Where Nightmares Ride

by R A Baxter

  Ming arrived at Travis’ side. “See what Jack drove us to?” Ming shoved Clara aside and picked up Travis’s flashlight. The chop of a helicopter echoed from a nearby mountainside. Before Jack could think what to do next, Ming grabbed his left arm and circled around him, pushing up on his arm and forcing him to double over. Travis grabbed hold of Jack’s legs and held them tight.

  “You’re making us do this, Jack,” Travis said. “Your paranoia is out of control. We just want to get you the help you need.”

  Jack wiggled his legs but could hardly move them.

  “Let him go! Why are you doing this?” Clara tried to pull Ming’s arm away.

  Jack looked over Clara’s shoulder and saw Katie turn her head and grasp Barbara’s arm with both her hands. She raised her shoulders, tucked her chin down, and bent her knees before stepping back and locking her right foot behind Barbara’s foot. Katie curved forward, stepped around 180 degrees, and pulled Barbara’s arm across her body before tripping her and throwing her to the ground with a thud. She kicked Barbara in the ribs before turning and running to help Clara.

  “Run for it!” Jack freed one of his knees enough to pound it hard into Travis’s face, making his nose bleed and causing him to let go. Katie pulled Clara away and both girls ran across the glen and disappeared down a hill, behind a line of tall shrubs. Barbara pulled herself up and charged after them.

  “Just let us help you,” Ming said.

  Jack wished he knew how to escape a headlock the way he’d just seen Katie do it. With Travis sitting in the dirt, tending his bloody nose, he knew this was his best chance to free himself. He leaned diagonally against a tree behind him and shoved with all the strength in that direction. Ming’s right leg found a branch and he lost his balance long enough for Jack to twist around and slide his head under Ming’s arm. He stepped over an old toppled tree nearby and swung his backpack at Ming’s head, causing him to duck and tumble over the log.

  Jack charged down a steep hill into thick pines, not looking back. The helicopter grew louder, and he feared the pilot had already seen him. Not wanting to lose Katie and Clara, he turned in their direction and scurried like a deer. He leaped over logs and shrubs and dived below low branches, running until his lungs burned.

  A minute later, he stopped and squeezed between two pine trees, breathing heavy and searching for his pursuers. After a few seconds, he found Travis emerging from the trees on a nearby hilltop. A low-flying helicopter arose from the other side of the hill and hovered above him. He put up his hands and shook his head, then pointed toward a line of short pine trees. Jack breathed a little easier knowing Travis had no idea where he was.

  Jack had often felt a burning in his chest when he ran too hard for too long, and this was no exception. He waited for the pain to subside before moving on. The aircraft hovered near Travis, which made it easier for Jack to avoid him. He didn’t know, however, where Ming or Barbara had gone.

  At the sound of rustling leaves, Jack dashed to a wide decaying tree and ducked behind it. He snatched up a nearby broken branch, yanked off the twigs, and held it up like a baseball bat and held his breath. An elk emerged from around a hill and scampered away at the sight of him. Jack took a deep breath and let his arm drop, but became alarmed again when Ming and Travis appeared and ran in the same direction.

  They must have thought that was me. Jack marched on, worried he’d never find Katie and Clara again. He hadn’t walked far before he heard a woman groaning. He rushed through a thicket, fearing the worst, and found Barbara sitting alone on a fallen log, rocking back and forth and rubbing her head. Jack stepped back slowly, hoping she hadn’t seen him.

  “Jack!” Barbara turned toward him. “Don’t go. Help me. I don’t know what got into me. I’m sorry. I want to go with you.”

  Jack stared at her for a few seconds. “I’ll send help.” He turned and ran away.

  “No, Jack, Come back! You idiot! Don’t you see? Something’s wrong with your mind. You’re being paranoid!”

  Her cries faded in the distance.

  The sun lowered over the western mountains and Jack stopped to listen for Katie and Clara. The day had snailed by so slowly, it felt like a week had passed. The low buzz of a hummingbird’s wings surprised him. He watched the tiny green bird zip past him and disappear into the forest.

  He frowned. “The town has to be close. Katie and Clara are probably there already, waiting for me.” He sniffed and kicked a small stick in his path. “Who am I kidding? I probably passed the town hours ago. I’ll never find my way out of here. The girls were probably caught, or even killed. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  He dropped to his knees and looked up to the heavens. “Someone help me! Please.”

  A faint whisper startled him. “Turn south. Follow the crows.”

  “Katie? Is that you?” He looked around but saw no one. He thought he’d hallucinated until a cawing sound reached his ears and he turned and discovered three black crows soaring from a treetop and alighting on a low branch at the mouth of a narrow ravine.

  “Did that just happen?” He had no other plan to guide him, so he turned south and followed the birds. Whenever he approached within a few yards of them, they’d fly off and glide to a rock or shrub another forty yards away. After a half hour of this, the crows flew to a distant thicket by the base of a cliff and disappeared in its leaves. Jack heard another helicopter approaching, darted to the scrub oaks, and dived under them. The aircraft hovered nearby for a few seconds, then flew off.

  The crows emerged from the leaves and flew along the cliffside before landing on the ground by a pile of branches. Jack stared at them and shook his head. “Either I’m delusional, or those birds just helped me hide from a helicopter. Maybe I am losing my mind.”

  Jack trailed the crows to their next stop and watched them disappear behind a copse of stones at the base of a steep cliff. When he arrived, he couldn’t see the birds anywhere. He climbed onto one of the larger boulders, looked around, and sat down and leaned his back against another rock to enjoy the warmth the stones had soaked up all day.

  He froze at the sound of footsteps, then jumped down from the rocks and peeked around the boulders, ready to strike someone with his makeshift walking stick.

  “It’s Jack!” Clara ran to him and hugged him, squealing in delight. Katie then emerged from a cavity within a large pile of boulders, her cheeks red from tears.

  “I thought they killed you,” Katie said. She almost hugged him but stopped herself. “This is a nightmare.”

  Jack nodded and frowned. “I know. I keep wishing I’d wake up.”

  “Did you see Barbara’s face? She looked possessed. Ming, too.”

  Jack nodded and pounded his walking stick against a boulder. “It’s like that newsletter said. Media’s in their heads, controlling them.”

  Clara gave Jack a blank stare. “I must be the only one that missed that dream.”

  “That’s why you’re the sanest one here,” Jack said. “I still can’t believe you hit Travis with that rock.”

  Her eyes widened. “I only meant to knock him down. He was going to hurt you. I need to tell him I’m sorry.” She looked back as if to search for Travis.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” Jack said. “You had to stop him. If anyone’s to blame, it’s Lynch. He forced Media to control their minds.”

  “What are we going to do?” Katie stared at Jack. “We can’t stay here forever, and we can’t stay awake forever. What can we do?”

  Jack looked around. “We have to get to Silverton.”

  “Don’t you get it, Jack? They know our plans. Ming and the others will tell them everything. We can’t go anywhere—not even in our dreams.”

  “Abby told us to go to a cave down this ravine,” Clara pointed into a narrow passage sandwiched between a steep mountain and thick forest trees.

  “Clara!” Katie looked at Jack, her face red. “I never said I was sure it was Abby. I just thought I heard a voice.”r />
  “The stress is making us hallucinate,” Jack said.

  “I didn't just imagine it!” Katie had a hint of anger in her voice. “Someone put that note under my pillow. Someone protected me last night. Clara and I heard someone tell us to go to a cave near here. If they can’t help us, I don’t know what we can do. We might as well turn ourselves in.”

  Jack nodded. “Maybe you’re right. I admit, something led me here, too. Thing is, we can’t just ignore that Farley was messing with our minds. We may be hearing and seeing things that aren’t real. I’m just saying, we shouldn’t trust ourselves.”

  “Clara and I both heard the voice. It wasn’t an illusion.”

  Jack gave a nod and began working around fallen rocks in the narrow ravine. Katie and Clara lined up behind him, each watching their steps as they navigated the hundreds of loose, wobbly stones. Tall boulders hugged both sides of the gulley, adding further darkness to the blackening clouds now filling the sky. A chill wind piped up and raindrops peppered Jack’s shirt.

  “We better find shelter soon,” Jack said.

  Clara skipped from rock to rock, making a game of the hike. She passed Jack and smiled, then started whistling a song he didn’t recognize. Jack grinned and watched her stop to admire a crow bouncing along the tips of a row of loose branches leaning against the mountainside. The bird fluttered into a thin gap between the sticks, then flew back out again and landed on a crooked branch of a dead tree across the narrows.

  Katie ran past Jack to the row of sticks and pulled them aside, revealing a rounded opening bordered by worn gray timbers. “It’s a cave!” Katie’s eyes widened, and she clasped her hands.

  Jack ran to join her and gazed inside. “It looks like an old mine.” He entered only far enough to kick a loose timber and send a clump of dirt exploding at his feet. “Seems dangerous. We better find someplace else.”

  Katie pushed past him and looked around inside. “It appears safe to me. It’s been here for decades. We just need to watch our step.”

  Jack nodded and gave a nervous laugh, trying to underplay the tightness in his chest and his suspicion that the cave was inevitably destined to collapse and bury him alive. He took a deep breath and entered at a slow pace, his hands in front of him, and watched every shadow for snakes, spiders, cougars, bears, and shrinking walls.

  Jack felt Katie’s breath on his neck. She locked her step behind him, using him as a shield from whatever might be lurking in the dark. Light suddenly flooded the cavern and Jack turned to see Clara holding her flashlight. The light bounced around the many cracks and niches in the cave walls and ceiling, where gray and black spiders lurked amidst their webs. A rusty pipe hung from the rounded ceiling, parts of it drooping down to the ground thirty feet ahead. Jack’s feet found the narrow set of tracks that ran along the tunnel floor.

  “I don’t see any bats,” Clara said. “Oh well.”

  Thunder pealed, and the pattering of rain transformed into a torrent. Jack rushed out of the cave and grabbed the moistened branches, setting them back in front of the entrance to block the cold wind. He walked over to join Katie and Clara who’d found a more open area that had ragged stone ledges jutting along its sides, ideal for seating.

  “Looks like we found this place just in time,” Jack sat on a flat part of one of the ledges. “We should be safe here for a while.”

  Clara placed her flashlight next to him, aimed up at the ten-foot-high ceiling, and sat on the ledge across from him. She pulled a sweater from her backpack and wrapped it around her shoulders, then set down her pack to use as a pillow. She laid down. “If it’s alright with you guys, I need a rest.”

  Katie dug an off-white sweater from her own bag and sat next to Jack. “You think it’s safe for us to sleep?”

  “Maybe we can take turns. We can wake each other every hour or so. I’ve heard it takes a few hours of sleeping before dream cycles start.”

  “I’ve heard that, too. I wish I knew how Clara does it. Tell me something, Clara. Have you ever dreamed about the camp? This isn’t time for stories. Tell the truth.”

  Clara leaned up on her elbow and shook her head. “I don’t know why it happens. No matter what I do, I only dream about my kingdom. I tell myself to dream about other things, but I never do.”

  “It’s nothing to worry about.” Katie draped her sweater around herself. “Dreaming about your own little world is the best thing you could do right now. At least you have a chance at a good night’s sleep. I think it’s happening because your mom kept you so secluded.”

  “I wondered if that was it, too. She hardly ever let me leave our cabin. She read me tons of books about fairies and dwarves and trolls, then I couldn’t help dreaming about them. Now that I look back, it’s strange she was so obsessed about those stories.”

  “Not strange for our family,” Katie said. “Your parents used to work at Montathena with my parents. They talked about dreams all the time. It wouldn’t surprise me if your mother did something on purpose to make you dream that way, to keep you safe.”

  “And maybe that’s what Abby’s doing, too. She’s keeping us safe.” Clara laid down and closed her eyes.

  Katie glanced at Jack and he looked away. He didn’t want to let on that he didn’t believe they were being helped by the ghost of Katie’s sister. He knew she only believed that because it was so hard for her to stay at the same camp where her sister died.

  Jack shivered from the cold, humid air and put an arm around Katie, surprised by his own audacity. He’d never been this forward with a girl. He pulled her close, exhilarated that she didn’t push him away. He snagged a rolled cotton blanket from his backpack, then unrolled it and flung it over Katie and himself.

  “You looked cold.”

  Katie closed her eyes and snuggled her shoulder against Jack’s chest. He couldn’t remember ever having felt so happy.

  “Abby was the last flicker of sanity in my life,” Katie said. “My baby sister, Marcy, hardly even got to know her.”

  “You have a little sister?”

  “She’s gone, too. After Abby’s accident, my parents started arguing all the time. Then my mom took off one night with Marcy. Didn’t even say goodbye. I never heard from her again. She didn’t…she didn’t care about me enough to take me with her.”

  Jack sensed the tenseness in Katie’s muscles. A tear rolled down her cheek.

  “That can’t be true. Don’t think that. She probably didn’t have a choice. She probably had to get out of there too fast. Knowing Intershroud, they probably forced her to run away, just like they did with us.”

  Katie perked up and looked at Jack. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve, a smile forming on her face. “I never thought of that. She could be on the run. Our housekeeper told me my mom went into hiding, but I thought she was making up stories to make me feel better. It makes perfect sense now. Oh, I feel so much better now. I just need to find her.”

  Jack wanted this moment to last forever, Katie leaning against his chest, her soft hair brushing against his cheek. She became animated when she spoke of vacations she’d taken with her family but grew somber when she related how her creepy Uncle Marlin lured her parents into the dream research business.

  How much time had passed, Jack didn’t know, but he was starting to feel it. He’d only slept a few hours the previous night and had hiked all day. His mind began to drift. The pattering of rain, the warmth of Katie’s body, and the melody of her soft voice—it all conspired to lull him to sleep. He imagined himself exploring the lower level of a building. Smoke hurt his eyes and the heat of flames wafted through the demolished room.

  I don’t even need my lighter to tell me I’m dreaming this time, Jack thought.

  He stumbled upon a long gray board someone had positioned to serve as a ramp out of the wreckage. He rushed up it and arrived at the same doorway where he’d dreamt the night before, except the doors were gone and someone had set the frame on fire.

  “I predicted you’d dream to the
flame—like a mindless little moth.” Curtis Lynch‘s crooked teeth stretched in a grin. Fenton Murdock stood to his left and a tall, heavyset man glared at him from Lynch’s right. The flames died out.

  “Your dream profile noted your obsession with fire,” Lynch said. “I always tell my cohorts that dreams are our greatest asset, yet they insist on wasting resources searching all over the forest for you all day in their little machines. Alas, here you are.”

  The tall, heavyset man barreled over to Jack, his face red and contorted with anger. “How dare you!” He shook his clenched fist in Jack’s face. “I’ve made sacrifices you can hardly imagine, making a decent future for my daughter. If she has been harmed in the slightest, I’ll see to it that this is the last dream you ever have.”

  “You’re the ones harming her!” Jack surmised the man was Katie’s father. “She wants nothing to do with your company.”

  “Don’t presume to know my daughter better than I do,” Vance Frost said.

  “Mr. Park,” Lynch said, “this discussion is pointless. Clearly, you’ve been enlightened about dreams and therefore must be assimilated. Let’s get on with this, Mr. Frost.”

  Jack stepped back. “I know you can’t hurt me. This is a dream.” Jack leaped up, but only rose a few inches off the ground before dropping back down. He turned to run, but found his legs moving in place, his feet no longer touching the ground.

  Mr. Murdock stood with one arm outstretched, holding him in the air with his thoughts. Jack stopped fighting him, is body going limp and hanging in the air.

  “You’ve much to learn about Somnolic Powers, my friend.” Lynch circled him and studied his face, his fingers pressed together in front of his chin, reminding Jack of an art connoisseur admiring his latest purchase. “You’re a Free Dreamer now, among other Free Dreamers. There’s no point in resisting us. You won’t be able to dream anything extraordinary among us, since you no doubt have yet to discover your dream powers.”