The Dream Machine: Book 6, The Eddie McCloskey Paranormal Mystery Series (The Unearthed) (19 page)

We stepped into his office. Zane was acting very strange, that is to say, he was acting
not
like a dick.

“What is it?” Manetti asked.

“Here.” He sat in his chair and swiveled his monitor around so we could see from the other side of his desk. “I don’t know what to say about this, so I’m just going to play it.”

A video was frozen on Zane’s monitor. A dark and stormy night filled the screen, the rain slashing almost sideways, the sky partially lit from I presumed a lightning bolt. Even though the video was paused, I could feel the wind in the strange angles of the trees.

“What are we watching?” I asked.

“One of Alison’s dreams last night.”

“Another storm?” Manetti said.

“Not just a storm.”

He hit PLAY.

The first thing that struck me was the relative stillness of the shot. It reminded me of the rape footage. It was grainy and certain areas of the image were blurry. There was a little bit of color, but for the most part the image was black and white too, just like the rape dream.

Five seconds passed, then ten, and still the perspective didn’t change. It was like someone had set up a video camera and walked away. A
static
shot. Just like the rape sequence.

Then I saw
Manetti.

She entered the screen from the right. She was moving fast but skidded to a stop and whirled. Lightning flashed again, briefly illuminating everything. She had been running over what looked like a muddy footpath through the woods.

When she whirled she brought up her gun. It glinted in the electric blue light from the storm. She had both hands on it and had assumed her shooter’s stance. Body angled to give the enemy a smaller target, feet spread out to lower her and steady her.

Then I saw
myself.

I entered the screen from the right.

I took two steps and planted myself on stage right. Frozen.

Manetti was pointing her gun at me.

“What the hell…” I said.

“Wait,” Zane said.

I had my arms up and with the next flash of lightning on screen, I realized: I was holding a gun too, and it was aimed very directly at Manetti.

We both looked at each other, then turned back to the video.

For a horrifying moment we just stood there, like we were frozen in time, standoff style. I could tell we were yelling at each other, but obviously couldn’t hear what was being said. Not once did we lower our weapons.

“This doesn’t make sense,” I said.

Manetti said nothing.

We had been aiming at each other and shouting for fifteen, maybe twenty seconds. The standoff got so long, I thought the situation was slowly defusing itself. No way were we going to pull the trigger after hesitating that amount of time.

And that was when I shot Special Agent Manetti in the dream.

Her head practically exploded.

***

“Play it again,” I said.

Zane looked dumbly from me to Manetti. She backed me up.

“Play it again, Dr. Zane.”

He did.

I watched again, this time not paying attention to the main action but instead looking for other things that would help us make sense of this madness.

We watched it two more times. We didn’t say much of anything, except to comment on how the dream didn’t make any sense. We had no reason to be afraid of each other. And I had no reason to shoot Manetti.

“It’s just a dream,” I said.

“Yes,” Manetti said. “And no.”

“It’s just a dream,” I repeated.

“But you told me that her regular dreams are more non-sensical. This is like watching a short film.”

“This is non-sensical.”

“Eddie, we have to be able to talk about this.” She shook her head. “You told me that Alison’s regular dreams, the ones that aren’t visions, are more stream of consciousness and very
un
real. The setting changes constantly and there’s no logical progression from one event to the next.”

“Like this.”

“
Not
like this.” She shook her head again. “This dream told a story from start to finish. What happens doesn’t make sense, but how it’s presented makes it significant.”

“We’re not going to shoot each other,” I said. “We have no reason to.”

“I agree. But what does the dream tell us?”

“Uh, excuse me.”

I had almost forgotten Dr. Zane was in the room. He’d gone completely quiet on us. We ripped our eyes away from each other and looked at the doctor.

Dr. Zane was leaning way back in his chair with his palms out. “I’m supposed to remain objective and I’m supposed to wait for all the testing to be done. But I’m responsible for the security of this facility.”

“Meaning what?” I asked.

“Meaning, I now have a legitimate reason to believe you two could hurt each other. And that you’re unbalanced.”

“Fuck you, Zane—” I blurted out.

He talked right over me. “I have my patients to think of first.”

“You mean your Nobel to think of first. Give me a break about your pa—”

“Eddie,” Manetti cut in. “He has a point.”

Deep breath. I was working with a short fuse here. I had to calm down if I wanted to ease everybody’s mind.

“I’m not going to shoot Agent Manetti.”

Zane pushed away from his desk as if to get farther away from me. “Take it easy, Eddie. Nobody says you’re going to.”

I pointed at the screen. “Did Alison just dream this?”

Zane was confused by the change in subject. “Wh-what?”

“Did she just dream this?”

Confused, he looked to Manetti for help but she said nothing.

“Not just. She dreamed this last night.”

“And you waited till this morning to tell us? I’m not saying this—” I pointed at his monitor. “—is going to happen. But there was a chance it could have happened last night, right?”

“Well…”

“And you waited till this morning to show us?”

Now that Zane had caught up, he was growing indignant again. “Eddie, we don’t have someone sitting in front of computer monitors all night watching dreams in real-time. We come and go, check in. This must have happened during one of those in-between periods. One of our research assistants found it this morning.”

I breathed deep. Flying off the handle with Zane wasn’t going to make the situation any better.

“Patient safety comes first, so before this storm hits I think it best if you’re offsite.”

I was about to argue, but Manetti jumped in. “I agree, Dr. Zane.”

“In that case, we need to talk to Alison ASAP.”

“You talked to her yesterday and, against my orders, showed her the recordings. It’s putting the experiment in serious jeopardy.”

“Zane, you don’t get it, do you?” I said. “We need to find a pattern here or we won’t make any sense of this. I’ve got questions about the shootout and need to gauge her reaction.”

Manetti turned back to Zane. “Eddie’s right. We’re going up now.”

Zane shook his head. “Don’t ruin this for us. We’ve put so much work in here.”

***

White woke with a smile. After completing the dream exercise last night, he’d morphed the dream once again into that sweet little threesome he’d imagined before involving him, the stripper, and Dr. Nareev. He knew some research assistant was watching his wet dream and that made it even more enjoyable. A few times White had engaged in public sex, always at parties. He loved bending a woman over and showing everybody else what he could do to her. The last time had been right before they’d arrested him. That one broad had been crazy…

He slipped the sleeve off his head. It had the feel and texture of one of those cold packs with the gel inside. He hung it on his bedpost, got up, and stretched. He was rocking a monstrous morning erection.

Outside, the guard knocked on his door. “On the bed. I’m coming in.”

White waited.

Warwick, the middle-aged guard that had gone soft around the middle, opened the door and came in. He shut and locked the door behind him. For a moment the two men regarded each other silently.

Then White grinned. “Tonight.”

Warwick’s eyes went wide. “No. It can’t be tonight.”

“Did you fucking hear me?” White said. “It’s happening tonight.”

Warwick shook his head. “I need more notice.”

“I don’t give a fuck what you need. I’m telling you what is happening.”

“No.” Warwick’s mind raced. He was supposed to be onsite. That way he could make sure nothing went wrong. “No fucking way, White.”

“Yes fucking way, Warwick. This is happening.”

“No.” Warwick couldn’t. Not like this. He was supposed to be here.

White smirked. It was the most evil grin Warwick had ever seen. “You’d better talk to Alison then.”

“What?” Warwick was still trying to find a workaround. He needed to be onsite for this. If White—“I told you that I needed notice. You can’t spring this on me. I need to be here, for God’s sake.”

White just shook his head and laid back down on his bed. His eyes drifted to the ceiling. “You better talk to Alison then.”

Warwick didn’t like the ominous tone in White’s voice. “Fuck you. Fuck you, White. I
will
talk to Alison.”

White shrugged like it was no skin off his back.

***

Warwick went on his fifteen minute break early to talk to Alison. He hoped she was awake. If she wasn’t, Warwick was waking her up.

Her door was open. Warwick looked in.

She was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring out her windows that opened to the rear of the building. Outside the wind whipped the trees and a steady rain fell. She was zoned out and seemed not to notice him.

He tapped on the door. “Alison?”

Slowly, her head owled in his direction. She stared at him, a pinched, pained expression on her face.

“You,” was all she said.

“We need to talk.” Warwick entered and thought about shutting the door but thought better of it. That would have looked really suspicious, an older, unrelated man coming into her room and shutting the door?

“Yes,” she said absently. One corner of her mouth grimaced in pain. He knew she was very sick and close to death.

“I talked to White.”

She said nothing, just kept watching him.

“I said, I talked to White.”

“Good for you.”

Warwick couldn’t stand her complete and utter lack of response to his presence. What a cold-hearted little bitch! He’d tried to be so nice to her, had brought his daughter to work one day so she could meet Alison. And a few days ago Alison had told him what she’d seen: that his little girl was going to die horribly unless…

“I can’t do this tonight. He wants to do it tonight. But I can’t…it won’t work. I have to be here.”

Alison looked him dead in the eye. “It
has
to be tonight.”

“Why? Because he said so? Uh-uh. I
can’t.
”

Alison shook her head once. “Not because he said so, Warwick. Because
I
said so.”

“Wait…what?”

“You heard me. For everything to work, it has to be tonight. If it’s not…” She shrugged, and it reminded him of White’s last gesture before he left the con’s room.

“No, I can’t. I have to be here. Don’t you understand? I have to be here. If I’m not here...”

Alison thought about it. “Tell White he can’t hurt anybody.”

“Tell him? Like he’s going to listen to me if—”

“Warwick, shut up and listen. Tell him he can’t hurt anybody if he wants this to work. Tell him I dreamed about it.”

“Can
you
tell him?” Warwick asked, exasperated. He felt painted into a corner now. He had to do what Alison was telling him. But he also couldn’t do it.

“I already did,” Alison said. “Remind him.”

Warwick’s throat was dry. He faced an impossible decision. “If I do this, will my daughter be safe?”

“Yes.” This time the grimace Alison made was a big one. She pivoted on her bed and brought her feet up. “I told you already.”

“I need to be sure.” Warwick looked over his shoulder, to make sure nobody was listening. “Goddamnit, I need to be sure.”

“I told you,” she repeated. “This is the only way. And it has to be tonight. And White won’t hurt anybody.”

“Swear.” Warwick got up right next to her bed. He could smell the stink on her. Her sweat smelled of death. He wanted to plug his nose up but didn’t want to anger her either. She terrified him. “Swear to God.”

Her colorless lips parted slightly in what might have been a smile. “I
am
God, Warwick.”