As had been the case with many nights since he first thought he’d seen the shadow in his backyard, most of the dreams fled quickly in the morning and could not be remembered, save one.
Daniel was standing in his kitchen, watching a man sitting at his laptop on the kitchen table. All around him, the sights and sounds of the kitchen and the rooms beyond were clouded by a darkness that seemed to be pressing in upon him. But in the shallow area between Daniel and the figure at the laptop there was a warming, yellow light. It was not brilliant, but it was warm.
As Dan stepped up to the right side of the man where his hand would briefly move a mouse and click on something the light cast shadows and shapes on both his own and the other man’s clothing and faces. It was flickering, as if it were produced by camp fire. As he sat down, Daniel noticed it was he, himself, sitting at the laptop.
The other Dan nodded and glanced at real Daniel and smiled. He typed several strokes at the keyboard and then his left hand covered his chin in a thoughtful repose, right hand drifting back to the mouse again.
“What are you doing?” Dan asked. He felt no fear and the question was friendly.
The reply was equally warm and friendly.
“I’m researching.”
The real Daniel took a sip of a cup of coffee he found in his hand and the warmth filled him even more.
“What are your researching?”
The other Dan smiled and nodded again before replying. “Knowledge is power... I am arming myself.”
The real Daniel watched for a moment. He could see text that was just slightly too far out of focus to be able to read on the screen. There were pictures suffering similar issues with clarity, but he got the general impression he was seeing an article about Native Americans and religious ceremonies. He could see in one black and white picture an Indian male with his hands both raised, one clutching a stick or something that was smoking, the other holding some other round objects. The man wore an old western hat and a plaid shirt with jeans. Behind him in the background was a large open space with mountains in the distance.
Again the other turned to Daniel and caught his eye, but he did not smile this time.
“He’s trying to watch us, you know.”
Daniel looked up and just through the haze and darkness around him he could make out the rear kitchen door with its pane of glass open, blind drawn up out of view. While he looked shapes in the glass moved. Dan’s eyes brought the vision into focus well enough that he could make out the now familiar red flicker of the shadow’s eyes. They penetrated like daggers, burying themselves in the darkness between them, looking for a target.
“He cannot see you right now…At least not very well,” the other said as he continued to type on the keyboard.
“Why not?” Daniel asked, but now his forced voice was raspy and parched. He found he could not swallow in the dream and it was uncomfortable.
When Daniel looked back to the man at the laptop he noticed the hand on the mouse had changed. It was older, and had liver spots across it here and there. He looked at the other’s face and found the hair had turned white, the skin dark. It was the Native American Daniel had met in his dream a week earlier. It surprised, but did not startle him. He awaited the answer to his question respectfully.
The Indian put both his hands in his lap and turned in the chair in which he was seated enough to face Daniel better. His face was wizened but friendly, and the smile created a great many vertical creases on either side of his face that also bespoke friendship.
In that same older, accented voice he’d heard in the dream before his trip the old man responded, “You ask for help. Now he cannot see for a while.”
“How long?” Daniel asked breathlessly.
The old man stood up and pulled the chair he was sitting in back a bit.
“Not long.” He then gestured with his right hand to the chair in front of the laptop and spoke one last time before walking into the darkness about them. “You have work to do.”
“Wait! I need to know what to do!”
But there was no further communication from the visitor.