by David Beers
They did get a picture of the mess though.
They ended up using pictures they took during the creation with the last one being Brandon lying down in the aftermath, gravy included. He ended up with a C on the project and an A in the class, if he remembered correctly. He might not and didn’t really care. He did remember that his brother had helped him. He remembered the joy in destroying something he had worked so hard to create, because his brother had recognized the trivialness of it at the right moment. What he cared about was that they were together, specifically then, but more importantly for life. They survived when their parents had not and lived when the world forgot about them largely because they didn’t forget about each other.
He wasn’t here now, though. James was gone, in another country, and Brandon needed him. It might sound ridiculous, but Brandon thought he might need James worse than he ever had before—because these dreams weren’t stopping.
Brandon could have made it through the school day, probably could have gone home, talked to his brother and explained the situation some, then sat up all night watching television.
The situation changed when he sat down for lunch. He didn’t bring a lunch and didn’t wait in line for one either. He sat at his usual table, in his usual spot, and waited for others to grab their bags from lockers or work their way through the line.
Brandon’s thoughts ceased when the kid sat down next to him. When he saw the boy, Brandon looked into a mirror, not one of the flesh, but one of the soul. The kid was tired, exhausted to his core. He didn’t even need to speak for people to understand that whatever weighed on him, weighed heavily. Brandon saw himself in the kid’s face.
“You remember me?” the kid asked, his voice conspiratorial low.
Brandon only shook his head, in shock at the similarities he saw—he had thought no one else on earth felt the strain he did, but here was proof otherwise. Were those the same dark hollows under this person’s eyes as Brandon had seen under his own the past few days?
“No,” Brandon finally said, his voice matching the kid’s.
“I didn’t think you would.” He looked at the lunch table. “You weren’t at school Thursday or Friday last week. I almost didn’t come today.” He might have been talking to himself, except when he looked up his eyes were moist, almost pleading. “You had people over last Tuesday. You remember that? About ten or so.”
Jesus, he’d almost forgotten. A few friends came over after school and had stayed a couple hours. Last week seemed a different life, before this downward spiraling disaster that now wrecked everything. Brandon hadn’t known the truth of it then, not terrified and nearly hobbled as now—but heading in that direction.
“I came with Jack Roth—he brought me. He was the one with the weed.” His voice dropped below a whisper with the last word.
“Yeah, I remember…I remember your face now. What’s up?”
The kid swallowed before speaking. “You said you were having trouble sleeping when we were there. You told us you were having nightmares. Do you remember that too?”
Brandon barely remembered the kid, let alone what they spoke about. Those days were a blur of fear and exhaustion—just as the next few were sure to be until he took another pill. He could have told him though. Probably did.
“What else did I say?” How crazy do you think I am?
The kid looked back to the table. “It’s hard to remember now, whether or not it’s what you said or what…” He shook his head slightly. “You said the night before you had dreamed you were lying in your bed and like…I think you said a green pool was rising from the floor to drown you. Rising and you couldn’t move from your bed. You said it was going to swallow you and—“
“Stop,” Brandon said, dropping the whisper. He didn’t want to think about that, about the impending feeling of drowning under a liquid so thick that it would clog your nose and throat. He didn’t remember telling the boy this, but he remembered the goddamn feeling. “Why are you talking about this?”
The kid looked at Brandon again. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
No, no—that couldn’t be. He had sleeping problems, that was all. Insomnia, not…not what? Dreaming Brandon’s dreams? Unable to sleep because the fear of closing your eyes outweighed the exhaustion that permeated your life?
“What do you mean?” Brandon tried to hide his voice again.
Anger rose in the boy’s face—his body tensing as he responded. “I mean I can’t fucking sleep. I mean every time I close my fucking eyes, I see the same green shit you talked about.”
Brandon wanted to look away, to hide from the kid’s accusing glance, but he didn’t. It would have been more than disrespectful, because he wasn’t lying. The kid certainly thought he was going through the same things and that thought alone moved Brandon. Regardless of the kid’s anger feeling like fire against Brandon’s skin, that thought forced him to continue looking.
“What do you see?”
The boy’s face softened as he heard Brandon’s question. The only person who had any clue to what was happening wouldn’t rebuff him.
“I don’t know if what I’m seeing matters. It could be anything and as long as that feeling was there, it wouldn’t matter.” He turned his whole body so that he faced Brandon. “I feel like I’m going to die. Even when I’m awake, something is after me. I can’t sleep and I don’t want to stay awake anymore either.”
After a few seconds of looking at each other, Brandon spoke. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Are you sleeping?”
Brandon shook his head.
“What do we do?” the kid asked.
That was the reason for this conversation—What do we do? This kid thought they were together in this. “Do you think I know?”
“I don’t know, man.” His voice shook with the weight of tears; people would be sitting down momentarily. “I thought maybe you had talked with other people at the party and seen if they were having the same shit happen too. Or maybe you were sleeping again and everything had passed. I don’t know—there’s just nowhere else for me to go.”
Someone sat down at the table but neither Brandon nor the kid looked over.
“I don’t have any answers for you, but you know where I live; come over tonight at like five.”
The kid nodded a few times, securing the thought in his mind. Then he stood and walked away.
Why had he suggested this? Brandon didn’t want to talk to this guy, didn’t even know his fucking name. He didn’t want a support group, and he didn’t want to know what this kid was going through. Didn’t want comparisons to himself and didn’t want to think about what any of this could mean.
The doorbell rang anyway. Brandon’s doubts and wants stopped mattering then, because the kid was here just as Brandon had told him to be.
He opened the door and the same ghostly person as earlier looked back at him.
“Hey,” the underclassmen said.
Brandon nodded. “Hey.”
“I don’t think I told you earlier, but my name is Matt Eldredge.”
“All right. You know mine?”
Matt nodded.
“Like I said, I don’t have anything for you but you’re welcome to come in.” Brandon stepped back and opened the door wider.
They walked inside, Matt closing the door behind them. Brandon led them to the living room where they sat.
“So you’ve seen the green pool?” Brandon asked from his brother’s chair.
“Jesus, yes.”
“Did I tell you what I was seeing when you were over here?”
Matt shook his head. “Not a whole lot. You described that one nightmare when someone asked, but mainly talked about how you weren’t sleeping.”
“I told you about the green stuff though, right?”
“Yeah, but you didn’t talk about the teeth.”
Brandon had been leaning forward in the chair; he slumped backwards with the word ‘teeth’. His mind blanked except for one
repeating word: nononono. He had told this kid about his dream, which could explain some similarities—but the teeth? Those giant fucking daggers in that face from hell? No. No. No. He hadn’t said a word about that.
“How the fuck did you see that?” he asked after nearly a minute of silence.
Matt shook his head again, looking over to the blank television on the wall. “I don’t know. I went home that night and It—there’s got to be something behind this—woke me up. I haven’t been able to sleep for more than an hour at a time since then. I don’t even want to sleep now. I don’t want to go back to that place, but I’ll have to eventually.”
Brandon nodded. “I told my brother I couldn’t sleep. He’s still out of town, but he set me up with a doctor who gave me some pills. It’s not any better; still dreaming, you just can’t wake up.”
“What are you going to do?” Matt asked, looking at the television as if the answers would appear on screen.
“It’ll go away. Sooner or later this shit will fix itself.”
“You don’t believe that.” The younger kid looked at Brandon. “I’m seeing the same things you are and I shouldn’t be able to. This isn’t going away, it’s spreading.”
“Have you talked to anyone else that was here?”
“The guy that brought me, Jack, isn’t seeing anything. He didn’t hear you when you told us about it though; he was in the kitchen or something.”
“Who else heard?” If this was spreading, then other people would be dreaming too if they had heard Brandon talk about it. If it was only Matt and him, things would be much simpler—Matt only had an amazing imagination. But if others dreamt, even one more—what did that mean?
“I think Emily Hill was in the living room when you were talking. Miles Bryant too. They’re all upperclassmen so I haven’t been able to talk to them.”
“What if they’re dreaming?” Brandon asked the question his own mind couldn’t answer.
“Then we're in trouble.”
18
Days Past
Alex & Brittany
Brittany drove with an all-consuming intensity; without it her life was forfeit. The sky still bled in front of her, dripping down until it touched the horizon. She kept her eyes on the road though, on finding her husband. She dared not lose herself in the sky before her or glance back into her rear view mirror. Behind her, what had been once blue, then red, was now a rolling blackness that had begun as a small cloud on the horizon of her vision. It had grown, engrossing the world and heavens, chasing after her and gaining with each revolution of her car's tires. What had barely been a storm cloud in her rear view now encompassed miles and miles behind her, spreading outwards and towards her at the same time. She had no idea if others could see it, but the message was clear. Her blood awaited in front and only darkness would be found in turning around.
She was an hour outside of Mexico City.
Alex pulled his car over to the side of the road. He had reached the northern edge of the city, less than ten miles from his destination. The blood hanging in the sky didn't bother him; he had grown used to it and thought it merely a scare tactic. He saw something coming from the north, and it was new. He first saw it a few hours ago, but it had grown to something that worried him—because it wasn't meant for him. It had started too late.
He thought it was only a storm cloud but now resembled something like a black hole. It was growing, enveloping everything around it. Alex squinted as he stepped from his car, trying to make out anything inside of it. The storm was too far away to peer into but what he could see was awesome, if frightening—because the world stopped existing when that blackness touched it. Neither the land nor sky stopped the storm as it draped everything it passed in complete darkness.
Alex got back in his car and drove. He picked up the speed because this didn't feel like his night in the desert. Whatever was coming behind him was real—on its way for the battle Alex had planned. Getting caught inside would end him.
He could still see the blackness behind him; it was no longer on the horizon, but a growth on the fucking planet. Alex got out of his car, at his destination now. He glanced to his left, looking at the grimness blowing his way. No sense dwelling there—he turned, looking at the hotel that had stood for decades both in reality and his mind.
The windows his mother had seen before still sparkled in the sunlight. People bustled in and out of the hotel, but Alex ignored them. The building embodied beauty. He had no idea if it had seen a renovation since his visit as an infant, but time had not touched the monolith. The hotel stood tall, with elevators running up the middle of both the front and back—encased in glass and showing a view of the city to its passengers. The builders, the architects, and everyone else in the project must have been inspired to create something this magnificent. Whoever cared for it now carried on that inspiration, as even the bricks that shaped the building looked untouched by this world.
Alex walked across the parking lot, weaving around the cars as he looked upward. He felt nothing menacing; the black storm behind was far more intimidating than what lay ahead. In fact, Alex felt enraptured by the hotel—the elegance and strength the entire building projected.
He came to the entrance, people moving around him as he looked inward. He had seen this his entire life. This building, this lobby. He had died countless times running from something that shouldn't exist in a place he shouldn't have known about. The glass doors he stood in front of stretched ten feet high, as he knew they would. He peered through them, looking at the descending stairs inside that led to a small nook in the middle of the lobby. The same chairs, the same rugs, the same goddamn paintings adorned the room. People sat in the small area at the bottom of the stairs, reading newspapers, sipping coffee—they had never been there in his dreams. Instead an endless green depth that bubbled up from a hell spring had been there.
Alex watched people walk by him, in and out of the hotel, but he couldn't move. The door opened and shut, but he could only stare and wonder how he ever thought this Thing had not existed. One trip here, one glance at this building, would have convinced him.
He stepped forward, meeting the door, unsure whether he could see this through. Almost the same footsteps, thirty years earlier, had altered his entire life. His parents had been younger than he was now. They had started it and he was here...to what...to finish it? His mother and father brought forth this God and Alex was here to end Him. The path that had been made for them would surely be blocked now.
He crossed the threshold of the building.
And more, what was he supposed to do now that he was here? State his purpose in the lobby? Wait in the room until the dreams, or worse, came for him? He had no idea what to do, and did he think he had ever held some sort of plan? Did he think any of this would actually fucking work?
He stepped completely inside the doors, stopping as before.
This was futile—him challenging a God over something as insignificant as his life. A short eighty years and not so much as a spec of light in the universe. What difference was there between that universe and this God—weren't both infinite? So why was he here?
Alex didn't see the lobby anymore, was lost in his own mind.
You should leave. Get in your car, drive back to Atlanta and wait this thing out. It isn't for you to stop. It never has been.
Alex turned his head slightly to the left, towards the employees standing behind a check-in counter. He didn't will his head to move, but still found himself staring at a pen lying there.
Don't even go home. Just walk over there, to the counter, take that pen and put it in your neck. It wouldn't take much pushing, just puncture the skin and everything else takes care of itself. You know you shouldn't be here. You never should have shown up. You're nothing and your life is meaningless outside your own head. Stop trying—let all the anger at your petty life flow out on that counter. Cleanse your body with that pen.
His feet moved, little—if any—was his own will. He went to the
counter where the pen lay.
Good. You see, it's easy. No need for everything you've put yourself through. Just take it, stick it in fast, and all this will disappear.
Alisha Martin didn't mind being one of five white people working at the hotel. She certainly hadn't moved from Wyoming to Mexico in order to surround herself by people that looked like her. There were two basic reasons she was hired for this job: most people that visited the hotel spoke English, and she was beautiful. Her smile never faded and so they put her at the front to greet guests. Her Spanish was improving, and while this wasn't a gig she wanted forever—it beat the hell out of high school in The Land of The Free.
She had watched the man since he entered the hotel, and now he walked towards her. His eyes were fixed on the counter, not once looking up at Alisha. She smiled, expecting their eyes to meet at some point. The smile felt as natural as a sunrise, but alarms were chiming inside her. She hated the way he was moving—his shuffling, almost robotic walk. He still had not looked at her.
He kept walking and she kept smiling—only wanting this man to look up and his eyes look as friendly as hers.
Except instead of his eyes reaching forward for the polite greeting she expected, his hand moved forward. Alisha dropped her gaze from his face to his hand which was reaching out slowly—making her scared that he might actually find what those fingers were looking for.
Just a pen. That's all.
She kept smiling, but the corners of her lips dropped some.
They stood in front of each other, Alisha watching him and he staring at the pen his fist clenched. Only three feet apart, but Alisha thought all the space in the universe might exist between them. His knuckles strained against skin as he squeezed the pen. Sweat broke out across his face, and had his eyes been glazed before? Fury beamed from them now, so fierce that Alisha took a step back. Her smile retreated completely and she wanted to turn, to look for help from someone else behind the counter. She couldn't handle whatever those knuckles were deciding as they held that pen. Death twirled in the air around this man—thick enough to taste if she opened her mouth.