by Pamela Davis
Andy leaned over her and grabbed her shoulders, shaking her forcefully until her eyes popped open and the screaming stopped.
"All the people..." she said. "The water, all the people..." and then she burst into tears.
Andy looked stunned at her words and sat down, shaken, on the edge of her bed.
Chicago, Illinois, 2:00 a.m.
After discussing various theories until midnight, Nathan and Alex had decided to get a bit more sleep, hoping morning would bring clarity about where to go with their ideas on the disasters. The nightmares were a rude awakening. They were sharing a room to cut down on costs, and Alex fell off the couch as she woke. Nathan was already jumping up out of bed saying, "Dead, all dead," and then stopping as he came fully awake.
They stared across the room at each other and Alex said shakily, "Turn on the light."
Nathan reached over and turned on the lamp by the bed. He looked back at Alex standing with her arms crossed tightly against her 'I Love NY' t-shirt. He noticed her long, tanned legs were trembling. He opened his mouth to speak and she said, "No! Don't talk. Grab some paper and a pen and write down exactly what you dreamed. Right now. Hurry. Before you forget. Details."
His brain clicked into gear and he nodded briskly and dove into his backpack for his notebook. They both wrote furiously for about five minutes. As they finished, they glanced nervously at each other and Alex broke the tension by laughing, a brief odd little laugh.
"It's crazy, I know," she said. "Just because we both woke up at the same time...."
"Right," he said, "It doesn't mean we had the same dream."
They exchanged notebooks and began reading.
Louisville, Kentucky, 2:00 a.m.
Janine liked to sleep at the stables. If there was a horse that was sick or a mare about to foal, she often stayed overnight to be on hand if needed. There was a cot in one of the tack rooms and she felt safe and comforted by the sounds of the horses in the stalls. The horses at the stables were not all racehorses. She enjoyed the variety of types she got to ride to exercise them. Since Sherry's death a few days ago, she only felt safe here at the stables. So when she bolted out of sleep terrified, it was a shock. She heard noise all around her and as her senses awoke, sorted out the sounds of horses neighing and snorting and hoofs striking the doors of stalls.
"What on earth...?" she muttered as she ran out to check on the horses.
The horses seemed to calm down as she walked the length of their stalls, but she became more and more sure that what she felt among them all was fear. And then she recalled that her first emotion on waking up had been fear. She sank down to the ground, legs splayed out in front of her, and leaned back against the front of a stall door. Fear of...what? The dream, she remembered.
The horse standing behind her whinnied.
She looked up and said questioningly, "The dream, right?"
The horse whinnied again.
Janine stood up and looked around at all the horses. It was momentarily startlingly quiet in this section of the stables. She looked up and down the row of stalls and every horse leaned his or her head over the stall doors. Janine pinched herself.
Into the quiet night air, she said, "Okay, now, friends. This is getting just a little bit spooky."
Not one sound came from any of the stalls.
"I woke up...scared...were you scared too?" she asked hesitantly.
As one, all the horses' heads nodded.
"Oh, my lord," she breathed the words, hand fluttering at her throat.
After a few seconds, she said, "Was it...was it because of the dream?"
The sound of all the horses whinnying was deafening.
Tucson, Arizona, 2:00 a.m.
Maria woke up because she heard yelling. She looked at Phoebe in the other bed, but she was fast asleep. Then Maria heard the shouts again and knew they were coming from Zack's room. She dashed out and pounded on the door to Zack's room, calling his name. The yelling stopped and in a minute Zack opened the door to her.
Maria walked in past him, flipping on the light and shutting the door. Grabbing his hand, she got him to sit down in a chair at the table across from her. His hair was disheveled and his eyes looked haunted, wild and faraway. He was bare-chested and wore boxer shorts. She just held his hand and softly said over and over, "It's okay now, you're safe, it's okay."
After a while, he seemed to come more into the present, and with a shudder his eyes filled with tears.
"What is it, Zack?" asked Maria. "You can tell me. It's okay."
"The dream," he started, and then stopped. Wiping the tears from his eyes, he seemed to pull himself together a bit. "You know I told you how I was having dreams and not remembering them?" She nodded. "Well, I remember this one and it was a doozy! And if it's real...."
"Real!" Maria said pointedly. "What do mean, real? It was just a dream! Come on, everybody has nightmares now and then. And we've seen so much death lately. It's no wonder you would have a bad one."
Zack just shook his head and looked at her. "I don't think so, Maria. I think it's more than that. But--" and he held up a hand to forestall her interrupting him. "Let's wait to discuss it until tomorrow--after we talk to this Margaret, the psychic, okay?"
Being reminded that they were interviewing a psychic in the morning threw everything into a somewhat different light, as Zack had intended, and Maria was fully aware of it. She looked at him stubbornly. Then she smiled a little and said pleadingly, "It's just--it's just that you're like a rock to me, Zack. So solid and there! If you go weird on me, it's really going to affect my sunny disposition," she ended, smiling ingratiatingly.
Zack burst out laughing.
Cape Fair, Missouri
Harmony swerved wide around the corner of Elm and West Fort Streets and yelled, slamming on the brakes, screeching to a stop, and barely missing the figure in the middle of the road. "Holy goddess, what the heck is this?" she muttered, turning off the engine, but leaving the lights on to see as she climbed out of the little red car.
Stepping softly toward the crouching person in front of her car, Harmony realized it was a man, or, no, not quite a man. As his face lifted up to look at hers, she saw with astonishment an utterly beautiful young man. Thin as a rail, and looking frightened beyond all measure, but with skin the color of rich coffee barely touched with milk, appearing to have the texture of silk. The young man stood up. Hair in dreadlocks to his shoulders fell in disarray around his ears, his large dark eyes widened as they looked at shining-haired Harmony standing in the halo of light from the car, and his soft voice said, "Are you an angel?"
Harmony smiled, delighted at that idea of herself, but then shook her head. "No, I'm definitely no angel, but thanks for the image. I'm Harmony Gold. What are you doing out here in the middle of the street?"
The young man straightened up to his full height, almost six feet. Yes, Harmony thought, a teenager perhaps, not full grown yet.
"Harmony?" he said. "That sounds like an angel name to me. I came out here 'cause I didn't know what to do...where to go...after the dream...." He didn't notice Harmony was startled at his fumbling words, "and then you just appeared out of nowhere...looking like an angel so I thought...maybe now it was time for me to go, you know? And I'd get answers about...about the dreams..." his voice trailed off into the foggy night.
"You say you had a dream? Was it a totally freak-you-out, scare you to death dream?" Harmony asked.
"Yeah, you could say that--multiplied by ten!" said the teenager. Then he noticed her tone of voice. "Wait a minute--do you know what it means?"
"Not exactly, but I was on my way to see some people who do. You might as well come with me. Do we need to get permission from your parents or something? I don't want to get in trouble for something else, so soon after the fireworks episode," Harmony said, opening the door to her car.
"No, no parents...I'm kind of on my own. I've been living in that abandoned house over there for the past couple weeks. I was just passing through
here...didn't really know where to go. Hey, is it okay if we bring my dog? She's still kind of a puppy, not too big."
Harmony saw he was picking up a whimpering ragamuffin of a dog who was in dire need of a bath. No telling what breed she was and clearly in need of food as much as the boy.
"Sure," she said. "The more the merrier. These folks we're going to see, John and Jessica, have a dog so they won't mind." Starting the car and heading down the road, she looked over at the young man and asked, "What's your name?"
"Max, Max Osborne" he promptly replied and then asked curiously, "What was the fireworks episode?"
"Ahhh, we might just have time for that story," and proceeded to regale Max with the lighter points of the story as they sped down the winding country road into the deepening night.
Chicot, Arkansas
Lisanne leaned against the headboard of the bed with pillows piled behind her. Andy sat with a blanket around his shoulders, cross-legged at the foot of the bed. Merlin and Waldo were on the bed between them.
"So basically what we have here is a shared dream that we all four had. The same main focus, but each of us had a few little details that the other ones didn't, and when we put all the versions together, we get a more complete picture of what will happen when the Mississippi River floods." Andy summed up their discussions of the past half hour.
Lisanne shook her head. "But I still think we are missing something. Or rather not seeing it from the right perspective yet. Everything we got was about the Upper Basin--the upper part of the Mississippi. Now Merlin has said that he knows for a fact the entire thing is going to flood, so the Lower Basin will be involved as well. But all of our dreams were focused up here, right around Missouri specifically. Why?"
Andy rubbed his eyes tiredly and thought for a while, and then a thought came to him. "Wait," he said excitedly. "Where are we heading? Where are we supposed to end up? Maybe our route will take us through regions that are close to areas that will flood."
The two humans looked questioningly at the cat who tapped on the computer keyboard.
CAPE FAIR MISSOURI
"Ah ha!" Andy said triumphantly. "Missouri!"
Lisanne frowned at him and said, "Just hold on a minute! Let me get the map out. Here. Where the heck is Cape Fair--it's small. Look! It's nowhere near the river--it's all the way over in the southwestern corner, so that still doesn't answer the question," she finished, sending Andy a smug look.
"You know," he said, glowering at her, "you can be a real pill."
"A 'pill?' Is that the best you can do? What decade are you living in?" she retorted.
"Okay!" he replied. "I was trying to be a gentleman. But I can see that you are such a--"
He was cut off by Waldo's bark.
Merlin had typed out a message on the screen.
ENOUGH CHILDREN
Lisanne and Andy glanced guiltily at each other, and then continued reading.
DETOUR
HEAD TOWARD ST LOUIS
HELP RESCUE
SLEEP NOW
LONG DAY TOMRW
"Rescue who?" Lisanne began.
"Why St. Louis?" Andy asked at the same time.
Merlin refused to answer, walking away. Humans! They'd be the death of him yet, he thought as he curled up to sleep.
Lisanne and Andy sat back against the bed's headboard. Quite suddenly, he realized she was clad only in a black teddy, which looked scrumptious on her, by the way, and how had he missed noticing that she had the most perfect body? Probably all that black clothing covering her up.
Lisanne shivered as something in the air changed, and then looked to Andy. The blanket had fallen away from his broad shoulders and he was only wearing cotton pajama bottoms. His chest was smooth and finely-muscled. Long legs stretched out in front of him, and Lisanne wondered how she'd escaped noticing until now just how damn good-looking he was. That is in a clean-cut, all-American way that she never went for.
Andy cleared his throat. "Uh, so, I guess we should..." He stopped.
"We should go to bed. That's what we should do," Lisanne started. Then she halted as he turned a surprised face toward her.
"To sleep! We should go to sleep! That's what Merlin said, and that's what I'm doing!" she said defensively.
Andy grinned. Hmm, he thought. So she was aware of the tension between them. And she was nervous about it. He grinned more broadly.
"What? What are you looking at?"
Andy got up from the bed, and then leaned over to her. "You. I'm looking at you."
She blushed. He hadn't thought it possible.
"But Merlin's right. We have a long day ahead--and plenty of time--later."
"Time later..." she began. Then she asked suspiciously, "For what?"
He kissed her forehead and walked out of her room into his, smiling widely.
"Men!" she exclaimed to Merlin. "You're all alike!" But she had a hard time going to sleep, what with visions of Andy barely clothed running through her head. As she finally dozed off, she thought groggily, "I'm not getting involved, it's the end of the world, no time to get involved, or maybe that's the perfect time to get involved."
"People!" Merlin thought wearily. "They're all alike!"
Chicago, Illinois
"I would say it's impossible, except that we have the evidence right in front of us," Nathan said, striving for calmness in his voice he didn't feel.
Alex pressed her fingers against her temples as if to keep her brain inside her skull. "Ooh, my head hurts! I know, I know. Even when I suggested we write them down, I didn't really think the dreams would match."
"There are details that are different," Nathan put forth, as if this would somehow negate the fact that they'd both had essentially the same dream.
Alex grimaced and said, "You know that doesn't matter. And if you put the two dreams together, put those details together, they seem to fill in any blank spots in both our dreams and we get a more complete picture." Then she had a thought. "Hey, have you ever before demonstrated any psychic ability?"
"What?" Nathan replied, and then smiled. "No, Alex, I've never shown any psychic abilities. Have you?"
"No, more's the pity."
He laughed. "Look at us. Here we are sitting on what could be the biggest discovery since--well, since I don't know what! We don't even know what it is, what it all means, and we're all doom and gloom about it!"
Alex speared him with a glance and said, "Well, duh, Nathan. So far all we know and all we have predictions for are about multitudes of people dying! If that doesn't call for doom and gloom I don't know what does! Just who's going to be alive to hear about our big discovery--that is, if we ever figure out exactly what our big discovery is?" With that, she stomped off to the bathroom and slammed the door.
Nathan collapsed onto the couch and sat there thinking about what she'd said. On one level he knew she was right. But there was more to this--whatever this was. On a deep level within himself, he knew that hope was not lost. Of course, it might be hard to sell that idea to Alex. He thought again about his astonishment at reading the last line of Alex's dream. She had written, 'Must go to St. Louis, Missouri' and she had no idea why that thought had been in her dream. They had decided it was their next lead so they were leaving tomorrow to head for Missouri. And after the dream tonight, he realized suddenly they might not have much time before the flooding made the journey a difficult one.
Louisville, Kentucky
Janine walked among the horses in a daze, filled with an energy that felt otherworldly. "Am I dreaming?" she said softly.
The horse she was standing closest to shook his head. "No, I'm not, am I?". She found that if she stood directly beside, or in front of, a horse and either touched it, or looked into its eyes, she was able to sense things. It was scary at first, and she backed away. But the horses that had always been her friends were her safe haven. In a few minutes she tried it again, and then again. Soon she was gleefully going from one horse to the next, opening stall doors, gettin
g to know all her friends in a way she'd never imagined was possible.
The knowledge at first was small, knowing which was hungry, which one was itchy on his right flank--but then--whoosh! The waves of information came at greater speeds until she was literally spinning and finally had to say, "Whoa! Slow down, slow down, whoa," and of course they did, responding as always to her voice. As the night deepened, she came to an understanding. They knew about the tornadoes that killed Sherry and the other people in town. And they said more troubles were coming. This place wasn't safe anymore. Not many places would be. But there was one place they might be able to get to, maybe, if they left now, tonight. It was risky and they might not make it. But the horses were willing to try, and they wanted Janine to go with them.
They were out in the exercise ring now and she was standing in the center. She turned in a circle, arms outstretched to them all. "You are all I have left. Of course I'll come with you. Thank you for this honor," she said in a voice on the edge of tears.
There was a general nodding of horses' heads and soft neighs. Janine ran to get a bedroll and gather up what clothes she had with her in a pack. Then she flew through the rest of the stables, unlocking stall doors for any to join them that would. Within minutes she was up on the back of a chestnut stallion, no bit in his mouth, not after what she knew now, just a loose leather bridle to give her something to hang on to. A blanket on his back, with her pack and bedroll tied on, no saddle or stirrups--she didn't need them now. And they were off--a thundering of hooves passing through city streets and onward to the countryside, following their inner knowledge of how to get to the safe haven. Janine looked up and saw stars flying by in the velvety dark. She whispered, "Life sucks, then you die, and then something totally amazing happens. Goodbye, Sherry."
Cape Fair, Missouri
"Ooh, they're here!" cried Samantha, jumping off the couch and running to the door.