stay here and face them. You can’t hide forever. You’ll have to fight them eventually.”
“Not if I keep on running,” Ms. Abbot said, slipping out the window. Charlie watched her drop to the ground and sprint across the schoolyard, a crowd of figments racing behind her.