by Glen Krisch
Eventually, Mr. Freakshow found the house. The city was larger than it appeared and he strolled up the front walk with the sun already warming away the morning dew. He had been cautious with his route; he made sure he wasn't near any of the chaos inflicted by the other dreams. He would have enjoyed watching the humans struggle with the dreams, but the boy was priority number one.
The house was an old ranch. He knew the layout intimately from the boy's memory. He went to the front door and glanced around, before twisting the doorknob apart in his hand. It was made of brass, but it crumpled under his grip like tin foil.
Knock, knock, anyone home? he thought, chuckling to himself.
The boy's room was at the end of a hall, and he immediately headed in that direction. He could smell one human in the house, but it wasn't his prey. He stopped and listened to the sounds of the house.
"Carin, that you?" a voice called from the kitchen.
The Freak could hear clinking noises, and then the smell of coffee hit him.
"I made extra coffee for when the officers get here, do you want any?" The voice was closer, in the hall.
The Freak turned toward the brittle old woman. "No thank you. I don't like coffee. It gives me heartburn." He closed the gap with the woman. She was acting strangely--as if she were straining her ears for every nuance of his voice.
The old lady almost fell over as she backed away. "It's you… How did you get here?"
"My, my. You know me, but we haven't been formally introduced. Let me guess, you must be the boy's grandma? He sure is kind to you in his dreams. You don't look nearly so broken down and old when he dreams of you. That boy of yours, so kind to his dear, dear grandmother."
"I want you out of this house, now!" she raised her voice, but there was little conviction behind her words.
"Oh, I will. But I just need to know where to find the boy." Mr. Freakshow towered over her as he cut the distance between them with every stride. She stood with her arthritic hands clenched at her sides. He could see her vacant eyes.
"You will not touch a hair on his head."
"If you insist. I've always tried to respect the old and near dead, so I won't touch a hair on his head. Now, the rest of him… the rest of him will probably have to bleed some. How else am I going to kill him?"
"God damn you," Agnes said under her breath.
The Freak stooped low and turned toward her ear, and growled, "No, Grandma, God damn you!"
She flailed forward as she tried to cover her ears. "Just leave him alone… he's such a nice boy. And he's been through so much." Agnes fell to her knees and started rocking forward and back.
"He's been through so much because I have demanded it of him." He paused to let his words seep into her head. "I will leave him alone when he is good and dead." He pushed her over with his heel. She fell as easily as a bag of autumn leaves.
"No…" the old lady moaned. "Kevin… You'll never find him. He's too clever, and you… you're nothing more than a bully."
"Hmm, interesting. I never knew that. A bully? Okay. I'll accept that, as long as I get what I want. And you know what I want, right? You have information in that sweet gray head of yours. I just have a few questions for you, and then you can go back to your coffee. Agreed?"
"Go to hell…" Agnes said.
It took a few minutes to get any real information out of the old lady, but true to human nature, she eventually reached the point where she was babbling on senselessly about her grandson. Mr. Freakshow learned that she had given the boy a baseball glove for Christmas last year. The most interesting tidbit came when she blurted out the information of the boy's father cheating on her daughter. Of course, Mr. Freakshow already knew this information, but she explained the details with such passion and unveiled anger toward her dead son-in-law. She obviously needed to get the information off her chest before she died.
He pressed her for more dirt on the boy, and he pushed long after she had anything more to give. The Freak enjoyed watching how a human would break under enough pain. At least she had given him a lead or two to follow up before her heart gave out. With the information so tantalizing and dancing through Mr. Freakshow's mind, he headed for the back door. The piercing sirens of two squad cars cut through his contentment as the cars whipped into the old lady's driveway.
He headed toward a baseball field down the street, having left a little present inside the house for the cops. Mr. Freakshow was glad he wasn't a cop; he was too easily squeamish. He cut through a yard three houses down, returning to the sidewalk. He was practically skipping when he heard the cries of horror coming from inside the house. He patted the inner pocket of his drab human coat. The old lady's skull, cleaned of its withered skin, hung heavily near his heart. The first building block in his mighty throne. Mr. Freakshow smiled.
Not long after Carin went charging from her mother's house screaming Kevin's name, she turned her Explorer around. It all hit her at once.
She was a handful of blocks from the house when she realized she would never find Kevin like this, screaming his name from the open window, searching dark corners and through the windows of cars parked on the street. She didn't know where he was, but she was wasting her breath. She let the car idle through a sleepy intersection. The mixture of terror and parental instinct that had sent her half-crazed in search of Kevin had weakened to glowing coals simmering in her belly. The urge to find and protect and love him was still inside, gnawing at her. She decided she would go back and talk with her mother while they waited for the police to arrive.
Carin's throat was scratchy and she felt like she had eaten something rotten. The morning was quickly warming, but Carin rubbed her hands across her arms as if she were trying to keep out a chill. Not all that far away from home, a number of sirens gathered, wailing awake the rest of the neighborhood.
She sped down the residential streets leading to her mother's house. The block was blanketed by men in blue. There wouldn't be nearly so many police cars responding to call about a missing child. And from the sickened expressions on the faces of the officers lingering near the opened front door, something was horrifically wrong.
Chapter 17
A chain of police cars came barreling down the street with their lights flashing and their sirens crying their desperate cries, weaving through the shocked morning traffic. Maury hoped the policemen would sweep up to the curb where he walked, storm from their patrol cars, and throw him against the wall of the nearest building. Blame him. Arrest him. Take him away from this mess that wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been so mind-fucked, love-struck, whatever you wanted to call it.
It's all my fault. My fuck up. Without me, it would be any other Saturday morning.
Prying drunks off the sidewalks, chasing away the panhandlers, busting the speeders, the swervers, the road-ragers. But now it was a new day, totally new, a new city, a new land. The cops kept on barreling down the street, around the corner and away.
His mind was a mixture of guilt--for his stupidity at letting loose the Freak, one more stupid decision in a seemingly endless stream--and of desperation. He needed to find Juliet. He imagined finding her, lost, unsure of her surroundings, skittish at the slightest unfamiliar noise, and wondered if he would tell her right away, before any other words could slip from his lips to mess that up too, I love you. But that reaction would only fuck up the situation like everything else. When he found Juliet, if he found her, he would hold her, say little or nothing, let his emotions and the closeness of his heartbeat speak for him.
Where would an eccentric dream-woman venture if given her freedom? She would gravitate to humans similar to her. She would seek comfort in those who would understand her human-like qualities. A library. Used bookstores. A coffee house. Head shops. There were so many possibilities. And she had no family. Her dreamer lived near Milwaukee. She respected Barbara as she would a parent, but Maury didn't think she would leave her immediate surroundings to track her down. At least not right away. She would want to underst
and what was around her, the ways people acted, what they talked about, how they lived. She wouldn't move on until she achieved this. Or so he hoped. He had barely met her when she invited him into her enclosure. His guesses were only that. Guesses.
He scrutinized every woman who walked by, looking at their clothes, seeing their faces, and not finding Juliet. He felt like he had lost all control of his life.
The thought of family made him realize that he had his own family to think about. Robert and Eliza Unger. His adoptive parents.
He began searching the street for a payphone. People were pushing by him, palpable tension stiffening their movements, tightening the skin of their faces. Everyone was in a hurry, and the morning had just begun. He realized everyone was seeking out their families.
In times of trouble, our family bonds strengthen. Little conviction accompanied the thought.
Maury crossed the street, navigating through the teeming intersection to a bank of payphones. Just before he could make it to the other curb, the driver of some foreign luxury sedan gave him the finger, and for a brief moment, he thought the driver realized the city was in upheaval because of him. But the driver honked his horn, turned his abusive finger in the direction of the too-slow driver in front of him, and then sped off as traffic picked up. Maury quickened his pace to beat a haggard-looking woman to the phone. She hissed at him like an angered cat, then folded her arms and tapping her foot.
Too slow, lady. He couldn't help chuckling to himself.
He dialed the Unger's home. It kept on ringing for a half minute. The haggard woman with the tapping foot pointed at her wrist, indicating the time. Maury turned his back to her, facing the graffiti scratched into the stainless steel phone fixture. He waited.
"Yello--" his dad said groggily when he finally picked up.
"Dad? Is everything okay at home? Is Mom okay?"
"Your mom's in watching T.V. I was sleeping. What's going on?"
"I need for you to listen, Dad," Maury paused. He didn't want to admit he had done anything wrong. Growing up, it seemed like his parents, both sets, had always blamed him for everything. "When Mom tells you about the news, listen to her. I want you two to be careful." He twirled the metal phone cord while a discernible silence grew in their conversation.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Police cars are zipping down all the streets here. Something crazy is going on. I can hear ambulances, too. I think you should stay home today. Watch Mom, stay inside."
"You hear sirens, and you want me to stay home?"
"When the siren's hit your neighborhood, turn off the lights and take Mom to a secure place." Maury had never revealed his abilities to his adoptive parents, even after he was making a living because of them.
"Okay, son… we'll do what we can." His dad sounded perplexed and even slightly annoyed.
"Dad, I have to tell you something about Gabe. It's been bothering me lately," Maury said, his heart hurting, knowing he was going to come clean about everything that had been a lie. His entire life.
Maury could nearly hear his dad thinking, through his wheezing breath, the results of living and working so hard. He finally spoke in his raspy voice, "What about Gabe?"
Another squall of an approaching line of police cars broke his concentration.
Right there on the street corner, with the sky full of sirens, the pest of a woman nagging him for the use of the phone, Maury was going to tell it all. That he hadn't done a thing to stop Gabe from diving into the pool, and that he did nothing to save him once he crashed into the bottom. He was going to tell his adoptive dad that he had been using him for over twenty years. Allowing Gabe to die had eased the burdens of Maury's life, had given him all of his new parents' attention. Later on, when he was approaching college age, he let Robert work hard enough to get the second job at the corner gas station, just out of spite. The Ungers had only wanted him because he was damaged, and had only wanted Gabe because he fell from a window because his mom had been too busy lighting her crack pipe. He was going to tell him everything.
"Son? Are you there?"
The police cars pushed through the congested intersection, slowed by the confused traffic. Maury looked into the second squad car, and did a double take. His luck, his mother of all fuck ups, was about to change. Inside the second squad car, sitting in the passenger seat, staring somehow both intently and blankly out the window, was Carin Dvorak. Kevin's mom.
"Gabe… Dad, I miss Gabe. He was such a sweet kid."
"I know, son, I know."
"Be careful, Dad."
His dad let out a pent up breath. Relieved. "We will. You too."
Maury hung up the phone. "I warned you…" Maury said as he turned from the payphone. The haggard woman stepped back, thinking Maury was talking to her, but he was already moving on. He could see where the squad cars were heading. With screeching tires, they stopped curbside three blocks up. One of the men in blue escorted Carin from the car, and even from this distance, Maury could see her looking around, as if searching for someone. The policeman guided her into the police station.
Policemen scurried through the station. The people sitting alongside Carin in the double row of bright orange plastic chairs seemed unsettled to see the unnatural strain on the policemen's faces. Carin had been barely aware of the young policeman with the sad, red-rimmed eyes who had guided her from the scene of her mother's murder to his police car. Now, she was sitting alongside other frazzled citizens, and their protectors were running around, scared. She remembered a cop guiding her to the plastic chairs, and someone gently patting her ice cube fingers, mumbling something about getting her a coffee.
Half an hour had lapsed and Carin was still sitting in the same spot, unmoved, noticeably drained of what little will she had left. A police officer eventually brought her a lukewarm cup of coffee. He walked away without saying a word.
She couldn't let herself think right now--it was too much, too painful. Instead, she repeatedly read the words from a nearby public service poster until they weren't words any longer. They were as foreign to her as seeing her own intestines.
Occasional thoughts pushed through her defenses. Her fragile and imperfect marriage was gone, her son was missing, her mother brutalized. She didn't know if she could take anymore, or if she had already reached her limits. Maybe she had already snapped and just hadn't realized it yet.
The details of the public service poster were starting to cement in her mind. She was seeing the poster and it made sense. The black blobs of ink were words again. The poster showed a middle-aged couple standing on the front step of a neighbor's house. The wife was holding a casserole dish, extending their gratuitous greeting to their new neighbors. The caption at the bottom read, Meet your neighbors. It's a sure way of ending neighborhood violence. Carin wondered how a simple, yet savory casserole could impact the violence level of a neighborhood.
She looked away from the silly poster as tears filled her eyes. A man was standing at the main reception desk. Carin couldn't see the person behind the desk, but the nervous posture of the man leaning over for information seemed familiar. Stringy legs in tailored pants and a rumpled dress shirt, patchy brown hair sticking out from a worn Cubs cap.
"Dr. Bennett!" Carin shouted as she stood up. The people in the bright orange plastic chairs shied away from Carin as if she were on fire.
Dr. Bennett came over to the waiting area, sympathy weighing down the edges of his angular features. "Mrs. Dvorak. I saw the policemen bringing you in here." He took both of her hands and tried to squeeze the ice from them. "Are you okay?"
"I don't know yet." They were the truest words she had ever spoken. Her son was out there somewhere. At this point, she couldn't take another shock to her system. It was almost better for Kevin to be out there somewhere and for her to never find out what happened to him. If she never knew what happened, at least there was a possibility that no harm had come to him, that he could possibly even be happy.
"Where's
Kevin?"
"I… don't know." Speaking sharpened her emotions and she started to sob into her open hands, her reawakened pain racking her every nerve.
"Did Mr. Freakshow take him?"
"No. I woke up and his bed was cold. He must have slipped out in the middle of the night--and what do you mean, Mr. Freakshow? He's supposed to be locked up at the museum."
"If you haven't guessed it yet, the dreams are out. They escaped sometime last night."
"Then… then that means one of them could have taken him," she said, oddly hopeful.
"I don't think so. If he disappeared, I'm thinking Kevin's trying to run away."
"Run away?"
"From Mr. Freakshow."
"What does Mr. Freakshow want with my son?"
"It would be in his best interest to kill him."
Carin wiped her face dry and did her best to suppress any further tears. "That's not going to happen. I can't let that happen."
"I want to help find Kevin. I know Mr. Freakshow, you know your son. The two of us can work together to save him."
"That's all well and good, Dr. Bennett, but why would you want to help me find my son?" She took a tissue from her pocket and dabbed her eyes dry of tears.
"If we don't stop Mr. Freakshow from killing your son, then nothing could stop him from destroying everything."
As Maury and Carin stood talking at the front desk, they were unaware of three cops escorting a recaptured dream into the rear of the building. The thing was the size of a child, but was obviously a dream creature. It sported a lion's mane crowning its head and had skin made of soft, brown suede. An anonymous caller had alerted the station to the little dream-thing digging through a dumpster in a nearby alley. The caller had mentioned, that at first, she thought the noise was a stray cat. Maybe even a dog. But then the fringe of its mane poked out from the dumpster. Once the woman could stop screaming, she called 911.