Bloodcrier: The Complete Two-Book Series

by Richard Denoncourt

  This is the Dreamscape. Louis and I invented it. Do you like it?

  Ian’s voice floated through the darkness. I’ll decide if I like it, once I know what in the spiteful wrath a Dreamscape is.

  Eli laughed, and they all soared. It’s a landscape inside a dream, dummy.

  Arielle could have stayed in the Dreamscape for the rest of time—floating in a peaceful nothingness, connected intimately—soulfully—with the people she loved. But one was missing. Michael…

  We miss him, too, Arielle, Dominic said.

  Amen, Peter said.

  Good old Mikey, Eli added.

  We’re going to bring him back, Ian stated.

  The emotion was almost too much to handle. Arielle had to put a stop to it before her mind and heart became too consumed by this place—burned up like dry leaves disintegrating in a bonfire.

  What are we doing here? How does this help Michael? she asked.

  Dominic took a few seconds—if time could even be measured here in such a crude fashion—before answering.

  Just wait one more…moment…

  The Dreamscape took on a million colors—collapsed, dissolved, stretched, and finally stood still—a universe suddenly full whereas before it had been empty.

  I would puke if I had a body. Peter sounded almost drunk.

  Arielle was wonderstruck. Where are we now?

  The only way she could fathom this unfamiliar environment was by imagining what a fly saw with its spherical, multifaceted eyes. A million images at once, all connected, making sense to her mind as if she’d been born to see the world this way. But they weren’t just images. They were all the sensations that had been missing before—countless smells, noises, voices, and physical instances of touch.

  This was consciousness on a mass scale. She couldn’t believe how natural it felt.

  Welcome to Camp Brazen, a new voice said.

  It was Louis Blake, speaking to them like God addressing humanity from the heavens.

  Buckle your seat belts, because this will be the ride of your life.

  17

  Michael’s waking consciousness—his entire life, at this point—became a series of disconnected moments that brought him nothing but misery. At one point, he opened his eyes to see Warden Keagan at the foot of his bed, watching him, one finger tapping his chin as if in deep thought. Was he deciding what to do with Michael—or figuring out how many of his limbs to break?

  Then Michael’s eyes closed. When he opened them again, Keagan was gone. Instead, Michael saw Dr. Sampson fiddling with the IV bag while humming quietly.

  Another moment involved Michael’s eyes opening to an empty room. Excitement spiked in his chest. No one was watching. This was his chance. He could escape.

  But when he tried to move his arms and legs, he found the act impossible—the motions were too complex, too uncoordinated, like trying to move a marionette using only half the original strings. He nearly fell out of his bed.

  Using the bedpan was another matter altogether, one he dreaded. With Dr. Sampson’s help, Michael had been, on several occasions he hoped to forget, able to crouch and do his business. The act made him feel so vulnerable he’d sought comfort from Dr. Sampson’s embrace, which was necessary to keep him upright. When the old man whispered, “Good boy, thattaboy,” in Michael’s ear, he wanted to weep.

  At one point, Michael found enough strength to question the doctor.

  “Why…sleeping so…much?”

  Sampson sat on a wooden chair next to Michael’s bed, watching him. The question made the doctor smile sadly, as if he regretted to inform Michael of a particularly unfortunate bit of bad news.

  “You’re depressed, my boy. While you were sleeping, I heard you mumbling things that worry me.”

  “Like what?”

  “‘Kill me. Please kill me.’ Things like that. You’ve also been apologizing to a girl. Arielle, I believe is her name. Who is Arielle, if I may ask?”

  “Just…someone.”

  “Well, you obviously care very much about this someone. I’m sorry you’re not with her. But you know, you shouldn’t be so down about things. You’re going to the People’s Republic.” He dropped his voice to a whisper, even cupping a hand around his mouth as he leaned forward. “You’re getting out of this place. For good.”

  Michael stared miserably up at the ceiling. “Will they…break my arms and legs? So I can’t escape?”

  Sampson said nothing. Michael heard the chair creak as the old doctor got up, then a clattering sound as he began to fumble with medical instruments on a nearby table.

  “You’ll be out of here soon enough,” Sampson said. “You’ll see. It won’t be so bad.”

  Michael knew it was night because the windows were dark. They kept the lights on in the hospital at all times, and he often wished for darkness, so he wouldn’t have to be aware of his surroundings. So he could just sink into it. Pretend he was somewhere else. Tonight, the feeling was worse than it had ever been.

  Through the open window, he heard the guards posted outside whispering about something—an illicit card game that was going to take place out in the ruins of the old city. It seemed wrong to Michael—completely and disgustingly immoral—that he should be strapped to a bed about to have his arms and legs broken so he could be shipped to a prison state while these men took such great pleasure in conspiring to play a meaningless card game. Part of Michael wished for a violent episode to occur, so he could extend his telepathy like an invisible pair of hands. So he could wring their necks…

  Michael.

  The voice telepathically entered his mind. Michael recognized it at once, and his spirits lifted so suddenly he thought his body might float right off the bed.

  Louis, he wanted to respond, but the drug…

  You can do it, Blake said. Just try a little harder.

  Louis, it’s you. You’re here!

  Yes, it’s me. I can barely sense you. They must have you drugged.

  Yes, I can’t…

  Don’t say the words, Blake warned, or they’ll become true.

  But…

  But nothing. ‘I can’t’ must be forever stricken from your vocabulary. Especially now.

  It had become easier to communicate this way. Blake must have been helping him. But using his telepathy still felt like pushing a boulder up a hill.

  Do you have a way…to bypass…

  Listen to me. Those drugs were only ever tested on Type II and Type III telepaths. You’re a Type I. There’s no limit to what you can accomplish—you just need the right frame of mind.

  Okay… Just help me.

  I’ll do more than that. Close your eyes…

  Michael obeyed.

  He awoke somewhere else.

  It was a place where things like light, time, sensation no longer seemed to exist. Only his consciousness—his thoughts, his sense of being—subsisted, ever expanding.

  I call this the Dreamscape, Blake said

  Michael held his breath—only he didn’t have lungs. Yet, he felt his consciousness go silent and still, finally at peace with its surroundings. He could have floated away into the infinite darkness like a feather carried by the wind, Camp Brazen only a distant memory.

  But then, something changed. He was no longer alone.

  Michael, she said.

  This was what pure happiness felt like. Suddenly, all of his problems, his fears, his pain—it all vanished.

  Arielle.

  She welcomed him with what felt like open arms. Arielle ached for Michael, and he for her—and he felt her desire as strongly as he knew she could feel his own. The act of coming together was that of two souls combining, vibrating with pleasure, as what had once been two halves suddenly became whole.

  Let’s get you out of there, she said.

  Michael didn’t answer right away. He was too overwhelmed by the sense of connection he felt with Arielle, the incredible potential of this place, the tantalizing thought he could leave his body and exist here, w
ith her, forever.

  But he couldn’t give up. She was here because of him, and he was here for a reason.

  Soon, he replied. But first, I have something I need to do. I’ll need your help.

  Of course, she said.

  The others were there as well. Dominic, Peter, Eli, Ian. Louis Blake wasn’t just there—he seemed to encapsulate them. This was his simulation, his world.

  Do you know what you’re doing? Blake asked. We can always go home, come back at a later time in full force.

  Arielle vibrated with a feeling of yearning, of hoping Michael would agree to this. But it was the thought of Dean Hampton slowly dying in the hotbox that kept Michael from screaming, Yes, please, take me home.

  I can’t leave, he said. Not yet. I can’t leave him…them…

  In that case, I’ll have to teach you something you haven’t yet learned, Blake said. Because if I can’t convince you to flee from that place, then I’ll never be able to stop you from doing anything. I can only teach you to prevail.

  What is it? Michael asked.

  His consciousness rocked, tingling pleasantly, as the Dreamscape trapped him inside a sudden vortex, a violent tornado of colors, sight, sounds, and emotions. The entire camp was suddenly at his fingertips.

  Yes, Michael said. Show me…

  18

  Dean Hampton lay on the concrete floor, sweating in the darkness of the hotbox. There were no windows except for a viewing slit on the door, and he made a game out of avoiding the line of sunlight it traced across the floor during certain parts of the day.

  The line also served as a clock of sorts. When it first appeared in the morning from when it ceased to exist, the sun having shifted above the hotbox, he knew half a day had passed. It helped him keep count.

  He’d been in hell for nine days, still alive thanks to the water and food his men—especially that strangely persistent kid, Marshall—had been smuggling in. The three cups he received from the guards were not enough. This place was a death sentence, and he still had twenty-one days to go.

  Best not to think about it. He tried to move as little as possible to minimize how much he was sweating. But he could feel precious moisture escaping every time he breathed. At night, he lost himself in dreams of New Dallas and a girl named Susan he had lost forever.

  He was asleep when it happened. One of his rare daytime naps. A knock came at the door.

  A knock. Not the pounding of a guard frustrated by hotbox duty, bringing Dean his next meal with a side of attitude, as was usually the case.

  Another knock came, followed by a third. Slow and perfectly measured. Like it was a message.

  “Who is it?” Dean called.

  The door eased open, gently, as if the person on the other side were carrying a platter of food and drinks and didn’t want to spill any of it.

  At first, he saw nothing but sunlight beyond the door, a barren patch of ground. Then his visitor stepped into view.

  It was a camp guard, only he gave off an odd, different affect Dean had trouble comprehending. His wide eyes stared off into the distance, his arms limply at his sides. As he walked into the hotbox, his legs appeared to move in sync with some kind of slow, internal metronome that had taken the place of his brain. He was like a zombie from the comic books Dean had read as a teenager.

  Dean almost expected him to moan like one.

  Braiiinnns, he might have said, lifting his arms in an attempt to grab his victim.

  Instead, the guard was silent as he turned and took a militant step backward, clearing the way for whoever was next. A shadow fell across the sunny ground. Dean scrambled away from the door, certain this next person was going to be his executioner. It was the only explanation he could fathom for this oddly ceremonial behavior. General Halsidier was coming to shoot Dean in the head.

  “Dean,” Marshall said, filling the doorframe.

  Dean relaxed, then became tense again. The guard was standing right there—inside the hotbox, which made no sense. Plus, Marshall was violating about a dozen different rules by approaching him, speaking with him, reaching out to touch him.

  They embraced. Dean kept his eyes on the guard. What in the hell was going on?

  “He’s out of it,” Marshall said, pulling back with a smile. “You don’t need to worry about him.”

  “You…you…” Dean struggled to find words. “Telepathy?”

  Marshall nodded, lip curled along one corner. A knowing smile Dean found oddly comforting. Like he had a secret to share that would strip away all these walls and fences and allow every prisoner in Camp Brazen to simply walk out and be free again.

  It was then Dean noticed something odd about Marshall’s appearance. He seemed to have gained some weight—maybe ten or fifteen pounds—and his clothes were clean. He wore a white cotton shirt, jeans, and work boots. There wasn’t a stain or smudge on any of it—in fact, his shirt was so pristine it seemed to glow as if it had captured and carried in some of the sunlight from outside.

  “You look different,” Dean said, cocking his head. “How is that possible? How long have I been in here?”

  “About nine days,” Marshall said. “And I look different because I’m not really here.”

  Dean frowned. “What do you mean? Shit, I must be dehydrated something awful. I’m dreaming or having a hallucination.”

  “You’re fine,” Marshall said. “I’m a projection of my own consciousness, an illusion we’re both sharing. That’s why I needed a guard to open the door. And now that it’s open, you’re getting out of here. Right now.”

  Dean just stood there, watching Marshall. Definitely dehydration. Dean was seeing things. One more day of this, and they would find his body curled up, dry as a chicken turd, in the corner.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Marshall tapped the side of his own head. “I’m in your mind, Dean. Just like I’m in his mind.” He nodded at the guard, who stood against the wall like a statue.

  “But my men told me you were in the hospital. Drugged up. That they were shipping you back to the People’s Republic.”

  “That was before,” Marshall said. “But things have changed. I had some friends come by to help me.”

  “Then why haven’t you gotten out of here? If you’re capable of…this…then why stick around?”

  Marshall shook his head. “I couldn’t leave yet.”

  “Don’t say you’re still here because of me.”

  “It’s not just you,” Marshall said. Dean noticed the boy wasn’t blinking—hadn’t blinked once, it seemed. Apparently, he didn’t need to. “It’s all of us.”

  Us, Marshall had said. Like he was one of them, the so-called “Hamptonites.”

  Dean was beginning to see where this was going. But could it work?

  “You should know something about me,” Marshall continued. “I’m not like any telepath you’ve ever heard about. My mother saved me from a research facility where Harris Kole and his scientists were doing experiments on the brains of telepaths. Children were killed. A lot of them, many still babies and infants. And young women died, like my mother, whose only job was to give birth to more victims.

  “But I survived. I came out different. If you were to lump all telepaths into categories, Types IIs and IIIs would be the majority. But there’s one that’s much stronger—dangerously unstable at times, but capable of what you’re seeing right now.”

  “A Type I,” Dean said.

  Marshall nodded gravely. There was something about the way light played off his body—the illusion of his body—that reminded Dean of how he had imagined the Holy Spirit to look, back when he’d been an impressionable child obsessed with the characters in an old Bible he’d found in his father’s bookcase.

  Ghostly, the young man seemed, but more real than reality itself.

  “Also,” the boy added, “my name is Michael. Michael Cairne.”

  “It’s nice to formally meet you, Michael or Marshall or…whatever you are. Care to tell me your plan? Ar
e you and your friends going to break us out of here? Because if that’s the case, I hope they brought a truckload of guns.”

  “We won’t need guns,” Marshall said. “Not if we do it right. No one has to die.”

  Dean shook his head. “If this is real—and I’m not hallucinating—then you can count me in. I don’t see any other option. But I want you to promise me one thing.”

  Marshall—no, Michael—stared at him with those creepy, unblinking eyes that seemed to glow.

  “And what’s that?”

  Dean put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, which felt surprisingly real.

  “When—if—we get out of here alive, I want you to promise you won’t stand in my way when I gather a battalion of men to come back and burn this hellhole to the ground.”

  Michael gave a single nod, then moved aside to let Dean through the door.

  19

  Andrea awoke with a loud gasp.

  The sound brought Simon Keagan instantly awake. He’d always been a light sleeper, but ever since he and Andrea married and started living together—the former had necessarily followed the latter, her family having been very strict—he found himself waking up as many as a dozen times a night, often under the impression that something was wrong inside the apartment, that intruders had entered their home, or that Andrea and the baby were gone.

  Sometimes, he thought he sensed the presence of ghosts in the hallway or inside the bedroom, watching him in the darkness, angry as only the spirits of dead men could be after spending the last chapter of their lives in a place like Camp Brazen. These days, Keagan barely slept at all.

  “Andrea?” he said, lifting his head off the pillow. “You okay?”

  His wife panted lightly in what appeared to be mortal terror. She lay face-up, eyes wide and blank in the shred of moonlight shining through the window, her chest rapidly rising and falling.

  “Andrea.” Simon shook her, then did it again, harder. “Andrea, wake up.”

  She finally came out of it with a jolt. They both sat up.

  “Simon?” she asked, the terror clear on her face even as she stared at her husband. He couldn’t shake the feeling it was his face that terrified her.