The Nightmare Virus, page 1
Acclaim for
THE NIGHTMARE VIRUS
“Dark and thrilling but also full of hope, The Nightmare Virus is an exciting new direction for Nadine Brandes and a game-changer for faith-based storytelling.”
—Clint Hall, author of Steal Fire From the Gods
“Brandes has captivated us again, this time with an all-too-relatable world caught in an incurable pandemic. The Nightmare Virus holds an imaginative realm of coliseum gladiators, terrifying beasts from mist, and an epic battle between light and dark. You’ll be unable to sleep as you devour each page wondering if the characters will wake up from the nightmare in this inventive dystopian of the mind.”
—Bradley Caffee, author of The Chase Runner Series and Sides
“Nadine creates stories full of adventure and depth and heart. The Nightmare Virus is just that, a story full of high stakes, inspiring light, truth in the darkness, and a rich, unique world to get lost in. You will find your heart caught up with Cain’s as you follow his transforming journey.”
—Jenna Terese, author of Ignite
“A tribute to the imagination and a feast for the soul, The Nightmare Virus paints an apocalyptic reality with the beauty of eternal truth. This story is a wild and vibrant ride, unique when compared to Brandes’ other works, and yet told with the same familiar heart. It’s the story of a young man’s journey to truth but acts as a mirror for our lives today. Readers will fight alongside Cain, hope and imagine with him, despair, and finally rejoice with him in the end. It’s a story filled with the beauty of what light can do in the darkest of places.”
—E. A. Hendryx, author of Suspended in the Stars
“Enter a world that delves into the eternal struggle between good and evil, illuminates the strength found in truth and hope, and where faith shines even in the darkest of shadows. A world where what you create—and how you create it—has a far deeper meaning than you first realized. Brandes skillfully weaves a tale that spikes your adrenaline with nightbeasts, captures your imagination with twists and turns in a dream world that feels real, and asks questions that echo in your heart as you join Cain in search of answers. This pulse-pounding adventure will touch your heart and speak to your soul.”
—CJ Milacci, author of the Talionis series
“Brandes delivers in this fast-paced, action-packed, high-stakes sci-fi. The Nightmare Virus has it all: sci-fi and fantasy feel—think Ready Player One meets Gladiator—high stakes, action, suspense, and heart all rolled into one dynamic story that I could not put down.”
—S.D. Grimm, author of The Children of the Blood Moon series and A Dragon By Any Other Name
“With Maze Runner feels, Brandes drops the reader into a world where everyone is trapped in the same nightmare, and if a cure isn’t found, no one will wake up. I was hooked from the beginning, with an urgency to keep reading as time ticked down with each chapter. An excellent science fiction read!”
—Morgan L. Busse, award-winning author of the Ravenwood Saga, Skyworld, and upcoming Winter’s Maiden
“Vivid and haunting, The Nightmare Virus grabs you by the throat and hauls you mercilessly into its dark depths! With the broad, confident strokes of a master, Nadine Brandes brings to life an immersive story world that will leave you second-guessing reality and drinking caffeine to avoid sleep. This is truly one of her best novels yet. It’s Nadine Brandes like never before—stronger, bolder, and chilling!”
—Ronie Kendig, award-winning author of The Droseran Saga
The Nightmare Virus
Copyright © 2024 by Nadine Brandes
Published by Enclave Publishing, an imprint of Oasis Family Media.
Carol Stream, Illinois, USA
www.enclavepublishing.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, digitally stored, or transmitted in any form without written permission from Oasis Family Media, LLC.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
ISBN: 979-8-88605-130-8 (hardback)
ISBN: 979-8-88605-131-5 (printed softcover)
ISBN: 979-8-88605-133-9 (ebook)
Cover design by Emilie Haney, www.eahcreative.com
Typesetting by Jamie Foley, www.JamieFoley.com
Printed in the United States of America.
For my Creator.
From the very beginning, this one’s been Yours.
And to my fellow nerds . . .
. . . we know which fandom wins in the end.
Table of Contents
Cover
Acclaim for The Nightmare Virus
Half-Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
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
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Acknowledgements
About the Author
For here we have no lasting city,
but we seek the city that is to come.
Hebrews 13:14 ESV
Once you catch the Nightmare Virus, you have 22 days until you die.
That’s fact #1.
Fact #2 is that there’s no cure . . . yet.
I stare at the piece of paper held up by a cracked Zelda magnet on the half fridge inside our tiny house on wheels. Equations and scribbles and questions fill the small, lined piece of paper.
Our attempts at a cure.
Nole expects me to figure them out while he sleeps, but I’m not him. My brain doesn’t work the same way as his. He has a whole extra year of college under his belt. I can pull the “I’m younger and dumber” card when he wakes up to find I’ve made little to no progress.
He lays on the couch behind me. Dreaming, maybe.
Infected.
We call it sleep, but that’s not quite right. He’s had the Nightmare Virus for 19 days now and says it’s like being sucked into another world of darkness and fear. He calls it The Tunnel. I don’t bother to use my imagination to try to picture it because it’ll come for me eventually.
It comes for everyone.
Nole and I may have shared everything else as brothers growing up, but we haven’t shared the virus . . . yet.
I consult the math scribbles again—the math of the virus. If there’s anything I hate more than the idea of being trapped in my own mind, it’s math. Day 1 of the virus forces you to sleep in the Tunnel for 1 hour. You’re awake for the next 23 hours. Day 2 of the virus, you’re in The Tunnel for 2 hours. Then awake for 22. And so on and so forth until suddenly you’re asleep for 22 hours and awake for only 2.
That’s when you say your goodbyes.
You never wake after that. The Nightmare takes you, and you’re stuck in it until your body deteriorates or starves or someone stabs you in your infected sleep.
Dark stuff. Sorry about that.
Nole shifts on the couch. I startle, looking between him and the paper on the fridge. I’ve calculated wrong—again. I thought he wouldn’t be waking up for another hour. At least I’ll have company one hour sooner than expected. But I haven’t prepped any food.
I pull a packet of gum from my pocket, unwrap a stick, and pop it in my mouth. Dinner for me.
Nole rubs his eyes. I snatch a cooked potato from the fridge and plop it into a bowl with a slab of butter and a slice of cheddar cheese that has the moldy bits carved away. Dinner for Nole.
He’ll be exhausted. But, knowing Nole, he’ll refuse to rest. I don’t blame him. His death date is set.
He groans. “Cain.”
“Here.” I slide the potato onto the small fold-out table jutting from the wall. “There’s not enough charge to power the microwave today.”
He pushes himself up. “Are you going to eat?”
“Nah.” I gesture to the gum in my mouth. “I’m good.” It’s easier to handle our dwindling food supply and rationing when my mouth thinks it’s eating.
He doesn’t bother with a fork and scoops up the potato with his hand. “Sick yet?”
“Nope.”
He gives a sharp, reliev
“Nope.”
He eyes me before biting off a chunk of potato. “Did you even try?”
I glower. “Of course I tried.” The cure. He expects me to work on it every waking hour while he’s trapped in the Nightmare. He also expects me to do algebra and calculations and all the other sorts of things that got me held back in school—plus decipher his chicken scratch.
He holds out his hand. “Notes.”
I throw him the notebook we’ve both been using for the cure. He flips to the most recent page, but then stops and goes back to a scrawl of a castle half set into a cliffside. “Cain . . .”
“I did that during break time,” I joke.
“You don’t have time for a break. If we’re going to find a cure, we have to pour everything into it.”
“I am.” Does he think I want him to die? To stay infected? Does he think I want the Nightmare to come for me? Sometimes I just need to sketch to calm my brain enough to focus.
He traces the title over the top of the castle, written in gothic font. “Ithebego.” He smiles, and we both spare a moment to acknowledge dreams before the Nightmare.
Nole is—was—going into his junior year in college, studying dream serums and fabrication. I’m still not used to thinking of it in past tense. Universities closed down only a month ago. Nole and I wanted to be Draftsmen—professionals who build dream worlds. We wanted to have our own dreamscape company: Cross Brothers Creations. With a last name like Cross, I used to joke that he was the upright beam and I was the crooked one.
We didn’t want to create the typical beach scenes or therapy escapes that permeated the wealthy circles. We were going to build kingdoms with swords and castles and dragons with themes from our favorite fandoms and books.
It would have changed the world.
It would have awoken the world.
We were going to call our own dreamscape Ithebego. It was Cain’s idea to take the letters from a string of words: In the beginning, God . . . He liked the symbolism. The first thing God did was create a home—a place. A story world. I let him have his Bible moment.
I liked the name more for how it looked on paper—and the many different ways we could pronounce it. Nole may be the science brain, but I am—was—the vision behind the worlds. The imagination, per se.
We joined the same university—me one year behind him—and both majored in Dream Drafting and Fabrication. At the very least, we’d hoped to have more access to entering dreamscapes. I’d only ever been in one, but it was enough to affect the trajectory of my life. ImagiSerum is expensive. When it first launched, every person in the world was allowed one free entry—to get an idea of what entering and adventuring in a safe dream world while fully lucid was like.
Or to make us all addicted.
Nole and I went together. Our assigned dreamscape was a mountain top—a generic world made by a low-level Draftsman. We didn’t have to worry about altitude sickness, thin air, exhaustion, danger, or even proper clothing against the elements. We paraglided off the top of the mountain. There was no fear—just exhilaration—because a person can’t get physically injured in a dream. It’s all in the mind.
The experience was intoxicating. Easily addicting. Which was why people began killing for ImagiSerum when they could no longer afford it. It turned ugly fast, but not as ugly as when the ImagiSerum started killing back.
“How are you feeling?” Nole asks, flipping past my sketch of Ithebego and finding my newest equations.
“Fine.” I shrug. “Surprised I’m not infected yet.” With just Nole and me in this tiny space it’s bound to happen eventually. Right? Does anything else matter at this point?
Nole nods and jots something down. “I think it’s because you’ve only ever had one dose of ImagiSerum. There’s not enough in your system to mutate and infect you.”
His theory makes sense. When ImagiSerum was a new phenomenon, people were eager to take injections to enter dreamscapes. They lined up and drained their savings. But now we have data on the long-term effects: traces of ImagiSerum stay in your system. Mutate. Turn into a virus and trap your mind in a dark tunnel until you die.
I’ve entered a dreamscape only one time. Because I don’t have money. I’ve never even had a savings account. Since Nole was a year ahead of me in school, he got to enter a dreamscape once a week as part of his curriculum . . . unknowingly poisoning his body and mind.
The scientists tried to backpedal, to find a cure. But they were the first to get infected. Their bodies entered Nightmare comas before they could make progress.
Nole is walking that same path. I don’t know why I have more faith in him than them, though. It’s not because he’s my brother. I think it’s because his motivations were never for money or self-preservation. He believed in the good of ImagiSerum and couldn’t accept that it would be the end of humanity.
“Tell me what it was like this time.” I poise the pencil over our notebook. “Any detail you can think of.”
“Same as last time.” Nole sighs. “Nothing new.”
My grip on my pencil tightens. “Tell me anyway.” There has to be something. Some clue. Something he’s missing. If only I could enter the Nightmare too—not that I want to be infected—but I have an eye for the world. I know somehow I’ll see something Nole is missing.
“Darkness that’s heavy like a liquid pressing on your body. I can’t see a thing. When I put my hands out, I feel ground beneath me and—”
“What does the ground feel like?”
“Sticky concrete. There are walls too.”
“Also concrete?”
“Yes. Less sticky. They curve upward and around me.” He finishes his potato.
I move to jot down the details but find myself sketching instead: a tunnel with goopy liquid pooled in the base. “Can you stand up in the tunnel?”
“Yeah, but it’s hard.”
I look up. “Because it’s too small?”
He shakes his head. “Because the darkness is too heavy.”
I sketch a figure, ankle-deep in goop. Hunched over with shadows hovering around his head. My heart quickens as the scene takes shape. Then I stop. Because this isn’t just a scene . . . it’s Nole’s reality. And even with my crude drawing, the very idea of such a reality gives me chills.
Nole sets his pen down. “Cain . . . I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like the darkness is made of every fear I’ve ever had. It’s almost like a tangible emotion. Suffocating me.” His voice quivers. “It makes me understand Mom more.”
I don’t say anything. I can’t say anything. When Dad cheated on Mom and left her with us, she entered a dark place of depression. I’d only ever seen her strong and stalwart prior to that. I kept waiting for her to snap out of it. All she needed to do was decide to be strong, but she didn’t—she wouldn’t. She chose weakness, and we had to go out and try to make money so we could eat.
I was thirteen. Not a lot of options for two fatherless kids to make a buck.
Nole was more tender with Mom. He’d read to her every evening and sometimes stay with her through the night, going to work at a fast-food joint the next day with bags under his eyes.
Mom eventually pulled out of it. Took us to church. Found her strength again—“strength in weakness,” she’d say, which never made sense. She never returned to Mom From Before.
And I could never accept Mom of After.
Even now with her gone—taken by cancer one year later—I haven’t fully forgiven her.
“You’re not like Mom,” I mutter. “You’re stronger. You would never abandon me. You’ll never let the Nightmare beat you.”
“She came back to us, Cain.”
“Too late.” I don’t want to talk about this. It’s an old argument—an old wound we’ve discussed a number of times. It’s the one thing we can never agree on. “Let’s get back to work.”
Nole takes out his calculator, and we scratch in silence. He tapes a few more papers on the fridge as if I’ll make any more sense of those than I did the first two. I check our propane level and adjust the solar panel that gathers enough energy to charge Nole’s computer and give us electricity for one lamp. We stole the panels off an abandoned house in the city after the Nightmare started claiming lives.
Our tiny house—which we named The Fire Swamp—has been ours since Mom died. We thought it’d be funny to name it House Of Unusual Size after the rodents in the fire swamp of The Princess Bride until we realized the acronym basically spelled HOUSE.
