Chapter: 2

He woke and didn’t know where he was.

It proved impossible to open his eyes, for they were sticky with sleep. In addition to that dilemma, he couldn’t move his aching limbs at all, a fact that instantly drove his heart into a painful, panicked frenzy.

He felt sick, and his head throbbed, almost as much as his right hand did, but the pain there was dulled – as though the limb had been partially numbed or stuffed in a bucket of ice. His mind wasn’t working: he couldn’t think. But that sense of helplessness only made him fight more.

David Covier did not allow himself to be beaten easily – especially by his fucking self.

If he could have gritted his teeth – or moved his jaw at all, for that matter – he would have. He fought the leaden weights that had been attached to his eyelids and forced them open. Almost immediately, he wished he had left them closed, as the harsh light from a fluorescent overhead filled his brain with fire.

Wincing, he blinked once or twice until the tiles of the drop ceiling came into sharper focus and the light became more tolerable. And then he set about trying to move his body.

Well, the fingers on his left hand seemed to be working. After several attempts, he could curl the fingers, although he lacked the strength to form a fist.

That’s a good start – now the neck.

“David!”

He froze, a sudden sense of guilt flooding his gut. What had he done wrong to deserve the scolding? His brain kicked in after a second’s hesitation, and his mental voice was immensely pissed.

You’re not a kid, dammitt. What the hell is wrong with you, and where are you?

Those were the most important questions he had, followed by his wonderment at what exactly had happened to him. The ache in his skull deepened immediately as he tried out his comprehension skills, and that didn’t make any sense. He couldn’t seem to recall why –

“David!” More urgently.

A dark face appeared over his head, blocking the blinding light from the fluorescent. The deep eyes were concerned, friendly. The round face was accentuated by a heavy brow and thick lips, but the goatee surrounding his mouth evened everything out.

David blinked, trying to focus. “Peter?” he asked weakly, speaking the name without even thinking about it.

Who the hell was “Peter”?

Then he coughed, and the pain in his throat gave him something else to think about.

“Good Lord, he knows my name,” this man called Peter exclaimed in a mock state of jubilation. He slapped a hand to his head in genuine relief. David vaguely recalled that something else had struck that shiny pate recently – only a short time before the accident.

Whatever the accident had been.

“Listen, you little pansy, the next time you pull a stunt like that, I am going to personally cram my foot up your ass, fire you, and chase you out of my goddamn firm. You understand?” But Peter the black stranger was laughing – even as he voiced the obviously mocking threats.

However strangely, David felt a smile growing on his own face to match. It started as a smirk, but then evolved into a full Cheshire–Cat. Peter had threatened to fire him every day for the past fifteen years: David could recall that much.

But where do I work, and what happened to me?

A sudden sense of normalcy pervaded David’s unease, defying the questions that still needed to be answered. He certainly hadn’t caught a grip of himself, that was for sure, but whatever the crisis had been was passed now.

Whatever had happened, it was all over now. Now he just had to take it easy and recover slowly. In the light of that knowledge – or lack thereof – everything was strangely amusing.

The sensation was weird, and it made no sense.

David tried his voice again and found it weak but existent. “You know, that might be hard to do with your foot up my ass.”

Peter the black stranger laughed again, slapped David lightly on the cheek, and then worked a hand beneath his shoulder. “C’mon, Davey. Doc says for you to get up. You’re not that grievously injured.”

David allowed himself to be pulled slowly into an upright position. He must have been lying there for hours, because the world swam before his gaze as it leveled in front of him. He rubbed his forehead with his uninjured hand, swiping sweaty bangs from his eyes.

“How long was I down?” he asked.

“Three hours, man,” Peter replied. “Doctors weren’t sure what was wrong with you – said you hadn’t lost that much blood. I wanted to wake you up, but they said to let you sleep for a little bit – said it might help.”

David looked down at his hand, suddenly concerned by the bandages swathing his hand – as though he had been partly mummified. Concern nearly made him ask what had happened, but then – as the blood flow in his body righted itself – his memory came back.

All of it: who he was, who Peter was, not to mention Alice and his job and his life.

The dream, the pen, the fucking dream –

He had seen it twice.

No way, he thought, suddenly close to panicking. Not possible – all those scientists say that you can only dream the exact same thing once. The mind doesn’t do fucking repeats. Anything more and it becomes some sort of vision.

The notion brought a scoff to his lips. But he couldn’t help but wonder what it meant – if it meant anything.

“I was dreaming again,” he said aloud, absently. It was like a confession: it needed to be shared. A trickle of fear remained in his guts – a steady drip that promised to turn into a deluge if not checked.

Drips could be dangerous. After all, it was just a little one that nearly killed off Holland.

Peter only smiled, oblivious to David’s inner turmoil. “At least you woke up from it, Davey. I’ve heard of people who have nightmares and their mind kind of shuts down. They never wake up from ’em. Scary shit, huh?”

This was obviously supposed to spark a laugh or at least a smile from David, but he could barely muster a grimace. The memory, coupled with Peter’s obliviously insensitive remark, had suddenly chased away the remnants of that warm floating sensation, acting as a catalyst to bring back to him the gritty details of the nightmare.

Their mind kind of shuts down; they never wake up from ’em.

Peter was speaking again, although David had missed part of the black man’s speech. “…gotta get you home, partner, ’cause you’re in no shape to keep working. I’ve seen you write lefty, and it ain’t pretty. Remember when you broke your hand during the annual softball game and I made you stay home until you could hold a pen again?”

He chuckled to himself, staring off into space, and then abruptly came back to the present. “Good times, good times. Well, not for you, but hey – you got better. ’Sides, Alice oughta know what happened. If I know your wife, she’ll be pissed if –”

“No.”

David’s reply was so sudden that it startled both of them, leaving the room silent.

“No,” he repeated, to fill the void, although he wasn’t exactly sure why he was disagreeing. “I… See, I just…”

He thought: I should go home. Alice should know what happened.

So why not?

And yet he continued to argue with himself, despite lacking a solid foundation from which to debate. He floundered for the right words to complete the sentence, because Peter was looking at him in mix of confusion and skepticism.

“I – I didn’t finish those files you wanted,” David concluded lamely, shrugging. It was all he could think of. “I have to get them done today.”

Peter rolled his eyes, waving that away with a meaty hand. “Oh, please. It’s okay Dave – no biggie. Seriously. Besides, I can prep them myself if the case finally hits the courtroom. That or Mikey can take care of them. ’Sides, I was just being lazy dumping them on you.”

“No, I’ll do them,” David insisted, with a fervor. “It could be a big case, and it needs to be done right. I’m –”

He had started to say “I’m fine”, but suddenly it was clear why he didn’t want to go home.

He was petrified to be near his wife. All of a sudden, he didn’t trust himself near Alice.

What if he really attacked her – could it happen? That fear made sense in a sick sort of way. After all, reality lived next–door to imagination, despite being worlds apart. Bridging the gap could prove more possible than any would think.

David looked down at his hands and felt the chill of the room more acutely. Blood had stained the creases in his palms black, and Alice’s locket was lodged in his right hand like some sort of voodoo implant.

– beside the bed, reaching out for her –

In an instant, his heart kicked into panic again, bypassing mere alarm entirely. David squeezed his eyes shut, forcing the sudden flashback away. He heard Alice scream inside his head, distantly, but forced that away too, simultaneously fighting a sudden sense of nausea.

His hands were clean and empty again, although both were sweating and only one was naked.

It was just a dream – I can’t really believe this shit, can I? I should go home to Alice – I should be with her right now, and she deserves to know –

“…fine with me, man,” Peter was saying from somewhere across the room. “I really don’t mind if you go home now, though – I mean, it’s not like you don’t have vacation days left or… Dave? David? Hey, Covier!”

David’s eyes snapped open.

“You sure you’re okay?” Peter asked, frowning down at him.

David nodded quickly, a little too jerkily for the gesture to be natural. His palms – resting limply on his thighs – were clammy. “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine, Pete – just a headache. Everything’s good. Thanks to you.”

Peter spitted the smaller man with a concerned glare, as though he was disinclined to believe what David was saying. But then he nodded – as though nothing out of the ordinary had just passed between them.

“Okay,” he said with a sigh, and began gathering David’s few personal things from the table across the room – Rolex, wallet, car keys. “Change quickly, and then let’s get out of here. I tell you now, Davey, I’d better be able to read your fucking handwriting or there’ll be hell to pay. I know from experience you’re not ambidextrous.”

David stood slowly and reached for his slacks as Peter left the room – still spouting threats over his shoulder. As soon as the door closed behind his boss, David gave himself a little shake, although it was more of a shiver than a voluntary action. Either way, it was almost refreshing – like he was shaking off the fear.

He stepped into the Dockers, balancing himself against the bed.

It was a dream, he thought with resolution – to convince himself. It was just coincidence coupled with paranoia. That was all.

But when had he – David Cover, the rational – ever been paranoid?

Maybe it came with age.

A minute later, he left the room fully dressed, praying that he was leaving the nightmare in the hospital bed behind him.

It was 7:03 by David’s watch when he walked out of the Jacobson Firm and crossed the parking lot to where he had parked the Lexus earlier that morning.

The lamps had come on in the parking lot, casting a yellow glow over the numerous cars parked therein. The busy city streets teemed with life, from the uncountable number of cars flashing by to the broad sidewalks packed with assorted pedestrians.

Rush hour had passed, thankfully, so it would be a straight–shot home. Only a few late commuters would be on the freeway, so David was looking at a pleasant, no nonsense drive, and for that he could be thankful.

He unlocked the Lexus with the remote on his keychain while he was still halfway across the parking lot, relishing the cool evening breeze that swept his hair away from his forehead.

The sun was setting over the city skyline, outlining the pitch–black buildings in orange and purple. Someone out in the street had his radio tuned to a classical station, and now an orchestra spilled melodious strains of Mozart across the parking lot. In the distance, the lights from the bridge winked in the early dusk, and headlights preceded cars across its surface.

It was a beautiful evening – picturesque, cinematic.

David climbed into the Lexus. He left the door open and just sat, enjoying the stillness and the cool breeze. For a while, he sat in silence, watching the cityscape crawling with the night, then lit up a cigarette and watched some more.

As the day had progressed, he had thought less and less about the dream, easing himself back into his work until he had almost forgotten about the incident – and the stares he was receiving from co–workers. True, it had only been three hours more of work, but he had thrown himself whole–heartedly into his assignment for the sole purpose of distracting himself from the day’s unfortunate incident.

He was feeling good right now: no nausea, no headache, no fear. Just an eagerness to go home and be with his wife, his angel – the reason he lived and breathed.

During the time he had spent thinking about the dream, David had come up with two specific reasons why it couldn’t possibly happen for real.

The first was that, he loved Alice to death. He loved her so much that he would sooner kill himself than harm a hair on her head. The absurdity that he would even think about causing her harm made him want to laugh.

And yet, the dream was so vivid, so dark and disturbing, that he couldn’t.

The second reason was that he had no obligation whatsoever to harm Alice. She had never done anything to him that was serious enough to spark a vengeful thirst in his soul. Absolutely nothing. She had never even played a practical joke on him.

In fact, the whole idea was laughable.

But again, he couldn’t truly laugh without feeling sick and insensitive.

David forced himself to smile as he watched the stars twinkle through the clouds – tinged orange from the sun’s fading glory. The pain in his hand had been reduced to a dull throb, and he was in a relatively good mood now that he had convinced himself that his dream could never come true.

He studied the sun’s bold, self–proclaimed eulogy, letting his eyes trail over the velvet heavens.

It’ll be good to get home.

He tore his eyes away, discarded the cigarette on the blacktop, and pulled the driver’s door closed. Fumbling with his keys, he turned around to toss his briefcase into the back seat –

– and reeled away in horror and shock from his wife’s mutilated corpse. Bloodstains had stained the white of her shredded nightgown with scarlet, and gore crusted her lips and around her eyes. Ratty tendrils of oily dark hair hung disheveled around her pale face. Her stark white eyes stared blankly at him as her dead hands clutched at him, rigor mortis curling her cold, brittle fingers into claws –

– and David cursed and pushed his coat off the back seat, scoffing at his own stupidity.

What is wrong with you? First you dream about killing her, then imagine her dead body in the back seat of your car? It’s your fucking jacket! Get a fucking grip.

But just to ensure that the corpse didn’t return, he left the light on in the Lexus as he drove home. It seemed like every other second that he was glancing uncomfortably at the back seat via the rearview mirror, just to reassure himself that he truly was alone.

It took him the usual twenty-three minutes to leave the city and reach the neighborhood he and Alice called home.

Light from the houses lining Almonescent spilled out over their adjoining lawns. A group of boys on bicycles swept past the Lexus as David turned the narrow bend onto the cul–de–sac. The McGrew father and son were outside playing baseball in their front yard, oblivious to the oppressive darkness.

David turned the Lexus into the driveway. After bringing the vehicle to a halt, he killed the engine and set the emergency brake – a habit his father, driving instructor, and mentor, had handed down to him – before gathering up his briefcase and coat and climbing out of the car.

He inhaled the sweet breeze of the warm evening, tinged with the scent of mown grass.

It is good to be home.

He started up the walk towards the screened–in porch, whistling Stairway to Heaven. The motion detector picked him up seconds later, and the floodlight snapped on just as he had mounted the single step to the front door and was reaching for the handle –

He retracted his hand from the knob as though electrified. Fear paralyzed him instantly as he realized that the door stood partially open, albeit only a crack –

– cool evening breeze teasing his sweating flesh; he tastes rusty blood in his mouth –

– looks back at the door, finds it to be open a crack – had he just come from there –

– looks down at his hands, finds them to be stained red; blood has seeped –

David stamped his foot, hard enough for the sound to echo in the evening air. He held his breath for a count of five until his heart had returned to its normal rate, and then let it out slowly. If he was going to get over this ordeal, then he needed to take control.

Boldly, he reached out and pushed open the door, then stepped inside.

Alice was instantly there, wrapping him in a hug, kissing him. “You’re home early, thank goodness. I was so alone.” Her mumbling was lost in his neck as she kissed him there over and over again, almost hanging onto him for support.

David put his hands on her waist and kissed the crown of her head in return. “I told you I’d try and make it back before nine. It’s only 7:35, so I’d say I did pretty well, huh?”

Alice smiled up at him. “Perfect.” She stood up on her tiptoes and planted a kiss firmly on his lips, which he returned with equal vigor.

Then she took his hand. “Come on – dinner’s getting c–”

She released him instantly as David winced and jerked away. She looked down at the bandaged limb and brought a hand to her mouth. “David, what happened to your hand?”

“I had an… erm… an accident,” he said. He considered just letting it go, but he knew that the guilt he would feel upon lying to Alice would bring him to confession anyway.

He sighed, committed. “I dozed off while at work and I… I had the dream again, Alice – the one that I had last night. I woke up with a pen stabbed in my hand – I must have been holding it when I nodded off and squeezed it too hard while I was sleeping.”

Alice’s eyes were wide with shock, quickly filling with frightful tears. Her brows drew together as he finished speaking. “A pen?Are – are you okay? Are you sure you didn’t get ink poisoning?”

With a laugh, David kissed her forehead, kissing away the lines of concern. “I’m fine, love – I’m here, aren’t I? It was just a scratch.”

Alice looked down at his bandage–swathed hand skeptically. “A scratch landed you in the hospital getting stitches?”

Should have pursued a career in acting, David thought, and he chuckled without humor. “Peter called, eh?”

“He said he wasn’t sure you would want to fill me in.” She smiled, but was obviously not fully committed to humor at the present moment. “I always could trust Pete to rat you out to me.”

“Yeah, the ol’ two–timer.” David smiled as he grabbed her hand with his uninjured one. “C’mon – I want to eat while dinner’s still warm.”

“Wait a minute.” Alice was biting her lip, staring at the floor.

David stopped in mid–stride and came back to stand beside her. “What is it?”

She looked back up at him, and her eyes were full of fear. “I thought you said the dream was nothing. I thought you said it was just a nightmare – nothing to worry about.”

He set the briefcase down on the floor and reached up with his good hand to caress her smooth cheek. “That’s all it is – I promise. There’s nothing more to it – I’m not worried about it.”

A tear spilled out of her left eye and trailed down her cheek; David brushed it away with his thumb.

“I think it’s more serious than that, David,” she whispered. “You’ve seen it twice, and even you have to admit that most people don’t dream the same thing twice – especially not something like that.”

David gave her a disapproving look. “Come on, Alice. I thought I told you not to take it so seriously. This dream… nightmare… apparition – whatever it is – is not important. What we have – you and me – that’s what matters. Okay?”

She gave him a smile – the one that never failed to melt his insides – and he kissed her again. They broke apart after a much longer moment this time, and David seized her hand again – with the good one.

“Now how ’bout that meal, huh?” he said.

Alice laughed. The sound broke the seriousness of their talk and made David smile. “It’s ready. After Peter called, I counted on you being in a bad mood when you got home, so I made sure to make your favorite.”

She never had been a terribly good cook, so David decided to tease her. “Domino’s?”

David lay on his back in the bed, staring at the ceiling, hands tucked behind his head. Alice was sleeping soundly next to him, her head cradled against his chest.

He kept telling himself over and over again that he simply wasn’t tired. He told himself that it wasn’t abnormal to stay up late and stare at the same spot on the wall for hours, that it was a very common practice and millions of people all over the world were doing just that same thing at just that same second.

This was nothing out of the ordinary, and he was fine.

I’m just not tired.

But despite his rationalizing, he knew the real truth – that he was afraid to fall asleep. He was afraid of what he would find if he closed his eyes, and although he had managed to convince himself that the paranormal could not break the subconscious barrier and become reality, he was still afraid to face the dream again.

If it comes – you don’t know if it will.

He told himself that he was a man – that he could handle it. Yet, those few minutes (or were they hours?) held more pain and suffering packed into them than he had faced in his entire life. He was afraid of what would happen to him and his sanity if he saw the apparition even just one more time.

Alice shifted in her sleep and mumbled his name into his chest; her warm breath tickled his flesh.

David smiled, distracted, and he lowered one hand to stroke her back. He smoothed her hair from her face, gazing at her lovingly. She was so beautiful, so positively gorgeous to him, and aside from her physical beauty, her inward splendor was unmatched.

Alice had been a professed Christian since before their marriage, and she had often tried to talk David about God and faith. He was patient and always listened, but had never actually found any interest in her religion. Sure, he went with her to church some Sundays and even had a few Bible verses memorized, but it had never really struck him as a necessity to ask Jesus to…

How did Alice put it? Oh – to “save” him.

As a matter of fact, David really only did what he did to please her – not out of fear of eternal consequences. “Why should a dead guy hold any value to me?” he remembered asking once, but had immediately regretted phrasing the question that way: Alice’s eyes had filled with tears.

He just couldn’t grasp the concept of “salvation”, and had given up trying a long time ago.

And yet, Alice still encouraged him to read the Bible, to pray and ask God for help when he was frustrated. She was always putting his needs first – was always patient, always loyal. She was the perfect woman, and she meant the world to David.

He smiled again, gently stroking her neck and shoulders. Then, he leaned forward slightly and whispered in her ear, “I’ll love you always, angel.” He said it almost to assure himself as much as to show her.

He had thought she was asleep, but the reply came back without hesitation, her voice low and soft: “I love you too, baby.”

David reached over and turned off the light.

He is naked, a strange feeling of primalhunger fueling him in an almost erotic manner; he stalks forward, down the pitch black of a hallway, on all fours. He looks around in wonderment, vaguely aware that something is not right.

He squints through the haze fogging his vision, distinguishing the bedroom in front of him. He sees the dresser – its edges uneven and undefined – to his left as he crawls into the doorway, the writing desk straight ahead, its figure also distorted.

Alice’s reading light has long since been extinguished, and he can see her lying in the bed with her back to him, wrinkled bed sheets gathered up around her waist, her naked back tantalizing –

In his state of feral hunger, his strangely heightened senses, he can smell the combined scent of her sweat and perfume, the scent of her flesh.

And he lusts for her.

She stirs in her sleep, prompting him to pause as he watches carefully, biding his time.

…patiently, patiently…

And her voice whispers in his head, moaning, calling to him, begging for him to come –

– beside the bed, reaching out for her –

Oh, shit – oh, shit, shit, shit, Mother of God!!

His heart pounding in his throat, David mentally forced himself back to consciousness.

He was still in bed, the sweat–soaked sheets tangled around his limbs and gathered up to his waist. Alice was still asleep, her back to him, undisturbed by his fitful slumber. Her back rose and fell peacefully with her breathing.

David ran a trembling hand over his eyes, breathing heavily.

What is this? How many more times – how long? There has to be a way to stop it! Why won’t it fucking go away?!

David sat up slowly, still disoriented. His heart rate was slowing down, but fear still pulsated through him in waves. He slapped his uninjured palm against his face, grinding the heel of that hand into his eye, rubbing away the last vestiges of sleep.

And how could he sleep, what with the awful knowledge that every time he closed his eyes, he would kill his own wife? The possibility that the fear might eventually wear off and the dream might become commonplace did occur to him, but that prospect was almost as bad as forever witnessing the horror on his mental pay–per–view.

He was afraid. So afraid, in fact, that despite the heat of the evening, he was cold. Chill sweat puckered his flesh and wracked his body with violent shivers. He pulled the sheets up to his waist, then leaned back against the headboard with his elbows on his knees, staring into the shadows filling the corners of the bedroom.

Sleep had been chased from him, and suddenly he was wide–awake. All he could think about was Alice, lying helplessly before him as he reached out to take hold of her –

He glanced over at her, maybe to reassure himself that she was still alive, and immediately tore his eyes away. She was still asleep, lying with her back to him, just as she had in the dream: innocent, unaware, powerless.

David shivered again and drew his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them tightly. Shadows and darkness no longer frightened him. The future, the unknown, faith, sickness and death – none of it had the stones or the power.

What did David Covier fear?

His own two hands: those powerful hands that clutched the sweat–soaked sheets to his chest, holding them captive.

Holding Alice captive –

Her soul was in his palm, and he could crush it at any time. That was what scared him.

For hours he sat without changing position, thinking of nothing but the vile deed. He stayed that way until the first light of morning crept through the blinds and splayed over the bed. And then he got up and showered.

Twice.

Three times.

If only to wash the death and guilt from his body.