After five minutes his legs ached, but Omar didn’t mind the ache because it distracted him from everything else. The man had told him there was a store fifteen miles up the road, but then Omar couldn’t say if there had been a man, so he saw no reason to trust the store’s existence. In the end he knew only that there wasn’t a store in the other direction, so this one was as good as any.
By the time he saw the sunlight glinting off of something far along the road Omar didn’t think he could feel his legs anymore. They held him upright and kept him moving by instinct, even picked up speed for him to get a better look at the car along the side of the road--his car, he suddenly realized.
He slowed, stopped, and stared at his license plate; glanced around him at the flat world, not even a tree to give him shade. He couldn’t see any homes or telephone poles, just the emptiness, the sky itself devoid of clouds. But then he squinted his eyes and realized he did see something, that same glimmer of darkness standing upright in the shape of a person, waiting far out in the dirt.
"It’s the heat," he whispered. "You’re letting it get to you too much."
The car offered him the only shade, but the vehicle had been turned into an oven since he’d last sat in it. Omar opted for the side of the car instead. He unbuttoned his shirt and draped it across his head, stared at his own gut barely extending out of his pants. It actually made him smile a bit, thinking about the days when that growing gut had been one of his chief concerns. He’d never had the will to diet before. Didn’t need to anymore.
He held out hope that someone would come, someone real this time. The road had been sparse, but he’d seen at least a few trucks or cars driving up and down it before his empty gas tank left him stranded. There would be others.
His watch told him fifteen after two. The time made him frown. He’d checked it right before his car first slowed, and it had been five after then. He had no tangible way of knowing more time had passed, given that his every action had led him back to his vehicle, and so all of those actions had to be questioned, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that time had passed, a man had picked him up, and he had walked along the road only to find his car again.
Now he stared at the time tick on, watched the minutes crawl towards twenty, and then twenty-five, the seconds ticking off just as they should. Right as the digital read out was about to switch to twenty-five, it gave him ten after instead.
More and more sweat trickled down him. The heat made him light headed, fingers tingling, shaking lightly.
Omar pulled himself up and turned towards the dark shape still waiting for him, the only thing he’d seen that hadn’t vanished.
He hurried as fast as he could around the side of the car and out into the field of dirt, shirt fluttering and threatening to fall off, his left hand clamped down on his head to keep the thing in place. "Hey," he shouted at the shape, and it seemed to pull back from his advance, vanish just a bit more into the shimmering horizon.
The dirt shifted below Omar’s foot and sent him face first into the ground, coughing, the foul taste in his mouth. He pulled his foot free of the hole he’d formed, almost continued on with his charge, but something caught his eye, brought him back to the hole, digging in with his fingers. He pulled away the dry dirt until he could see the woman’s face, little more than dried skin wrapped tightly around a skull, her lips pulled back so far she seemed to have nothing but teeth.
He pulled himself up with a chocked cry. Looking closer at the flat earth he realized there were countless sunken patches where people had been buried. He hurried to another and fell to his knees. He uncovered the remains of a man, the skin the same as the woman, eyelids closed but pulled back into the skull, his nose a shriveled mound of blackened flesh.
He turned back towards his car, froze at the sight of a cop car pulled up behind it, and the officer himself glancing through the window of Omar’s car.
"I’m here," Omar shouted, ran as fast as his body could carry him while putting his shirt back on. The officer looked up, frowned at Omar’s approach, one hand holding on top of his holstered gun.
"This your car?" the man asked.
"Yeah," Omar said when he reached the road. He had to kneel down to catch his breath, hands on his knees as his heart started to slow.
"Taking a piss? Probably a better place to do it than on some farmer’s land."
"Ran out of gas, but there’s something else." He pointed towards the land. "I found two bodies out there. Dead ones. I think there are more."
The officer looked out past Omar towards the plains. "You’re saying you found two dead bodies?"
"In shallow graves. They look like they’ve been there a long time. Come on and I’ll show you."
The officer walked with him into the dirt, eyeing him, hand never leaving the gun until Omar pointed at the woman’s remains. Then the hand fell away from the gun and the officer’s eyes widened. "You said there were more?" he asked in a hushed tone. Omar gestured towards the plains, and he could see the officer take note of the sunken patches, of the great number of them.
Suddenly Omar noticed the dark shape watching them, almost felt the eyes on him, and he pointed towards it. "I think he’s the one who killed them."
He glanced back but the officer was gone. Omar stood alone, the woman’s shriveled face smiling up at him. He spun a full circle; saw the cop car still behind his own by the road.
A tremor shook his arms as he returned to the road. He could see the officer sitting behind the wheel of the car writing something. Omar stepped up to the window and knocked, saw the man jerk back in surprise before he glared at Omar and opened the door to get out.
"What the hell are you doing?" the man asked.
"How did you get back here so fast?" Omar asked.
The officer stared at him, didn’t move as he took in Omar’s face. "Do you own this vehicle?"
"I told you I did."
"We haven’t spoken. I was about to report your car to be towed. If you do own it I would suggest you move it soon."
"It’s out of gas," he whispered.
"Are you okay?" the officer asked, his earlier apprehension replaced with concern. "If you want I can give you a ride somewhere. There’s a store about ten or fifteen miles up the road along with a gas station. I’m sure they can help you there."
"Yes," Omar said. "I’d like a ride."
He got in the passenger side. A voice crackled, said something, and the officer said something back, but Omar wasn’t listening. He leaned forward instead and felt the cool air conditioning against his burned face. It felt better than anything he had ever imagined. The car started up and for the second time Omar watched his own car vanish behind him.
"What time is it?" Omar asked.
"Almost seven," the officer said.
Omar looked at his watch, saw 2:17. "Eight minutes," he said.
The officer eyed him curiously, a hint of tension in his body. "What happens in eight minutes?"
Omar looked to the glass and the plains beyond it flying by. "There’s a man out there," he said. "I saw him once, and he told me something. Said I needed company, I think, not really sure, but ever since I’ve been trapped by the road."
"You don’t look trapped right now."
"I will be in seven more minutes. I’m not exactly sure what happens to everyone else. If you do remember me, if I vanish from your car, try and come back."
"I think you’ve been out in the heat too long. Heat has a way of messing with the mind. Where you going to, anyways?"
"Nowhere, I guess."
"Marital problems?"
"What?"
The officer shrugged, said, "Friend of mine went through a pretty nasty divorce not long ago and he just kind of up and left when it was all done. Not exactly a big town around here, and said things reminded him too much of it all, so off he went. Don’t mean to pry or nothing, and I know it isn’t my business, but I have to say you look terrible. Talking can help with these things."
O
mar stared at his watch for a few seconds and watched the time tick on in silence. "I’ve never been married," he said. "Hell, this is the first casual conversation I’ve had with anyone in probably six months. Everyone else just wants a bill paid or jokes and laughs in interviews but won’t hire me. At least marital problems means there was once something real. I thought I had some real connections with people but I learned my lesson there." He glanced down again. "One minute."
"Until you vanish?" The officer smiled over at Omar.
"Way it seems."
The officer snorted, relaxed now. "Things will look up for you. Way I like to view it. Things have been rough for everyone these days. Wouldn’t take it so personally."
"I guess," Omar whispered. He stared into the vent, savored the cool air, and refused to look up when the flash of light first flickered to life in the distance. This time he didn’t close his eyes though, left them open to see the light, and see the frail, freakish man standing in the middle of it.
Then the light pulled back into a yellow orb, and Omar realized his head was tilted up towards the sky and he’d been staring at the sun. He squinted repeatedly to get the glare out of his eyes, return them to the plains, to his car. No cop car around. A piece of paper had been put beneath his wiper blade. Omar read the ticket he’d been given for abandoning the car. He smiled as he leaned up against the vehicle and slid to the ground.
After that time slipped by quickly. The sun never budged from the middle of the sky, and Omar didn’t bother trying to shield himself with the shirt anymore. He sat beneath the heat for what he knew must’ve been hours. Sometimes he stared at the time right before it flickered back. Sometimes cars would speed by him. A few never bothered to stop; others did, offering him rides that he waved away, until no cars stopped at all, no eyes even glancing his way, and Omar got the feeling maybe there wasn’t anything to glance at anymore but an empty car by the road. Something in him swore he felt it, maybe reality itself being stripped away from him, slipping him away from the world, but he couldn’t say if it was real or just his mind searching for something to explain it all. All he knew was the cars left him be.
He got the sense that the sun was setting for the rest of the world. The cars that sped by had their headlights on even though from what Omar could tell it was too bright to need them.
Eventually the cars stopped coming. Nothing seemed to move anymore. Omar sat alone, no longer sweating, head reclined back against the heated metal of his car. No matter how bizarre the circumstances had been leading him to that spot leaning against his car, Omar felt he’d been walking towards it for years, this isolation more tangible yet no more real than what he’d always been surrounded by. He wanted to cry but doubted his body had the tears to do so.
In front of him the dirt moved, and he brought up his head, forced his eyes open for the first time in hours. He saw shriveled hands rising up from the earth. Hundreds of them pulled upright beneath the powerful sun. They all smiled at him, grinned without lips, their clothes worn and dirty; skin turned to leather, eyes blackened husks within large sockets.
They moved towards him, shambling with a mockery of life, silent except for the crunch of their feet on the dirt. They reminded him of mimes, hands moving through the air, almost dancing, gliding across the ground until they surrounded him. He had trouble moving anymore, muscles rubbery, eyes wanting to close again and block out the sunlight that forced its way between their heads to blind him.
He didn’t resist as their arms reached down to pull him across the dirt. His shirt hitched up and he felt rocks gouge his back, scrape off strips of skin. He cried in pain but the people didn’t acknowledge him. The ones that didn’t hold him continued with their dances, never with each other, however, always alone, often with their arms pointed towards the sky, towards the sun.
Omar found his own eyes fixed on the yellow circle, and he swore he saw a face embedded in it, a mouth opening up to blow hot wind upon him, stir up the dirt, make him cough as he breathed it in.
He didn’t know how far they took him from the road before they all stopped and dropped him. The bum stood above him, smiled down, hat tilted to the side.
Something in him said to just accept whatever fate now awaited him, but Omar felt a flash of angry desperation. He felt the same prick of anger that had made him get in his car the day before and start driving for no other reason than to thumb his nose in the face of everyone who had turned their back on him. Now that fury granted him enough strength to jerk back, try to stand and run, but his arms fell out from under him and he struck the dirt. Still, the small movement seemed to startle the bum, and he pulled back himself as if Omar had lashed out.
The bum’s eyes rose to the sun, and Omar saw the sun’s face was far more pronounced than before, the shape itself no longer completely round.
"He isn’t ready," the bum said to the sun, irritation buried within the raspy voice.
A moment passed in silence. Omar listened intently as if he could hear whatever the sun said. The bum nodded. He set down a rusty bucket a few feet away from Omar and took up a seat.
The man had pulled out a stick of wood and a knife and begun whittling. "You have a bit more strength left than the others," the bum said without looking up. "If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not fight."
Judging from the frail body, Omar figured it wouldn’t take much to kill the man, but Omar didn’t have even that.
"What are you?" Omar asked, lying on his back, not quite caring enough to turn over to get the sun out of his eyes.
"Just a lonely soul," the bum said, carving off a strip of wood, turning the block of wood into what almost looked like a tiny man.
"Why’d you do this to me?" Omar felt the last bit of moisture seep from his eyes and dry before rolling down his head.
"I didn’t bring you here, I just saw you stop. You looked alone like me and all the others," he said. "Lot of them come down my road and I just invite them into my home. I thought you might enjoy the company."
"I didn’t," Omar tried to say, but his throat was closing up from the dirt and heat, words becoming too difficult to form.
The bum made a soothing sound as if shushing a baby. "No sense straining. Won’t be long," he said. "You can join my friends. I treat them well. You won’t have to worry about that. I treat all of them very well. Doubt you’ve known any others who treat their friends half as well as I do. Look like a man who deserves that courtesy."
All Omar could do was cough in response. Now his arms couldn’t even lift up, head unable to rise enough to see as the bum stopped his carving, but Omar could feel the eyes on him.
He heard the bum stand and move towards him. The boney man knelt down, lifted Omar’s head up, and placed it gently on his lap. Touching the body itself seemed to create a rise of dust. The long, thin fingers ran gently through Omar’s hair, like a parent comforting a child. The bum whispered something to Omar, too low to understand, but the words had a melody to them, a rhyme.
His eyes closed, but he couldn’t block out the bright sun piercing through his eyelids, or the thin, crooning lullaby the bum sang.
THE ART OF LUCID DREAMING
C.M. Saunders
Sometimes, I just want a good mood piece; a story that makes me want to curl into myself long after the tale ends. "The Art of Lucid Dreaming" does that and Mr. Saunders, who's written for the English publication Nuts as well as seen his novellas Dead of Night and Apartment 4F: An Oriental Ghost Story published by Damnation Books, knows how to keep the shivers coming.
The dreams started over a year ago. At first, I dismissed them as some curious bi-product of my over-fertile imagination, but as time passed I became convinced that there was some higher purpose to it all.
The dreams were always virtually identical in both length and content, the only discernible difference being in their intensity. Each one was stronger, more vivid, and more visionary than its predecessor.
They were quite tame as nightmares go. By that
I mean there were no terrible monsters, no madmen brandishing axes, no blood or gore. In fact there was absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. Except a stark, empty world devoid of all activity and life of any kind. No people, no animals, no cars. In my haunted nocturnal escapades I was in limbo, wandering aimlessly through deserted streets from empty house to empty house frantically searching for something. Always searching, but finding nothing, and not even knowing what I was looking for.
Worse than the dreadful apocalyptic dreams was the feeling with which I was left once I had finally torn myself away from the black abyss of sleep. I seldom felt refreshed as one should following eight hours or more of uninterrupted sleep. Instead I was filled with a sickening feeling of loss, remorse and dread. Such an unbearably heavy sensation of loneliness and desolation that I awoke on more than one occasion to find white-hot tears streaming down my face. I felt worthless, as if my existence meant nothing. These awful feelings soon passed however, leaving me drained and, ironically, badly in need of more sleep. And then the cycle would begin again.
In time, my work suffered, and it wasn't long before I found myself with no appetite whatsoever for food, exercise, or anything else. I seemed to be disappearing inside myself, being sucked into my subconscious piece by piece. Eventually, I reached the conclusion that I must confront these dreams of mine and conquer them. For the sake of my sanity, if nothing else.
And so I began to study books and papers on sleep and dreams, everything from ancient lore to sleep patterns. I was surprised to learn that, for all our biological and technological advancement and wonderful achievements, we still had no idea what dreams actually were or what purpose they served. Working under the assumption that everything in nature has a purpose or else it wouldn't exist, I set about further investigating the obscure logic behind my nightly forays into that lifeless realm.
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