“Let me go alone. You stay in Vegas or come back here.”
“I’ve got to go, too. We have a better chance working as a team. This won’t be like at Batesboro.”
“You’re a shit, Nick. You are, without a doubt, the worst friend I have ever had.” The phone sounded as if the call disconnected.
“Gene? You still there?”
“If we do this thing, are you going to buck the fuck up? Wait. Don’t answer that.”
“Absolutely. Thanks, man. This one is going to be different. You gotta bring a gun.”
“I understand. I think I know how I can get there fast and get a gun.”
“Oh shit, gotta go man, sorry. I hear her moving around. God, this is gonna suck,” said Nick.
“Good luck with her.”
“Thanks. I’ll need it.”
***
He’d seen her mad before. They had arguments, like all couples. But this time he’d pushed her anger to record heights. He kept his head down, nodding in agreement to everything she said. After a half hour, she was spent. Her face was streaked with tears, skin flushed. Pillows and other throwable objects were scattered around the room. He’d successfully fended off the most life threatening items.
The wedding was off, there was no denying that. He understood and knew there was only one way to get things back on track. He’d have to come clean on everything. He’d tell her every detail, every screw-up, and every drunken episode. He had planned to tell her the truth sooner, but it was easier to just delay. Now he had no choice.
He started with the first dream. He had gotten drunk, dreamed of flying, and then spilled the story to Gene the next day. The dream came true. Children had died. Kids just like the ones he and Allison looked after every day. But he hadn’t known it would come true.
She seemed calmer, so he moved on to the next dream, which included the piece about drinking with his ex. He laid out the story. The pot began to boil again. He was prepared. He had his laptop, so he opened it up and showed her an email he’d made Jocellynn send to him after that night. Jocellynn’s message explained how nothing had happened between them. She wrote how obvious it was that Nick loved Allison because that was all he talked about that evening. She also admitted she knew better than to tempt him with tequila. She apologized profusely. The email helped.
Allison told him to continue. She even asked if he’d had a dream after that night. He told her all the details of their trip to Batesboro. How they’d stopped the shooters. How he and Gene were heroes. He pulled up the newspaper story published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. She read the story twice, including their names. He saw her mind putting the pieces together. He hoped she would see the big picture.
“So now I’m thinking you’re going to tell me how it happened again last night and you have to fly off somewhere with Gene and stop another shooting? Please tell me I’m wrong.”
“Hold on a sec.” He rubbed his face with his hands. “My head is pounding. Yes, baby. That’s what I have to do today. I have to meet Gene in Texas. If I don’t, kids are going to die. You know how much kids mean to all of us. I can’t take a chance on anything like that happening.”
“So what about your own child? And me? What if something happens to you and you get shot and—” She started to sob again. He put his arm around her and squeezed her tightly to his chest. She pushed him away. “Don’t touch me right now.”
“I understand. You and the baby are on my mind every waking minute of every day.”
“If that were true you wouldn’t have touched any tequila last night.”
He got down on his knee in front of her and held her hand. “Now, Allison, I hear you and I agree that I screwed up. But I love you. And I love our baby and there is nothing, nothing at all in this world that will ever matter more to me. And since I’m coming clean with you on all these things, there’s another matter that we need to get out in the open. But I’m not mad about it at all. In fact, just like you’ve said, you can tell I’m really happy about it.”
“What? What do you have to be mad about?”
“Listen, dear.” He stood up and moved to the other bed. “I understand why you might have chosen to do it. You wanted a baby but you couldn’t depend on me. I get that.”
Her face flushed. “Where the hell are you going with this, Nickie?”
“I’ve put it all together. You’ve talked a lot about being all alone in the world, no parents and no siblings. I know that having a family is always on your mind. That’s a wonderful thing and you will be the best mom ever and I’ll be the best dad ever. But I think that you haven’t been totally truthful about this pregnancy.”
She looked down at her fingers, “I told you the truth.”
“Sweetie, don’t stay with that story, please. I did the math. I know the night you came over with just your coat on and a little red ribbon was about fourteen weeks ago. I don’t think it’s just a coincidence. See I know you and you are pretty damn careful about birth control. We’d be getting close and you’d call time out and run to your bathroom or to your purse to get your diaphragm. You never forgot. But that night, you came over with a plan to have sex. I promise you that I didn’t mind one bit. You also wanted to do it the next morning when we woke up and then the next day you told me about your fantasy of doing it in the back seat of your car, so we made that happen. Again, let me state for the record that I enjoyed every minute of it.” He smiled but she didn’t. “Then we didn’t have sex again until the end of January. Believe me, I remember because sex with you is always a memorable event. That means you purposely didn’t have your diaphragm in when you came over. I don’t think that it was just an accident. Am I right?”
She stood up and walked to the mirror. She made adjustments to her eyes and hair and then turned back to him. “You’re right. I did it.” She crossed her arms, her face had softened. “It was the peak time of the month for my fertility. I had just started tracking it in October.” She sat down beside him on the bed.
“I see.”
She took his hand. “I’m sorry I lied. It was the wrong thing to do. I planned on telling you the correct story, but I got scared. I thought you’d be really pissed.”
“You don’t have to apologize, my dear. I get it.”
“Yes, I do need to apologize. It was wrong. “
“Okay. But it’s done and I’m glad that we’re having a baby. Just like everyone else, we’ll call it a wonderful surprise. No further discussions about how the pregnancy came about. Cool?”
She smiled. “That’s very sweet, Nickie. I’ll remember that.” She wiped her eyes and nose with the back of her hand. “So you had this all figured out and you didn’t even bring it up until now?”
“Like I said, I’m happy about it. I don’t care about the circumstances. Besides, it appears that after my stunt last night, you’re right to be worried about my reliability.”
She kissed him on the cheek. “Oh, Nickie, I just, all this stuff. The drinking. Kids being killed. Our baby. This is just overwhelming.”
“It is. But there’s one thing that I’m going to promise you right now. And I’m gonna swear on our baby.” He put his hand on her stomach. “I promise you, Allison Tucker, and our beautiful baby, that I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever drink again.”
She took his hand. “Okay, so now we need to talk about you and me going to Texas to save some children from being killed.”
“My sweetie, I would so love to have your help in this, but it can’t go down that way. I can’t risk anything happening to you or our baby.”
“But the thing that you and Gene stopped in Arkansas, that wasn’t really all that dangerous. There has to be some way I can help. I want to be with you.
“Under different circumstances, maybe, but not now. I’ve got to meet Gene there today or tomorrow and you’ve got to go home.”
“You’re scaring me. Did you see something in your dream that makes you think this shooting is going to be more dangerous?”
“And you woke up?”
“Yes. So I only got small glimpses at the end. I mean I don’t even know if it was the end. In the other dreams, I saw guns drawn, people shot. But all I could see at the end of this dream was some big guy lying down on the top of a building, peering out. That’s all I got. But it’s enough. Enough for me to know that I have to be there to stop it, whatever that ends up being, or not being.”
“Then maybe nothing will happen?”
“Wish I knew, baby.”
“It’s gonna cost a lot of money to fly there at the last minute, you know that, right?”
“Doesn’t matter if it costs every dime I have. Or maybe I’ll just rent a car and hit the road. Whatever it takes.”
“Well, I’ve got some good news. When the security guys dropped you off, they gave me an envelope. They cashed in the chips you won while you were playing.”
“Wow. So how much did I win?”
She pointed at the TV. “It’s up there. I never looked inside.” He walked over and tore open the envelope. He counted it.
“Not bad. Eight hundred bucks.”
“Well, at least there was one good thing about this trip.”
He waved the cash in the air. “If there’s any left over, we’ll use it for our wedding.”
“Let’s not talk about the wedding right now. It’s too hard to think about, since it’s not happening like we planned.”
“I understand.” He stood up and brushed off the front of his pants. “Umm, I have a little favor to ask.”
“Sure, Nickie.”
“Well, I get this, problem, when I have a hangover. I have to, well, I get really horny and it’s very distracting and it makes it hard for me to concentrate on—“
“Oh my god. Are you really going to ask me to have sex with you?”
“Well, that’s what—“
She shook her head. “You are unbelievable.”
“I know, baby, that it’s, well, I shouldn’t be asking. I’m not making this up. I spend the whole day just thinking about sex and it gets very distracting. I was thinking you could just do a quickie version of the cool banana split thing you did.” He smiled. “You remember when you put a little whipped cream on me and you said you were making a banana split and I got to watch your beautiful mouth in action? When I’m like this it doesn’t take me very long to—”
She stood up and put her face close to his. “Nick, you are the most inconsiderate shit I have ever met. After what has just happened, you have the nerve to ask me to do that?” She turned back towards the bed and picked up a bottle of hand lotion from the bedside table. Her face flushed. “Get the hell away from me. I couldn’t care less about your problem.” She held out the bottle. “Take this lotion, go in the bathroom, and take care of it yourself.”
“I’m sorry, baby, I just—you’re right, I—” She shoved him towards the bathroom and threw the bottle at him. He ducked and it hit the door. He picked it up, went in the bathroom, and sighed as he locked the door.
***
Nick arrived in Austin at four o’clock. He rented a car at the airport and drove straight to the Texas College of Oil and Gas near downtown. Prior to leaving Las Vegas, he had searched online and found the college and recognized the square that he’d seen in his dream as the central point of the campus. He walked around the small campus and spent an hour photographing the square with the camera he had brought to Las Vegas so that they would have good wedding pictures.
The square had three four-story buildings. Each of these three was named for a cardinal point—North, East, and West. The South side was a visitor’s parking area and included a loop to allow buses to deposit and pick up passengers. In the center of the square was a large oak tree that had four wooden benches surrounding it. One bench faced each building and the parking lot. The benches were long enough to hold three people.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. “Hey, man. Where are you?”
“I just landed in Dallas.”
“How did you make out with getting a gun?”
“It’s all set. I connected with Pauline’s brother Billy, who lives outside Dallas. I’m going to swing by his house, eat dinner, chat a little, and he’s fine with me taking one of his rifles. Probably get a Winchester 30-30. That’s what he likes and that’s what I’ve shot the most.”
“And he bought the story about you having some spur of the moment hunting invitation, but then forgetting you couldn’t bring a gun on the plane?”
“Yeah, seems so. Didn’t get a lot of questions. Before I left, I looked on the web to find out about spring hunting around Austin and evidently, they have so many wild boars in Texas you don’t even need a permit. He told me that Texas is happy I’m coming to kill hogs.”
“You used to be a hunter?”
“Just a little when I was a teenager and in my twenties. Had some high school friends that liked it so I went out with them. I got really good with a rifle after I became a cop. We’d have some training every now and then when I was on the force in Winston-Salem. As I rose through the ranks, I’d go to conferences and stuff and they’d always have gun companies at these things. If you wanted to, they’d take you out shooting, you know, to show off their guns, get you interested in buying from them. So I did that when I got the chance. One time I won a contest. They gave me the 30-30 I have at home now.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. Glad to have a marksman on my side.”
“I wouldn’t count on that. It’s been a few years since I’ve shot a rifle, so I’ll be rusty. How about we avoid a shootout?”
“High five on that, my friend. I’m a big fan of the run and tackle option rather than a gunfight.”
“Hope so. But like you said, this is a college campus. We ain’t gonna be chasing down a couple of eighth graders.”
“Yeah. That’s for sure. Gonna have to play it smart.”
“Lemme go now. They’ve got my car ready. It’s a three hour drive, so I won’t get to the hotel until about midnight or so. Don’t wait up.”
***
The next morning they walked from the hotel to the campus square. Gene carried the rifle in a baseball bag he had purchased to make it less conspicuous. It fit snugly in the long section on the bottom allocated to bat storage.
“Put this on. It’ll help disguise you a little.” He gave Nick a Houston Astros cap and then put on his well-worn John Deere cap.
“Like I said, I don’t see how we can do much unless we can determine which building I saw in my dream. I stared at the pictures over and over but the buildings are identical except for the names. Plus I was looking down, so I couldn’t see the name on the building.”
Gene frowned and pointed at the sky. “Could you see where the sun was in the sky? That would give us a clue?”
“Couldn’t tell you. I saw the sun in other parts of the dream. That’s how I knew which direction I was flying, but when this part popped up, I mean, I just can’t remember, or maybe I just didn’t see the sun.”
“Or maybe it was lunchtime and the sun was straight over head. Were any of the people you saw in the dream pointing at one of the buildings? Maybe someone saw the shooter or heard a shot and was looking in the right direction.”
“Got nothing on that, either. I thought about both of those things. I can’t remember it as well as I could immediately after I woke up. It comes in bits and pieces now. Not like a movie that I can rewind or a picture I can hold up in my brain and examine.”
“I get it. Plus I get how you lost the dream when you realized you were dreaming. Stuff like that happens to me, too. Like when
I’m all alone on a tropical island with Raquel Welch. She’s asks me to put suntan lotion on her back and then her top just slips right off and suddenly I realize it’s just a dream and then, game over.”
Nick laughed. “Yeah, been there myself.” They stopped in the bus loop area on the south side of the square.
Nick pointed at the buildings. “So basically, if things pan out the way I saw them in my dream, then it’ll be one of these three buildings. But we’ve got no way of knowing which one.”
“And, more importantly, there’s no way I can get somewhere high enough so that I can see someone on top of any of these buildings.”
“Then we have to catch the guy before he goes up on the roof.”
“Good luck with that. You got any idea what he looks like besides the fact that he’s big?”
“Nothing there, either. No way to see his face. He did have black hair and sunglasses.”
Gene frowned. “Well, screw it. We know what we know and so we’ll just do the best we can. If the guy’s going to be shooting from one of these buildings, then as soon as we figure out which one, the only option will be for me to pull back about three hundred yards and hope I can get a bead on him. As I see the distances between these buildings, he’s going to have to come up at least three or four feet above the edge of the building in order to fire on anyone walking in the square, so I think that I’ll be able to put the scope on him if he’s up that high.”
“Yeah, that’ll work fine if he’s shooting from the North side, because you can pull back close to the parking lot. But on the other two buildings, you won’t be able to get back more than about two hundred yards.”
“Shit. Didn’t think about that. Yeah, you’re right.”
“You said something about a school bus full of kids. What do you remember about that?”
“Yeah, that’s still clear. Yellow bus with kids unloading in the bus loop. I can still see the teacher waving the kids off the bus, lining them up. I’m guessing some kind of field trip.”
When His Dreams Take Flight Page 11