Doorway to Your Dreams, page 29
Linda looked down at the floor and pushed the pile of hair under the bed.
“Wrong color for shag. It would need to be orange,” said Linda as she wrestled with a facemask and a tangled cluster of plastic tubing. “How do you connect this contraption?”
“That contraption is what’s going to keep him breathing. It’s his oxygen supply while he’s zipped up in this black bag. And that,” said Brittany as she pointed to a green cylinder under the gurney. “Is the spare tank of O2 just in case we need it.”
Brittany began to zip the bag and entomb McAllister in the heavy black plastic.
“Wait.”
Linda pulled the zipper back down and studied McAllister. Even though she knew he wasn’t, and condensation was already forming on the mask covering his face, he still looked as ashen as a corpse. She reached around her neck and unclasped her necklace. It hadn’t left her neck in fifteen years.
“He needs this.”
Linda reached around Spooncake’s neck, secured the necklace, and made sure the infinity symbol was placed directly over his throat.
“I’m here, McAllister,” she said as she traced a sideways eight over his heart. “I’m getting you out of here.”
Linda nodded at Brittany.
Besides the slight beep-beep, beep-beep of the heart monitor connected to McAllister’s temporary stand-in, the only sound in the room was the loud rip of the zipper as it cocooned the man she had fallen helplessly in love with.
“Let’s get this dance started.”
Linda unlocked the gurney’s wheels and pushed it towards the door.
*
Demon discovered that electricity was merely a placebo, a deceptive fuel whose only purpose was to constrain his travels. The transport arrived within seconds of his thinking about his quest. What was missing this time was the electricity to guide him to the destination that formed in his mind.
He didn’t want to be constrained.
Demon required freedom.
He learned after dealing with the one called Tran that the only power he needed to travel was his desire, and his only desire now was to contain his dominion within the void.
As before, the transport was a single point of light in the distance, then as his desire took root and his mission became clear, the transport moved closer, until it grew large enough for him to stand upon.
Multi-colored fireflies of light hovered before him eagerly anticipating his command. At first, they assembled into a three-dimensional image of Tran.
“No,” thought Demon. “From the room.”
Tran’s image was replaced by DeCarlo.
“No.”
Demon swatted his hand through the images and waved each picture away: Baker, Montgomery, Avery, Hammond.
Baxter Hammond.
He stopped, and the fireflies remained in formation.
He shared a symbiosis with the void. Their emotions were the same. Soon the anger he felt began to show itself within the blackness. The void began to pulsate and slowly transform from pitch black to red. Splinters of crimson formed in front of him and grew up and around the platform.
“No,” he finally willed himself to say. “But soon.”
Demon quickly swatted his hand through Hammond’s forehead. The red splinters slowly faded and the blackness of the void returned. As the image of Hammond crumbled before him, the fireflies quickly reassembled into a new portrait, the man he was looking for.
Dr. Carl Benjamin.
“Yes. Take me to him.”
It didn’t take long to find the one named Carl Benjamin.
The one who wanted to make more like him.
The man Demon had to destroy.
There was only room in the void for one.
*
Senator Montgomery continued to peer through his binoculars and scan the bikini-clad women sunbathing below him. What was once a faint tingle in his crotch was now something he couldn’t hide beneath a baggy swimming suit.
“See some young filly down there you want? I’m sure she’s affordable,” laughed his wife. “Hell, if she charges five bucks an inch, that’s only seven fifty. I’ll even pay for that.”
The Senator ignored the jab from his drunk wife, adjusted himself, and continued his search.
Startled, he put the binoculars down.
He put the lenses back to his eyes to confirm what he’d seen.
He was right.
There was a man on the beach looking directly at him through his own set of binoculars.
A man he recognized.
“What? What’s he doing here?”
“Who? What are you talking about,” she whined.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit. I want to get down!”
Senator Montgomery put the binoculars down and let them dangle around his neck. He decided it was best to calm her before she made a scene at two hundred feet and tumbled off of the seat they were buckled to.
That was press attention he didn’t need.
“Just close your eyes and breathe. Relax. Try to relax.”
“I didn’t want to do this! You made me come up here.”
“Close your eyes. Breathe,” he said as he pulled a small, clear bottle from the pocket of his swimsuit. “Here, drink this.”
“What is it?”
“What do you think? Vodka. The only thing that will help you relax, of course.”
He twisted the red cap off of the small bottle and put it to her lips. She reached for the bottle and emptied it in one gulp.
“There you go. Better?”
With her eyes still closed and a drop of vodka falling down her throat that looked like a single tear, she slowly nodded and threw the empty bottle to the ocean below.
Even though he knew it was a temporary condition, she was at least quiet for the immediate future. He had more little bottles ready when he needed them.
“Good. Now just a few minutes more, and we’ll be down. We need the exposure. We have to be the happy couple for the cameras.”
He was technically celebrating his fifth wedding anniversary, but the woman sitting beside him on the parasail was, in his opinion, a mere appendage.
He looked down at the beach again. Even without the lenses, he could see Baxter Hammond on the white-sand beach two hundred feet below him.
*
Hammond knew the Senator had seen him. It was ok. There was nothing that could be done about it now.
“Señor?”
“I don’t want anything,” he said as he waved his hand dismissively without looking up.
“Señor?”
Hammond brought the binoculars down from his eyes and squinted. He was ready to go for a jugular, annoyed at being interrupted by yet another local trying to sell him ugly sunglasses, pseudo-Cuban cigars, gaudy sombreros, and psychedelic ponchos that only a tourist would waste his money on.
“Señor. Your martini.”
“Oh. Good. It’s about time,” he took the glass from the woman’s hand, took a sip, and grimaced. “Shit that’s weak! Bring me another but more vodka next time. Just because I wanted more olive juice, doesn’t mean no booze. Comprendo-mundo?”
“Two dollars more,” she said in heavily accented English.
“You want two dollars?”
“Yes. Double is two dollars more.”
“This isn’t even a single. And you want two dollars more?”
The woman said nothing. She just handed him the receipt for the drink she’d provided. Hammond took the small black folder and signed it with his room number.
“I’ll pay for this one. But you tell your amigo up there to try again. I’m not paying for a double when this isn’t even a single.”
Hammond handed the small pad back to the server, brought the binoculars back to his face, and listened to the woman shuffle through the sand as she walked away.
“They just don’t get it,” he said to himself. “They just don’t know who they are playing with.”
*
After leaving the rude tourist, the beach server went back to the bar to have her order of drinks filled. She handed the list to the bartender.
“He says it’s too weak. Wants more vodka in it. He’s an ass,” said the waitress to the bartender.
The bartender looked over to the man that Consuelo was referring to with contempt.
“Why do they have to come here anyway? Don’t they have beaches there?”
Consuelo just shrugged as she entered the order onto the log so the proper room was billed.
“I’ll make it stronger if that’s what he wants,” he said as he mimicked peeing in a glass and laughed. “What else?”
“Three beers, two frozen monkeys. . .
*
Demon arrived.
The room was more colorful than the bleak cinderblock cell that Tran was in.
Before he stepped off the transport, the lights assembled into an infinity sign then slowly morphed into a portrait of the female that seemed to be ever-present. The lights vibrated like guitar strings and amplified her voice.
“I’m going to get you out of here. Hold on.”
He felt a strangely reminiscent, longing pang in his chest and dismissed it as quickly as it had blossomed.
He didn’t like the feeling the woman caused within the void.
Uncertainty.
Demon didn’t want to be rescued.
He didn’t need to be rescued.
Demon wanted to kill.
He stepped off the transport and into Carl Benjamin’s library. Demon ignored the pleas of the woman for patience and walked through her image. As he moved from the void into Benjamin’s world, the picture of the woman crumbled from view to be replaced by brown paneling and books.
Demon scanned the book-lined walls. Carl Benjamin had hundreds. Some of the books seemed familiar: Steinbeck, Hemingway, Lee, Kesey, Heller, Vonnegut, Capote. The majority, though, were obscure, scientific, three-inch thick medical journals: Studies on Human Brain Function, Physiological Aspects of Human Dream Activity and Chemical Manipulation, The Architecture of REM, and Toxic Dreamscapes were but a few.
He heard voices come from another room.
A woman and a man.
“Let me see what’s going on.”
Carl Benjamin.
He was coming to him.
Even though Demon knew his presence could be felt but not seen, he stepped back into the corner of the library and watched as Carl Benjamin walked into the library, studied the thermostat, tapped it, then rushed to the telephone.
His prey stood a few precious inches from Demon’s perch.
Demon wiped his finger against Benjamin’s neck and watched an involuntary shiver waterfall down the man’s spine.
“DeCarlo. It’s me, Carl Benjamin.”
Demon listened intently to the panicked conversation and proudly smiled.
*
It was Sunday, and the lab, thankfully, was quiet. Linda and Brittany had made it through the lab unseen, and now they were heading for the boat launch.
Salvation was within reach.
The gurney’s wheels squeaked and rattled down the uneven brick walkway towards the red and white shack, blocking access to the island’s main delivery dock and to the boat scheduled to take them to the shore thirteen miles away. They had to stop twice on the way to center the body bag on the gurney, otherwise McAllister would have bounced off and landed on the rocks below. Linda had told McAllister she’d help him get out. She preferred that he depart with the living. Linda noticed that McAllister was gradually bouncing towards the left edge and was precariously unbalanced.
Again.
“Hang on. He’s gonna fall off.”
The ladies back-pedaled and stopped the downward momentum of the gurney.
Brittany pulled the edges of the bag and finessed it back to the center.
“Better?” said Brittany as she looked back at Linda.
“Yes. Let’s try to slow down. It’s bumpy, and he keeps bouncing. We wouldn’t be able to lift him back up here.”
The two women pushed the gurney up to the security shack and stopped at the barricade.
“Ladies.”
Linda looked at Brittany with concerned eyes, unsure of what to do when the guard acknowledged them.
“Papers?” said the guard with annoyed eyes.
Brittany nodded and motioned with her head and eyes to give the clipboard to the guard.
“Oh. Yeah. Here,” said Linda as she tried in vain to steady her shaking hands. She slid the quivering clipboard full of paperwork through the small window to the barely awake security guard.
“Kinda late, isn’t it ladies?” he said with a yawn. “Don’t they usually transport the deaders during the day?”
“DeCarlo wants this one to go to Hart Island,” said Brittany.
“Hart Island?”
“The big graveyard. He doesn’t want this one traced. There’s a boat waiting in New London for it.”
The guard ruffled through the papers and looked at the body bag.
“You’ve never seen a corpse? This one is pretty beat up. Wanna see?”
Linda gulped and held her breath as the guard eyed the bag, apparently considering the offer to peek inside.
“No. God, no.”
Linda exhaled as quietly as she could, resumed breathing, and relaxed her grip on the bag containing McAllister. She looked at her red knuckles and shook her hands to get the blood flowing again. The guard signed the paperwork and pressed the button to lift the barrier that allowed access to the island’s primary dock.
“Keep safe. Latest weather report says the wind is from the north. The current is strong but manageable. Storm front coming in, so I’d get moving.”
Brittany nodded at Linda and they both began to push the gurney over the barricade’s speed bump and down the last 100 yards to the dock.
“What would you have done if he wanted to see McAllister?”
“I knew he wouldn’t. He just wanted to get back to his nap.”
Another voice interrupted their laughter.
Linda and Brittany froze as Nurse Milloteen came from the boat launch.
“Ladies. Do you mind telling me what you are doing?”
*
Hammond watched the bartender and server look his way and laugh. Blood rushed to his face and turned it red with fury. He did not like to be mocked. A spider web of cracks formed on the sides of his glass. Its contents pooled onto the lounger’s fabric then drizzled onto the sand.
The glass crumbled into shards.
“So he wants to play,” he seethed.
Hammond closed his eyes, reclined on his lounge chair, and concentrated on the bartender. He’d remoted hundreds of times, but the sensations that coursed through his body were still hard to get used to. First, his extremities became numb. Maybe they were the first to make the transition, because they were the smallest. He didn’t have the slightest idea of how it worked, just that it did. As long as he could see and concentrate on his host, everything seemed to work just fine.
Like clockwork, the numbness traveled up through his body. His toes, feet, fingers, hands, nose, and ears all became mere appendages and beyond his control and perception. Next came his body: legs, torso, arms.
Everything to this point was relatively painless, just an annoying tingle.
What came next was always the worst, his head. The head was always the last to transition. DeCarlo described it as trying to squeeze a balloon through a mouse-hole. If you go a little at a time, let things re-adjust, and push some more, eventually you get through. If you go too fast or push a bit too hard, the balloon will pop.
Right now, his balloon felt like it was going to pop. His eyes felt the pressure in his sinuses and pulsed with every beat of his heart. The compression within his skull felt as if it could turn his brain to oatmeal.
Hammond tried to relax through the final stages.
Take deep breathes, he told himself.
Concentrate.
Just a little more.
Then it happened.
The pain slowly dissipated.
He made it through the mouse hole.
Hammond opened his eyes.
He was now seeing the world through the eyes of the bartender.
*
. . . a strawberry margarita, and a daiquiri.”
Hammond remained unobserved in the background behind the bartender’s eyes.
He let his host maintain control for a bit longer as he watched him pull a blender and a semi-clean carafe from under the bar and begin making the frozen drinks the tourists habitually ordered day in and day out.
Sometimes Hammond liked to taunt his remotes before he took complete control. It was like a test to determine how much power he’d have to expend when he needed to take full control.
He liked to tease them.
Like now.
Make them say his words.
“You’re a fat bitch who doesn’t know her place. You know that?” Hammond said from the bartender’s mouth.
“What?”
Hammond felt the bartender move his gaze from the blender to the server. Even though he was still refining his abilities, he’d learned to regulate how much control he allowed the host to maintain. In this case, he let the bartender hear his words.
It was like pulling the strings of a marionette.
Hammond slowly returned to the background.
“What did you just say to me?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what just happened.”
Hammond moved back into the pilot’s seat. He could sense confusion in his host.
Taunt and tease.
Taunt and tease.
Hammond was in complete control now.
He poured vodka into the blender’s carafe then continued with an extra long pour of olive juice.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m making a double martini—extra dirty. Extra olive juicio. More-oh in la glass-oh. Comprendo?”
