by Tom Turner
“What happened?” he asked.
Even his voice seemed stronger.
“The sand,” said Remi. “It healed you.”
Rustam was overjoyed. He thrust his sword skyward, screaming, “You have failed, Moloch! You have failed!”
Then, as if relishing the challenge, a high-pitched shriek rained down from above. Rustam, Remi, and Charlie looked up through the hole in the dome. The dark sky rumbled with thunder, and a mushrooming cloud of bats circled above the castle. They dove from the sky and poured into the hall, converging above Charlie. Their tangled wings connected to sculpt an image of Moloch’s face.
“Why won’t you die!” the face said. “Just DIE!”
The bats scattered in every direction, creating mayhem as Moloch dropped like a bomb through the rooftop.
“Remi, look out!” shouted Charlie.
His warning came too late. Moloch landed behind her, stabbing her with his daggered fist. His venom entered her, and she screamed in agony. Her body shriveled, and she sank into a pit of black sand, entombed.
“NO!”
Charlie’s eyes glowed with the intensity of a summer sun. He turned toward Moloch, knuckles clenched into balls of white.
“If you want to end this,” he said. “I’m right here!”
“Look around you,” smirked Moloch. “Nothing has changed. You freed the Archetypes, but millions of nightmares still serve me. You cannot save them all.”
Charlie stared Moloch down. “I just want two.”
A dream portal appeared beside Moloch, hanging dead and gray just above the cold floor. Moloch let out a menacing laugh.
“So be it,” he bellowed. “Come get them.”
He stepped into the portal, daring Charlie to follow. Furies crept back into the hall. Charlie glanced toward them and then to Rustam.
“Go,” Rustam instructed him as he drew his sword. “And never forget who you are.”
“I’m my father’s son,” replied Charlie.
And with that, Charlie climbed into the nightmare.
The screech of metal screamed out as Charlie jumped from a reflective window and landed in the middle of an empty New York subway car. Lights flickered and sheets of newspaper blew around him. Moloch’s face glared back from every page. The subway picked up speed and banked hard right, throwing Charlie off balance. Outside, sparks exploded from the third rail.
A shadow stirred to his left. Charlie followed it, treading carefully. He could see into the next car. Commuters were packed in like sardines. It reminded Charlie of his subway ride with Plug during that strange day when this all began, a day that now seemed a lifetime ago.
But upon entering the adjoining car, Charlie realized these commuters were different. They were frightening and deformed. Like zombies, he thought, as the roar of the train grew louder. The commuters surrounded Charlie. Bony hands pecked at him, clutching the frayed edges of his sweatshirt.
“Quit it! Get off me!” he shouted.
But the more he resisted, the more they pressed forward. Charlie had hands attacking him from every direction, until he didn’t know which way was up.
“Stop it!” he yelled. “I want to get out! Let me off the train!”
The dream seemed to react to his words, changing instantly. It happened so fast Charlie was still swatting away the attacking hands before he realized they were gone.
He was now in an empty, dark subway tunnel. The air was thick and stale. Puddles of dirty water were scattered around him. Each rippled, revealing gateways to other nightmares. Faces stared at Charlie from the murky puddles, as if pleading to be released from evil’s grip. A subway car raced by on the next track. The wind scattered Charlie’s already bed-ruffled hair. He inched forward, leaving behind a trail of gold footprints with each careful step. Their soft glow provided the only light in the otherwise crushing darkness.
“Mom? Plug?” Charlie called out. “Where are you? If you can hear me, say something!”
Charlie felt his way along the tunnel, dreading every move.
“Relax, Charlie,” he muttered to himself. “You just need to find some light. Any light!”
As the words spilled from Charlie’s mouth, a low hum buzzed through the tunnel, and the utility lights that lined the track walls fired to life.
Whoa, he thought. Did I do that?
Charlie decided to try again. He cleared his head and focused on one lamp. When he did, its filament grew more intense, glowing brighter until it popped. Charlie was mesmerized. If he could tame his fear… channel it… focus all his energy… he could actually affect the dream…
And control it!
Charlie concentrated harder, eyeballing each bulb. One by one, the tunnel lights brightened. He followed them like a row of dominos, trekking carefully around a bend of track. He expected Moloch to leap out at any moment, like some demented fiend in a haunted house.
Was he walking into a trap? he wondered. Should he come up with a plan of his own?
Charlie’s head was still spinning when he spotted a figure squirming on the tracks up ahead. The rounded shape looked familiar. It looked like Plug! He was tied to the rails, much like Lois Lane in the Superman episode Charlie watched the morning he’d first noticed the gold eyes.
“Plug?” he called in a loud whisper.
“Charlie! Is that you?”
It was Plug! Charlie sprinted toward his friend, but as he did, Moloch’s dreadful laugh echoed through the tunnel. The laugh distorted to a rumble, then the rumble to a roar — the roar of an approaching subway train. It raced around the bend, casting harsh beams of light over Plug.
“Oh, SHOOT! TRAIN!” screamed Plug, struggling to free himself. “Why am I always the one about to die? Charlie, get me out of here!”
But Charlie was still two track lengths away. He wouldn’t make it in time.
“Stop! Stop!” he shouted at the train.
“What do you mean, stop?” screamed Plug. “It’s a train, not a dog!”
The train roared forward. Plug was about to be flattened. He squeezed his eyes shut. “Help!” he cried out.
Charlie leapt. It felt like gravity released him, allowing him to travel twice the distance in half the time. It was almost like flying. He landed on the other side of Plug, directly in the path of the runaway subway.
What am I doing!
He could alter the dream, but how much? Tunnel lights were one thing, but a three hundred and seventy ton subway car was something else.
No choice!
He reached down, focused his energy, and grabbed the steel track rails. They tore easily from their ties, bending like soft taffy. Power surged through Charlie. He channeled that power into his arms, throwing them forward just as the train struck. The impact should have splattered him like a bug on a windshield, but somehow, in this strange world, it was Charlie who held his ground. The subway flattened accordion style, crushed like a soda can beneath a foot. The collision sent a ripple wave across the dream.
When the smoke cleared, Plug squeaked one eye open. He peered up at Charlie and then back at the pile of twisted metal.
“Been workin’ out?” he asked in a shaky voice.
Charlie smiled and helped Plug to his feet. Plug seemed a little disoriented but no worse for the wear.
“Somehow, I knew you’d find me,” he said.
“It’s good to see you,” replied Charlie.
They pulled each other into a hug. Then Plug jerked backward, noticing. He puffed his cheeks and raised a crooked brow.
“Uh, Charlie,” he said, his voice rising to a chirp. “Your eyes are um… they’re gold.”
Charlie’s face lit with delight. “I met my dad,” he said proudly.
“I’m guessing he’s not from our neighborhood?”
Charlie figured that to be the understatement of the
year.
“My dad’s the Sandman.”
“The actual Sandman?” asked Plug.
Charlie nodded. “The actual Sandman,” he repeated, as if to remind himself.
“That’s the, uh– the– the—”
“Craziest thing you’ve ever heard?”
“NO!” said Plug. He steamed with excitement. “The freakin’ coolest! When do I get to meet him?”
The question gutted Charlie. His throat tightened and his eyes pooled with tears, knowing his best friend would never get that chance.
“Are you okay?” Plug asked.
“He was hurt really bad,” explained Charlie, wiping his eyes. “I tried to help him, but I couldn’t. He didn’t make it.”
Plug threw his arm over Charlie’s shoulder, consoling him.
“I’m so sorry. I really am,” he said. “But it’s so awesome you got to meet him. You got to see your dad!”
Plug was right. Charlie had dreamed every day of meeting his father. And he would be forever thankful for the moment they shared. He knew his dad would always be near, curled around his heart, guiding him.
“He would have liked you,” said Charlie.
“And I’m sure I would have liked him, too,” said Plug. “Assuming he wasn’t a Red Sox fan.”
Charlie smiled. Even in the worst of times, Plug could find a way to make him laugh. But Charlie’s gaze soon hardened. He pocketed the laughter and turned to the task ahead of him.
“Moloch is the one who took him from me,” he said, tensing his jaw. “He killed my dad and captured my mom.”
“Sounds like a fight in my book,” said Plug.
“Which is why I need to face him.”
“Then we’ll do it together.”
“You sure?” asked Charlie.
“Not even a little,” said Plug. “But I got your back. Through thick and thin, right?” He tapped his belly and smiled. “I’m thick.”
“And I’m thin.”
They clasped hands, and Charlie returned the smile.
“I should warn you: I don’t really have a plan.”
“No big deal,” replied Plug. “Just follow your heart. That’s what Nana would say.” Then he wrinkled his brow. “Of course, she wasn’t fighting an eight-foot Bogeyman when she said it. But hey, a bully’s a bully, right?”
“Let’s show him we’re not afraid.”
Charlie looked up through an airshaft in the tunnel and spotted a figure standing over the grate at the top.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
“Has that ever stopped me before?” said Plug.
Charlie grinned. “Then hold on.”
“To what— WHOA!“
Charlie grabbed Plug and leapt upward. They shot like a rocket through the grimy airshaft and crashed through the grate’s steel grid, busting out of the tunnel and into a darkened room. Charlie heard a buzz of invisible activity creep from the blackness. They weren’t alone. Something was waiting.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CONFRONTING THE BEAST
The room was dark and cavernous, like an empty warehouse. Charlie could barely make out the shape of his own hand in front of him. It was as if he had traveled to the depths of his mother’s nightmare, an empty place where nothing existed but darkness and fear.
“Sweet mama, what was that?” shouted Plug. “Something just touched me!”
Charlie felt it too. Something had passed between them, something large, hairy… and leggy. He could hear the tap of claws and the clack of fangs. It made the hairs on the back of his neck snap to attention.
“I don’t think we’re alone,” he said.
“Me either,” replied Plug.
The clacking intensified. It was building around them, circling in from all sides. Charlie and Plug huddled back to back.
“Don’t move,” Charlie whispered. “Don’t make a sound.”
He figured if they could not see it, then whatever it was could not see them. But before the thought had passed, a ring of glowing red eyes started popping up around them. The eyes generated cones of light that swept the room like a chain of floodlights. The place ignited in a fire-red haze, revealing the crawlers prowling all around them.
SPIDERS!
“Are those what I think they are?” gulped Plug.
“Yeah,” replied Charlie. “Big ones!”
Charlie could only make out the spiders’ silhouettes, but it was enough to know they were at least twice his size, with fangs large enough to rip him and Plug in two.
“Follow me,” said Charlie. “Quietly.” He dropped to his hands and knees. “Through their legs.”
“Are you nuts?”
“We can make it. They’re slow, and they won’t see us. But they will if we just stand here.”
Plug finally agreed and joined Charlie on the ground. They inched forward. Charlie was afraid to look up. As gross as spiders were normal sized, they were even worse magnified. Their bodies looked like a collection of guts and glands held together by thousands of tiny hairs that fanned out in every direction. One strand nearly pricked Plug’s nose.
“Don’t spiders use hair to sense things?” he asked. “To sense their prey?”
“I think so,” whispered Charlie. “Don’t touch them.”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” Plug replied, ducking beneath a thick tuft. “But we might as well be in a mine field.”
Hair was everywhere.
They continued onward. Another spider scurried forward and stopped directly above them. Its front-leg sensory hairs twitched inches from their faces. Charlie and Plug froze. The slightest breath could vibrate the hairs and alert the spider to their presence. Sweat beaded Charlie’s brow. Strangely, though, it was rolling up his forehead and into his hair. It was rolling the wrong way! Charlie’s stomach suddenly flipped. They weren’t crawling along the floor at all.
“We’re upside down!” he screamed.
In that instant, gravity kicked in and Charlie and Plug dropped from the ceiling. They bounced off a wooden rafter before landing in the spiral of a massive spider web that dangled just above the old warehouse’s floor. Charlie rubbed his aching head and tried to get to his feet, but the web was like glue. The more he moved, the more tangled he became. His movement woke a large spider in the web’s upper corner. It stepped toward them.
“Daddy-Long-Legger, ten o’clock!” Plug shrieked as he, too, worked desperately to free himself.
“Plug, get out of there!”
“I’m trying!”
But the spider shot a web, instantly encasing Plug in a glob of silk. It then turned to Charlie, like a lion stalking its kill. When Charlie looked into the creature’s eyes, his fear mixed with a jolt of shock. This was no ordinary spider. It was his mom! Eight prickly limbs had sprouted from her chest, her mouth had grown fangs, and her two eyes were now surrounded by six more. She was part woman, part spider. And she was gunning for him.
“Mom! It’s me! Charlie!” he screamed.
She replied with a fresh stream of web, immobilizing him from the waist down.
“What are you doing?” he cried, trying to escape.
“Like your father,” she hissed, “blinded by love… a human weakness.” But the voice Charlie heard was not his mother’s. It was Moloch’s. He spoke through her. And by the look of her blackened veins and blood-red eyes, he controlled her, too.
“You are weak and flawed,” she continued. “Do not fight me. You cannot win.”
She rolled Charlie between her claws, spooling gobs of silk, cocooning him like a helpless insect.
“Mom, please! Stop!” he coughed out. His lungs were being crushed beneath the pressure of the tightening web.
Then Charlie felt a sharp sting. His mom had driven one of her fangs into the base of his neck. Dark venom flowed in
to his veins. The pain was unbearable.
“Mom!” he stammered. “Don’t…”
Charlie pleaded with his eyes, looking deep into hers. Even through Moloch’s veil of darkness, he could still see his mother. Not the evil, not the fear, but her: the woman who had loved and cared for him his entire life, the woman who taught him to fight back. To never give up!
“Mom, look at me! Just look at me!”
“She can’t hear you, Charlie,” said Moloch, still speaking through her. “You’ll have to kill her! Go ahead, Charlie. Kill your mother to save yourself.”
Moloch’s taunts burned inside Charlie. They fueled him like a furnace, creating a power that radiated from the pit of his stomach, feeding every inch of his body with strength. Charlie’s palms glowed with the sign of the Sandman once more, and the webs that confined him began to dissolve.
“CHAR—lie. HELP… me,” said his mom.
Her voice bounced back and forth in a struggle with Moloch’s, as her eyes shifted between white and red. Moloch’s control seemed to be weakening. Charlie twisted free and grabbed her arm.
“Fight it, mom! Fight it!” he urged. “I’m here, and I’m not leaving you! I love you!”
He hugged her tight, and light erupted from every pore of her body. It ejected Moloch’s spidery form and shredded the giant web, sending them all to the floor — Moloch, Charlie, his mother, and Plug, who was still cocooned with nothing showing but mouth and eyes. Moloch was still disfigured, too: part man, part spider. His eight wiry limbs crackled as he rose and attacked again. But Charlie was ready. He drove his fist into the floor, unleashing a geyser of light. Moloch screeched and retreated, shielding his eyes.
“Afraid of a little light?” taunted Charlie.
The light was golden with tiny grains of sand floating in it. Each time Moloch tried to cross through, it burned his skin, deforming him further. Charlie could feel the nightmare weakening. He whipped off his belt and snapped it taut. The soft leather stiffened and a gleaming sword materialized in his grip. Even though he had just stopped a train with his bare hands, Charlie was still a little surprised by this newfound power. Within a dream, it seemed, he could make almost anything happen. He lifted his sword and vaulted across the light divide, backing Moloch against the wall. Moloch reared like an attacking tarantula.