Where Nightmares Ride

by R A Baxter

  Jeb chuckled. “What’s wrong with ye? ’Tis certain ghosts cain’t get no vengeance by wakin’ little Sleepers. Material bodies cain’t be a wanderin’ about in Essentia. They’d die. Plumb crazy, that is.”

  “Idiots!” Avard shook his body. “Y’all swore an oath! Even if he is an Aspect, what’s that to you? I’m telling you, I’ll be at peace if I can get my revenge on him as he is right now. Let me go! Fulfill your oaths!”

  “I remain inclined to believe the boy hath awoken, as testified by the honorable Mr. Colton,” Ezekiel said. “Nevertheless, ’tis sooth that the Emend Delegation has vowed to bring peace to the souls of our ghosted brethren. I hereby grant thee our aid.”

  Ezekiel waved a hand to the knight with the smoke-emitting lance. The smoke dissipated, and the knight returned his lance to his side.

  Avard cried out and dropped to the ground, landing hard on his feet before falling on his hands and knees. He groaned, pulled himself up and brushed dirt from his hands. “Let’s get on with it then. What do I got to do to kill a Dream Runner? I know you know what to do.”

  “Think this through, Master Ezekiel” Jeb said. “Yer feedin’ the delusions of a madman, ’tis certain.”

  Ezekiel gazed at Avard. “The delegation consents to assist thee only upon thine vow of allegiance unto me. Shall I recite the terms?”

  “I couldn’t care less about yer terms. Stop wasting time! Just tell me how to kill that boy before he finds his way back to Materia.”

  “’Tis agreed then. The Emend Delegation hereby binds itself to thee.”

  Ezekiel leveled his lance at Avard. A black cloak enveloped his body, melding with it, and splitting it apart into sinuous strands of ethereal cloth. Black chainmail wrapped around his arms and legs and sharp black gauntlets with spiked metal knuckles formed around his hands. A tall metal helmet encased his head, the angled visor covering his eyes. An ebony steed ascended from the dark soil below him, clouded in black vapor and raising him up on its back.

  Avard yanked off his helmet and grinned with evil delight.

  “Thou art now a Delegate," Ezekiel said. "Our oath binds us to avenge thee.”

  Avard nodded.

  "Forget not, however, that thou art likewise bound to our cause."

  “Goody. Now let’s get moving. I know Park’s nearby somewhere. Force that old specter to tell us where he went."

  Jeb sighed. “They went where all Sleepers go when they wakes up, ye durn donkey’s patoot.”

  Avard started to speak, but Ezekiel hushed him, raising a hand in front of his face. The Ghost Knights raised their lances to their sides in unison, preparing for a battle. The high-pitched whistle of a chickadee sounded through the trees behind Ezekiel. He nodded to two nearby riders who then turned their horses around and charged down the trail. Moments later, they returned with two other Ghost Knights in tow.

  “Ezekiel,” a female knight reported, “the situation is critical. This area will be swarming with Sleepers in minutes, mostly American soldiers, puppets of Lynch and his crew. They’re searching for two girls and a boy.”

  “Don’t mind them,” Avard said. “They only care about the Frost girl. They want Park dead almost as much as I do. If they get to him first, I’ll consider your vows broken.”

  “We shall grant thee vengeance when it best serves our purposes,” Ezekiel said.

  “What?!”

  “We cannot avenge thee with dead ghosts. Intershroud knows nothing of honor. I shall not sacrifice my brethren by crossing them. We shall wait them out at the stronghold.”

  “My revenge takes priority! You’re under oath!”

  “We are not sworn to die for thee,” Ezekiel said.

  “Them puppet soldiers will leave us alone! They’re just sheep. I demand we find Park.”

  Three lance tips leveled at Avard’s chest and Ezekiel raised his own lance toward him.

  “You obey me now. We shall hunt for the boy when the forest is safe.” Ezekiel looked at Jeb. “As always, we offer thee our protection.”

  “I’ll be okay.”

  “No, he won’t,” Avard said. “He don’t want to follow you ‘cause he wants to take them kids to his haunt the second you leave. I say we head to his haunt and wait for them.”

  Ezekiel stared at Jeb, waiting for a response.

  Jeb shook his head. “Durn fool. If it’ll ease ye minds, ’tis fine with me hiding out in ye stronghold. I ain’t got no death wish neither. Give me a durn horse.”

  A Ghost Knight near Jeb held out a hand and a gray mare materialized next to Jeb. The old miner admired it for a few seconds before hefting himself onto its back.

  “Fine ol’ mare. Always wished I could shape an animal like this.”

  Ezekiel clicked his tongue, guiding his horse down the mountain pass into the ravine. “Giddyap,” Jeb said. He and the squadron of Ghost Knights rode after Ezekiel.

  “You cowards!” Avard threw his helmet and it bounced along the stone above Jack. “No wonder y’all was murdered. I ain’t takin’ no orders from you!"

  He turned his steed in the opposite direction and kicked his feet against its sides. He’d only ridden a few paces, however, when his horse bucked up and wouldn’t take another step. The strands of Avard’s body twisted and pulled apart, stretching him ten feet into the air. Streaks of light and dark-red blood flashed through the tendons of his body, his arms and legs flailing around and his head sliding sideways, swallowed up by the elastic rolls of his uncontrolled body.

  He shrieked in agony and kicked at the horse with wild swings of his nearly dismembered feet, finally persuading the animal to turn back around. Upon moving in the correct direction, Avard’s body condensed and reassembled. He slumped over the mane of his steed and yelled out in anguish, gasping for breath, his arms hanging limp.

  One Ghost Knight remained, his arms folded and facing Avard. “Thou art bound to Ezekiel now, and to the Emend Delegation,” he said. “You heard the Master’s command. Obey him or perish.” He handed Avard his helmet, turned, and charged down the trail after his leader.

  “Augh!” Avard shot his helmet to the ground a second time, letting it roll into the tall grass. “Jack Park! I know you’re here somewhere. Don’t think this is over! It’ll never be over! I’ll find you! I’ll get my revenge!” He gritted his teeth and led his steed down the path.

  Jack stood still for a minute before daring to budge, not sure if he’d breathed the whole time the knights were there. He turned to Katie and Clara. “I’ve never been so terrified in my life. Did you hear Avard? Everyone wants me dead. First Ming and Travis turn on me, then Avard freaks out. Now the whole Intershroud can’t wait to kill me. This is insane. What did I do? I didn’t do anything to anybody. I just want to hide right here for the rest of my life.”

  “We’ll find Jeb’s haunt.” Katie placed a hand on his shoulder.

  Approaching voices caught Jack’s attention and he and the girls peeked above ground level, careful to keep their heads below the domed stone lid. Jack searched the meadow for the source of the voices. Men emerged from the trees by the dozens, hiking through the tall grass in their military camouflage and searching every inch of the meadow, rifles clutched in their hands.

  Jack grew anxious when two of the soldiers beelined toward the rock lid of their hideout. They marched onto the dome and stopped directly above him, taking advantage of the elevated location as an ideal spot from which to survey the area. Jack’s eyes widened when he recognized Derek, panning the terrain with his binoculars, donned in the uniform of an Army Officer.

  “This is sweet,” said the short, younger man next to him. Katie turned to Jack, her eyebrows raised. Jack shook his head, wondering how Tony had survived the explosion. He was the last person Jack expected to see. “It’s so awesome commanding real soldiers.” Tony laughed and took hold of Derek’s binoculars, but Derek yanked them away, glaring at him.

  Tony snarled. “Why didn’t you tell us about Intershroud when we first arrived at camp?
It’s Jack’s fault, isn’t it? Idiots like him always ruin things. Why would anyone not want this kind of power in their dreams? That dork totally died for nothing.”

  “Shut up, Tony,” Derek said. “We don’t know Jack’s dead. And if he is, he may have been a fool, but at least he died standing for something. It’s better than you or I’ll ever do.”

  Jack laid on the soft bed of rabbit furs, his hands under his head, wondering when Derek and Tony would leave the roof of his hiding place. The last thirty minutes had felt like hours. The two had done little more than stand around with their hands in their pockets, watching the soldiers do all the work—searching all around rocks and logs, scanning the upper reaches of tall trees, and pulling aside the branches of bushes and pines, all in search of Katie, Clara, and himself.

  No one thought to search under the vast boulder below Derek and Tony’s feet. Jack understood how Jeb had survived so many years as a ghost—the old man knew how to hide.

  He glanced over at Katie, who lay near him, her eyes studying every inch of the hideout walls. She clearly wanted to get moving as much as Jack did. The wait was no problem for Clara, whose mouth hung open and eyes were shut. She’d fallen asleep.

  Moving shadows on the floor told Jack that two more soldiers had arrived, and he looked up and saw a black woman with her hair in a bun and an unarmed Asian boy. Katie grabbed Jack’s arm, her eyes wide. Barbara and Ming stood above them.

  “Our patrols have searched the other side of the ravine,” Barbara said. “They’re not there.”

  “They have to be here somewhere,” Derek said. “A surveillance hawk spotted them in this exact area, talking to an old resident ghost.”

  “Maybe it didn’t see their actual Aspects,” Ming said. “In Essentia, anybody could’ve dreamed up a version of them. I think we’re wasting our time. They couldn’t have survived that explosion at the mine.”

  “Lynch insists it was them,” Derek said. “He thinks they’re ghosts, but I’m not so sure. It’s way too rare to become a ghost. It takes insane levels of raw emotion. It just isn’t going to happen to three people at once.”

  “Five, if you count Avard and that bald guy who was with him,” Barbara said. “I heard another bird spotted Avard riding with a group of ghosts a quarter mile from here.”

  “They’re all in a coma,” Tony said, “dreaming until they die.”

  Barbara and Ming frowned and looked at each other, then Ming turned his gaze downward, his brow furrowed and eyes darting about. Jack tensed, thinking Ming could somehow see him through the stone lid, but then relaxed. Ming’s expression told Jack that Media hadn’t completely turned Ming and Barbara into his enemies.

  “Maybe Avard or that old ghost woke them up,” Barbara said.

  “I hope not,” Derek said. “I don’t want to think what they’ll suffer if they wake up, trapped below all that rubble. We need to find that old ghost and talk to him. Barbara, I want you and Ming to take your Sleepers to Silverton. The ghost’s name is Jeb Colton. Find him. Tony and I’ll head northwest along the river where they sighted Avard.”

  Barbara nodded, tapped Ming on the shoulder, and signaled him to follow her. The two of them jogged away. Derek walked away in another direction and Tony ran to catch up with him.

  Jack lay still for another five minutes, wanting to be sure the soldiers were long gone before trying anything. Katie rolled on her side and faced Jack, her head resting on her arm. She dangled a gold, heart-shaped locket in front of her face and followed its swing with her sparkling brown eyes half-closed.

  “Have you given any thought to a prime token?” Jack broke the silence.

  Katie let the locket drop into her hand, then looked into Jack’s eyes. “I think I have enough to think about right now.”

  “We’ll need to be able to control our dreams when we get back. You need a prime token, like that locket, so when you dream about it, you’ll remember you’re dreaming.”

  “I’ve never dreamt about my locket, that I can remember. Maybe my cellphone would work better.”

  “That should work.” Jack laid back and stared at the sky. “I never imagined ghosts live in the same world where we dream. I wonder if everyone comes here when they die.”

  Katie shook her head. “Avard said only the ones who are dreaming when they die come here, and then, only if they are emotionally distraught.”

  Katie spent the next few minutes explaining everything Avard had told her: who the Ghost Knights were; how a haunt was created; how obsession with vengeance kept ghosts alive; how Marina, Carl, and Tony had survived the explosion; and how Farley had murdered her sister, Abby.

  Jack watched her the whole time with admiring eyes. When she finished, she lay back and closed her eyes. He kept staring at her, wishing he could spend forever with her like this, but he knew better. He knew she’d disappear from his life forever once they made it back to Materia. She and Clara would return home to the protection of her father and he’d be left to face Intershroud alone.

  Katie’s hand dropped on the rabbit furs. She’d fallen asleep. Jack yawned and considered waking her but changed his mind. They wouldn’t find a safer place than this to take a nap. He wondered what she might be dreaming, if it was even possible to dream while sleeping in the dream world.

  What if the minds of dreamers in Essentia escape to some other dream world when they slept? Whatever the case, he resolved to stay awake in case something weird happened.

  Jack stood in the tall grass near the hideout, scanning the meadow of the verdant ravine for any sign of Intershroud. Two chipmunks chattered and skittered along a half-rotted log, then darted up a dead pine tree. Three crows glided over him, one cawing at him as it flew southward after the other two. Movement a hundred feet down the mountainside startled him, and he eased down the slope for a better look.

  Katie? How’d she slip past me?

  She stood next to a spruce tree, her head down and a frown on her face. A wrinkled old woman stood before her, dressed in tattered, dirty rags. The old woman stood with her back bent over and her disheveled gray hair hanging down to her knees. She shook her head at Katie and ogled her with sallow, sunken, half-closed eyes. Jack figured she was some ghost relative of hers.

  “You’ll get yourself killed.” The women snarled, exposing her long yellow teeth. She shoved a gnarled finger in Katie’s face. “Who do you think you are—trying to be a hero? You’re weak. Stupid, stupid child. You know I speak the truth!”

  Katie nodded.

  “What are you thinking, traipsing around these woods without your father? Tell me you’ll contact him as soon as you can.”

  Katie nodded briskly.

  Jack jogged down a shallow hill next to her. “Who is this?” He glared at the old woman.

  Katie jerked her head and flinched, then smiled. “Jack, you startled me.”

  He started to repeat the question, but the woman had vanished. “What? Where’d she go?”

  “Who? Come on. We need to hurry.” Katie ran to him. “We must’ve slept for hours. I feel so much better.”

  Jack realized he also felt much lighter and full of energy. “Huh. I don’t remember sleeping. But you’re right. I feel pretty good, too.”

  “Let's get moving then. Jeb said to go this way, toward Silverton.” She skipped down the hill through the tall grass.

  “Wait up! What about Clara?” Jack hurried after her, surprised at how fast she could skip. “Are you sure you weren’t speaking to an old woman just now?”

  “Keep an eye out for Derek and his Sleeper soldiers!” Katie started to run, then she stopped cold.

  Jack stopped, too, his mind so muddled by fear, he could hardly accept what he saw approaching through the trees. Dozens, if not hundreds, of dark, gorilla-like creatures grunted and growled, leaping across the ground or gliding through the air on leathery bat-like wings. Others swung through the trees, grasping branches with precision with their feet or hands. Crows soared among them, sometimes landing on the
ir shoulders. More creatures arrived by the minute, surrounding Jack and Katie on every side, in every tree and every shrub, pounding the earth with their massive fists. Their long ears stretched back when they flashed their canine fangs. Jack shuddered at their malevolent faces. They looked more human than ape.

  “Stay away!” Katie stretched her hands in front of her and screamed, then backed toward Jack.

  “They can’t hurt us! We’re Dream Running. Kick them and they’ll disappear.”

  Katie nodded, but screamed again when two of the winged ape-men pounced at her. The first one wrapped an arm around her waist and tossed her over the right shoulder of the other. The creature held her tight, ran three steps, and launched into the air with a few flaps of its massive wings. It was then that Jack recognized the beasts. They were the same creatures that had appeared at Camp Farley.

  Jack flinched when a beast landed in front of him with a loud thud. Jack gave it a swift kick in the chest, but rather than disappearing, it merely snarled and gnashed its teeth. Two more creatures took to the air and landed near Jack, their feet kicking dust into the air.

  Before Jack could respond, a man with a long white beard jumped in front of him and jabbed a thick brown stick into the ground, using it to propel himself into the air. His feet made contact with the two nearest ape-men, knocking them ten feet backward. The man jumped again, spinning around and landing in front of Jack, facing away from him.

  The ape-men slowed down, their eyes fixed on the stranger.

  The man glanced back at Jack and winked at him, his hairless crown reflecting the yellowish light.

  Jack’s jaw dropped. He recognized him! Though he had no memory of having met him while awake; he remembered well the many dreams he’d had about the olive-skinned old man. In those dreams, the man was always coming to his rescue, the same as he was doing now. He’d dreamt about him often until the old witch woman had started dominating his nightmares.

  “It’s you!” Jack said. “I can’t believe I’m finally meeting you, for real. Are you a relative of mine—a ghost?”