In Dreams
James Eddy
Copyright 2013 James Eddy
Bewilder
Heart over Head over Heels
Bonfire Blues
Lily Green
The Devil eats Coleslaw
Fading Polaroids in Reverse
The Graveyard
Hello, Emptiness
Revelations
The Ghosts Are Out Tonight
Diamonds
Cover by Vernon Wiley, Lauren Bathurst
Publishers Notes
Disclaimer
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Manufactured in the United Kingdom.
Chapter 1 – Five Nights Earlier...
1.
Oliver Bell walked out of his house, along his driveway and onto the pavement. He looked down at the dew glistening upon a small patch of grass; shining green and silver in the bright sunlight.
2.
Inside a shop, he grabbed two large bottles of absinthe from a shelf and walked out carrying one in each hand. He went on walking, feeling nothing but the weight of the bottles pulling him down. Above him, the sun shone through light edges of dramatic cloud; golden shards colouring him and half of the street he was on, while another world of dank grey lay ahead.
Then he stopped. He saw something in the distant dark ahead. The bottles no longer seemed important. In the next instant, both bottles hit the ground, shattering and spilling a river of luxurious green liquid onto the road.
Oliver didn’t see. He didn’t care. Instead, he ran into the shadow to the best friend he’d ever had, who was lying in the middle of the road in a crimson pool of his own blood.
Tears fell from Oliver's eyes and he knelt down beside his friend.
“Jesus, Johnny,” was all he managed to say.
Johnny smiled weakly when he looked up at Oliver.
“You’re already too late, my friend,” he told him.
“No, no... I am so sorry.”
“It's not your fault,” Johnny said, “Look... Just do me a favour and go to that house will yer.”
He raised the dead weight of his right arm to point towards a very large house, painted entirely black except for the bright red front door.
“I can get help there!” Oliver said, sprinting towards the door and pausing only to shout back to Johnny, “I'll see you soon.”
3.
Oliver eased the front door open. Inside, he was met by nearly impenetrable darkness. There were no windows or doors anywhere in the hallway, so he squinted as he went on. He could tell that the walls on either side of him were quite narrow but he couldn’t see the end of the hallway as it melted away into darkness.
“HELLO, IS ANYONE IN?”
He waited for an answer. None came.
“HELLO?” he called again, “WILL SOMEONE HELP ME PLEASE?”
The only sound he heard was his own breathing and his trainers scuffing on the carpet. He stopped, standing still to ask himself, “Is there... A door anywhere in this place?”
The answer was obvious, so he tried examining the hallway. All he found was that the floral wallpaper was peeling away.
As his eyes slowly adjusted to the lack of light in the house, what he saw became even stranger. Within the gloom, patterns and shapes in turquoise, green, orange, yellow and blue floated at strange illogical angles; they joined together, turning other colours and shapes into the darkened features of darkened faces, until the hall eventually returned to empty darkness.
It was then that Oliver’s panic started to build and it felt like the lack of light was suffocating him. He was lost, flailing around to find anything that might help him. It was no good. All he could do was keep walking, unsure if he was going forwards or backwards but suddenly aware that it didn’t really matter.
His feet dragged over the ground even more than usual, until something tripped him and he hit the floor. He didn’t stand up. Instead, Oliver searched blindly until his hands found what had made him fall. Surprisingly, it was a door handle that was also very firmly attached to a door. Since there seemed to be no better option, he took hold of the handle, turned it, and hoped for the best.
Light poured into the hallway through the door. It was not bright light, more like the dying afterglow of a summer evening, but it was still a relief to Oliver. Standing again, he looked through the doorway at an orange sunset, slowly turning darker even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. He briefly gazed along the rest of the hallway and back again but there was no need to delay. He knew there was only one way out. He walked forward and placed one foot onto, into, and through the door.
4.
He landed on his front, at the bottom of a small tree. Picking himself up, he brushed the dirt from his t-shirt and jeans. By then, the door he had come through was gone. He didn’t care. He was already hearing the sound of shoes on concrete, moving closer, and it was only as the girl ran past that he actually saw her for the first time. An accidental brush of skin on skin turned into her hand grabbing his and pulling him along behind her. She never slowed or looked back, even when she spoke to him for the first time:
“You’ve got to help me!”
“What?” said Oliver, confused as much by the sweetness of her voice as her words.
“You’ve got to save me!”
He looked back over his shoulder, but saw nothing.
“Where are we going?” he asked, watching the waves of her dark hair shine in the remaining sunlight.
She pointed up to a multi-storey car park that he hadn’t noticed until then; a concrete eyesore with light spilling from gaps at each of its five levels.
“Up there.”
They kept running and Oliver saw they were coming to another red door that would take them into the car park. He knew the girl had seen it too but she didn’t slow down. Instead, she hit it at full speed, absorbing the impact with her body, rocking the hinges, and pulling Oliver inside with her.
5.
They stopped running.
“What the hell is going on?” Oliver asked.
Then she faced him for the first time and nothing else made sense. Her eyes were perfectly big, round, and honest, while her hair was a gloriously messy charcoal sketch. There was grace in every movement, in every inch of her.
“Trust me,” she said, “And will you hide with me please?”
He tried to resist.
“I can't,” he started to say.
The desperation in her eyes stopped his mouth.
She took his hand in hers and whatever resistance he had was gone.
6.
They hid face down and side-by-side under a shiny silver grey car. Everything was quiet until Oliver decided to speak. Despite the confined space, he tilted his head to look at the girl.
“What are we doing here?” he asked.
“Shhh! We’re hiding…” she whispered.
“Yes...” he whispered back, “But who from?”
He couldn’t be sure but he thought she said, “Demons.”
Silence fell and Oliver didn’t know what to say. He wondered what she’d meant. When he heard her voice again, it was louder and clearer:
“It doesn't look like they know we're here.”
They slid out from under the car, stood, and moved behind it. For a few moments, the only sound was their breathing. There was something comforting in it to Oliver. Something he found reassuring even though it didn’t make any real sense. Sadly, it didn’t last for as long as he would have hoped.
The growl of an engine and the screeching o
f brakes came from one the floors below them. The sounds grew louder and closer, travelling towards where the two of them stood. Then he saw a car, cloaked in metallic black, that came squealing to a stop only a few yards from where he was standing.
Oliver watched as the driver's door opened and a boy in his late teens stood up and looked at him. The boy’s face was thin and his hair was clipped short. There was aggression and anger in his eyes that Oliver recognised. It scared him and all he wanted was to get away from the horror and memory that still remained.
“RUN!” he shouted, and grabbed the girl's hand.
The other boy didn’t move. He just leaned on the car door while Oliver and the girl ran up to the next floor of the car park.
Oliver looked for an escape but there seemed to be no way out. That was when he noticed another red door in front of him.
“THERE!” he shouted, and pulled the girl along with him.
It was her turn to be confused by it all.
“What's going on?” she said, “That wasn't there before.”
“Trust me...” he told her, “And will you hide with me please?”
There was only enough time for her to smile before they walked to the door and stepped through it.
7.
The sun shone on Oliver and the girl. They were sitting on a short grass lawn in the grounds of a cathedral and Oliver could feel the blades of grass growing beneath him. He knew there wasn’t much time left, as he shielded his eyes to look at a large stone statue of Admiral Nelson that was several yards away from him.
The girl thanked him but he didn’t really hear her.
“Where are we now?” he asked.
“Well,” she said, “That's a Cathedral, that's a statue of Admiral Nelson, that's another of the Duke of Wellington, and this is the city I live in.”
She smiled at him and it made his heart beat faster. He didn’t know where to look, so he kept his eyes on hers and let her talk:
“The rest is up to you to find out.”
“What? But who are you? What's your name?”
“That's really two different questions,” she said, “And the second one's a bit easier to answer. I'm...”
Her lips moved but he didn’t hear another word. The image of her face faded from view and into featureless white, leaving Oliver alone again.
8.
Sunshine coated Oliver's bedroom in luxurious light. He lifted himself from the mattress and his head felt terribly heavy, like a mysterious hangover was attacking his brain. When he couldn’t find paracetamol, he went for a shower and washed away as much of the sleep from the edges of his mind as he could manage.
Afterwards, he dressed quickly, putting on his best suit, white shirt, and tie; a chore that had almost become second nature to his hands. Shiny black leather shoes and neatly combed hair completed his transformation.
The only constant in the day that followed was the sweetness of the girl’s face etched onto his mind. The claustrophobia of the tube, the rain on his walk to the office, and even a mountain of paperwork couldn’t remove it.
Oliver left work earlier than usual. There seemed to be little point in staying any longer than he had to. He’d always hated his job. It was mainly because he felt like he barely existed there. He had no friends, only colleagues; people that only appeared to him in half heard and misheard conversations.
He knew he wouldn’t be missed and there wasn’t much point in trying to get too far ahead with what he was doing. It never led anywhere he wanted to go. It had only ever left him feeling hollow. Although Oliver didn’t realise it then, it had to come to an end and that could only happen by going somewhere he truly wanted to be.