The Devil's Dream: Waking Up (6 page)

D
is white man
sho nuff got you a lot of folk, didn't he?

Arthur Morgant had slept for quite some time. He didn't know how long and didn't care either. Somehow, he had woken up. He stood in a building that he didn't quite understand. The walls were circular and a tower stood in front of him, a tower with people hanging from it. Grotesque people, all of their bodies mutilated—although the word that came to Arthur was
fucked
—in very similar fashions. Arthur didn't move closer, instead he stood in place, staring out, trying to understand what this was.

You in dat white man's lair. Dis where he keeps all dem women, aldoe he been bringin' in mo boys as of late.

He heard his grandmother's voice but paid it no mind. Arthur had slept for a long time, but apparently his grandmother was still alive and kicking, still yelling at him from inside his head.

Well, he paid her
almost
no mind.
The white man
. He remembered the white man. Oh, that fucking white man, what had he done here? Arthur zoned out from the world in front of him, thinking back to the white man that he had never met. The man who took over—what was his name? Brand. Matthew Brand. He had taken over, forced himself into Arthur's brain and made it his own and then, oh, God, yes that's what was in front of him! Then he started some kind of mission, grabbing up people to hang on this metal like some kind of freak human ornaments. The white man thought he controlled Arthur's body, that he could push Arthur aside without a problem and then go on as he pleased.

Arthur thought back to the first time the two of them touched—Arthur still a part of The Wall and this strange entity entering him, thought back to the pressure, the force, the intimacy, and yet the total rejection from every one of Arthur's cells.

And he knew, for the first time, what all those women had felt when he lay on top of them, forcing himself inside.

His dick hardened, right then, at the knowledge of how much power he held over all those women when he raped them. Brand, the white man, thought he held the same power over Arthur, that he would wield it forever. Arthur was awake now though. Arthur was back.

He lifted his arms high into the air and stretched, taking in his surroundings again. How did this place work?

It's a lighthouse, you fool
, his grandmother chastised from somewhere inside. She would always be there to chastise; Arther understood that. If she was here after all these years then she was here to stay, and fine. She could yell and scream from her place inside his head, because she couldn’t come back to Earth to do it. Arthur saw to that, sure enough.

But the people here, how many were there? Forty? More? And the majority of them women! God, did he ever think he would wake to such a sweet sight? He didn't even care about their bodies being mutilated, about their eyes and hands being destroyed. You could rape a blind person the same you could a seeing one, and the blind person couldn't identify you to the cops, either.

Arthur laughed at that. Report him to the cops. Everyone in here would die in here. Everyone in here had spoken their last words already.

How did he get here? He stood, fully dressed, but felt like he had appeared from nowhere.

No, that wasn't right. He had woken up. The white man must have been standing here before, must have been awake, but his time was over. If not completely, then it was surely shrinking. Brand didn't know it yet, but he would. When he woke up again, Arthur would make sure that he knew someone else had been here. He'd make sure that Brand understood who owned this body, and therefore, who owned this little contraption in front of him. Brand controlled the last four years. Fine. Arthur wouldn't worry about that, wouldn't fret on it. It was time to move forward and Brand had to take a backseat for that. That's what he would do now, build the backseat for Mr. Matthew Brand, so that when he woke up, he wouldn't have any doubt who drove this car.

Arthur stepped away from the wall and walked to a person in front of him. A young girl with long hair, her mouth open and plastic tubes sticking from it. Arthur reached up and tugged on her ankles, a bolt sticking out from the feet beneath them. Her ankles didn't budge and so he tugged harder, trying to rip them completely off the bolt. He felt the skin and meat beginning to give away, but the bone inside was somehow attached to the metal and didn’t give.

"That's fine," Arthur said aloud. "Soon enough, I'll have the time to take you all down, one by one."

H
enry hit
dial on his phone, hoping Greg would answer. He looked out the window and saw the plane on the runway, the one he was about to board. Once he stepped inside it, there wasn't any more calling Greg. Wasn't any more calling anyone from his life, not until this thing ended. He specifically asked to make this call, to try and talk to his brother one more time before the whole thing got underway, and Art relented, although reluctantly.

"This is it. No more. You're putting the whole operation at risk, you understand?"

Henry did. Henry didn't want to make this call, but he didn't feel like he had much of a choice. He wasn't going to Louisiana without at least attempting to make amends, to find good terms with his brother.

The phone rang in his ear but no other noise came through.

He's not going to answer.

Henry's stomach clenched up at the thought. He was about to walk outside and get on that plane and his brother wouldn't be able to call him, wouldn't be able to contact him at all, not until everything ended. And what if it ended in a way much different than the one that Henry wanted? What if it ended with him dead?

"You've reached Greg's phone..."

Henry knew he was about to cry, but he didn't hang up the phone. He would say what he called to say, and if it had to be to a mailbox, fine. Greg would hear it either way.

"Hey, it's me. I wanted to talk to you before all of this starts." He paused for a few seconds, swallowing and gaining a small amount of control over his emotions. "I'm sorry about the other night. I've never been in your position and I don't know what you're feeling like. I...I don't want to leave it like this, especially not with what I'm walking into, so I want to tell you I love you, Greg. I'm happy that you're my brother and I'm proud of the man you're turning into. You're going to need to look after mom while I'm gone, and hopefully it won't be for too long. You're going to need to be the one she leans on, especially right now. Embrace that because she loves you."

Henry didn't say anything for a few seconds, thinking about what came next.

"I'm sorry that this is happening. I don't want it to. I promise to be careful. I promise to do everything I can to make it back. I'm doing this for you and mom and all of our friends. They deserve a chance and if I can help give them one, then I should."

That was it. There wasn't much else, not without his brother here to say something back.

"I love you, Greg, and I'm going to miss the hell out of you over the next few weeks. We'll talk soon. I love you."

Henry hung up the phone and put it in his pocket. He took a long look at the plane outside. He could turn around now, if he wanted. Art wouldn’t drag him onto the plane while Jake pointed a gun at him, making sure he didn't run.

But.

This was the last point to turn around. Once he got on that plane, his past life didn’t exist until he was allowed to return to it.

Henry reached down for his bag and walked outside to the plane.

* * *

"
H
enry
, this is Agent Jonathan Jensen and Agent Nancy Duvate. They're going to be your mother and father for the next few days."

Henry extended his hand. Shakes all around and then the five of them were staring at each other again.

"Will and Connie from now on, just like you're Victor."

Henry nodded.

They all stood in a large house off Cornwall Avenue in New Orleans. Henry had stepped inside only a few seconds ago, but understood Victor ‘grew up’ here. The people in front of him, they raised Victor; there weren’t FBI agents. Jake and Art? Ghosts of a memory, not real, not actually here.

"You okay?" Jake asked.

Henry didn't have a full answer to that. He morphed into Victor for a few seconds when he spoke with Brand, but he wasn't Victor. He didn't live in this house, had never been to Louisiana, and didn't know these people at all. The cars outside sitting in the driveway, one for each of his 'parents' and one for him, he had never driven any of them. He had never even sat inside a Mercedes before, but yet his 'father' drove one, apparently. He knew what to do and yet he wasn't sure how to do it. He wasn't sure that he could call Jonathen Jensen dad convincingly enough for anyone that heard him. Standing here now, eight hours after his call with Brand, he wasn't sure he could do what they were asking him.

"I'm okay," he said. There wasn’t any point in bringing these feelings up now. Henry was here, had just traveled across the country to be here, and this wasn't the time to start with doubts. You didn't worry about the test once the pencil was in your hand and the professor was passing out the exam.

"All right, my obligatory last reminder of how this works," Art said. "No one will be hanging around the house. Your parents are going to disappear from eight to five each day, just as normal people would when they head to their job. You'll be going to school each day. It's all worked out. You'll go into Riverdale High School each morning and you'll leave at around three in the afternoon. No one there will see you; you'll be quarantined in a room by yourself. You'll have ready access to Jake and me, and you'll be able to work on other cases remotely. Then you go home, meet these two. Rinse, wash, repeat. You're going to do this until he shows up for you."

Henry nodded.

"You're tired of hearing all this, but it's for me more than you." Art smiled. "Remember you're wearing everything you need. Every piece of clothing you have is intimately wired with GPS and recording technology. He won't be able to detect it but we'll know everything you hear and everywhere you go. When he shows up, you're just Victor. What's your goal, Henry?"

He had no problem with this part because the past twenty-four hours brainwashed him just fine. The plan between now and Brand showing up was new, something Jake had worked out in the past forty-eight hours, but Henry understood his part, what he needed to do.

"My first responsibility is to convince him to turn himself in, and it's for two reasons. One, to stop him, and second, to make myself look normal. If he doesn't turn himself in, I need to stay with him as long as possible, and during that, I need to find ground zero for his operation."

"See. Simple. There's nothing to worry about Henry. You'll be surrounded by agents all day long. We got the decoy car outside, to make it look like you're being monitored, but you're a trained agent too," Art said. "You've been trained for this."

Silence permeated for a few seconds as they all looked at each other, unsure of how to break, and then Art spoke once more. "He's going to show up. You have to get that in your head and once you do, once you fully realize that Matthew Brand is coming for you, let the fear wash over you. You want to feel that fear now, rather than when he shows up."

"Okay. Anything else?" Henry was ready to get this started, tired of standing here jibber jabbering about what they were to do. He wanted to do it and be done.

"We're going to head out. We'll be in an office near the Super Dome, about ten minutes from here, and our phones are on all the time. You call if you need us, call if you don't need us. We're in this together, Henry," Art said.

* * *

"
I
don't like it
," Jake said.

Art didn't either. Not a single fucking bit. He'd given the kid a good spiel, got the kumbaya piece in there, but it was just a lie. They weren't in this together. They couldn't be. Jake and he were in one silo and Henry Werzen in a completely different one.

The car rolled along Louisiana's horrible streets, each new pothole threatening to destroy the Lincoln's suspension and frame.

"It's your idea," Art answered. It was true, if unfair. The idea was okay, with the major downside being the danger, and the only idea anyone had that even approached the level of good. The only idea that had a fucking chance of working.

"I don't have to like it, though. The chances of him living through this are low, Art. You realize that right? We might have picked the wrong guy. The more I see him, the longer we're with him, the more I think we should have gone with someone not as smart, but tougher."

Art nodded, looking out the window. Louisiana might be the worst state in the entire union. It was truly disgusting. Right in front of their car was a man walking across the street, pants below his ass, and taking his sweet time as he got to the other side. Their driver actually slowed for the guy. Art wanted to lay on the horn, to roll his window down and yell out expletives. Instead, he leaned his head against the window and watched the man continue his walk. If this thing failed, expletives wouldn't matter and neither would a horn. They had sent a kid, a twenty-four year old, to deal with a monster, to deal with the closest thing to The Devil incarnate of this century. Jake wanted someone tougher, but what twenty-four year old was going to be tough enough? What twenty-four year old would be able to deal with what they asked of him?

"No. We need someone smart. We need someone that's going to be able to think his way out of whatever situation Brand comes up with. Tough might make dying easier, but it won’t keep him from dying."

Jake said nothing else and so did Art. He couldn't undo what was just done, and more, he wouldn't if he could. He didn't like it, and he thought—despite what he just said—that the kid would most likely die, but taking that chance was necessary. If it got them an eye on Brand, got them some kind of lead to where he was working, then one death was easily worth the rest of the world.

Henry Werzen is God's child too.

Art paused at that thought, not pushing it away, but holding onto it like he might a fine wine in his mouth—trying to understand its intricacies. They were all God's children, even Brand. But children die, don't they? Allison's kid certainly did, or if not yet, would never return to life. In the end, everyone died, and so if Henry's death came when he was twenty-four as opposed to eighty-four, was that Art's fault?

Yes.

Art closed his eyes, his head still against the window.
Just stop with the thoughts. There's nothing I can do about this. There's nothing anyone can do about it because it's the only choice we have.

"Are we any better than him?" Jake asked from across the backseat.

Art turned to him, his face pale, his eyes wet. "Than who?"

"Than Brand. We're sacrificing someone for our own goals, and we're lying to him about it. We're making him think there's a chance he makes it out of this, but there isn't. If you put all three of us up against that guy, one on one, none of us are making it out unless we have the drop on him. So are we any better than Brand if this is what we resort to in order to stop him?"

Art stared at Jake, who didn't look away. Five seconds. Ten seconds.

"We might not be better, but we're not any worse," Art said finally. It was his job to hold the course. His job to make the decision and no matter the doubts in his own head, to continue with that decision. Jake could voice his doubts, but Art had to keep them inside.

"I'm not sure that's what we should be aiming for," Jake said, finally looking away.