The Devil's Dream: A Nightmare Read online

  The Devil’s Dream: A Nightmare

  David Beers

  Contents

  Mailing List Offer

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  The Devil’s Dream Part III

  Mailing List Offer

  For David Beers’ FREE Starter Library, as well as personal contact with the author, sign up for his Insider Club at: http://www.davidbeersfiction.com/insiderclub

  1

  Allison Moore watched her daughter descend the steps. Marley walked slow, taking each step as if she wasn’t completely sure it would be there when her foot arrived. Allison stood, smiling, in no hurry to do anything else. Marley took these same steps every day and she took them at the same speed. The world had made Allison move at a different speed for so long, and now she had adapted to the pace Marley needed. The world and its callings no longer mattered, not outside of making sure that Marley had food and a roof.

  Allison had the food ready this morning, sitting on the kitchen table. It took Marley five minutes to walk anywhere in the house, so Allison never poured the milk into the cereal before Marley sat. She would do it once Marley was in place and ready to eat.

  She had to make sure Marley was at the table an hour and a half before the bus arrived to pick her up. Things moved slow around Allison’s house, and that was okay. It was better than okay, really, because she had her daughter at home, as opposed to the glorified psychiatric ward she had resided in for two years. Those years had been tough. Spending as much time as possible at the ward, only leaving at bedtime each day and only then because her little girl needed routine.

  That’s what Allison wanted now for her daughter: routine. She didn’t want anything out of the ordinary to appear, didn’t want to surprise Marley at all. Marley needed order and that meant Allison’s life contained it too. After breakfast, Marley would head back upstairs and dress. Allison originally thought that it would be easier if they dressed Marley and then brought her down to eat, that way things would move quicker. Marley didn’t like doing it that way, though. She actually had refused, and Allison smiled when she did. Marley rarely, if ever, took an interest in anything and for her to demonstrate that she didn’t want to dress first, that she would rather eat breakfast in her pajamas--well that was a miracle for Allison. So every morning Allison brought Marley down, took her back up, and then Allison would walk her to the bus stop where they waited together. They were always five minutes early for the bus, because Allison couldn’t afford for Marley to miss it.

  If Marley didn’t make it to the bus that meant Allison had to either drive Marley to school herself or they would both stay home for the day. Getting in the car and driving to school would be a shock to Marley, even if a small one. Shocks weren’t good. Allison knew because she tried to drive Marley once, before this routine was carved in stone by lightning bolts sent from God himself. They had been running late; Allison watched as the bus sped down the road, not slowing and definitely not turning around.

  Fine, she thought, and began walking Marley to the car.

  The twelve year old girl was okay up until the moment that the car door opened, then both hands turned into fists and started whacking at the sides of her head. One at a time. Hard.

  Left.

  Right.

  Left.

  Right.

  A doctor ended up having to leave the school to come sedate Marley. The girl never said a word, just attempted to beat the brains out of her head. Thus, if Marley missed the bus, Allison was staying home without even attempting to drive her daughter to school, and that meant Allison had to skip work, which was something they couldn’t afford. Things were expensive, much more so now than when Jerry was alive and they possessed two incomes to float the bills. For one, the therapy Marley needed wasn’t cheap, and two, the meds weren’t either. Allison wasn’t working for the FBI anymore, hadn’t been since she found Marley in that gruesome warehouse. She now worked as a manager for an insurance company on the claims side. The work wasn’t rewarding, but it had medical benefits and a 401k and paid better than nearly anything but banking. Allison had spent her previous life—her life with her husband and daughter—working on climbing a conceptual career ladder. Now, there was no ladder. She had her job, and she would never move up, or at least not substantially, because she wasn’t willing to dedicate anything over forty hours a week to it. During those forty hours, she gave everything she had, but when those were up—everyone at her job knew not to call.

  She could miss work, could take days off if she needed, but if she didn’t need the day then she didn’t want to take it. Because when she actually needed a day off, then by God, it better be there.

  Marley was the one that actually needed the days, so Allison was forced to oblige. Watching her father die left scars on Marley that doctors couldn’t see, let alone understand. Her mind was a place of silence now, that’s what the doctors told Allison. A place where nothing went through it and nothing came out of it. Allison wasn’t sure she believed that fully, and maybe that was just mother’s love talking and maybe not. She thought Marley took in more than she let anyone know. So when Marley reacted to dressing before breakfast, Allison would have done a handstand had she been able.

  Still, for the most part, Marley’s mind was quiet and the reason stood out starkly: her mind wasn’t able to handle the world Matthew Brand showed her, so it had shut down. Maybe it would come back one day. Maybe it would slowly open itself up to the possibility that all the death it witnessed before no longer existed.

  Allison tried not to consider that part, the Matthew Brand part.

  She considered Jerry all the time. He constantly filtered through her thoughts, both in waves of depression and in appreciation for everything that he gave her while alive.

  Marley never left Allison’s thoughts.

  Matthew Brand, though, that was someone she didn’t allow herself to think about. She received the call from the scientist four years ago; she knew Jeffrey Dillan and the woman he lived with were missing, presumed dead. Allison had allowed that knowledge to fill her with terror for a long time, terror that the escaped man had taken Dillan. That the escaped man, a black man who had raped numerous women before being caught, was actually filled with Brand’s intellect, his personality. She lived in terror that eventually this black man with Brand’s mind would come for her, would come for Marley, would come finish what he started with Jerry.

  Nothing happened though. No one else turned up missing. No cops died and Matthew Brand didn’t resurface. There was a brief hunt after the scientist gave his proclamation, but it filtered down from the FBI that Brand was dead, that no one could have survived what the doctor claimed had happened. No one need worry about Matthew Brand because he was gone, finally. Allison believed that, but only because she didn’t have a choice.

  The alternative left her believing Brand was alive, and that wasn’t something Allison could entertain. Not as a single mother raising a daughter whose mind was scarred by the lunatic. She couldn’t add that onto her shoulders, not if she wanted to keep her collarbone from cracking. If Brand was alive after all these years, had he given up? Had he moved onto something else? Or was he biding time?

  Those thoughts could take over her m
ind if Allison let them, so she didn’t.

  Marley finished her bowl of cereal and placed her spoon loudly onto the table. That was her way of saying she was finished, as well as Allison’s way of knowing that her daughter wasn’t as gone as the doctors claimed. Allison clicked the television off and stood up from the loveseat.

  The man looked at her through the television’s reflection. He was tall, over six-feet, and his body solid. Her breath caught in her lungs, her mouth hanging slightly open.

  Allison Moore turned around and looked at a black man named Arthur Morgant, a rapist who had been sentenced to a frozen life twenty five years ago. His face was tilted down slightly, his eyes still looking at her. His skin was the deep brown of mahogany, but his eyes were the color of beautiful, deep blue.

  “Hi, Agent Moore,” Matthew Brand said.

  For the first time in four years, Allison didn’t think about her daughter, but ran instead—heading to her bedroom in hopes of making it there before he could.

  Matthew watched Allison Moore take off to her right. She dashed for the hallway behind both of them, probably for a gun she kept somewhere back there. Matthew allowed himself a second to watch her go, a second to see her for the first time in years, but knew the time to watch was brief. If he slipped here, nothing else could possibly work. He allowed himself that moment of indulgence, but no more or everything to come might be ruined.

  He raced after her, this body so different than the last one he owned. It contained a power that his frail frame hadn’t approached before. His physical feats had only been completed by shock and audacity, but here, with these muscles covered in dark skin, he moved with an ease he hadn’t known possible. His legs propelled him down the hallway, his strides catching up with Moore’s quickly. He watched as she rounded a doorway, knowing she was approaching whatever she hunted. If she shot him, managed to call the police, if anything happened here besides him capturing her silently—plans would change drastically.

  He turned the bedroom corner, and thank God and all His Host of Angels, she was reaching up to the top of her walk-in closet. She had locked her gun away and it couldn’t help her now.

  Matthew bombarded the closet, grabbing Allison’s hair with his massive hand and then slamming her head into the corner of the door frame. She struggled, trying to fight her way back to the gun, trying somehow to overtake this hulk throwing her around.

  Matthew slammed her head a second time.

  And a third.

  And, finally, Allison’s body went slack.

  Matthew dragged her by her hair, tossing her onto the floor in front of the bed. Her eye was already swelling; a gash on her forehead dripped blood across her face, combining with the blood running from her nose.

  Matthew felt Morgant rising, felt the original owner of the body stretching forth with a fury Matthew hadn’t known.

  Take her. Take her. TakehertakeherTAKEHERTAKEHERTAKEHER.

  “SHUT UP!” Matthew screamed into the empty room, his voice growling like bass from a sub-woofer.

  The urge to penetrate, Morgant’s voice, all of it welled inside Matthew, and though his pronouncement quieted it some, he could still feel Morgant desperately wanting to get back to the surface. Desperately wanting him to rip Moore’s clothes off, then his own, and lay on top of her naked body, pumping up and down until he sprayed his seed everywhere. Matthew decided two years ago what his plans were, and now, somehow, Arthur Morgant was deciding he wanted a say in things. Not a say perhaps, but just a piece. His cut. His rapes.

  Matthew looked down at the woman before him and couldn’t state he didn’t want to. Or that a part of him didn’t want to. He wanted to dive down on top of her and take her, take her the way the memories in Morgant’s head told him it could be. Part of him wanted that while the rest felt nothing but revulsion, a deep sickness that made him want to vomit.

  Rape.

  All of Matthew’s murders came with a reason behind them. Even what would happen next for Moore and her daughter served a purpose. These thoughts had no purpose besides some primal desire Matthew had never known before—a desire stemming from Morgant’s unconscious, still inside this body, if pushed way down. A purpose to please that desire, to satisfy it, which was no purpose at all.

  Takehertakeher, the words whispered again to him.

  No. He wouldn’t. He didn’t have time to think about this, to try and understand why it was happening. Matthew had felt these urges before, but they had been nothing, something he dismissed as a leftover ghost from the body he now owned. Something was happening inside him, something was changing, and he needed to figure out what, and if it could be stopped.

  Not right now, though. Now he had to move Moore and her daughter.

  Matthew walked back into the hallway.

  Marley stood in it, her long hair hanging next to her face. Her body showed no signs of fear, no signs of any emotion at all.

  The two of them stared at each other for a moment, Matthew wondering if she would wake up and realize who stood in front of her, or if she was too far gone for that. It didn’t really matter, though; she would serve her purpose without ever having to think another thought.

  “Hi, Marley. Glad to see you,” Matthew said, and walked down the hall to collect the girl.

  2

  Jake Deschaine looked at the phone he had just hung up. He knew there were things he needed to do, things that he should already be doing right now, even though the call only ended moments before. He needed to make sure he had the correct address. He needed to call a few sergeants, make sure they had their people heading out there. He needed to get in his own car, head to the scene, and probably call forensics on his way. There were things to do, and speed—as always—mattered.

  Jake didn’t move though. He just stared at the phone, listening to the words echo inside his head.

  “The missing persons names are Allison and Marley Moore. Their house is at Fifty-Six Cherry Way. Beat cop went by because Moore’s work said she had no-showed which was out of character. Should have uniforms getting there within the hour.”

  “The names again?”

  “Allison Moore, and her daughter, Marley Moore.”

  “Them? Like, not people with similar names, but them?”

  “As far as I know, yes.”

  Jake didn’t know Allison Moore. Had never met the woman and never seen her daughter. The name, though, was as common to Jake as Stephen King’s would be to a fan of horror fiction. Four years ago the woman had been the most important law enforcement officer in the entire country. Jake had just started patrolling Katy, Texas back then, but he watched her press conferences and read every piece of news that he ran across. She practically disappeared as soon as the case ended, and the country knew why, because that killer, Matthew Brand, took everything from her. Jake heard she ended up moving to Katy, which made sense because of the children’s clinic that the entire city touted as the best in the nation.

  And now, Jake was what? Investigating her disappearance?

  That’s exactly what he was doing.

  He didn’t know the woman, had only seen her on television and online, and not even that in four years—but he still felt a loss. What had Allison Moore been to him? An idol? A goal? He hadn’t been some impressionable sixteen year old when she began her search; he was twenty-four, yet still, she had left her mark. He watched her travel the country, watched her trying things that no one else would have even thought of. Then he watched her lose everything while still stopping that psychotic.

  Except now, Jake was about to drive a car to her house and look into a missing persons report.

  He stood up from his desk, grabbing his cell phone and placing it in his pocket. He’d give his dad a call on the way, if he had time. Jake felt like he’d woken up in some different dimension: a world that he didn’t know and might not care to know. He wasn’t supposed to be the one doing this, looking into the disappearance of someone who should be considered a national hero.

  3r />
  If someone had asked Art Brayden what was wrong, he would have told them, “I’m fucking pissed.”

  No one asked though because no one here in Texas knew who he was or why he was here. He had shown up, more or less, on his own volition without giving warning to anyone. His boss knew—vaguely—and by vaguely it meant his boss thought Art was taking a few vacation days.

  Art hadn’t spoken with Allison Moore in years. If he thought hard about it, perhaps they last spoke six months after the whole shootout (which received just about as much media coverage as anything Art had ever seen). He asked her how Marley was doing, received some honest answers, and that had been it. Allison left the bureau and Art didn’t, but he wasn’t really expecting her to stay around anyway. Her husband was dead and her daughter nearly the same, a body without a mind wasn’t much of a life, so it was clear to everyone that Allison had more pressing things to deal with than catching criminals. So. Three and a half years since he spoke to her? Four years since he’d seen her?

  Last night he got the call that she was missing. It wasn’t anything huge, not anything the news would pick up if law enforcement had any luck. The call came to him because he had been her last boss at the bureau. It came to him because he’d been there with her when they shot holes through a metal warehouse and killed a monster. The FBI kept an eye on her, so when her job reported her missing and the cops showed up to an empty house, the FBI was made aware (even if most people involved didn’t care too much) which filtered its way to Art Brayden.

  Art cared, so when he heard, he took two days off and flew from Washington D.C. to Texas. He wasn’t dropping anything off at a hotel room; he waited for a taxi at the airport, loaded his bag in the trunk, and told the driver Allison’s address.

  There wasn’t any reason for Allison Moore to be missing. Her daughter either. They should be at work and school, but they weren’t. No one knew where they were, and from what the call said last night, a splattering of Allison’s blood was in the house.