Where Nightmares Ride

by R A Baxter

  Jack flailed around, glaring at Lynch. “I just need to wake up.” He slapped himself twice, then closed his eyes. “Wake up. Wake up! Katie, wake me up!”

  Fenton laughed. “I know you’re not that stupid. An atomic bomb could go off in a dream and Katie wouldn’t hear it. Relax. You’ll find Intershroud will give you a great life if you just embrace it.” He nodded to Vance.

  Mr. Frost held his hands up with fingers vertical and tight together, then moved a palm to each side of Jack’s head. Jack wriggled with all his might, swinging his feet three times at Mr. Frost, but each time met the invisible wall of Murdock’s mental power.

  Vance said, “I’m sure you know it’s impossible to avoid thinking of something once the suggestion of it is in your head.”

  “Leave me alone!”

  Vance clamped his hands against Jack’s cheeks. “Think about the place where you’re sleeping right now.”

  Jack tried to outwit him by focusing on other thoughts: his cabin, the lodge, the lake. Still, for a split second, the image of the mineshaft flickered inside his head. The moment he thought it, the dark cave materialized around him. He felt himself dropping from Vance’s hands onto the solid ground.

  Vance smirked and stepped back, studying the cave. “It’s one of the mines.” He rubbed a hand along a plank of wood shoring.

  “Impossible,” Murdock said. “Farley demolished the mines years ago.”

  “The fool missed one,” Lynch said. “This explains the Nightmares showing up at camp. This is a secondary entrance to a mine that imbecile failed to fully destroy.”

  “Do we have any choppers in the air?” Vance looked at Fenton.

  “Staff members took off in one right before I went to sleep. Jack’s friend ditched his escorts in Kalispell and they’re looking for him.”

  “Taylor got away!” Jack smiled.

  “Not for long,” Lynch said. “Fenton, run outside and find our bearings, then wake yourself and contact that pilot before he lands.”

  “Got it.” Mr. Murdock walked to the cave opening and tossed the branches aside with a flick of his wrist. Once outside, a circular clump of earth arose from the ground below his feet and he ascended out of Jack’s view, into the sky.

  “I think we’re done here,” Mr. Frost said. “You ready to wake up, Mr. Lynch?”

  “One moment.” Lynch approached Jack and looked him in the eye. “Do you see now, Mr. Park? You’re but the tiniest of little gnats—not even the slightest threat to this organization. We’ll soon teach you your proper place in this world. Let’s go, Mr. Frost.”

  Vance Frost nodded, pulled a hand grenade from the pocket of his black suit coat and threw away the pin. He waved and tossed the grenade to Jack. “See you shortly.”

  A split-second noise preceded a blinding white light.

  Jack bolted upright, breathing heavily, and blinded by pitch darkness. He felt around the cold stone ledge searching for the flashlight. The realization hit him that Katie wasn’t where she’d been when he’d fallen asleep. He shoved his hand into his pocket, grabbed his lighter, and lit it. He looked around for Katie, shadows playing on the walls wherever he swung the flame. He saw only Clara, curled up and sleeping soundly.

  He shook her. “Clara, wake up. Where’s Katie?”

  She sat up and rubbed her eyes, shivering and pulling her sweater tighter around herself. “She took the flashlight. Maybe she, you know, when Mother Nature calls…”

  Jack’s face reddened. “I didn’t think of that. I just had a nightmare that Lynch and his partners found us, and it freaked me out. I thought Lynch got to her in her sleep.”

  The rain had stopped, its patter replaced by the chopping of an approaching helicopter. Jack struggled to accept that something in his dream could’ve had any relevance to his awake life, but he knew that helicopter couldn’t be a coincidence. The branches at the entrance remained bunched tightly together. Katie hadn’t gone outside.

  “We need to get out of here.” Jack stood and searched the dark interior of the mine. “Katie! Lynch knows where we are! Where are you?”

  He waited ten seconds and called her name again, every second feeling like an eternity. Katie didn’t come.

  A searchlight brightened the branches at the cave entrance. Jack grabbed Clara’s arm.

  “Don’t be afraid.” Damien’s voice bellowed from a megaphone. “We know you’re in the cave. Come on out. No one’s going to hurt you.”

  “Should we go out?” Clara picked up her backpack.

  Jack shook his head. “He’s lying. At least it doesn’t sound like they have Katie.”

  “Why’d Katie go into the tunnels by herself?”

  “I don’t know. It’s dangerous in there, too. Let’s hope we can find someplace to hide. Maybe Damien will think we left.”

  Jack tied his blanket onto his backpack and shoved the strap over his shoulder. He grabbed Katie’s bag and pushed Clara on in front of him. Shadows from the rocky walls created an eerie feeling that someone was lurking around every protrusion. The dirt and stone walls curved to their right, held aloft by old wood timbers connected with bent steel plates.

  They rushed down a gradual slope which then curved upward, then they ducked below wooden posts that crisscrossed over their heads. Jack tripped over another that had long ago fallen on the ground. About a hundred yards inside, the path narrowed, and the walls wedged inward from fallen rocks and soil.

  “Jack.” Damien’s loudspeaker now echoed from inside the cave, far behind them. “There’s no point to this. We know you’re in here. There’s nothing to be afraid of. No one’s blaming you for anything. We’re going to send you all back home.”

  Jack marched on, shoving Clara ahead of him and keeping his eye on the ground for stray rocks and broken timbers visible in the dim light of his lighter. “What could’ve possessed Katie to wander this far into the tunnels by herself?”

  Clara shrugged.

  Avard’s gravelly voice now sounded on the loudspeaker. “Park! What do you durned fools think yer doing? Come back here before this place collapses. Yer gunna get us all killed.”

  Clara stopped and looked at Jack, but he shook his head and pushed her onward. He began to perspire and breathe harder, imagining the walls growing narrower with every step. He searched every niche for any kind of outlet. He sweated and his body felt tense. He needed fresh air. A girl’s body came into view, kneeling motionless against a pile of fallen timbers. He stopped, petrified.

  “It’s Katie!” Clara ran to her and bent down to hug her.

  Katie looked up at Clara, then at Jack. She handed him the flashlight and he pocketed his lighter.

  “What happened?” Jack held her bag out to her.

  She took it and set it in her lap. “I’m alright.” She pulled herself to her feet and rubbed her eyes. “I was just resting.”

  “Resting? I thought they’d taken you in your sleep. Why’d you run off?”

  “There was a bluish light. You fell asleep and I turned off the flashlight, but I still saw light. I was scared at first, but then I recognized a voice. It was so faint I almost missed it.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “Because it was her. Don’t you see? I saw Abby. I knew she was the one helping us escape. She said not to be afraid. I had to go to her.”

  Jack looked down. He couldn’t tell her she was hallucinating, experiencing some side effect of Farley’s camp. “We need to keep moving. They’ve found us. We need to find another exit.” He walked forward and waved for them to follow him. Katie stood and followed him, with Clara at her side.

  “I would’ve screamed like a crazy girl if I’d seen her,” Clara said. “Did she look all ghostly and scary?”

  “I didn’t really see her, exactly, but I knew it was her. She told me she’d been visiting our reality too long and couldn’t make herself visible anymore. I know it sounds crazy.”

  “What else did she say?” Clara ducked below a fallen timber.

&
nbsp; Katie frowned. “She wasn’t herself. She was so angry and only wanted to know if Farley survived the explosion. She admitted she led the attacks at camp.”

  “Stop it!” Jack halted and turned to Katie. He grabbed her forearms and looked in her eyes. “You have to snap out of this. Don’t you see? They did something to your mind. I’ve been hallucinating, too. There is no such thing as ghosts. Your sister died. I’m sorry. I wish it hadn’t happened, but it did. She isn’t coming back. You have to accept it.”

  Katie wiggled out of Jack’s arms and glared at him. She folded her arms and set her feet rigid on the hard soil.

  “Guys!” Damien’s voice echoed from the megaphone. “There’s no other way out. The mine is unstable. People died in here. Come on out. I give you my word no harm will come to you.”

  Katie shook her head, took hold of Clara’s hand, and walked past Jack at a slow pace, looking away from him.

  “Don’t be mad,” Jack said.

  Katie kept walking, pretending Jack wasn’t there. They hiked up and down the varying slopes of rough ground for fifteen minutes and Jack started wondering if this labyrinth had an end. Katie stopped in front of an eight-foot drop-off. Jack climbed down first, holding tight to a thick strand of worn rope, then he helped each of the girls down in turn.

  They found no side tunnels in which to hide.

  A cold liquid spattered on Jack’s face and he looked up and found water dripping from cracks in the rock ceiling. Clara screamed. Katie grabbed the strap of Clara’s backpack, holding her back from a deep fissure. Clara’s flashlight slipped from her hand and disappeared into the abyss, basking the tunnel in darkness.

  Jack fumbled for his lighter and struck the flint. By its light, they found two boards that formed a rickety bridge across the six-foot-wide chasm. Katie stepped across with elegant balance and Clara followed her with much less speed. Jack imagined himself slipping off with every step. When he reached the other side, Katie leaned down and dragged the boards far from the shaft.

  “That ought to slow them down,” she said. “We need to pick up our step. There’s got to be a place to hide in here somewhere.” She quickened her pace and Jack pushed Clara along to keep up with her. After another ten-minute hike, Katie stopped at a wide-open space strewn with dozens of boulders and scores of broken timbers. Splintered boards, piles of dirt, and rocks of all sizes littered the ground and filled the cave in front of them.

  “We’re trapped.” Clara pushed on a diagonal beam and a clump of dirt dropped on the ground next to her, releasing dust into the air.

  “We needed a rest, anyway,” Jack said. He breathed fast and held a hand over his burning throat. “There’s air flowing through this rubble. Try to find a pathway.” He worked loose a board of rough timber and pulled it aside, but found only more boards.

  Unintelligible male voices bounced off the walls, growing louder every second. Brief flashes of light illuminated the rock ceiling.

  “They’re catching up,” Clara said.

  Jack looked around at a dozen dark boulders that had turned the area into a miniature maze.

  “Maybe we can hide in one of these holes and hope they don’t see us,” said Katie, pointing to a deep niche between two boulders. “A soon as they pass us, we can run the other way. Wait. What’s that?” She stepped out of Jack’s view into the niche between the boulders.

  “Careful Katie, it’s dark in there.”

  “This board seems loose,” Clara said.

  Jack ran to Clara and helped her work a wide board away from a pile of rocks in her path. A long, narrow tunnel came into view along the top of the stones and Jack raised his lighter. He frowned when he saw that it came to an end about ten feet in. He waved the lighter around and grew worried when he realized Katie wasn’t in sight.

  “Katie,” Jack said. “You okay? We found a dead end over here, but if we work together, we might find one we can squeeze through. Katie?” He turned to Clara, wide-eyed.

  “Katie?” Clara darted to the boulders where Katie had gone and disappeared into the cavity.

  Jack followed her. “Did you find an exit?” His shoulders brushed against coarse stone and he stretched his lighter high over Clara’s head. He stopped abruptly upon pressing against Clara’s back. “Sorry, Clara.”

  “I saw a crow fly back here,” Katie leaned over Clara’s shoulder, “but I can’t find it now. Careful with the fire!” She placed her hand between Jack’s lighter and the stone wall. Piles of black powder caked the rock ledges, stuffed into every crevasse. Red sticks of TNT lay scattered on the ground amidst long coils of fuse and a bundle of long incense-like sticks meant for lighting them.

  “There are plastic containers all around here,” Katie said. “They might be explosives.”

  “I think you’re right.” Jack grabbed a fist-sized container of cloudy white fluid off a fallen timber and pried the lid off, then coughed at the scent of detergent and gasoline. He replaced the lid and set it down. “Let’s keep moving. Did you see where the crow went?”

  “It’s too dark, but I know it went this way.”

  Jack tried to walk forward, but Clara continued to block him.

  “You’re pushing me into Katie,” Clara turned and pushed Jack back a step.

  “We have to hurry. They’ll be here any second.”

  “You finally got something right,” Damien said.

  Jack turned around, squinted at the blinding glare of three powerful flashlights.

  “Watch your lighter,” Katie said.

  He felt her fingers push his hand away from one of the containers and it triggered an idea. “Let us go or I’ll blow this place sky high!” He swung his lighter inches from a container.

  “That’s napalm,” Avard said. “There’s gunpowder everywhere, too. And TNT.”

  “Are you serious, Jack?” Damien lowered his flashlight. “You’d kill us all just to keep from going back to Camp Farley? What about Katie and Clara? You willing to kill them, too? Think about what you’re doing. This mine is unstable and full of explosives. If it was just you, I’d say go ahead and kill yourself, but I won’t let you take Katie with you. You need therapy, Jack. Put away the lighter.”

  Jack grabbed one of the incense-like sticks and lit its round tip, then lowered the flame half an inch from one of the napalm containers.

  “You’re a fool,” Avard said. “Haven’t you done enough damage already?”

  “He’s bluffing,” Damien said, “but just do what he says. There’s only one way out of this mine. He can’t stay in here forever. Katie, I’m sorry I lied to you, but I wasn’t lying when I said I wouldn’t let anyone hurt you. My dad made me keep everything a secret, but that’s all history now. Come with me and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  Jack glanced back and saw Katie peering over Clara’s shoulder. Her hesitation created a knot in his stomach. He resisted an urge to beg her to stay, but he knew he’d already asked too much.

  “I gave you your chance.” Katie turned away from him.

  Damien shook his head and squeezed past Avard.

  “You can wait outside, but I know a bluff when I see one,” Avard blinded Jack with his flashlight. “Yer gunna pay for what happened to my Media.”

  “I didn’t do anything to her! I never even met her!”

  “You ran away! She could’ve dealt with you in the lab, but you ran off. Because of that, Lynch forced her to visit you in yer dreams, and it ruined her! She can barely speak!”

  “I didn’t force Lynch to do it!”

  Avard pounced at Jack, his powerful left arm pressing around Jack’s chest and forcing air from his lungs. Jack pulled down on Avard’s arm and reached forward, keeping Avard’s free hand away from the flaming stick.

  “Give me that stick!” Avard slammed all his weight into Jack, causing Katie and Clara to groan under the pressure. Jack lifted his feet and pushed hard against the sides of the two boulders, shoving Avard back and slamming his head against one of the rocks.
The man loosened his grip on Jack and his eyes closed. He fell backward, knocking four canisters of napalm off the ledges before he hit the ground with a thud.

  The bald man from Avard’s self-defense team came into view behind Avard. He set his flashlight on a timber and knelt next to his friend, light reflecting from his tattoo-covered head. He placed two fingers on Avard’s neck, then looked up and sneered. “Proud of yourself, kid? You hurt his daughter, now you knocked him out. How many more people you gonna hurt?”

  Jack tightened his fists, his lighter in one and the fuse-lighting stick in the other. “You had no right to mess with our minds!”

  The bald man looked to the side, then jumped over Avard and grabbed Jack’s hands so fast Jack couldn’t respond. He pried the lighter from Jack’s fist, at the same time breaking the stick and letting the flaming end dropped into the dirt next to Jack’s lighter.

  Jack backed into Clara, his fists raised, wondered what was keeping Katie from moving beyond the boulders. “Leave us alone! You have no right to treat us like this! You have no right!”

  At that moment, Katie fell forward beyond the rocks and Clara collapsed over her. Jack rolled backward over Clara. They looked back at the approaching bald man, the snarling features of his face exaggerated by the flashlight resting on the timbers behind him.

  The man took two steps and his body flattened against an invisible wall. He studied the invisible wall with confused eyes, not noticing his feet kicking the still-flaming stick laying on the ground. The stick bounced up against one of the boulders and landed in a puddle of milky white gelatin.

  The space between the boulders filled with blinding fire and light.

  Katie lay on her side, staring at the empty passageway where the bald man had been standing seconds earlier. He was gone. No ruins. No smoke. No rubble. Just an open path between two boulders. No flashlights or flames accounted for the dim, yellowish glow illuminating the cavern around her.

  “Are you okay, Katie?” Clara pushed Jack off her stomach and rolled over to her right.