by R A Baxter
“It’s not their goodness they care about. It’s about taking away their ability to control their own dreams. Montathena is in the dream business. A destabilized mind cannot control its dreams.”
“We can’t do that anyway,” Taylor said.
“That’s what Montathena wants you to think. You’re right that most people can’t. Most people are already mentally conflicted because of the bad decisions they make. Bad decisions create conflicts in their minds which make it impossible for them to control what they dream. Confident, self-assured kids, like the ones at this camp, aren’t like that. They’ve made good decisions and thus aren’t hampered by mental conflicts. That means it’s possible for them to control their dreams, the same way they control their lives when they’re awake.”
“I didn’t even know it was possible to control dreams,” Jack said. “And I doubt anybody else knows. So, what does Montathena Research have to gain from making it so we can’t do it?”
“The mere possibility of it is enough for Farley to try to make sure it can’t happen. If even one person learns to control their dreams, Montathena can’t control that person and they become a threat to Montathena’s profits. Their goal is to maximize their ability to manipulate you kids in your dreams. That’s what this camp is really about.”
“They can’t manipulate us in our dreams,” Taylor said.
Sherry looked around. “I’ve said too much. I’m putting you at risk. I’m sorry, but I can’t say anything else.”
“What? Dude, we deserve to know when people are messing with our brains.”
“You don’t understand. These people are far more dangerous than you realize. They could kill you if they found out you knew their secrets.”
“Then why are you working for them?” Jack clenched his fists. “Why don’t you report them and put a stop to it?”
“Because I know how powerful they are. Y’all have no idea. No one can oppose them. Honestly, Farley would kill me right now if he knew I was telling you this. But I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t help everyone, but maybe I can at least save you two.”
“Save us?” Jack looked at Taylor and back at Sherry. “If we’re in that much danger, you’ve got to tell us. What’s their plan?”
“I want to tell you, believe me, but Farley’s operatives are always watching you, even in your dreams. They’re lying about y’all being a research team. You’re here for a single purpose— to be observed. All they want to know is if y’all are aware of their secrets, and the more I tell them to you, the more danger you’ll be in.”
Jack shook his head. “We can keep secrets, come on.”
Taylor stared her in the eyes. “Did you just say they’re watching us in our dreams?”
Sherry turned away and shook her head, then turned back to them, looking resolute. “I shouldn’t have said that. There’s no point in keeping it from you now, but you both need to promise me you’ll never speak of it again until you’re safely home.”
Jack nodded, and Taylor crossed his heart.
“We promise,” Jack said.
“Okay. This is all I can tell you. We share our dreams.”
“You’re joking.” Taylor laughed.
“I wish I were, but it’s true. All people dream to the same reality. When you dreamed about this camp last night, members of our staff were there watching you. Had y’all shown the slightest evidence that you knew you were sharing dreams, y’all would’ve been in great danger. That’s why I can’t emphasize this enough. Don’t give them any reason to think you know we share dreams.”
“That’s crazy,” Taylor said. “I’d know if I was sharing dreams with people. No one’s ever acted like I shared a dream with them.”
“There are many reasons for that. To start with, normal dreamers forget ninety-nine percent of what they dream. More importantly, dreams are chaotic if you don’t know how to control them. You might be sharing a dream with your mother, but you also might be simply dreaming up an entity to be your mother. You might even think you’re dreaming about your mother, but when you wake up, you realize it was someone else. The chaotic nature of dreams is enough to keep most people from ever figuring out that we share dreams.”
Jack grinned. “This is amazing. The world needs to know this.”
Sherry grabbed Jack’s shoulders and gave him a stern glare. “You can never do that. Montathena wouldn’t hesitate to kill you and your whole family to protect their secrets.”
Jack could only stare at her. He couldn’t fathom such a threat being true.
“Seriously?” Taylor’s eyes showed his doubt. “They’d literally murder people for knowing they can share dreams? Why? How does it hurt them for us to know that?”
“Money,” Sherry said. “Power. They profit from your ignorance, a common business practice if you think about it. Think what y’all could do if you had access to every mind on earth. Y’all could ask someone their deepest secrets, tell them anything, influence their decisions. They’d wake up the next morning never realizing they gave you their bank account number or you influenced them to buy a specific stock. Accessing other people’s dreams is the most lucrative business in existence.”
“This is unbelievable,” Jack said. “I can hardly wrap my mind around it. Why’d they want to observe me? Why’d they think I was a threat?”
“They’re concerned you might already know their secrets. All the other kids on the research team have relatives with connections to Montathena or one of its affiliates. According to your file, an old woman found Farley in his dreams and asked him to enlighten you. Instead, he lured you here to be watched.”
“Old woman?” Memories of repeated nightmares flooded Jack’s mind. He turned to Taylor, his face ashen. “She’s real! That old woman I kept dreaming about, she’s a real person! And she sent me to this freakin’ camp!”
“What do you know about that old hag?” Taylor placed a hand on Jack’s shoulder.
“Not much. Farley thinks she heads a dream cult in South Korea. I’m sorry she got you mixed up in this, but there’s nothing you can do about it now. It’s critical now that y’all just act ignorant. If Farley or anyone else finds out you know about any of this, they’ll either force you to work for them or they’ll kill you. I’m dead serious.”
“They can’t force us to do anything,” Taylor said.
“Why do you think I’m here?” Sherry’s voice cracked. “I hate Montathena to the depths of my soul. But they found out I stumbled across their secret and now my survival depends on me helping them to protect it. There are quite a few of us on staff that don’t want to be here. I can hardly live with myself anymore.” Her hands flew to her face, tears streaming between her fingers.
“What’re you going to do?” Jack felt his pockets, wishing he had a handkerchief to offer.
“Don’t worry about me. I’m not alone. I have something planned. Just protect yourselves. I’m hoping y’all won’t remember any of this while you’re dreaming, but if you do, play dumb. Act like you don’t know you’re dreaming. When you record your dreams in the computers, be honest. Play their little game and you’ll make it out of here free and alive. Promise me you’ll just play dumb.”
Jack looked at Taylor. He shrugged and then nodded.
“I’m pretty much an expert at playing dumb,” Taylor said.
“One more thing. Don’t do their sleep lab. You do that, they will own you. Make any excuse you can think of, but don’t let them hook anything up to you in that lab.”
Sherry looked at Jack’s lanyard, still dangling from a pine branch. “Keep that lanyard on in public, and don’t ever talk about their secrets, or even dreams, if you can avoid it.”
“You keep saying ‘their secrets,’” Taylor said. “Are there more secrets?”
Sherry sighed. “I’ve already said too much.”
“What about after we leave camp?” Jack gave her a hopeful look.
“I suppose y’all could benefit from some lucid dreaming tips. I’ll t
ell you what…” She pulled a small, yellowing book with frayed pages out of her purse and handed it to Jack. “Y’all can have this, but only if you keep it hidden and you open it only when you get home from camp. Can you promise me that?”
Both boys nodded, and Sherry handed it to Jack.
He shoved the book under his arm.
“That book’s a training manual, but you’ll notice some of the pages are torn out. There are secrets that even I am not allowed to know. It’ll still tell you what you’ll need to know to stay safe from people like Farley.”
“So, what are you going to do?” Taylor asked.
“I’m serious when I say I can’t take it anymore. Don’t get your hopes up, but if things go as planned, I might be able to cut this camp short for y’all. Now get on back to your cabin and keep that book out of sight.” She smiled, then walked away.
Jack and Taylor watched her disappear through the trees. Jack stared in silence, replaying her words in his mind. He turned to Taylor. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“I’m with you, dude, but how? This place is a prison yard.”
“I don’t know, but I can’t just sit here and watch Farley’s bullies destroy all those innocent people. And what’ll happen if they decide one of us knows too much? I’m not going to be their slave for the rest of my life. We need to find a way out of here and bring these people to justice.”
“We can start by warning everyone. We outnumber the staff.”
Jack shook his head. “Sherry said we’ll be in danger if they think we know too much. We’ll be putting everyone at risk. And who knows how many cameras and listening devices they have scattered around camp?”
“We at least need to tell Ming.”
“We shouldn’t put anyone else at risk until we come up with an escape plan. I’m sure I can come up with something while I’m trying to sleep tonight. I doubt I’ll be sleeping again until I do.”
A lull fell over the campground after campers took to their cabins to change into warm clothes and prepare for the night’s event. The sun hovered between the jagged peaks of a mountain range far across a sea of trees. Ever-darkening pines framed the deep blue sky and invited cool breezes and the chirrups of crickets.
Jack closed the door of the cabin and ran to join Taylor and Ming, fighting the steep trail down to the amphitheater. He tucked the end of his lanyard into his shirt pocket so no one would be able to tell that he’d removed the bugged ID badge, then checked to make sure Ming had done the same. He didn’t want to risk saying something that would make the camp staff suspicious.
“Why’d you have to tell me all that?” Ming breathed faster than usual and kept darting looks in various directions. “I think I’m having an anxiety attack. You sure Sherry wasn’t pranking you? I don’t dare even fall asleep tonight.”
“Dude, I didn’t mean to trigger you,” Taylor said. “I just felt you deserved to know.”
“It’s not your fault,” Ming said. “I’ve always had anxiety issues, but it isn’t every day that I find out people are spying on me and will kill me if they don’t like what they see.”
“I knew we should’ve waited to tell you until I came up with an escape plan,” Jack said.
“I promise I won’t tell anyone else until we do,” Taylor said.
“How can we possibly escape?” Ming stopped and turned to Jack. “Think about it. We have no access to our car keys or our cars. The gates are guarded. We can’t climb the walls. Apparently, there are cameras and bugs everywhere, and we have no way to communicate with the outside world. Even if we could escape, I’m no outdoorsman. I’d die out there in the woods.”
“I didn’t say it’d be easy,” Jack said. “Maybe we don’t all have to go.”
“What if we pay someone to create a diversion,” Taylor said. “Start another fire or something. With the guards distracted, Jack and I can sneak out the front gate and run to the nearest town for help.”
“Even if that works, who’d believe you?” Ming started walking again and Jack and Taylor followed him. “If you try to tell the police that Montathena Research is trying to control people’s dreams, they’ll just send you to a psychiatrist. Besides, Farley’s been bullying kids for years without anyone stopping him. I don’t see any hope in fighting them unless we can come up with some real evidence.”
Jack pursed his lips. “I’ll find something. I have that book Sherry gave me. Maybe there’s something in there.”
“I say we sleep on it,” Taylor said. “For now, let’s try to calm down. Maybe our minds will be clearer in the morning.”
“I agree.” Jack hugged himself against the cold. “Let’s just hope they haven’t figured out a way to ruin the bonfire.” Jack took a deep breath, attempting to start creating a spiritual connection with nature.
The camp exploded with bright unnatural light and sharp black shadows.
“So much for that hope, dude.” Taylor said.
“Farley took care of the lighting problem alright,” Ming said. “At least I won’t be the only one unable to sleep tonight.”
A short young woman with golden brown hair stepped past Jack and he nodded to greet her. She smiled at him with her mouth pursed shut. Jack knew why. She had a chipped tooth, making her a victim of the infamous “self-image” session. He expected he’d be seeing a lot of self-conscious kids wandering around camp.
“Hey.” Jack stepped up to the girl. “Don’t listen to those idiots on staff. Your smile is adorable.”
The girl’s eyes lit up and she walked away. She still kept her mouth pressed shut, but Jack noticed a little more of a skip in her step.
“Speaking of pretty girls, when are you going to talk to Katie?” Ming stared at Jack with an exaggerated glare of interest. “We’ll know Sherry told you the truth if Katie admits she had the same dreams you did.”
“I know, but there’s nothing I can do about it. She’s always with Damien.”
“Don’t worry about him,” Ming said. “Next time you see her, just walk right up and ask her straight out.”
“Good plan, but what would I say? ‘Hi Katie, I dream about you every night. How about you?’ She’d put out a restraining order against me.”
“Maybe you can talk to Clara,” Ming said. “Although, she’s a little ditzy.”
“No, she isn’t,” Taylor said. “I think she’s hilarious. I know she pretty much wrote an entire fantasy novel and claimed she dreamed it, but I think it’s just her way of rebelling.”
“She doesn’t look like a rebel to me,” Ming said.
“Dude, you need to realize, those computers don’t just tell you what’s going on in your head. They also tell Montathena Research what’s in your head.” Taylor’s face lit up. “In fact, tomorrow I’m going to do what she’s doing. I’m going to start making things up. They’re going to think I’m freaking Mephistopheles when they read my dream.”
“You’re forgetting that they’re watching our dreams,” Jack said. “They already know what we’re dreaming, and that it’s about this camp. Sherry warned us about it.”
“I guess you’re right,” Taylor said.
“That means those computer assessments are a complete waste of our time,” Ming said. “That bites. I was actually looking forward to those dream assessments.”
Katie eased past Jorge, Tony, and Carl, then noticed Damien standing on the back step of the amphitheater, waving at her. She waved back and pushed Clara along at a quicker pace. Clara stared up at one of the stadium lights, then lost her balance and grabbed onto Carl’s head.
“Watch it!” Carl untangled himself from her arms and shoved her away, then snarled at her and rubbed his right foot.
“Sorry,” Clara said.
“Haven’t you seen a light bulb before? Watch where you’re going!”
Katie grabbed Clara’s hand and pulled her away from him. “Don’t listen to that dweeb. Those lights are pretty bright. I don’t blame you for looking at them.”
“Actually,
I was watching the bats. There’s a whole bunch of them up there.”
Katie looked up and saw five bats circling the fixtures, snatching up moths. Moments later, she and Clara took seats on the cool concrete next to Damien, and again they gazed up at the flying creatures.
Damien looked up for a second, then turned to Katie. “Would you save my place? Someone needs to do something about those lights. It’s like daytime here.” He skipped down the steps and disappeared behind a crowd of campers standing in front of the stage.
Marina walked up behind Katie, with Alison and Barbara at her side. “I’m glad I caught you, Katie,” Marina said. “I hear you and Alison are both planning on doing that sleep lab tonight.”
“Good thing, too,” Alison said. “It’ll be nice and dark in that lab. No one else will get any sleep tonight.”
“Listen,” Marina said. “Don’t you think it’s odd how desperately they want you to do that lab? I wouldn’t do it if I were you. I don’t trust them.”
“It’s nothing to worry about,” Katie said. “Damien did it years ago and he’s just fine. My dad runs labs like that in my basement all the time. I’m not worried.” In truth, she knew the dangers existed, but she’d made her decision and preferred not to have to defend it.
Marina started to say more when Travis jumped down from the step above them. The lights at the amphitheater went dark.
“That’s good timing,” Travis said. He turned to Katie. “I’ve been trying to meet you all day. We’re practically neighbors, you know. My uncle works for a Montathena affiliate in Jersey, just up the road from Boston.” He moved within inches of Katie and she backed away.
“Sorry, but Damien and I are already, you know, an item.” Katie looked around to make sure Damien wasn’t around to expose her lie.
Travis frowned and turned to Clara. His smile returned.
“She’s got a boyfriend, too,” Katie said. She stepped between him and Clara.