Lucid Dreaming

by Lisa Morton

  She gestured vaguely in Teddy’s direction, but apparently found him simply too vulgar a creature to actually look at.

  I almost decked her. But instead I swallowed back, and said, “All right.”

  I turned to Teddy a last time, and mouthed one word to him:

  Tonight.

  As before I waited until it was the middle of the night, and everyone else was asleep. The weather was cooling off, and if anyone did see me leaving they wouldn’t question me being dressed.

  Getting the Prolixin was no problem. As before the window wasn’t locked, and slid up easily. I crawled in, shoved two bottles of Prolixin into my coat pockets, and then left again, being careful to close the window silently behind me.

  The next part of the plan involved me getting Teddy.

  For a change, I was thankful they kept him in a separate building. I ran over to it, hoping to see him ready and waiting, but there was no sign of him. I walked around and peeked into the dark windows—and nearly screamed when a face popped up in one, peering out at me. Fortunately it was Teddy, and he was pointing at the door and mouthing the word “locked.”

  Jesus, they locked him in at night.

  Fortunately it was just a simple slide-bar thing, so I slid it back and opened the door. Teddy stepped out, looking nervous but energized.

  “What now?” he whispered.

  “You go wait for me behind the barn, where the cars are parked. Take these.” I handed him the bottles of Prolixin. “I’ll be right there.”

  “Be careful,” he said, and gave me a quick kiss that made me want more. As soon as we were away from here.

  We separated, and I headed for the kitchen door to the main house. I reached it and was about to step through when I looked in—

  —and saw MaryKay. She was seated at the kitchen table, a cup of tea in front of her, as if she was just waiting.

  Oh, and she had a gun.

  She must have heard me get up, and figured this was her big chance to be a heroine. Maybe she could even become Mama’s best friend, and they could whip adolescent boys together and reminisce about the good old days when the Home Shopping Network was still on.

  I was standing there trying to decide what to do when I heard a voice behind me:

  “Spike.”

  I turned, certain I’d been found out, and saw Colby standing there behind me. She suddenly reached out a hand towards me and light glinted off something she was holding:

  Keys.

  “These go to the black Lexus SUV behind the barn. It’s totally gassed up,” she said, tossing the keys to me.

  “Colby…” I didn’t know what else to say.

  “I didn’t get my Prolixin today, Spike. Mama’s finally cut me off. I don’t want to become like them.”

  She nodded towards the house in general, but I knew which “them” she was referring to.

  “You’re probably next. Take your man, and get out of here while you can.”

  “You’re coming with us,” I said to her.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Colby, you can’t stay here—”

  She smiled sadly. “Yes, I can. I think I have to. I’ve got a little secret stash of my own Prolixin, so I can get by for a while. See, Spike, I don’t think there’s any place else to go. If you do find somethin’, come back for me; otherwise, I’ll see if I can’t talk some sense into these idiots.”

  I really loved her just then. “You can’t, Colby. You know that.”

  She shrugged. “Gotta try. Now you better get goin’. I’m sorry I can’t get you some food and water, too, but with ol’ Hatchet-Face there in the kitchen, and Hank drunk in bed…”

  I nodded—then threw my arms around her. We hugged for a bunch of seconds, then she released me and pushed me away. “Go!”

  And I did.

  Two hours later we were on the Interstate 40 again, past their roadblocks, heading east, into the rising sun. We’d heard one gun blast behind us as we’d sped away from the house, but nobody’d tried to follow us, and now we were a hundred miles away. We were tired and hungry and thirsty, but none of that mattered, because we were free and together.

  I hoped Colby would be okay. Hopefully they’d blame it on Hank, or even MaryKay. I didn’t want to think of Colby being flayed naked while the yahoos stood around whooping.

  And if I found anything better, I absolutely would come back for her.

  Fucking Texas.

  I felt better when we crossed the state line into Oklahoma. Towards sundown I got off the interstate and we stopped in a little burg called El Reno. We found a hardware store and a grocery store that were still mostly untouched, and restocked our supplies. We siphoned off enough gas to top off our tank again.

  Then we found a nice empty house on a pretty green hill, parked the SUV in a garage, just to be safe, and had amazing sex.

  Teddy’s Prolixin was starting to wear off, and I wanted him at least one more time while he was still conscious. There had been, of course, “none of that” back in MamaLand, and I was more than ready to go again.

  Towards dawn, Teddy and I snuggled close, and he said he loved me. Then the dreams came, and he drifted off.

  I slept through the day. Once, late in the afternoon, I had a nightmare and jumped up, just certain that Hank and his buddies had found us and would be in the bedroom with shotguns any second. I lay there in a bed for a few seconds, trying to hear anything over my pounding heart, but there was nothing.

  We left the next day, and were passing through Oklahoma City a few hours later. We scored nicely there, since I found no less than four pharmacies with nice stocks of Prolixin. Guess there’d been a lot of paranoid schizophrenics in these parts before.

  The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. We saw a hurricane once, way off to the south of us, but it never came near. We didn’t see any other gatherings of conscious folk; it was really starting to look like Mama had the only one left.

  We got on the I-44 and headed east into Missouri, then around St. Louis changed to the I-70. That took us through Indiana and Ohio and Pennsylvania and Maryland, all places I’d never seen before and now knew why.

  I missed Los Angeles. The buildings in these places looked old and weathered, the trees didn’t have the wild leafy spread of palms, and the early fall temperatures were way too cold for my taste.

  But we were almost to our destination.

  The I-270 and I-495 finally brought us to our goal:

  Washington D.C.

  That was last week. So now you know the whole story.

  As I expected there was no security anymore. The checkpoints where unattended, the off-limits areas wide open.

  Teddy and I live here in the White House now. And we’ve adopted a child, a little girl who I think used to belong to one of the servants here. Her name is Anna, she’s about seven or eight and cute as can be; of course when I found her she was filthy and starving, but she cleaned up nice and is filling out again now. She has an adorable recurrent dream about a friend named Togo who takes her for rides in the sky in his magic ponycar.

  It’s been a while now since Teddy’s had a nightmare. There’s plenty of food here, and full winter hasn’t come yet so it’s still warm.

  You were here when we arrived. You were half-starved and filthy. I thought it might be fun to have you around, so I cleaned you up and fed you. You’re kind of like my pet now. And I do have to keep you tied up, because otherwise you might get into trouble.

  I’ve been going through files for weeks, looking for an answer, but it’s hard when the computers won’t run any more. At least the paper files are good for burning.

  There is one big clue, just a few blocks away from here: There are still guards up at the Pentagon. Wakeful, fully conscious guards. Those assholes aren’t letting anyone in. I’ll bet they know how all this started.

  Maybe they even did it. And they didn’t care enough about you to make sure you were in on the joke.

  So here’s what I’m thinking: I hi
t a few more stores, maybe find a manufacturing plant or something, and stock up on Prolixin. I round up whoever’s still alive, start feeding the drug and getting ’em back into working order. They, of course, are thankful to me, and will also be ready to take up arms against whoever fucked ’em over.

  So I’d have my own private army. Let’s see those Pentagon guards handle that.

  And then…? Well, I’m not sure, frankly. Might be interesting to take my little army down south, let ’em roust Mama and Hank. Maybe I’ll wake Teddy long enough to enjoy that.

  But as for the ultimate goal…well, truthfully, I’m in no hurry to try to put things back to the way they were. I mean, I’ve got the last laugh now. Seems my “delusions of grandeur” aren’t delusions any more.

  Oh, so you’re awake now. What’s that? You remember some of my story, but you’re not sure if you just dreamed it or if it really happened…?

  Guess what…

  I’m not going to tell you.

  About the Author

  LISA MORTON is a screenwriter, the author of four non-fiction books, and a prolific scribe of short fiction, with recent appearances in Cemetery Dance magazine and the anthologies Unspeakable Horror and The Bleeding Edge. In 2006 she won the Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction, and she also received the 2008 Stoker Award for Non-fiction (for A Hallowe’en Anthology: Literary and Historical Writings Over the Centuries). Her first novel, The Castle of Los Angeles, has also been published in 2009 by Gray Friar Press. She lives in North Hollywood and can be found online at www.lisamorton.com.