by J. R. Rain
Ghosts can’t do much physically except spy on the natural world, and I did so now, enthusiastically. As I watched her peel away her clothes, I suddenly realized that it had been over fifty years since I last made love.
Fifty long, shitty years.
I am quite dead, having died tragically and instantly in front of a large school bus. Once dead, two beings had come for me, both tall and shining, and they had promptly scared the shit out of me. I backed away in fear, and they let me be, leaving quietly. I sensed they would be back. And they had been. Three times, once for each time thus far that I had located my book and attempted to connect with its reader. But always I refused their advances.
After all, my work here wasn’t done. There was Susan, the fourth and final reader of my book.
Susan made me want to live again. She was soft. She was vulnerable. She was young. Beautiful. Her bangs were in need of a trim and just as she swept them out of her eyes with a graceful hand, I recognized the poetry of her in delicate motion, like the unveiling of a sonnet, line by line. If I could have sighed, I would have. As she showered, the most amazing and cursed thing happened: I felt a surge of guilt for leering at her like a peeping Tom. Who knew that ghosts could feel shame and guilt?
Sighing, I left the bathroom and headed back to her bedroom, where I waited, feeling like a perverted old man. And I was old, too. At least, I had been when I died. Now, I was ancient.
Like I said, there are only four copies of my book, Scare That Nightmare Right Back, in the world, the very book Susan had just been reading. Not exactly a bestseller but the book served a very important purpose. After all, I only needed one person to find it.
And she had.
Fifty years after I wrote it. Susan was my last chance.
Back when I completed it, I managed to talk only three libraries into stocking the book. The fourth went to the Library of Congress, keeper of all books.
This was before the digital age, before the advent of all those damned reading devices that I see folks using all the time. I say damned because had those devices been around in my time, many more good people would have found my book... and thus, many more would have found peace, too.
Peace and sanity.
Now, I haunt all four places where my books reside—and only those four places, although I must say, the Library of Congress is the most interesting of the places I haunt, with its millions of documents and a layer of government that wields a mighty power, perhaps as the Library of Alexandria once did. Ghosts are funny. We generally attach ourselves to the place of our deaths, unless such places are in the open, as had been my situation. So, instead of being attached to a place, I found myself attached to objects. Four objects, in fact. My four books. Interestingly, I always know when someone touches any one of my books. It’s a nice trick that I don’t pretend to understand.
My work here isn’t finished, I thought. It’s as simple as that.
And what was my work? Easy. Banishing Nightmare forever.
Anyway, earlier today I had watched as Susan removed the book from the shelf, flipped it open. I could see immediately that she was one of Nightmare’s victims. The dark bags under her eyes. The drooping of her shoulders. Her grayish aura which reeked of exhaustion.
Yes, Nightmare, the psychic vampire of the dream world, was eating this one alive. Unlike physical vampires that suck blood, Nightmare stole away pleasant dreams and replaced them with the horror and the terror of whatever each human feared the most. I pitied her greatly, seeing the fatigue and anxiety that had worn her down during sleep.
But then I saw something else as she continued reading through my book. Hope. Not much, granted, but a glimmering. Enough to make her stand a little straighter. Enough to make her take a long, deep, shuddering breath.
Enough to make her check out the book.
I was filled with hope, too. Perhaps now I could finally end this madness.
I knew exactly what she was going through, and I hated Nightmare for doing this to her and to others like her. Hated him with all my ghostly heart. You see, I myself had confronted Nightmare, and nearly destroyed him.
Nearly.
But the bastard had slipped through my fingers, literally.
And I wouldn’t rest, either in this world or the next, until he was destroyed forever.
Soon enough, the bathroom door opened, filling the bedroom with golden light, and as she walked out, her incredible form silhouetted in the door frame, she could have easily been an angel taking me away from this world and my haunted books.
To my slight dismay, she quickly donned a pair of sweats and slipped into bed.
Bed.
Sleep.
Nightmare would be here soon.
The son-of-a-bitch.
She kept a reading light on, and was re-reading the sleep preparations outlined in my book.
The most important procedure to rid oneself of the demon, the psychic vampire called Nightmare, are the sleep preparations. I sidled up next to her, and just as I did so, the hair along her forearms shot up. Ah, the living always know we spirits are near. At least, they do on a very deep level. Perhaps too deep for most.
As she read, I drifted back into the far corner, waiting for what I was certain would come.
I wasn’t surprised.
As soon as the book fell to her lap and her head nodded off to one side, Nightmare appeared.
***
Nightmare was massive.
In the physical world, Nightmare is seen only as a shimmering substance, like a sheet of water suspended in the air. Now that I could see him with new eyes, so to speak, I saw what he really was, and he was penultimately terrifying.
Sweet Jesus. What have I gotten myself into?
The thing that had materialized near her bedroom window was easily seven feet tall. It had broad shoulders and a narrow waist. His head, long and thin, looked like a horse’s head. The pointy things just missing the ceiling were short horns. His skin was translucent, and I wasn’t entirely sure that I wasn’t seeing through him.
Sweet Jesus.
What he was, I didn’t know. Actually, I did know. He was a parasite. A spiritual parasite, a dream twister, a psychic vampire who sucked away pleasant dreams, and turned sleep into night terrors. I hoped that Susan would never know what was truly standing over her. But that was up to her, wasn’t it? That was up to how seriously she had heeded my advice in the book.
Yes, I had seen Nightmare once before. Years ago, and it had scared the hell out of me. That’s when he had escaped me.
But not this time, dammit.
I wondered with some fear if the massive entity could see me in return. Possibly. But so far he gave no indication, so intent was he on tormenting Susan.
Then again, what could he do to me? Kill me more? I was already as dead as I would ever be.
I didn’t know why, but Nightmare was visibly shaking. Perhaps with anticipation. I didn’t know. I didn’t know what drove him to do what he did, or it did, since it appeared sexless.
Looking back at Susan, I saw that she was the picture of sleep. I hoped so. I hoped she could pull this off... and I would certainly help in any way I could.
I went back to staring at the entity that had haunted me most of my adult life, that had stolen so much from me. The entity that had destroyed my marriage and made my existence a living nightmare. The entity that even now kept me earthbound, unable to move on. Unwilling to move on.
Fascinated, I watched as he approached her bed warily. A hideous, foul creature, yes, but he was also extremely cautious. Did he sense a trap?
The instructions in my book were clear. One problem: I had been unable to follow them. I had faltered at the last possible moment, and Nightmare had escaped me.
So how did I know how to destroy him?
I didn’t, not precisely, but I had some very good ideas. Some of which were based on my research. You see, Nightmare has been here for a long, long time. I wasn’t his first victim, and Susan wouldn�
�t be his last... unless we destroyed him now and forever.
I had written about my mistake. Would Susan heed my warning?
I didn’t know, but I watched as Nightmare lowered his horse head towards her, simultaneously reaching out with impossibly long fingers with jagged, filthy, blackened nails. Now inches from her forehead, his twisted fingers waved in the air as if he were playing a ghostly piano.
But no. Not quite. He was doing something else entirely. Sweet Jesus, what was coming out of her? It looked like red tendrils. Glowing red tendrils. Ethereal, wispy fibers. He looked like a demonic spinster spinning wool into yarn.
When he had gathered enough of the glowing material, he opened his ghastly maw and shoved it inside. I had a brief, flashing childhood memory of the Cookie Monster.
Unbelievable. He was eating her pleasant dreams! I was terrified for her.
He seemed about to reach for her again, but paused. From my position behind him, I could just catch a glimpse of his elongated face. He cocked his head slightly as if listening for something.
I would have held my breath if I had breath to hold.
Nightmare seemed satisfied and lowered his long face down towards hers again, and as he did so, Susan’s hand lashed out and grabbed the bastard by the throat.
***
Susan Smith lay alone and utterly terrified.
She knew with all her heart that the book was right, and that the thing coming for her was evil. If only she could just run...
But she had before, hadn’t she? And it didn’t work. The nightmares had followed wherever she went. The nightmares and everything that went with it: the lack of sleep, the lack of energy. All of which cut into her personal and professional life.
The book had been a godsend. She had searched everywhere for relief from the nightmares, from hypnotherapy to aromatherapy to prescription drugs to changing her diet to one that was devoid of spices.
Nothing had worked.
And then just today, after Googling the subject and perusing page after page of quackery, she came upon a Los Angeles County Library book about nightmares and how to beat them. The book sounded promising, and she had dashed off to the main branch. With library card in hand, she had located the book, read through it with growing excitement, as the hair on her arms and neck stood on end, and promptly checked it out.
Admittedly, the book had been disappointingly slender, just a few ounces in her lovely, feminine hand. But she quickly got over her dismay; indeed, the author had summarized his own experiences—experiences that had precisely mirrored her own. Sweet Jesus, he had gone through exactly what she was going through!
And, most important, he had beat it.
Yes, it. For the author, one James Randall, now apparently deceased, claimed that this wasn’t an emotional enemy. No, sleepers were facing an actual enemy. A demonic enemy. Something alive. Something that fed on humanity like a damned vampire. A vampire of pleasant dreams who stole them away and left in their place nightmares of unspeakable terror that would torment the sleeper every time they hit the REM stage of sleep.
It’s not my imagination, she had kept telling herself as she read. It’s real. I knew it was real.
The nightmares that had plagued her for most of her adult life had, in fact, seemed like a personal assault. Except that she could never get anyone to believe her. Yes, she had thought she was going insane. That is, until today. Until this book.
Mercifully, blessedly, the author not only described how to beat the creature... but to destroy it once and for all.
She thought about that now as she sat back in bed and closed her eyes. As she did so, the familiar dread overcame her. Dread to close her eyes. Dread to let her mind go. Dread to let sleep overtake her.
Because that’s when the nightmares came.
That’s when the demon came.
A real demon—the vampire of normal, pleasant dreams. Normal dreams were the sanity clause of humans, when the anxiety of the day would dissipate and truly, tomorrow would be a better day. If not for a visit from Nightmare, who was relentless and gave no relief from the stress of daily life, but added his own terror to torment and enslave his victims during their most vulnerable state. REM-stage sleep. Night after night.
Susan shuddered.
There’s hope, she thought desperately. There’s hope.
And that’s all she could ask for.
The fucking thing had taken so much from her. It had destroyed any hope for a relationship. Any hope for normalcy. Often, she wondered what it would be like to dream peacefully. To actually awaken refreshed and full of life and hope for the new day.
She had no idea. Or, rather, she couldn’t remember.
Why had it chosen her? She had no idea. The author claimed the entity was a psychic vampire. A living creature that preyed on its host.
Yeah, that felt right. She did feel preyed upon. She did feel used and abused come morning.
And the more she read the book, the more pissed off she became.
This fucking devil had ruined her life.
No more, she decided. Never again.
She would follow James Randall’s steps to the T. Even more so, she was determined to once and for all destroy the wicked thing. Granted, the destroying part she wasn’t so sure about. The destroying part turned her bowels to water. But she would try, dammit. She would try.
The book had been clear: she had to feign sleep. And there was only one way to feign sleep. To enter into a deep meditation. A trance. The author, God bless his soul, had also detailed how to do this.
And so, she had memorized the steps as best as she could, going through them one after another, and felt herself entering a deep meditation, a trance unlike anything she had ever experienced.
And this is where she found herself, hovering somewhere between sleep and wakefulness—when she felt a cold chill that made her skin tighten in self-defense.
Nightmare was near.
The chill was followed by a faint but pungent smell. She had never noticed the smell before, but now that she was mostly awake, she was aware of it.
It was all she could do to remain calm, to remain in a deeply meditative state, so she did her best to ignore the rotten-meat smell of Nightmare.
Bile rose in the back of her throat.
Her hands rested at her sides. She breathed easily through her nose. Her hair was still wet from the shower. She had delayed this confrontation as long as possible by wasting time in her apartment, first by taking out the trash at eleven p.m., and then by taking a midnight shower. Finally, after applying far too much lotion to her body, she tossed aside the nearly-empty tube and told herself that enough was enough.
It was time to face down a monster.
She wished she could have had someone by her side right about now. Anyone. A boyfriend or a husband would have been nice. She had neither. A friend would have done the trick, too, but she could not bring herself to ask if they’d stay the night with her. She was both ashamed and terrified. In the end, she realized this was a very private affair. She had found the book today, and she would finish it tonight.
Alone.
At the back of her mind, exactly where Randall said the feeling would be, something touched her softly, almost hesitantly. It was the place, according to Randall, where Nightmare penetrates into your private dreams, enters them like a thief in the night.
He’s here, she thought.
***
She felt a caressing in her mind—a disturbing feeling really, like someone running a spider web over her exposed brain, sticky, delicate, and clinging. She fought the urge to shudder in revulsion.
He’s going to know you’re not dreaming! Panic surged through her.
The coolness in her brain—his probing, according to the book—stopped. And then the coolness was slipping across her forehead—actually just underneath it.
He’s running! Christ!
She lashed out with her right hand, striking like a cobra, striking where Randall told her to s
trike, just above her face.
Her fingers sank into damp muck. She dug in her nails with a fierceness that surprised even her.
***
Nightmare’s screeching reached only my ears.
He threw back his horse head and emitted a truly horrible sound. It went from a high-pitched, jaw-rattler to a low, warbling moan.
Hang on, girl! I thought.
I only wished I could help her. But how?
Nightmare grabbed at her hand to no avail. His ethereal form mostly swept through her. I say mostly because his passing hands—or claws—left behind a gunky, slimy residue on her skin. Nevertheless, she persisted in gripping tightly, gritting her teeth, her veins popping up on her forearms from her years as a data entry typist.
And then he stopped screeching—and stopped struggling, too.
He’s going to do it, I thought. This is it.
You see, there’s a reason why I hadn’t held on all those years ago. There’s a reason why Nightmare had escaped my clutches, and why I had failed to once and for all destroy him.
Years ago, as I had been in this very same position, holding the vile creature, he had fully revealed himself to me. The sight of the demon standing before me had been so unexpected, so unnerving, that I had shrieked and very nearly had a heart attack and had... let go. That was my mistake. And it was weeks before sleep would find me again.
Mercifully, Nightmare was gone from my life. But I knew the bastard was out there. Somewhere.
And here he was now, spreading his poison to this sweet young lady. This desperate young lady.
And there she was, holding on like a trooper.
My directions were clear: keep your damned eyes shut. And she did. By God, she kept them shut as tight as she could, and now Nightmare’s ethereal form was something more than ethereal. He was physical. As physical as he could be. Hell, he even cast a shadow over her bed.