The Fog of Dreams

by Justin Bell

  *******

  Present Day. Day eleven of the Strickland experiment.

  Strickland had fallen into a familiar routine and on the surface was acting more or less normal. Even with Grace now en route to Washington, life had appeared to settle down for William Strickland. Routine was his friend, and his friendship was becoming very close and very intense. It was a routine that one could almost set their watch to if they were so inclined.

  However, in truth the surveillance was only routine from the outside. As the operatives watched, Strickland had been growing more and more introspective. His family nowhere in sight, he spent much of his time working out. In between routines, he would flex these strange extremities and wonder just in whose body he had ended up. What body that could run this fast and be this strong. As he stepped into the basement, the scents overwhelmed him, like a hundred freshly cut onions driving bitter tears from the corners of each eye. Sweat, powder, canvas?it was a rancid combination that his strangely enhanced sense of smell had a hard time translating. Closing his eyes in concentration and focusing on these flexing muscles in his arms and legs cleared these strange new sensations in moments, but it was something he had to get used to every time he ventured down here.

  And it seemed to be getting worse.

  He trudged over to the heavy bag and tried to get his blood pumping by dancing, dodging, weaving, and striking, moving around the basement in fluid grace, striking with his hands, his feet, his elbows, his knees. This felt right. This felt real. It was an exercise in focus and determination as well; he knew that he could destroy this bag with one swift punch, but he held back and tried to control his strength. As he continued, though, adrenaline pumped and his muscles grew tenser, and just when he started to get to the point when he needed to unleash, he would back himself off and try to calm down. When he stopped, all that existed was the quiet squeak of the swinging chain and dead, silent air. To his especially sensitive ears, it was a shrill, oily shriek.

  His heart pumped as his muscles tensed, looking at the slowly swinging bag. Today, the rage was not subsiding. In his head, twin green slits of eyes tore open on the surface of the heavy bag and stared deep into his soul. Lashing out with a kick, he struck the center of the bag, and then pulled back. The canvas material appeared to tear, vomiting dry sand out of a torn mouth. But that mouth wasn't a canvas tear; it was an actual tooth-filled grin with sand drooling from each corner like tan, grainy blood. Strickland screamed and leaped forward, striking the bag again with a flurry of rigid punches, sending the heavy bag thrashing with each strike. His movements were flashes of skin and black fabric, and the bag was under assault from every direction, not knowing which way to spin or roll or swing. After about thirty seconds, the breath had left Strickland's lungs and he collapsed forward. Hugging the bag for support and dropping to his knees, he panted, with light streams of crimson rolling down over his knuckles. Red fog swarmed over his eyes and sweat glistened on his forehead.

  "J? Jennifer," he whispered, calling back to the wife he no longer knew if he had.

  Strickland grappled with the heavy bag and pulled himself to his feet, barely able to focus. His head was swimming with adrenaline mixed with exhaustion with just the right pinch of vacant emptiness. Stumbling towards his basement office, he ran his sweaty, bloody hand over his equally sweaty bald head. Suddenly, he was in his office walking right past his chair towards the blank area on the far wall. He slammed the catch release on the wall and the sheetrock popped out, barely caught before being set harmlessly on the floor. For whatever reason, Strickland felt a sudden and urgent need to be consoled and confronted by his past life in the most direct way possible.

  The weapons.

  The only thing he truly knew right at this point. He had to face the violence and embrace his true inner self.

  He stood inside the small room glaring silently at the various instruments of death that surrounded him on each wall.

  How had he managed to build this room? Was he that talented a carpenter in his mysterious past life?

  It was then that something occurred to him.

  He was in the basement. If there were a secret room in the basement, it would have been dug into the ground with the foundation being poured around it. There would have been planning, preparation, and an experienced build crew involved in this project, not just himself on a whim with a saw and hammer. This was a large-scale, contracted project.

  And if it was a contracted project, there must have been a contractor.

  Suddenly the muddy crimson cloud that he was immersed in floated away into the ether. William Strickland knew what his next steps had to be. For the first time since he had awoken, William Strickland had a plan. William Strickland with a plan was a most dangerous man indeed.

  Out in front of the Strickland house, Smits and Godsoe sat in the black sedan just in front and down the road from the Strickland house, parked in such a way that they had full view of the home, but could not be easily seen. The state of the art infrared goggles rested on Smits' lap as he sipped at the cup of coffee and half-snorted.

  "What's your problem tonight?" asked Godsoe as he pulled the coffee cup from his lips.

  "Ah, nothin'. Same old shit day after day. Like our security details better; this sit and watch stuff is bullshit."

  "Money is money, Smitty. This is easy work."

  "Easy work is overrated."

  Smits pushed the goggles to his eyes to get a first look at Strickland's house for the Night Watch. He could make out the blob of body heat cleaning up the kitchen table and putting dishes in the sink.

  "Huh."

  "Something wrong, Smits?"

  "Ate dinner already."

  "Yeah? Well it's almost six, ain't it?"

  "Guy normally eats at nine. Every night for the past week. Nine o'clock, like fucking clockwork. Why so early tonight?"

  "Hell if I know. Worth reporting on?"

  "Nah. But put it in the log book."

  Strickland's break in routine was odd during dinner, but things only got odder throughout the evening. Cutting his internet searching down to two hours, he completed a very brief exercise routine, and then went to bed at nine o'clock, a full three hours before normal.

  "Damn? nine o'clock bed time? What are we supposed to do for the next five hours?" Godsoe lowered the goggles to his lap and shook his head.

  "Hey, if he's asleep," said Smits, "we can run into town and grab more coffee, right?"

  "You know better than that, Smitty. You don't piss off the spooks."

  "Yeah, yeah. Still, something is weird here. Did you log this one too?"

  "All set," replied Godsoe and held up the small notebook as proof.

  "All right, then. I'm going to grab some shut-eye for a couple of hours. Give me a nudge if anything happens."

  "I'm on it." Godsoe slipped his smartphone from his pocket and about three seconds after Smits eased his eyes closed, he fired up Angry Birds and started playing.