by Keri Lake
Nocturnes & Nightmares
The Sandman Duet, Book One
Keri Lake
NOCTURNES & NIGHTMARES
The Sandman Duet, Book One
Keri Lake
Copyright © 2019
All Rights Reserved.
AUTHOR’S NOTE This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Cover Art © OkayCreations
Editing by Julie Belfield
Warning: This book is recommended for mature readers due to graphic violence, sex, and scenes that some readers may find disturbing.
For my mom and dad.
Thank you for teaching me the importance of art, for inspiring me to follow my passions in life, and to never give up.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
William Shakespeare
Contents
Playlist
VIP Email List
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Sneak Peek Requiem & Reverie
Other Books By Keri Lake
About the Author
Playlist
“Enter Sandman” –SHEL
“Nightmare” –Avenged Sevenfold
“Hunter Eats Hunter” –Chevelle
“Silent Lucidity” –Queensryche
“Flesh and Bone” –Blackmath
“Joker And The Thief” –Wolfmother
“Edge of Darkness” –Greta VanFleet
“The Final Dicvtm” –Motionless In White
“Black Holes (Solid Ground)” –The Blue Stones
“Suffocation Blues” –Black Pistol Fire
“Bat Country” –Avenged Sevenfold
“Darlin’” –Houndmouth
“Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want” –Deftones
“Enter Sandman” –Metallica
“Infamous” –Motionless In White
“When I Get My Hands On You” –The New Basement Tapes
“Fluorescent Adolescent” –The Arctic Monkeys
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Prologue
Crouched and hidden behind a rusted burn barrel that was propped against a dilapidated shed, the boy clapped his hands over his ears to block out the screams. There were times when he thought he might’ve been awake while dreaming, sleepwalking through a nightmare, but he’d never felt cold, or the raising of gooseflesh on his arms, like he did right then. And never in all of his eleven years had he ever seen something so terrifying as what lay on the other side of the shed’s door.
The screams grew louder, more intense, as the poor creature begged for its life. A moment ago, when the boy dared a peek through the window, the blood on the floor had looked like a shiny red pool that reflected the fluorescent glow from the lone light flickering over the macabre scene. He’d also seen two misshapen eyes bobbing inside a glass canning jar.
In a brief interlude, when the animal’s screeches had died down, murmurs had carried through the tired wooden slats of the door. The sounds of taunting. Letting the boy know his tormentor had caught wind of his hiding place.
“Wake up,” the boy whispered to himself. “Please wake up.”
Earlier in the day, long before he’d been awakened from sleep by sounds beyond his room, one of the boy’s classmates had told him about The Sandman. How he punished those who didn’t go to sleep when they were supposed to, by giving them nightmares and, in some cases, stealing their eyeballs to take back to the moon, to feed his children. The boy had laughed it off, thinking it the most ridiculous story that liar had told yet. Not anymore, as the pitch of agonized screams tore through the shed once again, over the whooshing of blood inside his ears.
He wished he’d stayed in his bed, hidden beneath the blankets.
Had he been brave, he would’ve taken one of the large knives laid out across the floor beside the many tools scattered about. Ones used to inflict the unimaginable pain carried on that hoarse voice bleeding through the wall beside him.
Except, his body wouldn’t move. His heart beat so hard against his ribs, he could scarcely breathe.
Monsters are real. He was sure of it. Undeniably certain that the one holding the sharp blade on the other side of the door, his own uncle, was the same man his classmate had told him about.
The figure who lurked in the dark and brought nightmares to life. The one who’d surely find him next, if he made so much as a peep.
The Sandman.
1
Nola
My heart is an anchor.
The weight of it presses against my rib bones, crushing my insides. Some days it’s as light as air, a weightless knot in my chest, begging to be swept away. Today, it’s suffocating. Mocking me, as I stare down at the man I hardly know anymore.
A husband on paper, but in reality, he’s nothing more than a roommate. The stench of alcohol coming from him is like the cheap perfume of a lover, confessing his affair, and the bottle propped against his chest is the evidence.
I hate that my heart remembers the boy with scruffy blond hair and a skateboard, who called me his baby. I hate that my heart refuses to see the broken mess he’s become, the fractured promise of the beautiful life we planned ten years ago.
But that’s what love does to the heart. Its gluttony consumes every lie like a sponge, until it becomes heavy and hard, like stone.
I whack my knuckles against Denny’s leg. “Wake up.”
He doesn’t move at first. Not so much as a flinch. I’d think him dead, if not for the obnoxious snore that tells me otherwise.
“Denny! Wake up!”
At another wallop against his thigh, he snorts and startles awake, as his arms fly out and grip the edges of the couch. “What! Whas goin’ on?” He can’t even muster an angry groan, or a scowl, with whatever intoxicating dose of alcohol that seems to have rendered his face muscles lax.
Pathetic.
“I need cash. Oliver’s birthday is tomorrow.”
Huffing, he turns onto his side, burying his face in the couch. “You work.”
“Yeah, see … I used all my money on the house payment and utilities. You know, the shit you were supposed to pay me half for?”
“Here comes the ball-busting.”
“It’s your son’s fucking birthday. Surely you can cough u
p a few bucks for that. I’m assuming, since you had enough for your Jim Beam—”
“Now you’re gonna track everything I buy?”
“When you haven’t paid me anything in two months? You’re damn right I am. I need fifty bucks for Oliver.”
“Fifty? What the fuck is fifty bucks?”
“A cake, a toy, and the only thing he asked for, a new coat.”
Snorting again, he shakes his head. “I got ten bucks on me.” He stuffs his hand into his back pocket and yanks out a ten he lets flutter to the floor.”
“You get a couple hundred a week in unemployment, plus cash mowing lawns. Where did all that go?”
“None of your business, that’s where.”
As anger gets the best of me, I shove at him, jostling his body. “It is my fucking business! If you can’t help me with bills, then get out!”
Twisting just enough to peel his face from the couch cushions, he frowns back at me. “’S’at what you want, Nola? Break up our home over money? Said it’d never come to that. Said nothing could ever get in the way of our marriage. Remember?”
“I’m tired of doing everything alone, Denny. The cleaning. The bills. The cooking and the worrying.”
His brows wing up with an incredulous smile I’d love to smack right off his face. “Oh, I’m not busting my ass?”
“Are you? I wouldn’t know. You haven’t given me a dime, except for this measly ten bucks!”
He goes back to cuddling his fifth like a toy he refuses set down. “I’ll get you your damn money. Chill the fuck out.” The watch at his wrist catches my eye—a cheap knockoff Rolex that Oliver bought him for Father’s Day a couple years back. Surprised he still wears it.
“I want you out of here. Out of my life.”
“And then what? You think you’d survive without me? Money aside, you’re nothing but a w—”
“Mom?”
I turn to find Oliver standing in the hallway, decked out in his Star Wars jammies, slipping on his thin, black-rimmed glasses.
Head tipped, he glances to Denny and me, no doubt assessing the situation. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s okay, baby. Go back to bed.”
“Can I have a glass of milk?”
“’The hell did your mom tell you—”
“Sure, sweets,” I cut Denny short, flipping him off behind my back, where he can see. “I’ll bring it to you in a second. Go back to bed, okay?”
Once Oliver is out of sight, I loosen the hundreds of muscles in my face it takes to feign a smile.
“That’s why you need fifty bucks. You spoil the little shit.”
“That little shit hasn’t asked for anything any other kid his age would ask for. He deserves all the goddamn presents in the world for having you as a dad.” I kick at his feet, taking in a small measure of joy when he recoils.
“Time for another bitch pill, eh, Nola?”
“End of the week. I want you out. And if you don’t pay your half of the bills by tomorrow? You can crawl your broke ass out of here the next day. After Oliver’s birthday.”
With a snort, he shakes his head and curls into himself on the couch. “You always were heartless, Nola. This marriage was doomed from the beginning.”
My chest throbs in a reminder that I’m not heartless. I’m heartbroken. Not just for me, but for the little boy to whom I’ll have to explain everything, every broken piece that’s shattered around him, and carefully try to put his world back together.
“I need to run out. I’ll give Oliver a glass of milk, and he should go right back to sleep. Think you can handle being an adult for an hour, or two?”
It feels irresponsible leaving Oliver with Denny, but if truth be told, my son is the one most responsible in this scenario. Oliver could practically care for himself, if that were legal.
“Kid’s mine, too, in case you forgot.”
“Sometimes, I do,” I say, swiping up the ten bucks still lying on the floor. Rotten bastard.
In the kitchen, I pour a small bit of milk into a glass, and try not to look at the lump of shit on my couch as I pass him again on the way up the stairs to Oliver’s room.
With a smile painted on cold and lying lips, I enter, holding the glass. “Hey, baby. Sorry if Mommy and Daddy were talking too loud. We had some plans to work out for somebody’s birthday tomorrow.”
That doesn’t make him smile. Of course it doesn’t. He’s too smart for those tricks nowadays.
“Know what I’m getting you?” I set his milk on the nightstand and pull his space-themed blanket up to just below his chin.
“I don’t want anything. Except for you and Dad to get along.”
“Believe me, Champ. I want that, too.”
Crawling into bed beside him, I nudge him over with my hip and slide the blanket to cover my legs. Even at ten years old, he still snuggles up beside me, and I stroke his hair, which smells like oranges. “You’re going to have the best birthday ever tomorrow. No fighting. I promise.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.” Planting a kiss on top of his head, I give him one hard squeeze. “Drink your milk and go to sleep right away, okay?”
“Mom? Do you believe in The Sandman? I mean, he’s not real, right?”
“Sandman? Are you asking if I think there’s a dude who goes around sprinkling sand in everyone’s eyes to put them to sleep?” I frown when he nods, the look of worry etched across his face stirring confusion. Oliver has always been a kid rooted in logic, and it only took him until the ripe age of five to decide Santa, the tooth fairy, and the Easter bunny weren’t real. “No. I don’t. What’s going on with that?”
“Emmett says he’s real. He says he watches you every night, waiting for the moment when you’re alone and vulnerable. He says he steals your eyeballs. It was in the news, and everything.”
“Eyeballs, huh? Emmett drinks too much soda for his age. If anything, he should be worried about a pissed-off tooth fairy having to collect a mouthful of rotted baby teeth.”
“That’s gross.”
“Indeed. Which reminds me, did you brush your teeth?”
Huffing in obvious frustration, he frowns. “Yes, I did. I’m being serious, Mom. Sometimes, I see … eyes. Watching me through the window at night.”
“Well, considering you’re on the second floor, a dude would have to be pretty ambitious to climb up to the roof just to spy on a sleeping kid.”
“Unless he didn’t have to climb.”
“C’mon, Oliver. I thought you were too old for that stuff. Too wise. You don’t believe in that fantasy stuff, remember?” I push out of his bed and tuck him in, my mind spinning a thousand miles a minute, trying not to let the darkness on the other side of me cast its shadows on him. The unbearable weight of my failed and crumbling marriage that threatens to crush me with such innocent conversation. Sliding his glasses from his eyes, I kiss his forehead and stroke my hand down his cheek. “Time to sleep. Love you, baby.”
“Mom?” he says, as I reach for the door. “If The Sandman did exist, though … is he considered good?”
“Hypothetically, if there was a dude going around sprinkling sand to make you sleep, I’d like to think he was doing it for the right reasons. The world isn’t as crappy as it seems, sometimes, you know?”
“So, even if he does bad things, he’s good?”
“Whatever Emmett told you, and I’ll be sure to check with his mom on that, it’s just a story, Oli.”
He drops his gaze from mine and shakes his head. “Please don’t talk to his mom. I’ll stop asking about it.”
“Good. Go to sleep.”
“But … do you think Dad is good?”
I press my lips together, to keep the truth from escaping me and destroying my son’s perception of the only man he’s ever loved. “I think everyone is born with goodness in them. Some just don’t know what to do with it, is all.”
Rifling through my jewelry box, I find a simple gold wedding band with a single diamond. Two years a
go, I stopped wearing it, and I’m not sure Denny even noticed. My eyes blur with tears as I allow my thoughts to drift to the day Denny proposed to me—probably the worst proposal in the world.
He’d taken me out to an early dinner at some fancy restaurant downtown. We hung out at a bar, watching one of our favorite local bands, then he took me for an evening walk through the park, where I’d first watched him perform tricks on his board. Halfway into the walk, we both started feeling really sick, so we rushed back to his mom’s and took turns puking and shitting in the bathroom all night. While pale-faced and camped out beside the toilet, he pulled the ring and proposed.
Wasn’t enough that my mom went to her grave hating the guy, but it’s as if fate was conspiring against our marriage on top of it all, by giving me the worst case of food poisoning I’ve ever had.
I slip the ring onto my finger and peek in on Oliver one more time, finding him covered up in his blankets.
Denny’s sat up on the couch when I head back down, flipping through channels on the TV, with one hand stuffed inside a bag of Doritos. No doubt, he’ll end up passed out on the couch, since the two of us haven’t slept in the same bed in months.
“I shouldn’t be any longer than an hour. Hour and a half, max. Are you okay to listen for him, or are you too drunk?”
“I’m not drunk. Whatever buzz I might’ve had, you killed. So, thanks for that.”