by R A Baxter
“I was wondering why you stayed here for so long,” Katie said.
“I wanted to give up,” Taylor said. “I worried that I’d misunderstood you about meeting at the old house. I spent most of my time hiding between some bales of hay below an old metal canopy up the road from the old house. It gave me a good view of the area. It rained last night though, and I about froze to death trying to sleep in your car. Then there was another explosion up in the mountains somewhere. I seriously thought Farley had blasted you with something. But the next morning, there were still guards hanging around, looking for you.”
“Why were you watching the attic? It seemed like you were expecting us to be there,” Clara said.
“I was.” Taylor arrived at Jack’s car. The headlights turned on and the engine revved. Jack shielded his eyes. Taylor opened the back door for Clara and Katie, ran around to the front passenger door, and opened it for Jack. “A few hours ago, I was watching the house and saw someone walking along the fence, staring up at the attic window.”
“Hurry and get in the car, guys,” a woman’s voice said from the driver’s seat. “Lynch’s thugs’ll be swarming around this town any moment now. We need to hightail it out of here.”
Jack lowered his head and grinned at Marina’s bright blue hair. He sat down and closed the door. Katie and Clara climbed in a back door behind her and Taylor squeezed himself into the car behind Jack, his long legs pressing into the back of Jack’s seat.
“Marina!” Clara leaned forward from her center seat and gave her a hug around the neck. “I was so worried about you.”
“We aren’t out of this yet.” Marina yanked the gear selector into drive and the car lurched forward, swerving in an abrupt U-turn.
“Marina told me everything that happened to you guys,” Taylor said. “I got to admit, I thought she’d lost her mind in that dream lab or something. She told me she’d found out that an old ghost was leading you to a haunt in that house and I needed to watch for you in the attic. Dude, I totally thought I was just playing along with her nutjob psychosis, but next thing I know, I look up, and Clara’s staring out the window at me. Then those two guards showed up at the front door and you know the rest.”
“Thanks for playing along with my nutjob psychosis.” Marina gave a wry smile. “You were just in time, too. I saw those agents in a Humvee take off down that road.” She pointed to her right. “If anyone from Intershroud recognizes me, I’m done for.”
Marina turned the car down a poorly lit back road to the farthest edge of town, then swerved and drove three blocks to the only road leading down the mountain. She looked for anyone watching the road. The car lurched forward, swerving as she slammed the gas pedal down.
“Where are you taking us?” Clara leaned over the seat.
“I need to talk to you about that. Jack, do you know an elderly woman named Sion?”
“Doesn’t sound familiar.”
“Well, she knows you. She told one of my associates that an old friend of hers showed up at her door a few days ago, begging her to help her free you from the camp. Before you ask, I don’t know who her friend was or how she knew you were at the camp.”
“We better not trust her,” Katie said. “Before we went to that camp, Jack and I shared dreams with a group of crazy cultists. I don’t want to step out of one fire and into another.”
“Sion is no cultist. You can trust her. She used to belong to my resistance organization. She sent her husband up here from Arizona to take you to his safe house. I met him once. They call him Skeets—nicest old Navaho man you’ll ever meet.”
The car screeched around a narrow curve and Jack gripped his seat and clenched his teeth. He glanced back at Katie and found her laughing.
“Hey, take it easy,” Jack said. “This car wasn’t cheap.”
“You’ll never see it again if Intershroud catches up to us,” Marina said.
“I’m just glad we caught up with you again,” Katie said. “I was sure Lynch found out you set off that landslide. He seems to know everything.”
Marina shook her head. “I fooled them pretty good, if I say so myself. I told Carl and some others that one of you set off the rockslide, then I followed you and saw you joining up with Abby. I told them Abby showed you an image of the house of someone who could transport you away. Then I just convinced them I needed to go find the house because I could only recognize it by sight. My ally among the camp guards offered to drive me there.”
“Sounds like it worked to perfection,” Jack said.
Marina nodded. “Except I slept in their vehicle and found that you were no longer at the railway station where I left you. I feared the worst.”
“How’d you know we’d be in that attic? I didn’t even know we were going there,” Clara said.
“There are spies for the resistance even among the people who were attacking you. The Ghost Knights have no love for Intershroud either. I was able to piece together enough info to figure out that you were heading for Jeb Colton’s haunt. I’m sad we lost it. That haunt was one of the few secrets we were keeping from Intershroud.”
Light suddenly bounced around the car’s interior, coming from behind them. Jack turned around and squinted at the bright headlights of a vehicle swerving in and out of view at every curve of the road.
“Crap,” Taylor said. “I recognize those headlights.”
Marina slammed the gas and Jack stared wide-eyed at her surprisingly calm face.
“Our turnoff’s coming up soon,” Marina said. “I need to make some serious distance so that car won’t know we turned.”
Jack looked back. “I think we lost them.”
“There’s the turnoff!” Marina yanked the wheel to the right and the wheels screeched. Everyone lurched to their left. The car swerved, skidded, and drove at a slower pace down a tree-lined dirt sideroad.
“Why are you slowing down?” Taylor stuck his head forward between his knees.
“If we throw any dust around, they’ll know we turned.” The car circled a hairpin curve and Marina hit the gas again, speeding past hundreds of pines. A chubby, white-striped skunk stopped at the edge of the road in front of them, then waddled toward the trees. Marina narrowly avoided it, pine boughs scraping the windows on her side of the car.
She slowed down after a few minutes, then stopped the car near the edge of a high cliff, the engine still running.
“Why are we stopping?” Jack looked at Marina.
“This is where we get out. Your ride is tucked behind those trees.” Marina pointed to a set of tire tracks running along a shallow slope into a clearing beyond a thick cluster of spruces. She climbed out of the car.
Taylor opened his door and eased his long legs away from the back of Jack’s seat and out the door. He stood and opened Jack’s door, holding out a hand to him. Jack’s legs were stiff, and he cringed at the pain of lifting them out the car door. Taylor secured a firm grip on Jack’s hand and leaned back, pulling him out of his seat and onto his feet. Clara and Katie exited the opposite door and ran around the car to join Jack and Taylor.
Jack stood back from his car, looking at Marina. “So, what’re we going to do with my car? Should I follow this Skeets guy?”
“Is there anything you need from the trunk? The glove box?” Marina stood next to the car with the door open.
“I don’t think so,” Jack said.
“I put everything from your car in my backpack.” Taylor pointed a thumb at the backpack hanging from his shoulder.
“Good.” Marina nodded, gave a subtle grin, and reached into the car. The vehicle started to slide backward. She kicked at the gas pedal with her foot. The car lurched forward, and Marina jumped back.
“What are you doing?” Jack reached for the moving vehicle and fell on his knees.
The view from the cliff was magnificent under the full moonlight. Grizzled outcroppings of stone peeked out from the undulating mountainside, caked with pines. Thousands upon thousands of trees hugged the steep cliff
for hundreds of yards below them.
All Jack saw, however, was his precious silver Ford Fiesta rolling over the cliff, its back bumper rising upward, then disappearing from his sight with the rest of the car. Taylor, Katie, and Clara ran to the cliff edge. Jack closed his eyes and cringed at the sickening crunch of his car colliding with stone. He gritted his teeth at the swishing and clunking of his vehicle tearing through hundreds of pine branches, scrub oaks, and swathes of loose gravel and rock. He winced at the final distant thump that preceded an explosion. A cascade of orange, fiery light showered the distant trees.
Jack stared for at least ten seconds before turning to Marina. An approaching engine echoed from the roadway, and a camouflage-colored Humvee pulled up behind her. An Intershroud guard stepped from the passenger side and stood behind Marina—one of the agents who’d escorted Taylor away.
Jack’s heart sank and his eyes teared up. “They got to you.”
“You traitor!” Katie charged at Marina, but the muscular guard darted in front of her and, with a quick kick at Katie’s legs and a twist of her arm, placed her in an arm hold.
“How could you?” Clara’s voice trembled.
Taylor leaned down behind Jack, pushed his forearms below Jack’s armpits, and lifted him to his feet. Jack looked at Taylor and realized that his friend hadn’t reacted to the arrival of the two guards. He felt another wrenching pressure in his chest.
“No. Taylor. They got you, too?”
Taylor’s eyebrows creased, and he shook his head. “Dude, what are you thinking? I’m not with Intershroud! Neither is Marina.”
“Sorry, Jack,” Marina said. “I forced Taylor to keep you in the dark. I knew you wouldn’t let me send your car over that cliff, and it was too critical to our plan.”
“You destroyed my car!” Jack shook his fist.
Taylor put a hand on his shoulder and Jack jerked it away. “Dude, I feel bad, but Marina’s right. There’s only one road out of these mountains. Lynch and Murdock know you made it to that haunt, and they’ll be setting up blockades and sending out helicopters. They’d have caught us.”
Marina looked Jack in the eyes. “Your only hope of escaping them is for me to convince Lynch’s operatives that the roadblocks aren’t necessary. We’re going to tell them we were chasing you and didn’t see you turn on this side road, where you swerved off the cliff. It’ll take them some time to get down there to investigate the crash. By then, you’ll be far away from these mountains.”
“But, you’re with those guards,” Clara pointed at the driver of the Humvee. “They’re so mean.”
The two guards looked at each other and smiled.
Marina laughed. “These are the friends I told you about, with the resistance. They’re perfect allies. No one ever suspects mean people of being good guys.”
“Marina only told me about them a half hour ago,” Taylor said. “Lynch ordered his people to see to it that I had a fatal accident on my way home. Marina sent these two, uh, people, to make sure I made it home safely. They actually let me give them the slip, but I didn’t head home like they thought I would.”
Jack heard branches moving and underbrush crunching behind him. He spun around. A forest-green van with no rear windows rolled down a shallow hill from beyond a cluster of blue spruces. Its wheels crackled against the gravelly road until the vehicle stopped next to Jack. An old Navaho man in a faded denim shirt and light-tan cowboy hat leaned his round face out the window. He had a pleasant smile and deep, brown, friendly eyes.
“I assume this is the boy I’m looking for. They call me Skeets.” He reached a callused hand out his window and Jack shook it.
“This is your ride,” Marina said. “My friends and I need to head out. Hopefully, no one will suspect Skeets if you four keep your heads down. Good luck.”
Marina and the guard rushed to the Humvee and climbed in.
“Will we be seeing you again?” Clara followed Marina to the Humvee.
“I hope so. Skeet’s wife, Sion, will teach you some Free Dreaming tricks to help you hide from Intershroud. With any luck, I’ll see you in your dreams.” The Humvee turned around and sped away.
“Good to finally meet you, Jack,” Skeets said. “Your grandma’s been raving about you.”
“Grandma?” Jack’s eyebrows rose, and he turned to Taylor and shrugged. “I’ve never met either of my grandmothers.”
“That’s not what she told me.” Skeets pointed his thumb at the back of the van. “You best hop in quick now, before them agents show up. We’ll have plenty of time to talk on the way. Your grandma’s back there. I’m sure you’re anxious to see her.”
Jack looked at Taylor again, not sure what to think. Clara and Katie ran to the back doors, swung them open, and climbed in.
Taylor slid Jack’s arm over his shoulder, helped him limp to the back of the van, and lifted him onto the gray-carpeted floor, easing him into a leather seat, facing sideways. Taylor climbed in and buckled himself into the seat across from Jack. He pulled the doors closed with a clank and the cabin went dark.
Jack looked for his grandmother, but only saw a van full of silhouettes in front of a deep-blue twilight sky. One of them was a short, curly-haired woman, sitting on a chair facing backward from behind the driver’s seat. The van started to roll forward and Jack bumped against the van door. He felt around for his seatbelt. HE found it over his shoulder, pulled it down over his chest, and buckled it.
“It’s dark in here,” Clara said.
Taylor zipped open his backpack and pulled out a flashlight. “This was in your glove compartment. See, I’m looking out for you, dude.” He flicked the switch and handed it to Jack. Light filled the van and Jack stared at the grinning face of an old Korean woman.
He dropped the flashlight.
The old woman’s crooked smile reflected the light of Jack’s flashlight. She wore a black outfit with a loose cotton cloth tied around her portly waist, one of the outfits Jack had seen her wearing in dozens of nightmares. Her humped back forced her to lean forward on her thick wooden walking stick.
The flashlight rolled near Clara’s foot and she picked it up and aimed it in the woman’s face. The woman squinted and put a wrinkled hand in front of her eyes to block the light.
“Let’s keep the light off back there till we’re off the mountain,” Skeets said.
Clara turned it off.
“Grandmother?” Jack clenched his teeth. “You’re not my grandmother.” Even as he said it, he realized how much she resembled his father.
“No grandmother would do what you did to Jack,” Katie said. “You have a lot of nerve.”
“You’re the whole reason I went to that camp!” Jack gripped the side of his seat. “You tortured me every night for months! You had me thinking I was crazy! I had no idea you were real. You had no right to invade my dreams! My whole life has been ruined because of you!”
“You’re nothing but a monster,” Katie said.
The woman nodded after every sentence.
“You brought Katie into it, too,” Jack said. “You had people tie her down while monsters were roaming around. It must’ve been terrifying! What did she ever do to you? You violated our personal thoughts! And now you dare come here, after being completely absent all my life, and claim to be my grandmother? Let’s get something straight. I don’t have a grandmother!”
Ten seconds of silence passed before the woman finally spoke.
“Pak Jaegi, I can only beg your forgiveness. I deserve your anger. The scorpion man deceived me. He deceived us all. He promised me he would enlighten you, give you the power to understand your dreams. But then he kept you from me. We couldn’t reach you in the Dream World. I deeply regret that we did you such great harm trusting that man.”
“Don’t try to blame him! You were behind all those nightmares. You made me fight snakes and monsters every single night. I thought it was all in my mind. I was terrified to fall asleep. I can’t imagine what Katie went through. You had no rig
ht to mess with our dreams! You had no right!” Jack’s eyes welled up and he clenched his fists.
The old woman nodded. “They were only dreams, young one. You and your friend were never in any danger. Katie’s powers were necessary to help you prepare for what is to come.”
“You’re not a fortuneteller!” Jack kicked his heels on the floor of the van.
“I am not. But Zaqar is. The white cloud of prophecy came to me in a dream. He is an ancient Deisom, one of the greatest nightmares of the Dream World. He speaks pure truth.”
The vehicle swerved around a narrow turn and Jack thumped against the van’s door.
“This is just too much,” Katie said. “You probably dreamed that cloud up yourself. His prophecies were the inventions of your own warped mind.”
“My grandson knows that is not true. He witnessed the wrath of the Dark Mind. He wouldn’t question my words even now if his guardians hadn’t locked his memory of it within the flame. Zaqar is real and he informed me that a hero would arise in my family who would lead the effort to defeat the Dark Mind.”
“Convenient that Jack can’t remember it,” Taylor said.
“She might be right,” Jack said. All eyes turned to him and no one spoke for several seconds. Jack thought about his obsession with fire and couldn’t deny the truth in her words. “I’m not saying she’s right about me being a hero. But it’s true that I have no memory of the years I lived in Korea. My whole life before coming to America is a blank. My parents told me I hit my head.” He rubbed a small scar on his forehead.
“They lied to you,” Jack’s grandmother said.
“Like we can trust you,” Katie said.
“I sold everything I owned to come to America and rescue my grandson from those men. That is how sure I am of his destiny.”
“Then how about jogging his memory about what happened in Korea,” Taylor said.
“I cannot tell him. His passion to find out the truth is the only thing powerful enough to help him regain his memory. He must fight for the memories himself.”
A helicopter buzzed overhead, and everyone went quiet. Jack tightened his grip on his seatbelt. Skeets slowed the van down until the helicopter went away.