The Dream Beings Read online

  Most people didn’t know where feelings came from, but he did. They welled up from the depths of the soul. They contained the spiritual essence of a person. There was a term he’d often encountered in his occult studies, in the piles of old, rare books he read each night by candlelight. It was a word that, with time, had come to mean a great deal to him. For it described what he did, what made up his life’s purpose.

  The term was soul eater.

  When he killed these women, he was ingesting their fear, vulnerability and openness—in truth, devouring their souls. These days, people felt inclined to stifle and conceal their emotions, to efface their openness and replace it with social games and psychological manipulation. Only death, the fear of annihilation, could bring it up to the surface—where it can then be absorbed, felt internally by someone else (in this case, himself) and claimed as a source of power.

  He’d killed dozens of women in the past ten years. Each of their soul-content and purity had been added to his own. By this, he had made himself into a much stronger being.

  But…

  This had also attracted the attention of the Dream Beings. Spirits from another plane of existence. He wasn’t sure where, but he knew it had to be a place much darker than Earth. And that was saying a lot because Earth was one dark fucking place. He often thought about trying to communicate with them verbally, to ask them where they came from, but so far their interactions had been solely through pictorial images. He’d been left to his own speculations.

  In the cold darkness, he finally arose, sitting upright on his bed. The moonlight streaming through his bedroom’s only window cast a wan glow upon the corners and edges of what little furniture he owned. His style of living was devoutly Spartan.

  Yet he’d made an attempt to appear normal, by placing one glossy-black chest of drawers along the wall with a Van Gogh painting hanging above it. Along another wall was the television set, which he almost never used and thought maybe wasn’t even plugged in. Beside that, a pile of dirty clothes waited, for months now, to be laundered. Not much. But it provided an illusion, both to himself and the outer world, that he lived a normal life.

  Another herculean movement and he was on his feet. He pressed through the dark, down the narrow hallway, into the bathroom, where he closed the door, flipping on the light. He stared at himself in the begrimed mirror above the sink. The glare of the low-wattage light bulb painted the room with unreality.

  He avoided eye contact with himself, but was unable to ignore just how blackly bloodshot his pupils were. He focused on the pockmarks and acne that marred his skin, picked various sores and lesions for a while, thinking about the woman he had killed—about piercing her many times with his sharpened hunting blade, the one his father had given him, and then sawing her head off and dumping it in the bathroom sink.

  What joy, what utter, sheer joy he had felt. And the vibrational power waves sent forth from her excited and terrified soul, how he had fed on them greedily, how he had nourished his own suffering with them, taking them over to his side, from the light into the dark.

  He had feasted on her.

  He licked his lips, blubbery and red in the mirror, and exposed some of his yellow teeth, he sneered a kind of happy-in-madness grin before going back to popping his pimples.

  He thought of the man. The other. That one the Dream Beings had demanded he inscribe in blood on the wall. The rest of it—all he had written—had been their voices speaking through him. Not conversing with him, but using him as a channel. He certainly didn’t care about a river or the center of the Earth or some private investigator named Jack Evens. To him, that was all nonsense. His purpose for being there was to feed on the woman’s soul.

  But now that the Dream Beings had attached themselves to him, they would not be dissuaded from their purpose, and if he disobeyed or even spoke up in protest, they would subject him to horrors previously unknown to him. And while he considered himself a connoisseur of all things horrific, their brand of horror was alien, was somehow far worse, originating from that unknown world.

  He didn’t mess with things he did not understand. So he let them have their way.

  Always.

  Chapter Four

  Wilson Pickett’s “Mustang Sally” poured obnoxiously from Shakey’s jukebox, the barroom swam with conversation, and suddenly I held my head, releasing a groan.

  “Migraine?” Oscar asked.

  I nodded.

  “You get those a lot.”

  “Part of my gift. It got worse after Jean and I separated. Back when we were married, she used to feed me various New Age homeopathic medicines that eased the pain. I sometimes wish I could remember the names of those.”

  Oscar eyed me squarely. “Here, take these.” He reached in his coat pocket and withdrew a small bottle of Advil. He tossed three gel tabs on the shiny wood bar top. They spun momentarily in the dreamy hues of neon light.

  My beer glass was empty so I swallowed them dry. Oscar, noticing this, ordered another.

  “On me,” he said.

  The bartender, a skinny man in a button-front white shirt, grinned through a forest of crooked teeth as he sloshingly refilled my glass from a plastic pitcher.

  “I’ve been waiting patiently,” Oscar said.

  I sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

  “You don’t have to go into detail,” he said. “It’s about ten o’clock and I’m fifty years old. Becky’s waiting at home. She has a Pilates class for fifty and over at the country club early in the morning, and if I wake her after midnight, she’ll roast me.”

  “How is your wife, anyway?”

  “Fuck you.” He smoothed his bald head, as if there were a point to it.

  “I will say this,” I began. “I feel like I got run over by a Mack Truck. That never happens to me, no matter how great the violence level. You remember that case three or four years back, where a homeless man was beat to death with a tire iron by a group of drunken fraternity boys?”

  Oscar made a noise. “How could I forget?”

  “Detective Lieutenant Sanderson hired me for that—”

  “Yeah, I remember. That was a big deal.”

  “I was even on scene when the coroner bagged the body. Man, what a mess that was, and what a fucking waste of human life. I could have killed those kids once we found out who it was. My point is, even after experiencing that, I was still okay. I certainly didn’t feel like I do tonight.”

  “Can you expand?”

  “I dunno. It’s abstract. As you know, the way this works is that I don’t usually remember too much until after it happens.”

  “Then let’s go back step-by-step as you walked through Page’s house, and stop where you came to your name written on the tiles.”

  I slugged more beer. “When I first arrived I was filled with a sense of utter confusion. But that’s normal for a crime scene—the aftermath, everyone trying to cover their asses and do their jobs. That sort of thing. It creates a vibrational atmosphere like a whirlwind.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Then as I entered the house—I’m sure of this now—I had a flash of a recurrent dream.”

  “What dream?”

  “The one I’ve been having lately. I’m lying in a deep, hollow pit, surrounded by black soil. Sheer earth walls are cut symmetrically, with a night sky of moon and scattered clouds filling the space above me, and suddenly I realize I’m at the bottom of an open grave. Terror takes me over.

  “I hear a sound like running water, but I don’t know where it’s coming from. Someplace deep in the earth. A shape floats over the mouth of the grave, a misty outline, wavering, unrecognizable. You know that word ‘amorphous’? Like that. The shape flows back and forth several times, then goes away. But I’m positive that it’s still looking at me, that it’s waiting up there, floating around the surface.

  “The running-wate
r sound intensifies, and the walls of the grave begin to tremble. I’m shocked to notice dark, thick liquid seeping out of the earth. On closer inspection, I realize—and much to my dismay, I might add—that it’s blood. Then suddenly I wake up.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Don’t even ask me to go into the symbolism of that.”

  “I’d say the ‘lying in the open grave’ bit is significant.”

  “Thanks, Dr. Patterson.”

  “Just doing my job.”

  He was smiling, pleased with his wit.

  His silly complacence made me smile too. I felt some of the tension dissolve, reminding me that laughter was still the ultimate cure-all.

  “Anyway,” I continued, “when I walked into Page’s house, I got a flash of that dream and saw myself lying in the open grave with the misty thing hovering overhead, the blood seeping out of the earth. It was a quick flash, a second only, and I didn’t pay it no mind. I let it recede into my subconscious.”

  “You did look a little pale when I saw you,” he said.

  “When we entered her room, I was overcome with a deep sense of evil, of darkness. That is the only way I can describe it—evil. Pure, willful wickedness. I knew suddenly that the guy who did this is unlike anything I’ve encountered before, and that which works through him is not of this world.”

  “Hold up a minute. First of all, you’re certain the killer is a male? And what the hell do you mean ‘that which works through him’?”

  “This is all very complicated,” I said. “But you hired me, remember? And by the way, we haven’t discussed a price. My hourly wages have gone up.”

  “You’ll be overpaid.”

  “Good. If I’m going to tell you this stuff—the stuff you’re paying me for—then know it’s going to sound weird. Be ready for it. In order for this to work out, I need you open-minded.”

  “I am goddam open-minded,” he said, looking flushed. His face had darkened. “Haven’t I hired you in the past? It’s just that…every time I hear it, it comes across as strange. We don’t live in the same world, Jack. Keep that in mind.”

  “All I’m saying is if you trust me and keep your how-in-the-hells to a minimum, then we’ll catch this guy a lot quicker.”

  “Understood. Go.”

  “You sure?”

  “I said I was.”

  I watched him, realizing he was just as beer buzzed as I was. Funny to look back to this side of the looking glass, to see how regular folks like Oscar view the world. What they consider real. Even funnier to consider how much of reality they actually miss.

  I continued, “I remember having a flash of a man now. Short, stocky up top, wearing pants and a heavy coat, with skinny legs. He had at least shoulder-length black hair and a lousy complexion. He was the one in Page’s room when she was killed. And behind him…something else. Some dark force, that evil I mentioned, functioning through him, using him as an instrument.”

  “Is he the murderer?”

  “Not sure. Didn’t get an image of that. All I know is he was there. But there didn’t appear to be anyone else. So logic would suggest…”

  Oscar took out his notepad and started scribbling. Chicken scrawl filled the thing, since he was always jotting down this or that in a hurry. Oscar was a high-ranking detective now; taking notes had become like breathing.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “The next flash I received showed a different room in another house. Something small, run-down, kind of slummy. The stocky fellow was standing there—just standing there alone in the darkness—and I noticed strange lights and movement around him. Like mist. In fact, just like the misty shape hovering in the air above the open grave in my dream.”

  “I hate that you never tell me any of this stuff while it’s happening. Looking at you this afternoon—aside from that paleness—it would be impossible to suspect anything was going on. Meanwhile, you’ve drawn up a criminal profile of the murderer in your head.”

  “I’m only half-aware of these pictures as they come to me. They arrive in an instant, like a flash of lightning, and then sort of well up from the depths, until finally I become fully conscious of them. I don’t know where they come from, but I’m getting faster at recognizing them. Besides, I was slightly disabled by the fact that my goddam bloody name was written on the shower wall.”

  “Point taken,” Oscar said. “Let’s jump ahead to when we were in the bathroom.”

  I fished out my cigarettes and lit up. Felt like it had been ages since I last smoked. Wasn’t sure if I was happy about that or mad as hell.

  As the smoke entered my lungs, it went down smoothly, and I smiled and exhaled through a shit-eating grin as I realized the Advil had successfully reduced my migraine.

  Oscar looked at me like I was nuts.

  “When we entered the bathroom,” I went on, “this surge of panic shot through me. Didn’t even know why. Until you showed me the words on the shower wall.”

  Oscar picked up the digital camera and held it before us. “Ready?” he said.

  I blew out a deep, smoky breath. “Ready.”

  He hit the button, flashed through some stills, then got to the bathroom shots, stopping at the one of the sink. Blood-coated porcelain. Page’s head, lolled to the side, sat in the hollow depression, eyes wide and crossed, mouth agape, tongue poking to the side like a dog’s. A reddish stump of severed flesh and veins, a tangled mass of tendrils—horribly detailed in the high-resolution photograph.

  “I feel nauseous,” I said.

  Oscar grunted. “Beer and cigarettes ain’t helping,” he said. Then he advanced the camera to a still of the shower wall. I looked at the words again, my insides shuddering.

  The river of suffering flows through me…

  I am lost…Christ in the center of the Earth…

  They come in dreams…The world of dreams…

  Crucified at night will be you…Crucified in dreams…

  …is you…Jack Evens

  “What did you feel when you read that?” he said.

  “I think I remembered my dream again. And I saw that horrible man, the fucking evil guy standing in the darkness, surrounded by misty shapes. Beings so wicked I can’t even comprehend them. I knew they were coming for me—through him—and that they wanted me dead. I knew he would probably succeed too, unless I went after him first.”

  Oscar was quiet a moment. “Good thing that’s what we’re doing.”

  I stamped my cigarette out in the ashtray, pounded back my beer. “I’m done,” I said. “It’s time for me to sleep. I get more answers in sleep. Dreams, you know.”

  Oscar nodded, sipping his beer instead of gulping it. He’d always been superior when it came to modesty. He handed me the digital camera, then reached into his pocket, withdrawing a folded sheet a paper and handing that over too.

  “We’ll get a case file put together,” he said. “But for now take these. That’s got as much background info on Page Johnson as you’ll need for the time being. Look it over. Think about it, see what you get. Call me tomorrow.”

  He got up, threw some money down on the counter and nodded to the bartender. “Night, Reese,” he said.

  The skinny man waved.

  Oscar clapped me on the shoulder. “Take care of yourself, Jack. Get plenty of rest. I think we’ve got a showdown on our hands.”

  “Think you’re right. Oscar?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “I don’t mean the beer.”

  “I know.”

  “Say hello to Becky.”

  “Will do.”

  Chapter Five

  Slumped in the leather armchair in my living room, I enjoyed a nightcap. I kept only the gold-and-black lamp on my end table illuminated. The room was cast in half shadow. The house
was quiet. Sirens echoed ghostlike outside the window.

  I had read the background on Page Johnson, but I was unable to look at the digital photos again, and maybe I didn’t have to—everything I needed to know was burned in my mind like soot stains on a brick fireplace. The impressions, the feelings, they were what was important. The rest was pornography.

  Page was a thirty-eight-year-old divorcee with no children. Her mother died in Las Vegas ten years earlier, what had been ruled “death by misadventure”. Large amounts of alcohol and painkillers were found in her system. The father, Andy Everling, was thought to be alive, but so far the cops hadn’t been able to locate him. Her elderly grandmother, whom they hadn’t yet informed of Page’s death, lived in Kentucky and was a member of the Baptist church down there.

  She’d grown up in Las Vegas with her mother until the age of twenty-two, when she got married to Tom Johnson and moved to my humble city. The two stayed married for almost six years, during which time Page became increasingly ill, diagnosed eventually with fibromyalgia. Tom later had an affair with another woman, which precipitated the divorce, at which point he left the state and moved to San Diego.

  Page remained here and lived alone, perhaps dating on and off, but there was no record of a steady boyfriend. She waitressed at an upscale restaurant downtown, called Maintenant, Nous Mangeons. By the time of her murder she had worked her way up to lead server and was making good money. It seemed she’d thrown herself into her job once her marriage fell apart. Perhaps a measure of bitterness about the way it had ended kept her from seeking love again. It was all very sad, really.

  The lack of obvious love interests complicated things. The neighbors had dialed 911 after observing some suspicious activity; otherwise, she might not have been found until she’d missed several days of work. Oscar’s plan was to send a couple junior detectives to the restaurant in the morning to investigate. But at this point the employees and the neighbors were the only potential suspects.