Dreams and Reality Set 3: Cannibal Dreams and Butchered Dreams

by Hadena James

  Using the cars for cover, I ran in a crouch. This is not as easy as it seems in the movies. The urge to stand is almost instant and overwhelming. I ran six houses down the block. I found a brown house with green shutters and ducked beside it. As I slipped into the backyard, I realized almost every yard had a fence. I could climb a chain link fence easy, but scaling the front of a privacy fence over six feet tall was going to be problematic. However, there was only one of those, as far as I could see at the moment.

  All the yards had kids play equipment in them. As I moved from the first yard to the second, I noticed a dog house in the third.

  “Dog, maybe,” I whispered.

  “Do you have anything other than the knives?” Gabriel asked.

  “I forgot to pack the Milkbones in my Kevlar vest.”

  “Let me know.” The line went dead.

  I scaled the next set of fences and landed in the yard with the doghouse. I refused to breathe, waiting to see if I was going to be attacked. A beagle, not yet full grown, came out of the house and gave a howl. Curtains on the back window moved. I waved, the curtains closed. Probably not a bad idea to stay inside. As I went to next fence I stopped. The beagle was following me. I sighed and picked him up. He licked me. Peoples lives were at stake, but I had to put the beagle in the house. It would suck if he got barbecued.

  I knocked on the back door very quietly. A man opened it, his face was ashen and his eyes too wide. I handed him the dog.

  “Keep him inside for a while. Should be over soon,” I told him. “Now, lock the door, don’t open it again until the police give the all clear. Also, you might hide in an interior room.”

  I turned back to the fence. This was the privacy fence. I had no idea what was on the other side. I jumped and missed the top of it on the first try. I tried again and felt it slip through my fingers. I backed up and ran at the fence. This time, I caught hold and hoisted myself up. As I reached the top, I realized I could have just climbed onto the doghouse and climbed over. While silently berating myself for all the hard work for no reason, my gaze scanned the backyard. There was another doghouse. It was bigger than the first. I was betting the privacy fence was because this dog wasn’t a cute little beagle.

  I pushed away from the top of the fence, fully expecting something large to rush at me. Barking from inside the house caused me to whip my head that direction. This dog was larger, a Neapolitan Mastiff barked and clawed at a glass door. The thing was drooling. I suppressed a gag and moved on. Going up the inside of a privacy fence is much easier. There are support boards.

  The next yard was filled with smoke. The house was hazy. Nothing moved. I moved to the next. This house was on fire. I’d reached the brother’s. The house was burning pretty good. Thick smoke rolled off the walls. A flicker of yellow-orange light danced through the blackened air. There was no fence between the two houses.

  “At the brother’s,” I whispered. “Back of the house is in worse shape than the front. Looks like he might have started it back here.”

  “Gotcha,” Gabriel answered.

  At the back door, I stopped for a moment. In theory, the house would have dead people in it. The sliding door opened easily at my touch.

  “Inside, checking for survivors,” I spoke quickly and quietly. A trail of blood ran along the carpet from the living room to a room with the door closed. It was a small trail. I followed it, knelt down and knocked very softly. “Hello?” I whispered.

  Movement from the other side of the door.

  “US Marshals,” I whispered. The door opened.

  An attractive fortyish-something woman opened the door. Her arm was covered in blood. It dripped from her fingers onto the carpet. I looked past her into the room. A girl sat in the corner, blood had pooled under her, but she was alive. Her older sister didn’t seem to be injured, she held hands with the younger girl.

  “Are you all injured?” I asked.

  “Yes,” the woman broke down. “He just went nuts.”

  “Ok,” I told her. “I’m going to get help in here, but we have to disarm him first. Stay in here, lock the door if possible. Apply more pressure to your wounds. Is there anyone else in the house?”

  “No,” the older girl answered. I guessed she was about sixteen.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I told her, pulling the door closed. I heard the lock click. “We have three survivors in the house, one seems to be bleeding heavily. Get paramedics ready. Heading towards the front door.” I whispered into the com.

  From outside, I could hear shouting. Nothing coherent. Mostly, it was just jargon and rambling. Gabriel and Xavier would be moving around behind the cars. They’d be instructing other officers to do the same. More people began shouting. Gunfire erupted, I used the moment to pull open the front door. In less than a heartbeat, I was out the door and onto the front step. Time slowed. I swung, jamming the knife into the knee of the jackass with the flamethrower and twisted the blade. I felt the kneecap separate from the bone. Tendons popped and ruptured from the pressure of the blade.

  I jerked it out, twisting as I did. The guy turned, his knee giving out as he did so. My helmet jumped, my head instantly hurt and my com went dead. I stabbed him again, this time in the other leg. My method worked a second time and the other knee went out. He tumbled forward, firing his gun. The torch of the flamethrower fell to the ground out of his reach.

  Jumping to my feet, I kicked it further away and then fell on the assailant. One hand found the tank, the other began cutting the straps from his back. Once the tank was loose, I tossed it aside. The gun was still firing, but it was hitting the bricks on the house, showering us with dust and debris. Something bounced off the Plexiglas of my face shield. I stabbed downwards and caught his wrist. The bones crunched under the force. The hand flexed and the firing stopped. The blade broke off as he twisted under me.

  “Coming past,” Xavier shouted as he ran past me. A weight at my back helped to hold the struggling gunman.

  “Are you ok?” Gabriel asked.

  “I think he shot me in the head,” I told him.

  “He did, that’s why I asked.”

  “I have a headache,” I shrugged.

  “You’ve earned a day of rest.”

  “I never know what to do on a day of rest.”

  “Rest,” John answered.

  “Yeah, right,” I looked at the handle of my knife. It was still in my hands. Other people were joining us. I climbed off and removed the helmet. The top was dented. I checked, no blood ran down my face or matted my hair.

  A paramedic ran up to me. I waved him away. Xavier came out of the house. He looked at me.

  “I bet you have a hell of a headache,” he said.

  “Yep,” I answered. “But I’m not seriously injured.” The helmet actually worked. I might have to wear it more often.

  “I hate to rain on your parade, but you are injured,” Xavier pointed at my leg. Blood was oozing through my jeans.

  “Damn, Trevor just bought these,” I answered.

  “Is it a scratch?” Gabriel asked.

  “I don’t know, it doesn’t hurt.” I told him.

  “Let me see,” Xavier bent down. “Nope, she’s been shot.”

  “Well, double damn, I guess I have to go to the hospital. I’ll tell you about what I learned on the way.”

  Twenty-One

  Despite my protests, they gave me a morphine shot. My leg instantly broke out in hives and they pushed Benadryl into the IV. Within seconds, my brain got foggy. The morphine was rough, the Benadryl was downright coma-inducing.

  “Ace?” Gabriel moved in very close to me.

  “What?” I asked, feeling my tongue slur the word as it exited my mouth.

  “You going to be ok?” He asked.

  “I really want a nap,” I told him.

  “Holy hell,” was the last thing I heard and I don’t think it was Gabriel that said it.

  I expected to wake up on a slab in the morgue or at the very least, a h
ospital bed. I woke up in neither place. I was in my hotel room. The window was open and it was freezing inside. Gabriel sat at the window sill, smoking a cigarette.

  “Think you can get up and join me?” He asked.

  “This is a non-smoking hotel,” I answered groggily.

  “Yep, that’s why we are smoking in your room,” Gabriel grinned at me. “See, then I can say ‘well, it’s Aislinn Cain and she’s a little out of control sometimes, especially when she’s medicated,’ when the board calls me to complain about the bill to clean the room.”

  “And when we get thrown out?” I asked, climbing from bed. My legs felt like rubber.

  “We’ll change hotels,” Gabriel shrugged. “You going to make it?”

  “Uh,” I thought about it. Was I going to make it? I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t remember the last thing I had done. “I don’t know. Can you tell me how I got here?”

  “You walked.”

  “To my room?” I asked.

  “Yes. What do you remember?”

  “I don’t know. How long was I out?”

  “Out? More like zombified,” Gabriel said. “You were awake, but I’m not sure you were conscious. I’ve never seen anything like it. Well, that’s not true. You slept for six hours and woke up violently. You punched the nurse and started ripping out IVs. We thought security was going to have to Taser you. Then you just sort of collapsed and started babbling about the month of August. You did that for about two hours. Then we came back here, you ate and crawled into bed. Now, you’re awake again and I’m not sure how awake.”

  “I’m awake. What did they give me?”

  “Morphine and Benadryl,” Gabriel told me.

  “Next time, tell them to restrain me. This is why I don’t like anesthesia. I’ve been known to wake up violently from it, but with no memory of the events. That nurse isn’t the first to be punched and it is doubtful that she will be the last. Morphine wipes my memory, which makes me even more dangerous. Benadryl just knocks me out, like a good punch from Muhammad Ali.”

  “Did you just crack a boxing joke?” Gabriel blinked at me.

  “I like boxing,” I defended the joke. “I wasn’t alive to see the Rumble in the Jungle live, but I’ve seen the replays thousands of times. I was watching the fight where Holyfield lost part of his ear.”

  “I didn’t know you liked boxing,” Gabriel seemed to think about that for a while.

  “I still watch the Friday Night Fights when I can,” I lit a cigarette. “You are setting a bad example.”

  “I figure you’ve been shot in the head, shot in the leg, doped up on morphine and knocked out by Benadryl, you deserve a cigarette.” Gabriel looked at me for a moment. “And you vomited a Philly Steak Sandwich up on John. We think it was the morphine, because after that, you crawled into bed and went back to sleep.”

  “Poor John,” I answered. “Is there caffeine around here somewhere?”

  Gabriel pointed to the table. A one-liter of Mountain Dew was sitting there, sweating, despite the cold temperature. I unsealed it and took a long drink. Gabriel then pointed to a bottle of water.

  “Xavier says you have to drink it. It has electrolytes in it.”

  “It’s water,” I told him.

  “It’s an enriched water beverage.”

  “Ah, it was expensive water,” I sighed. “Did I tell you about the markings in the files?”

  “Yes and I have been going through the files since the maid finished cleaning up your room. I can’t figure out what they mean either. John is running it through the database. How long did you keep it a secret?”

  “I discovered it last night,” I told him.

  “The night before last,” Gabriel corrected. “Last night you were at the hospital and today, you’ve been mostly out of it.”

  “Ok, but I must have told you before I went under the Benadryl/morphine cocktail from Hell, so,” I answered.

  “Good point,” Gabriel looked at me and flicked his cigarette out the window. “Is it possible your father knew who was doing the killings back then?”

  “No,” I stopped and thought. “I don’t think so. I mean, my father was a cop first.”

  “But?” Gabriel asked.

  “But, I don’t know, but something.”

  “How well did you know your father?”

  “Oh, as much as I could, considering I think he was a sociopath and I’m a sociopath and,” I didn’t finish the thought.

  “And?” Gabriel pressed. “Tell me what you think.”

  “I used to think my father was protecting me from the world after my encounter with Callow. In the past couple of days, I’ve been thinking that maybe it was the other way around. He became distant, but was always on my case, about everything. I think he saw the monster in me and decided to lock it up.”

  “How do you feel about that?” Gabriel asked.

  “If I feel anything about it, it’s irritation. I wasn’t a danger to myself and others, within reason, of course.”

  “Of course,” Gabriel chirped. “So, why did you second guess yourself about the whole ‘my father was a cop first’ thing?”

  “My father rescued an orangutan and put it in a sanctuary, illegally. That wasn’t the first time and it probably wasn’t the last time that he broke the law.”

  “You know this, for a fact?”

  “Yes,” I admitted. “My father was pretty good at roughing up suspects, even the ones that turned out to be innocent.”

  “He was a cop dealing with a world that was changing faster than the laws,” Gabriel shrugged it off.

  “Yes, he was. But,” I tossed my cigarette out the window and pulled it closed. “His brother once got into a fight, beat the guy real bad, my father made it go away by visiting the victim in the hospital.”

  “I didn’t know you had aunts and uncles,” Gabriel sounded surprised.

  “Really? Nyleena is my cousin.”

  “She could be a second or third cousin,” Gabriel pointed out.

  “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. No, she’s my first cousin, on my father’s side. It wasn’t her dad that beat the hell out of some poor bastard for calling him a name, her dad is the mellowest of the siblings. This isn’t saying much, since two are dead, one’s in jail, and the other is abusive, but he is the mellowest.”

  “Which one is her dad?” Gabriel asked.

  “He’s the other one that’s dead,” I answered. “Killed by a coworker who dropped a scaffold on him as he prepared for a day at work. It was ruled intentional.”

  “How many people in your family have died of old age?” Gabriel gave me a look that I couldn’t identify.

  “Not many,” I answered. “Perhaps my grandfather, a few great-aunts and uncles, maybe some cousins, but most have been unnatural deaths. Not all were intentional deaths though, one of my cousins died in a car accident, another fell off a house, one overdosed on heroin, a great uncle died of a bee sting in his nineties, and another was accidentally killed when her garage door malfunctioned and it fell on her, cutting her in half.”

  “That’s depressing.”

  “Those who live, live a long time,” I told him. “I had a great uncle that babysat me some when I was younger, he lived to be old, like really old. Older than my great uncle that died of a bee sting. And while his death wasn’t exactly natural, it really wasn’t unnatural either, he died of complications from heart surgery.”

  “Wow,” Gabriel looked at me. “So, back to your father.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you about my father. Before Callow he was a father, he took me to baseball games, attended parent/teacher conferences, and enjoyed holidays. After Callow, he was withdrawn, sullen, and brooding. I believe he was a sociopath, but not like me. I think he had more feelings and I think he had demons, just like most people.”

  “If the scientists and doctors are right and your condition is inherited, it would make sense that he was a sociopath. His sense of right and wrong might have been different than yours o
r his father’s because of the influences around all of you. You learned from your mom and Nyleena. I don’t know who taught your father or grandfather.”

  “Yes, it would, which is why I don’t know if the notation was about connecting all the cases or giving a clue about the killer. If it was Malachi, I’d take him down, but I don’t know what my father would do. I think it would depend more on the person.”

  “What if it was Nyleena?” Gabriel asked.

  “That would be harder,” I admitted. “I would turn a blind eye to it.”

  “Did your dad have an equivalent?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  “My mom.” I answered.

  “Anyone else?”

  “Not that I know of,” I told him.

  “I don’t believe your mom is a serial killer.”

  “My mom is afraid of most animals. She was attacked by a dog when she was younger. Has some scars from it, both physically and emotionally. And she’ll gag if you feed a dog from a table or from a human fork or let them lick a plate clean. There’s no way she’d willingly tear chunks of flesh from a person with a jaguar at her side.”

  “I was going to say that I didn’t believe she was a serial killer because she’s a good person; kind, gentle, loving, and she cares a lot about other people. I don’t think it’s a facade. I think she is honestly a good person, which makes her children sort of odd.”

  “My sister cared a lot about people, she’s dead.” I looked at him. “My brother cared so much about my family that he took a sniper rifle up to a roof and started killing people.”

  “Given the circumstances, maybe that wasn’t a great argument.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “I can’t think of a better one at the moment.”

  “How about because she’s my mom. If the woman was serial killer material, she would have snapped a long time ago. She’s way beyond that one stressor point.”

  “That’s a better argument, logically. But I still think it’s because she has a big heart. She’s adopted all of us.”