The Fog of Dreams

by Justin Bell

  ********

  The dream struck him like a fist. He had just drifted to sleep when his entire body thrust backwards, tumbling end over end into the spiraling red and black dream world.

  With a shaking jolt, he halted, the winding path beneath his hands and feet, and again he was on all fours, scraping through the underbrush, through the trees, and over rocks, grass, and dirt. Hands grabbed and clutched at his shirt, shoulders, and grappling him as he tried to press forward, but just couldn't move. His subconscious knew that the cabin was up ahead, but his body just could not move forward no matter how hard he tried.

  Thrashing backwards, Strickland's dream self-attempted to shake free of the clutching hands, but he couldn't do it. For every hand that jumped and released, two more grappled on as he struggled and struggled and-

  His eyes shot open, desperately trying to adjust to the light. A cool breeze gusted over his bare shoulders, down his back and over his? wait.

  Strickland rolled over on the ground and looked down, sudden realization grabbing him. He had no clothes on. His eyes rose slightly, and confirmed his fears as well, showing the dark black night sky, scattered with the light of yellow stars, long since dead. Moving his head slowly back and forth, he confirmed that he was alone out here, behind his large house, an intense feeling of d?j? vu, even as he struggled to his feet. With the wide backyard area of his residence fully visible under the thin light of the moon, he stood next to the thick wooded area just to the north of his two-story home. His eyes clutched closed and he could almost see the path ahead in his dream mind. Slowly, painfully the eyes pried themselves open, and Strickland's breath caught in his throat.

  The path from his dream.

  It was there. Right in front of him.

  How had he never noticed that before? He slowly rubbed a hand down his bare arm, just trying to verify that this was reality and not a continuing part of his ever increasingly real dreams. No. This felt real. Instinctively, he walked forward, into the woods, but another brisk slap of cold wind jarred him back to his senses. Yes, this path needed to be visited, but in the dark of night? Was it really the dark of night? As he spent a few more moments outside, his vision actually had started to clear, and the dark world around came into very clear focus. Clearer than it should have been at this time of night. He rubbed a clenched fist over his eyes, and sure enough, his vision grew even clearer.

  "What we got out there?" Godsoe asked from the passenger seat, just itching to snag the goggles right out of Smits' hands.

  "Dunno. Dude sleepwalked out there like ninety minutes ago. Just woke up, walked towards the woods, now he's just sitting out there. Crazy son of a bitch."

  "Do you think this is gonna be a problem?"

  "Why would it be a problem?"

  "I don't know. Maybe there's somethin' in those trees he's not supposed to find?"

  "Don't know, don't care. Just here to do my job, man. And that job is a fuck of a lot safer here in the car than out there where those other guys bit the dust." Smits shook his head slowly as he placed the goggles on the center console.

  "You still wigged out about that, Smits?" asked Godsoe, retrieving the goggles and putting them to his own eyes.

  "Shit yeah. Fuck, man, we knew those guys. Coulda been us."

  Godsoe lowered the goggles and looked at his partner. "You buying their story? Gangland shit?"

  Smits' eyes roamed a bit, as if he was uncomfortable. "Nah, you crazy? Of course, I'm not buying it. But fucking A, man, this is the government we're working with. I sure as hell ain't gonna go digging around for the real story. Fuck that, I don't even want to know."

  "Heard anything from Gary?"

  "Nah, not directly. Supposedly, he talked to Sandidge down in Jersey City. He and a few of his boys are coming up to fill in the gaps left by? well, you know."

  "More muscle?"

  "Yeah, straight muscle. Sandidge's boys are nothing but badass, man. Ex-military of all shapes and sizes. They handle everything in the country." Smits lifted the cup of coffee from the cup holder and pressed it to his lips, but was profoundly disappointed that nothing more than the briefest sip trickled out. They still had three hours of watch left.

  Godsoe shook his head. "Nothing about this smells right, man. As soon as my first contract is up, I'm bailing. Shit's not worth it."

  "That's on you, man," Smits replied. "Personally, I like it. We're getting buckets of cash for a couple of overnight shifts a week. I could get used to gigs like this. Beats the hell outta trying to keep up with daddy's little pop star princess for two weeks straight." Smits leaned back and rested his head against the driver's seat. "Grab those goggles, Godsoe; you're on duty for a few."

  Strickland stood in the backyard, blinking away the last remnants of darkness as his night vision continued to improve with every moment. He wasn't sure if he was thankful or freaked out about this strange phenomenon. All he knew was that these strange new senses could be enough to help him find and rescue his family. Did he say rescue? He didn't even know if they were in trouble. Maybe they were taking a vacation. Maybe they were running? from him?

  He closed his eyes tight and clutched his head with both hands, sucking in a few regular breaths, trying to get his brain back on track. With one remaining breath, he stepped towards the woods. Goose flesh scattered throughout his arms and legs as he scraped through the tree branches, and he immediately transported back to his dream world. It was a relatively short walk, and he saw the path veer to the left, so he followed it, and then he was there, his breath drawing deep into his lungs.

  The clearing was just as he had seen in his dreams. A wide expanse of dug-up grass and dirt where no trees, shrubs, or bushes stood. It was manmade, and if there had been any confusion about the origins of it, the four wooden figures all the way at the far end would have cured any suppositions. His dream squirmed back into his head, forcing his eyes to squint themselves shut as he recalled the four mysterious figures looming over him in his blood-soaked nightmare from the previous night. Only here, in the emerging daylight, made only brighter by his extraordinary night vision, the figures were much less scary and much more functional.

  Each one was made of wood with a thickly padded, reinforced backing behind it. They were vaguely human-shaped, wrapped in canvas, and the consecutive circles in certain regions of the body told Bill all he needed to know. They were firing targets.

  He swiveled his head to look the other way, and saw that the clearing ran far down to the other end, maybe a good one-hundred meters or so, leaving a pretty decent-sized area to practice close combat pistol and submachine gun shooting. Remembering another piece of his recent nightmares, he scanned the trees, but saw no sign of the mysterious cabin that had been haunting him over the past few days.

  "What the hell?" Agent Burndock almost yelled, before he caught himself. He and his Day Watch team arrived onsite, just before dawn peeked through the clouds. The Night Watch team had kept them in the loop as to Strickland's nightly adventures, but Burndock hadn't expected him to stumble across the firing range so soon.

  "Where's he at, boss?" Halifax asked anxiously.

  Burndock swiveled slightly and scanned the area with his goggles. As he was swiveled, he caught the quick green and red blur. Stopping quickly, he focused the goggles and saw Strickland standing in a wooded area by the large clearing. "I've got him. He found the shooting range."

  Mathis turned to face his boss. "That a problem?"

  Burndock didn't speak for a couple of seconds. "No, I don't think so. But we need to watch him." He lowered the goggles and handed them off to Mathis. "Keep watching, I have to report this."

  Walking slowly deeper into the woods, Burndock clicked the button on his Bluetooth headset and speed-dialed the familiar number.

  "This is Grace," came the voice on the other end, sounding mysteriously awake.

  "Burndock here. Got a weird situation at Strickland's."

  "Shoot."

  "He found the firing range
."

  "Okay. Keep watching him. We want to keep him contained."

  "Understood," replied Burndock.

  "Let me know if anything else goes sideways. I'm up and I can send backup if necessary."

  Burndock nodded, even though Grace couldn't see it on the other end of the phone. "I think we've got it, boss. I'll let you know."

  He returned to the other two team members and relayed the message. "Grace says it's all good. Just keep him contained. What is he doing now?"

  Halifax was the first to speak. "He's heading back to the house."

  Burndock looked at his watch. It was just before 5:00 a.m., far earlier than Strickland's typical venture beyond his office and the computer. Routine had been dependable and well established. Today, it was neither. For obvious reasons, he couldn't help but think back to the last time Strickland went off the books.

  Strickland walked through his back door and into the basement. Feet plodding on cement steps, he crossed the floor and walked into his office, then tapped the familiar spot on the blank part of his wall. Catching the false panel, he set it aside and walked into his secret room, scoping out the weapons contained within. A smile creased his face as he surveyed the row of weapons inside? something about being here felt very comfortable.

  Five minutes later, he exited the brush-filled path in the woods and emerged into the clearing, now fully clothed, and with the UMP slung over his shoulder and Glock 22 stuffed in a thigh holster. Both weapons were like second skins, wrapping themselves around his grasp and becoming extensions of his body? it actually scared him how natural they felt. Hitting the clearing, he walked a short distance down to the edge, then turned around and regarded the four targets, a little over one-hundred meters away. Popping out the magazine of the Heckler and Koch UMP, he made sure it was full of .45 caliber ACP ammunition, which it was. Pressing the folding stock to his shoulder, he gripped the vertical foreground grip with his left hand to steady the weapon, and then squinted down the sight. He had set it to single shot to start with, so he let his hand caress the handle, with his finger lightly touching the trigger, and relaxed the muscles in his arms, letting his breath come out smooth and easy.

  Everything just came together. The maximum effective range of the .45 caliber UMP is around seventy meters, but Strickland pulled back smoothly on the trigger, shifting just a little bit as the short and abrupt crack echoed in the early morning air. The noise wasn't especially loud, and he wasn't sure if any houses nearby would hear it, so he took three more shots, then a fourth, before lowering the weapon. He walked to the targets, and even with some velocity issues past the 70-meter benchmark, he located four still slightly smoking bullet holes, just down and to the right of the smallest circle in the center mass of the target.

  Not too shabby, he thought. Walking back towards the other end of the clearing again, he switched the weapon to fully automatic, and counted off footsteps as he walked, not wanting to try this from the full 100-meter distance. When he reached about sixty meters, Strickland quickly spun and lifted the weapon in one fluid motion. The second the gun pressed into his shoulder and his eye locked in on the top sight; he hauled down the trigger until the remaining rounds in the magazine cleared out. Echoes in the air reverberated the sound of rapid-fire barks as a thin wisp of smoke spiraled from the extended barrel of the weapon. Strickland could already see smoke seeping from a series of dark holes in the center mass of the target, and for such a quick spin and shoot session, he was quite happy. He swiftly slung the UMP over his shoulder and pulled the Glock 22 out of his thigh holster. The pistol carried 9-millimeter ammunition in the magazine, and had an effective range of about three quarters the submachine gun, closer to fifty meters than seventy. Once again counting off the steps, when he reached what he felt was fifty meters, Strickland spun and lifted the Glock, then pulled the trigger six times consecutively, not taking a break to aim for any of the series of shots. He actually saw the head of the wooden target twitch with each struck shot, and saw that each shot hit in almost the same exact spot. Walking over to the shooting dummy, he now saw the series of holes, square in the middle of the target's face, all grouped within inches of each other.

  "Damn," he couldn't help but say, feeling good about himself. He had a shooting range, but apparently, he was already a damn good shot.

  Down the hall from his private hospital room, Gary Irizarry surprised nurses and impressed his physical therapists as he lifted weights with his left hand, did one-armed pushups, and acclimated quickly to a life with only one arm. He had already learned the art of counter balance without a second arm, and was now focusing on strength and coordination with a limb that had been non-dominant in all of his nearly forty years of life. Grace had been having a hard time tracking down martial arts instructors that focused in the specific element of one-armed training, but he had promised himself that he would find someone to help offset the sacrifice that Irizarry had made. And, to help keep him quiet.

  As Irizarry went through physical therapy his phone vibrated quietly on the table about four feet away. His therapist acquiesced and let him walk over to the table to answer it.

  "Irizarry, what's up?"

  "It's Grace, how's it going?"

  "All right. What you got for me?"

  "I need a timeline from you."

  "I told you, Rick. I've got those three guys coming in from Detroit, but it's going to take a few days. What's the problem?"

  "I'm thinking we might need some muscle. Maybe even in the next couple of days."

  "Emmanuele already came down from Vermont. He brought a couple guys, too. They've been handling the second rotation of the Night Watch."

  "They trustworthy?"

  "Yeah. Emmanuele comes from JTF2, Canadian Special Forces. Got kicked out for something or other, but he follows our rules, long as the money's good."

  "You don't know what he got kicked out for?"

  "Does it matter? Take that NSA pole outta your ass, man," Irizarry chuckled.

  Grace wasn't laughing. "I think we've got a 24-hour window before Strickland stumbles upon something we don't want him seeing. You know how that went last time, right?"

  "Shit. I can't be burying bodies and sending guys to die every time Strickland wanders outside your fucking comfort zone, man." Irizarry glanced around briefly, wanting to make sure nobody was within earshot. However, everyone in this building was on the NSA payroll, and knew enough to vacate the premises when a sensitive phone call came in.

  "The goal is to stop this before it gets to that point, Gary. No beast mode this time, I promise." Agent Grace paced the floor of his penthouse office. He could empathize with Irizarry to a point. The three corpses from the last event were all his guys, and he didn't want it to happen again. That kind of thing stuck with you, not just personally, but professionally. You start losing that many guys and suddenly, getting other guys to join your crew is a hell of a lot harder.

  "All right, all right. Let me get Emmanuele on the horn. I'll get a team together for support. When you need this?"

  "I want them on call and ready for tomorrow's Day Watch. Burndock's team will still handle primary surveillance, but I want guys ready to roll if something goes sideways. That'll be Emmanuele and his two guys."

  "That all you need? Six total?" Irizarry did some leg lifts to get the blood flowing while he stood still talking on the phone.

  "Like I said, we want to nip this one in the bud before it gets out of control."

  "Got it, boss. While I'm doing you this favor, you gonna get me my instructor?"

  Agent Grace smiled. "Yeah, I've got someone lined up. You'll see him tomorrow."

  "Great." Irizarry thumbed the phone off, and set it back down on the table. Wherever the physical therapist had been, she was obviously watching as she slipped back into the room seconds later, ready to continue.

  Back in his own office, Grace tucked his own phone deep into his jacket pocket and walked over to his desk. Touching a quick series of buttons on a
combination lock on the top drawer, he eased the drawer open, pulled out a folder, and tossed it on the desk. The name "Harvest" appeared on the tab. He slipped down into his chair and slowly opened the folder, looking down into it. The first item in the folder was an 8 x 11 photograph, taken from the woods behind William Strickland's house. It was a large, broken down faded wood cabin with white, blank windows like eyes and an open maw of a door like a mouth leading straight to hell.

  With a chirp, his headset rang in his ear, and Agent Grace tapped it quickly, opening the secure line.

  "Grace."

  "This is Director McKie. You have a minute?"

  The agent's heart dropped down into his stomach. He had been anticipating this call, but part of him that thought perhaps he had escaped retribution this time around. He should have known better.

  "Director. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

  "Do you really need to ask, Agent?"

  "No, sir, probably not." Grace sighed and leaned back in his chair, easing his eyes closed and momentarily putting the file folder in front of him out of his mind.

  "I didn't think so. Can you give me one good reason why we've already had to manufacture two cover stories for what is going on up there?"

  "I can appreciate your frustration, Director. I'm sure you agree the importance of this operation is at the highest level?"

  "Of course I understand that, Grace. That's the only reason your ass hasn't been shipped back to Meade already." Director McKie stood in his own office in Fort Meade, Maryland, looking out his window onto the parking lot outside. "You have to understand you're in a very small town up there."

  "Director, I went to school up here. I understand."

  "Okay, then you also have to realize we cannot keep creating these cover stories. There's been one murder up there in the past thirty years. One. Now we've got gunfights down Main Street and five corpses in a month?"

  "Director, I?"

  "Agent." Director McKie punctuated the statement by leaning forward in his own office and lightly slapping his palms on his desk. "You know I have the utmost respect for you. You wouldn't be in charge of this operation if I didn't trust you. But you must get this back under control. We cannot allow William Strickland to just roam the streets. Understood?"

  "Yes, Director. Containment is the main objective."

  "Good. Keep me informed as things progress."

  Agent Grace tapped his head set, killing the call as he said "Yes, sir. Grace, out."

  Sighing, the NSA agent tossed his Bluetooth headset on his desk, his mouth twisting into a grimace. As usual, his timing was impeccable. He had just contacted Irizarry and ordered the immediate transfer of personnel, so he would just have to tighten things up a bit more. That put a little bit of a crimp in his plans, but ultimately he still thought he could make it work. Phase 2 was well under way and nothing could stop it now.