Dream War

by Stephen Prosapio

  “Drew, breathe. Focus. Remember what I taught you. Remember Alexis.” Kat’s voice was tinny, as if she’d hollered it through a long metal tunnel.

  He tried to think, but felt drunk. Before it overwhelmed him, he managed to breathe—inhaling and exhaling deeply—one after the next. Fuzzy figures resembling Lopez and Kat stared at him with green-tinted faces, but they gradually came into focus again as the panic faded. He still felt rubbery in the knees, but his head finally cleared.

  “Attah boy,” Lopez said slapping Drew’s arm.

  From behind them came a haunting cry in Alfonso’s voice. “Hector.”

  Kat looked at Lopez. “You’d better go.”

  “Be careful, and I’ll catch up with you ASAP,” Lopez said.

  He put his hand on his medallion, and the next instant, Lopez wasn’t there.

  “How do we find Dred?” Drew asked.

  Kat scanned the horizon. “Usually the trick is how not to find him. Can’t you feel it?”

  Drew could feel a pull, more emotional than physical; it came from the area just left of an outcrop of rocks. He nodded in that direction.

  “Let’s go,” he said, taking a step.

  Kat grabbed his shoulder. In the distance, a grown man’s voice cried for his mother.

  “Drew, in addition to the physical attacks that you’ve trained for, you need to be aware of this “pull” toward Luzveyn Dred. It’s like trying to keep yourself centered during a sandstorm, only it won’t be your body that’ll fall and get buried—it will be your sanity.”

  “All right, what do I do?”

  “Stay mindful. He’s going to play with your emotions. Stay centered.”

  Drew fell in line behind Kat, and could still feel that undeniable draw forward. Once, as a boy, when vacationing in Wisconsin, his parents had taken him to the “Wonder Spot” – a place where the laws of gravity didn’t seem to function in accordance to the rules. Water ran up rather than down the pine ramp when poured from a bucket. As they’d stood in a small cabin on the “Spot,” a palpable force attempted to drag them down and into a corner. The feeling he had now felt similar to that day, long ago except much worse.

  Avoiding groups of Dred’s beasts, they trudged unabated. Small packs periodically attacked fallen dreamers. Drew was following Kat across a vast plateau, when three dream-victims fell from the sky and were subsequently carried away by beasts.

  “Is it me,” Drew asked in hushed tones, “or are they coming down more frequently?”

  “It ain’t you—they are.” Kat had stopped at an outcropping of rock that looked out over a barren valley.

  The area below was made visible by a black light glow behind a hill a half mile away. The vast, rocky expanse partially obscured by shadows showed no signs of life.

  Four dream images plummeted past their elevated vantage point. As the elongated images fell below eye level, the nightmarish scenes disappeared and, inside the orbs, the bodies of the dreamers could be seen, in fetal positions.

  Kat peered down to the valley floor then back at Drew. “Just you and me.”

  “And tea for three.”

  Her laugh came out in one quick burst. She motioned with her head, her nose pointing to a smooth trail between jagged rocks; then, she set out in that direction. They began walking down the narrow path. The stench of sulfur almost overpowered Drew as they descended.

  “You feel that?” Kat looked back at him.

  “Feel? How about that smell?”

  “Well, that, too. But the pull keeps getting stronger.”

  They’d made it halfway down the embankment when lightning flashed and dreamers began dropping.

  One after the next after the next – in increasingly rapid succession.

  Soon, the valley floor was a churning sea of bodies, dreamers trying to escape and Spatium Quartus beasts carrying them away.

  Drew struggled to keep up with Kat as she double-timed it down the path.

  “Can’t we do anything to stop this?” he asked, nearly losing his balance.

  “No, we’ve got to get to Dred. Time’s running out.”

  They reached the bottom. Gray soot covered the valley floor, making the footing difficult. Cries for help had melded into a steady roar; most of the fallen shrieked as they were beset by beasts and tortured. Others were carted off, unconscious, over the hill toward the dark glow.

  “What do we do now?”

  Kat scanned the massacre and looked dumbfounded.

  Drew felt sick again; his head swirled. A burning moved from his stomach upward. His entire body felt cold, tingly, and then sweaty. He turned his head just in time to prevent spewing vomit on Kat. He bent at the waist and knelt on one knee. The taste of tequila, of rancid margaritas, coated his tongue and inside of his mouth. His teeth felt gritty. His stomach contracted again, dry heaves constricting his upper body.

  “Drew, Drew get up. Breathe, center yourself!”

  “Why isn’t anything happening to you?” He sucked in air and, although he felt lightheaded, rose to his feet.

  “Drew, I’m fighting demons too. I see my mom everywhere. She’s calling to me, telling me to turn back. There are hundreds of them!”

  The Spatium Quartus sky continued to rain down abducted dreamers.

  “What do we do?”

  “We’ve gotta make a run for it. Just tuck and go, dude. Ready?”

  He took a deep breath. “Let’s do it.”

  The first few steps were the hardest as his legs adjusted to running across the sandy surface. Once he hit his stride, he focused on following Kat’s moves through the deluge. A hundred yards from the opposite side of the valley, she tumbled face-first. Drew nearly tripped over her, but with a quick leap, managed to avoid collision.

  He skidded to a stop and turned. “Here,” he said offering her a hand.

  Several beasts closed in behind her, one carrying a small boy. She looked up with a grimace. She tried to get up on her own and slipped.

  “They’re coming!”

  The stench of the beasts drowned out the smell of sulfur. She reached. He felt her skin in his palm and he pulled.

  Kat whirled and let loose a primal yell. After cocking her right leg up, she kicked and connected with the jaw of the closest beast. She then rebalanced and shoved her arm into the chest of the second. Blood gushed out as she removed her open hand. By the time it fell, she was ready for the final beast, which held the boy under its arm.

  “Let him go or I’ll kill you.”

  It paid no heed, continuing forward. Kat cut its legs out from the side with a scissor kick. It tumbled backward. Upon impact the boy flew free and rolled away. Drew dove and plunged his sword into the beast’s upper torso. It lay bleeding and twitching.

  The boy had started running in the wrong direction. Kat headed back, grabbed him, and spun, clutching the screaming child to her chest with one arm.

  “Get going, Drew! Just go!”

  Before Drew could turn, the little boy glowed for a second and disappeared.

  Drew headed up the incline. There were no paths—just rocks and gravel. He took four or five steps, but couldn’t maintain his balance. He fell forward and began using his hands and legs to advance upward—inflicting burning cuts and slashes on his fingers, hands and shins. The ground crunched as his legs churned to climb. His muscles felt like fire, compacted.

  He ascended the crest and stopped dead in his tracks. Kat collided into him from behind, but it didn’t shift his gaze. Apparently seeing it as well, she said nothing.

  Through a six-foot tall, wrought iron fence, laid a sea of dead bodies stacked at least three feet high. Arms, legs, and heads stuck out at various angles. The faces were of all races and ages. Apparently Luzveyn Dred did not discriminate.

  In the distance was a gothic castle that emitted an eerie black light. It appeared wet, as though constructed of melting ice. Appearing to be a macabre sort of moat, the sea of bodies surrounded the castle, outward for a quarter mile in every di
rection.

  A hundred yards to their left, a fifty-foot high arch marked the entry point of a path which led to the castle.

  Kat pointed. “Let’s go.”

  They’d gone a third of the way when they noticed the heads. At least fifty yards in each direction outward from the arched path, the heads stuck atop the wrought iron spikes of the fence. Most were human but there were also a number of the gray beasts.

  “It’s as though he’s making an example of them,” Drew said. “Maybe these are people and creatures who have stood up to him.”

  “Let’s keep moving,” Kat said but no sooner had she said it than she stopped and walked over to one of the heads.

  “What are you doing?”

  Kat said nothing. She was staring intently at a man with a crew cut, his boyish features frozen in a look of pain. His torso lay just behind the fence and bore the dress uniform of the US Marine Corps.

  She reached up and grabbed something from the pole where his neck should have been. Metal snapped, revealing a set of military dog tags.

  “What’s that?”

  “Something for Lopez. He was an old friend of his.”

  A distant rumbling came from the castle. Even before the sound of galloping hooves became clear, Drew made out the sight of a red horse tearing toward the gate. It advanced at an incredible speed. As it got closer, he could tell it was larger than any horse he’d ever seen. Riding it was a large man, right arm raised high, holding a sword.

  “It isn’t even on the ground,” Kat said. “It’s flying!”

  The animal’s legs churned as if it was in the middle of a stretch run, but its hooves never touched the ground. Already it was two thirds of the way to the gate.

  “Find cover,” Kat ordered.

  He turned, but directly behind, blocking any escape, stood another massive horse, this one black. Atop sat a figure, its features obscured with a dark cape and hood.

  From behind, something hit Drew in the head. He felt his knees buckle and hit the ground.

  - Chapter Forty Two—

  Night of Nights – Rome, Italy

  Lopez jerked awake. Alfonso laid near the opposite wall, the crimson pool beneath him evidence of what had happened. Five feet from his body, butt up against a ceremonial rug, was a revolver. Whoever shot Alfonso had kicked his gun away. Even in the half-light, Lopez could tell by the color of the blood that a bullet had ruptured the old man’s liver. People don’t survive wounds like that. Alfonso was as good as dead.

  Lopez reached behind his back for a weapon that was no longer there. His movement sparked a voice from his left. “Doctor, he’s awake.”

  There stood Tabatha Wellington. For a moment, Lopez thought he was dreaming.

  “What are you doing here?”

  She said nothing, staring at him with bemused indifference. As the realization hit, anger engulfed him. Bottled rage burned from his throat to his heart, where it ignited a hateful, involuntary growl. He lunged for Tabatha’s throat.

  The action was squelched by the butt of an assault rifle driven into the side of his jaw. The sacristy swirled about him, and he fell from the chair, his fingertips pressing into the cold marble tile to help him retain consciousness. Standing there was a large Italian man, presumably Tabatha’s bodyguard.

  “Hector, I always liked you, but this is beyond personal relations,” she said.

  He looked up at her blurred face, trying to make sense of it all. His hate for Luzveyn Dred prevented him from understanding how anyone could succumb to Dred’s lies and deceit.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said, “but I’m not in this for any promised material gain.”

  “Then why?”

  “I am doing it for the glory—to do what no man in human history has been able to do.”

  “Your destruction of the human race is justified because of your desire for world conquest?”

  “We are not destroying our species, Hector. In fact, the end result will ultimately be the best utilization of the human race. We will be harnessed for an incredible purpose. Imagine all of mankind channeled to break through the dimension that has bound us all these millennia. Heaven can be ours. Not some idyllic paradise on some ‘deity’s’ terms. The new dimension can be ours to create and to make our own. We shall be gods!”

  Lopez stared at her. He’d fought various forms of evil throughout his entire career and had observed the gradual decline of morals and the self-absorbed behavior that turned some people into virtual monsters. He couldn’t cure her of a lifetime of resentment, but he needed to engage her until he could plan an escape.

  “You think Luzveyn Dred will let you have any part of this glorious ascension? Once he gets what he wants, he’ll toss you to the curb like trash.”

  She smiled. “You are stalling, Hector, but it will not work. Everything we need is in place.” She turned to her bodyguard. “Nuncio, go and begin pouring the gasoline. Kill anyone you encounter.”

  As the man lumbered off in compliance, Tabatha drew a Walther PPK, pointed it at Lopez, and smirked.

  “Luzveyn Dred will not dispose of me, Hector.” Her tone was that of an adult to a child on matters it could never understand. “I cannot believe that the old man did not tell you.” Her gun waved in Alfonso’s direction. Hector thought he saw Alfonso’s arm move ever so slightly, but it could have been his imagination.

  “Tell me what?” He made strong eye contact with her, hoping that she’d reciprocate. If Alfonso was regaining consciousness, he wanted her attention otherwise occupied.

  “Hector, Luzveyn Dred cannot dispose of me because, like Spartacus before me, I am partnered with Him and His mission to forever merge the dimensions. I requested the honor.”

  “Like Hitler.”

  The smile disappeared from her face.

  “Yes, the Master used him to elevate fear in the human consciousness. But in today’s society, we have already exceeded levels that our predecessors might only have dreamed of. The world is ripe. Tonight begins the Night of Nights.”

  “You’re psychotic. But being a doctor, you already knew that, right?”

  Alfonso slowly turned his head to face Lopez, his hand beginning to reach for his gun.

  “This is why I never even attempted to recruit you, Hector.” Her face remained stoic, but her tone was terse.

  Sounds of splashing liquid echoed through the basilica, and the smell of gasoline flooded the sacristy. Alfonso’s revolver lay at the edge of the ceremonial rug, too far from his grasp. With subtle movements, he inched towards it.

  “Your boss tried to recruit me. Why don’t you ask how that worked out?”

  “Sarcasm has taken you far in life, hasn’t it, Hector?

  “I can’t complain, but the retirement plan sucks.”

  “Funny,” she said without the trace of a smile. “Speaking of retirement plans, I noticed you, a drugged out, washed up, failure were able to reconnect with the machismo boys club that is the CIA. In the meantime, the fucking assholes canceled every program I worked on. Why do you think that is?”

  “Tell you what, as soon as I get out of here,” Lopez said, “I’m gonna buy a box of cigars, meet the Langley boys on the golf course and find out.”

  Tabatha shook her head at him. There wasn’t an ounce remaining of the beautiful young woman he had once known.

  He subtly adjusted his posture to prepare to attack, “Of course, they’ll probably make me fill out paperwork in triplicate, but for you, Tabatha, I vow to get to the bottom of it.”

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Use humor to mask your pain. You know what the difference was between you and the priest?”

  Alfonso was almost within reach.

  “Well, let’s see, he wore—”

  “Self pity.”

  “Self-pity?” He feigned offense and hoped she’d take the bait.

  “Yes, Hector. You became paralyzed by self-pity. As pathetic as the priest’s attempts may have been to convert all of us ‘fallen souls,’ yo
u did next to nothing to stop us. All those years, with nothing to show for it but a few insignificant rescued civilians. What a waste.”

  An inch separated Alfonso and his gun.

  Tabatha raised her pistol and closed one eye as if to make certain, even at point-blank range, that the bullet penetrated his skull in the middle of his forehead.

  “This will provide the ultimate closure for me. I had Dr. Hyde killed earlier.”

  “You had him killed, or were you man enough to actually do it yourself?”

  Alfonso grabbed his .38 and, in one motion, aimed the gun’s muzzle at Tabatha. She turned and fired first.

  His bullet hit her left arm and spun her.

  She fired again as Lopez slammed into her.

  Together, they fell to the cold marble just as Nuncio appeared at the door—gun drawn.

  - Chapter Forty Three—

  Night of Nights – Naples, Italy

  Vesuvius’s plume had risen twenty miles high. The late-afternoon sky turned to murk. Stanley tried to swing the taxi onto the freeway’s narrow shoulder. A barrage of car horns and unintelligible curses made him stop. A few passing teenagers pounded on his hood and gestured.

  Tall fences built atop three-foot-high concrete barricades towered over each side of the freeway. A hundred yards ahead of Stanley, the road divided, however a roadblock prevented any cars or pedestrians from entering onto the Rome-bound A1 freeway. Instead, military police diverted traffic to a gridlocked Tangenziale interchange ramp that veered to the right, ascended, and looped back across the A1. A swell of people began streaming between the cars that were merely inching along. Motorbike riders beeped their horns as they zigzagged through the crowd.

  One shouting pedestrian cut through the flow of traffic and advanced towards the military police. The man gestured wildly making known his desire to cross onto the vacant freeway ahead. Before he’d gotten within ten feet of the soldiers, one of them took two large steps at the pedestrian, pressed his rifle lengthwise across the man’s chest, and shoved him backward with force that nearly sent the pedestrian tumbling.