Sweet Dreams

by William W. Johnstone

  “What others?” Voyles asked.

  “The vagrants and the runaway girl. Sanjaman himself did not kill them; but those who did where under his power, even though he had not yet completed his rebirth.”

  “Look,” Voyles said, jumping to his feet. “I can pull SWAT teams in here from all over the state. I can get some military people. I . . .” He stopped when he noticed Bud slowly shaking his head. “What’s wrong now?”

  “Arms and force will not harm Sanjaman,” Bud said. “You don’t understand. Sanjaman is now just a spirit; he is a God! The Manitou would simply take all the force directed toward killing him, and redirect it, turning it against us. No. A Manitou can be killed. But it must be done in a way that you people still have some doubts about.”

  “All right, all right,” Voyles said. “I’ll bite. How do you kill a Manitou?”

  “One must enlist the help of the spirits.”

  “Spirits?” Maryruth said. “What . . . kind of spirits are we talking about here?”

  “In this case, forces from beyond the grave,” Bud replied.

  Voyles suddenly shivered as a clammy feeling spread over his body.

  3

  Everyone silently digested Bud’s latest statement. Each of them wanted to believe him, wanted desperately to believe, but as the kids had said, “You lose something as you get older.”

  “You said Sanjaman will rape,” Voyles spoke. “You think he might, you know, with Heather?”

  “No,” Bud assured them all. “He wants her mind, as he does with Marc. She is, after all, but a child. The act with someone such as Sanjaman would probably hurt her terribly, maybe even kill her. Sanjanam is grotesque in all ways.”

  “Damn shore is,” Leo blurted. “That sucker is one heavy-hung dude.”

  The others hid the smiles the old man’s bluntness provoked.

  “How crude, Leo,” Bud said. “But . . . correct. “There . . .” – he paused, choosing his words carefully – “there is more to this that even I can fully understand – to date, that is. I am now, and have been for several weeks, receiving undercurrents of, well, some other mystery that is somehow connected with Sanjaman’s rebirth. Some . . . underlying threat, perhaps. I can’t be sure. Perhaps help might be the correct terminology. I just cannot be certain.”

  “Can any of us help?” Maryruth said. “I just checked and found a well-known parapsychologist up in St. Louis. Perhaps he could help?”

  “No,” Bud rejected that immediately. “Any help must originate from this group. Again, for reasons none of you can understand. In my visions – dreams to you – there remains some . . . haunting configuration lingering in the background. I just can’t bring it to the fore.”

  “Configuration?” Jerry said.

  “Yes. Far in the background in my visions, I keep seeing a fine old home. I would say probably pre-Civil War.” He paused. “But I simply cannot bring it into view or make any connection between the home and Sanjaman.”

  “That old house you keep mumblin’ about when you’re asleep?” Leo said.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, hell, Bud. There ain’t but one in this area. That has to be the Lancaster home.”

  Bud closed his eyes for a moment, bringing back to his mind the vision. He nodded his head. “Yes. You are correct, Leo. Thank you.”

  “Shore.”

  “Are you – any of you – aware of the mystery surrounding the old house?” Janet asked.

  Bud sat down. Leo looked at him in disgust and flopped back into his chair. “I sure could use a drink,” Leo said.

  “Certainly,” Jerry said. “Forgive my lack of manners. All of you. I can offer you – ”

  “Iced tea or coffee,” Bud said. “We are both off hard liquor for the duration.”

  Leo looked at his friend forlornly. Much like an old hound dog who has been punished wrongly.

  “It was your idea,” Bud reminded him.

  “We all make mistakes,” Leo muttered.

  “I think coffee would do all the way around,” Maryruth said.

  Coffee was perked and poured and served, cookies were brought out and passed around, and then Janet began.

  “Back around 1900 – well, somewhere between 1890 and 1900 – there were a series of terrible accidents in that house. They were called accidents, but the public opinion concluded they were murders. The man who lived there – I think he was either a doctor or a lawyer, I’m not sure – doctor keeps coming more strongly to my mind. Anyway, the man’s wife was the first to go, dying under rather mysterious conditions. Supposedly, she fell down the stairs, in the house – broke her neck. But rumor had it the doctor threw her down the stairs. No! The woman was a doctor. That’s it. The first woman doctor in this area. But she never practiced.”

  Maryruth stirred as an eerie feeling washed over her. She reeled under the impact of sudden déja vu. She felt she had some knowledge of what had transpired within the walls of the Lancaster house. Firsthand knowledge. She was conscious of Bud’s eyes on her.

  “Something, Miss Benning?” he asked.

  “Maybe.” That was all Maryruth would say for the moment. But the memory would return to her – savagely, painfully, hideously. To her, and to others. Others would feel the blows of a club, would taste blood in their mouths, and would again experience the awful sensation of being buried alive.

  Janet said, “There were two children, twins, a boy and a girl. The man is said to have killed them both by clubbing them to death. Other stories say the children did not die from the blows, but were buried alive – either somewhere on the grounds of Lancaster house, or a few miles out in the country. However, no bodies were ever found. The man disappeared shortly after that. He was never seen again. That’s the story, folks.” Bud leaned forward, his dark eyes fixed on Janet. “Can you tell me, Janet, how old the children were when they were killed?”

  “If they were killed,” Janet corrected him. “I think they were about ten.”

  Bud leaned back in his chair. “Very well. I was wrong. It fits now. The puzzle is beginning to take shape.”

  “Well, I sure as hell wish you’d explain it to me!” Voyles said.

  “I can take it only so far,” Bud replied. “The children murdered in the Lancaster house – and they were murdered, I am sure of that – are not the threat I first perceived, them to be. They will be our allies, as will the murdered mother. How I cannot explain to a white mind.”

  “Folks,” Voyles said. “This boggles my mind. I’ve seen and heard just about all I can take for one evening.” He looked at Janet. “You ready to go?”

  She nodded. She had a frightened look in her eyes.

  “You two be careful,” Jerry cautioned them at the doorway.

  “I heard that,” Voyles replied. “Doc? Forgetting all that Bud said, just how does one go about killing a spirit?”

  “I don’t know,” Jerry said. “I don’t know if a ... if something from the nether world can be killed.”

  “Yeah,” Voyles replied glumly. “That’s what I’m thinking, too.”

  Voyles and Janet went off into the night, but Bud and Leo walked out onto the porch and stood there for a moment.

  “May we drive you home?” Maryruth asked the men.

  Leo opened his mouth to accept, but before he could speak, Bud said, “Thank you, but no. We need the exercise.”

  “Thanks a lot, Bud,” Leo said.

  “Don’t mention it,” the Indian said politely. “It’s for your own good, you know?”

  “Sure.”

  They stepped off the porch and were soon swallowed by the darkness.

  “I wonder how Heather and Marc are?” Jerry said.

  Marc had heard his parents and sisters leave. He was alone in the silent house.

  Silent except for the thumping coming from his closet.

  The thumping grew louder. It was muffled, but Marc could hear it clearly. The thumping stopped for a moment, then the boy heard something knocking at the closet door
– from the inside.

  His heart began hammering; his mouth went cotton-dry. The thumping took on a rhythmic beat. It sounded like someone beating on a bass drum. But there was a hollowness to the sound, as if it came from far away. Marc slipped out of bed, picked up the wrench he’d used earlier on his bicycle, and slowly walked toward the door. The thumping stopped when Marc put his hand on the doorknob.

  He withdrew his hand. The thumping began again. Again he put his hand on the doorknob. The thumping ceased.

  Taking a deep breath to steady his shaky nerves, Marc steeled himself for the worst and threw open the door.

  Everything was in order in the closet. Marc had not expected that.

  “But I heard it,” he said aloud. “I heard it. I know I did.”

  “Help us!” a very faint voice called from the gloom of the closet. “Cold. So cold. Help us.”

  Marc recoiled in fright and horror.

  The boy turned on all the lights in his bedroom and carefully inspected his closet. Nothing out of the ordinary could be found – and he did not hear the voice again.

  Had he heard it in the first place?

  “Yes,” he said. “I heard it.”

  He started to turn away when an odor wafted to his nostrils. It smelled like . . . old dirt. Yeah. Old dirt. Stale dirt. That was it. And there was another odor – Marc couldn’t place it. But it was somehow familiar to him in a strange way. Then, in a rush of clarity, it came to him.

  It was the odor of death.

  Heather tried very hard to block out the drunken laughter and the profane words coming from the den. She succeeded only partially. After a time, the loud noises abated and grunting sounds punctuated the house. Heather knew what that meant. The knowledge disgusted her.

  A faint weeping reached her ears as she lay in her bed, the covers pulled up over her head. Cautiously, she lowered the blanket and looked around the bedroom. The dolls and teddy bears on the shelves were just that: dolls and stuffed animals. They had stopped doing those ugly things. Nothing was moving; no little soldiers were shooting at her. She had thrown the little toy soldier in the garbage can out back.

  “Oh, baby!” the sound of her father’s voice echoed through the house. “Goddamn, you got some tight pussy.”

  The girl’s voice reached Heather. It belonged to Beth Anderson. Sixteen years old.

  Heather felt sick to her stomach.

  Then another sound overrode the grunting and panting of sexual activity. It was the sound of someone weeping.

  Weeping? But . . .

  Heather sensed this came from someone who wasn’t taking part in the orgy in her home. How she knew that was a mystery to her; but she knew.

  Heather could hear it clearly now. The weeping became louder. Muffled words were mixed in with the crying, but Heather could not make them out. It sounded like: “No! Please, Daddy-don’t!” But Heather could not be sure of that. Then a clubbing sound came to her. The clubbing sound ended with an awful smushing noise. Again the words came to her. “Oh, God, it hurts, Daddy. Please, don’t do this to me.” The words had a hollow ring to them, as if they had traveled a great distance before reaching her. And they were muffled, as if the person speaking them were in a small room or a box.

  Or a casket! The thought jumped into Heather’s mind.

  “Come on, baby,” her brother Steve’s voice broke into Heather’s thoughts. “Give me some head and get me hard again.”

  Heather did her best to concentrate on the mysterious voice, rather than her brother’s hoarse commands.

  She listened. She thought she could hear a ... she listened more closely. Yes. It was a scraping, metallic sound. Metal on rock, she thought.

  She remembered being little – Heather had not thought of herself as little for a long time – and digging in the sand with her toy shovel, hitting rock.

  Digging. Like someone digging a grave . . . or like someone attempting to dig herself out of a grave.

  The thought chilled the girl.

  After listening for a moment to the faint sounds of weeping, she threw back the covers and got out of bed. She walked to the rows of dolls and stuffed animals, carefully inspecting each of them in the dimness cast by her night light. The crying, muted words were not coming from any of her dolls or stuffed animals.

  She put her hand on the head of a stuffed tiger, one of her favorite animals. A sharp pain stabbed her. Jerking away, she looked down and saw drops of blood on the beige carpet. She looked at her hand. Fang marks were leaking drops of blood. She heard the snarl and spun around. The tiger was alive. It stood on all four paws and was snarling at her, its teeth glistening wetly in the semidarkness of the bedroom. Heather grabbed a paperweight from her little desk and smashed it on the tiger’s head. The tiny animal moaned as something popped in its head. It toppled from the shelf, falling to the carpet. Blood leaked from its mouth. Its tail twitched once, and then the animal lay still.

  Heather stood in shock for a few seconds, looking at the stuffed animal at her feet, blood dripping from its mouth. Stuffed, yeah, she thought. But with what?

  The crying, moaning sounds again reached Heather. She began searching for their source, fear making her fingers tremble and her heart race.

  “Help me!” a young girl’s voice called faintly. “Please. We’re alive. It’s . . . awful. Pain. Choking from . . . dirt. Help us, please.”

  The crying ceased. The pain-filled words faded into an eerie silence.

  The silence was once more punctuated by the sounds of grunting and panting and profanity.

  But there was another sound – very faint. A clanking and squeaking coming from outside her bedroom window.

  “What? . . .” she muttered.

  She walked to the window and looked out. She gasped as terror gripped her.

  The little toy soldier was walking guard beneath her window. His rifle held at right shoulder-arms, he marched four feet, halted, executed a perfect about-face, and then marched four feet and repeated and process.

  Heather cried out in fear. The toy soldier heard her gasp and stopped. He wheeled about, his musket held at combat arms. Heather stepped back into the darkness, the warning clear to her. The toy soldier – Heather knew the rifle was anything but a toy – resumed his guard mount. He squeaked and clanked and executed his perfect by-the-book about-faces.

  “Jesus, Jack,” she heard her mother shout. “Would you look at the cock on that boy!”

  Far away, Heather heard the sounds of dark, evil laughter.

  She fainted, collapsing on the carpet.

  The soldier clanked and clicked and continued his rounds.

  4

  The new day broke, steamy, over the horizon. The mercury soared into the nineties early and stayed there, baking the town of Good Hope and the immediate area under a merciless oven-blast of heat.

  Heather had awakened before dawn, cold and sore, to find herself on the floor beneath the partially open window. She had looked out into the darkness. The little soldier was still at his post, marching tirelessly back and forth. Confused and scared, Heather crawled into her bed and slept fitfully for another two hours. The sunlight and the heat awakened her.

  Marc woke early that morning, just as dawn was breaking. He had not slept well, but he felt refreshed enough to get out of bed and greet the day. He was grateful for the light; like Heather, he was beginning to fear the night.

  Wondering if everything had been a dream, Mark went to his closet and opened the door. The odor of old stale dirt once more assailed his nostrils. It had been no dream.

  He stepped out of his room and into the hallway. The home was silent. His sisters’ bedroom door was closed, as was his parents’ door. Very quietly, Marc washed his face and hands and combed his hair. He dressed in tennis shoes, jeans, and pullover shirt, then went into the kitchen. Being very quiet, Marc fixed a bowl of cereal and two pieces of toast. He was careful not to make a mess, for his parents’ present state of mind, he didn’t know what to expect from either
of them, or what might set them off.

  He quickly ate his breakfast, trying to plan out his day. He had to get to Heather, and they had to find Doctor Baldwin and Doctor Benning. He wanted to tell them what he had experienced the past night, and he wanted Heather to do the same. The boy was sure she had gone through something.

  He looked up as his father entered the kitchen. His Dad was wearing a bathrobe and his eyes were bloodshot; his face red from too much liquor and dissipation. Harry looked awful.

  “Make enough fuckin’ noise to wake up the whole goddamn neighborhood.” Harry snarled the words at his son.

  Marc knew he had made almost no noise; certainly not enough to wake his father. “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “You think you’re pretty goddamn smart, don’t you, boy?”

  “Sir?” Marc was very wary now. He thought he could see a dangerous glint in his Dad’s eyes.

  “Don’t act stupid, ’cause I know you’re not. You got too much goddamn sense. You think I’m afraid of that highway cop, boy?”

  How to play this? Marc said, “No sir, I don’t think that at all.”

  Harry laughed at his son. “Liar. That’s what you are. And a little sneak, too. Finish your breakfast and get on out of here. And don’t get under your mother’s feet today, you understand all that boy?”

  “Yes, sir. Does that mean I am free to do whatever I wish?”

  “Boy,” the father said, his eyes cold – filled with hate? Marc asked himself – “don’t nobody ’round here give a shit what you do.”

  Filled with hate – yes. But why? the boy thought. What have I done? “Thank you, sir.”

  When his father turned to leave, it was then Marc noticed the angry red mark at the base of the man’s neck. A bruised circle completely ringed the redness. Harry rubbed the back of his neck and stalked away.

  Marc carefully rinsed his cereal bowl, made certain there were no crumbs left from his toast, replaced the butter dish in the fridge, and left the house. He looked at his watch. Six-thirty. He wondered what Heather was doing.