The Devil's Dream: A Nightmare Read online

  It could be a copycat.

  That’s what Art kept saying to himself. Allison was missing but that didn’t mean he was back.

  This isn’t some Harry Potter novel. You can say his name.

  Art didn’t want to though. He never wanted to say that name again, never wanted to even think it. Not out of fear, but out of the headaches that came with it. The man that shouldn’t be alive, that wasn’t alive—Art never wanted to chase him again. Chasing that man was like chasing a ghost, something that didn’t exist except in your imagination. He didn’t want to chase a ghost. He didn’t want to go through it again. Art didn’t fear him because Art only feared his creator, the Almighty God, and knew that one day God would lay this man as low as possible. God would take care of him in His own time and all the fear and hate that Brand had caused in the world would be put back on him. He knew that in the end everything would be taken care of without Art’s help, but Art still didn’t want to deal with the part that might need his help. The part of capturing the man.

  Just say it.

  Of capturing Matthew Brand.

  It didn’t matter, he wasn’t alive. Dillan was dead, or at least gone, but that didn’t mean Brand took him. It didn’t mean that some superhuman, science-fiction creation had gobbled him up. It meant that the guy had done a lot of dirty deeds and someone finally offed him. Maybe they kidnapped him and took his money. Maybe Dillan fled on his own. None of it meant that Brand showed up and killed him; none of it meant he had done the same with Allison.

  It could be a copycat.

  Jesus, for fuck’s sake, let it be a copycat.

  There wasn’t any other reason for Moore to be missing; Art kept finding himself at that inescapable truth. His mind traveled over and over the possible paths, and in the end, he came to that single answer. No one hated Allison Moore. No one really even knew she existed any longer. She had disappeared from the public eye quickly and was forgotten, which was what she wanted—a life of trying to fix her daughter. Except now she wasn’t here anymore nor the daughter she dedicated herself to, and why? Brand, or a copycat, took her. No one else is stealing a woman with a handicapped child.

  Art boarded a plane heading to Texas at five in the morning for two reasons. He felt somewhat responsible for this. Not completely; he wouldn’t put that on himself, just as he hadn’t put the responsibility for the last Brand disaster completely on Allison. The Lord said each man would account for his own sins, and so if Brand had shown up in Texas and taken away this woman, then Brand would pay for that one day. Art’s responsibility lay with his forceful denial of Brand being alive. Three years ago, when that damned scientist started calling everyone he could about The Wall, saying Brand had escaped through someone else, Art called it preposterous. Ridiculous. Laughable. When Dillan turned up missing, Art discarded it as a coincidence at best and a publicity stunt by the writer at worst. Art had used a lot of clout to keep the bureau from looking. Allison told him once that he should do that anyway, that he should let Brand do as he pleased, get his son back, and then disappear from the world. Art didn’t do it, obviously, because he followed the goddamn bastard to Florida and got a whole bunch of people killed in the process. So maybe that was part of the reason he pushed against anyone believing Brand still existed. The other part, though, was that Art didn’t believe it. He understood that Brand had escaped from The Wall himself, that was possible, but that Brand had hidden himself inside the machine? Had then somehow implanted himself into one of the other criminals and broke out again? Insanity like that didn’t exist. The other prisoner escaped the same way Brand had, because the whole idea of The Wall was idiotic and didn’t possess the necessary technology to hold its prisoners in.

  That’s what he preached and that’s what the world came to believe, at least the part of the world Art concerned himself with.

  Allison was missing though, four years later, and no one had been watching out for her. The FBI only heard about it because her name tripped off alarms in their system. No cops sat outside her house. No one checked in periodically. Why would they? Brand was dead and no one besides him would hate this woman.

  Only, Allison was missing.

  It’s a copycat. It’s someone that wants to start scaring the entire country again, and the best way to do it was to grab her.

  Art told himself that for the entire hour ride from the airport to Allison Moore’s house.

  Eighteen hours after the first cop showed up, the premises were still abuzz. Twenty police officers moved around the house, a few stood out on the driveway talking, and yellow police tape was strung up around the yard and driveway entrance. Art had a general idea of what all these people were doing, but it had been decades since he had to do any of it himself. He knew they were trying to figure out what happened, but didn’t really understand the ‘hows’ behind it. He didn’t need to anymore.

  He got out of the taxi then draped his FBI ID around his neck. He rarely wore the necklace ID, but he simply didn’t want to have to explain himself to everyone that asked. They might instead ask what the FBI cared about this, but maybe not. Either way, the FBI didn’t care, not yet, and so he wasn’t going to do much answering.

  “Keep the meter running. I’m going to want to leave here in a bit, okay?”

  The cab driver nodded, not saying anything, but gazed lazily out at the crime scene in front of him.

  Art stepped over the tape and walked up the driveway. Local cops looked but didn’t say anything. Art wasn’t carrying a notepad, a gun, nothing. He was here to view the scene and hopefully leave with at least a semblance of surety that this had nothing to do with Brand.

  He walked through the front door and stood in the foyer. The living room was to his right, the kitchen straight ahead, and a hallway towards his left.

  “How did the intruder get in?” Art asked two cops standing in the living room.

  They turned to him. “Excuse me?” One said.

  Art lifted up his necklace, dangling it from a finger. “How did the intruder get in?”

  The cop who had spoken nodded. “No signs of forced entry. No broken windows or door frames. The only damage to the house happened in the bedroom, where it looks like the perp bashed the victim’s head against the closet door frame. We’re really not sure how the perp gained entry yet, unless the victim let him or her in.”

  Art let his eyes drop to the living room floor. “Was she in here when things started?”

  “We think so. Some of the furniture has been slightly moved which probably happened when she started running to get to the gun in the bedroom. She kept it locked in a box at the back of her closet.”

  A former FBI agent who kept her gun locked up and hidden in a closet. A former FBI agent who had once been hunted by the goddamn devil deciding she no longer needed a weapon around her and her daughter. So stupid. Art wanted to shake her right now, just grab her by her shoulders and shake her until her teeth clapped against each other inside her head. Had she kept the gun within eyesight, she probably would still be here. She and her daughter.

  “Thanks,” Art said and walked into the kitchen. He looked at the small table with two chairs underneath it. A box of cereal stood next to a bowl. Art walked over and looked inside; it was mostly empty besides a thin layer of colored milk at the bottom. The food-dye from the cereal had leaked into the milk, giving it a slightly green color. Nothing had been touched in the house yet. Soon Allison’s family would begin arriving and they would take things out and the box of half-full cereal would find itself thrown into a garbage can. For now, nothing was disturbed because the police had no bodies, no perpetrators, no breaking and entering. They had a missing person and were hoping something in this house would give them a clue as to what happened yesterday morning.

  Art turned from the kitchen and started walking down the hallway. Someone passed on his left but didn’t look at him or give any salutation. Art had been told what was in the bedroom, but he wanted to see it for himself. Just because there
was a message didn’t mean it was Brand. It didn’t mean anything besides someone had written something. Grandiose actions were copycat killer trademarks

  They’re also Brand’s trademarks.

  He walked into the bedroom and his eyes were drawn to a detective squatting down over a bloodstain. Art moved over to it, standing a few feet back from the cop, but still able to see the scarlet red on the white carpet. Not a lot of blood, just enough to be noticeable.

  The detective looked up. “Heard you might be stopping by. My name is Jake Deschaine.” The man extended his hand and Art left it there for a second.

  “Heard I’d be stopping by?”

  “Yes, sir. Kind of a rumor that’s been going around, saying someone from the FBI might take an interest and you were the most likely candidate.” Jake’s hand still hung in the air.

  Art shook it, then looked back down at the stain on the carpet, saying nothing else.

  “There’s blood here and then you’ll find some in the closet smeared on the inside of the frame. She was trying to grab the gun from up above, but it’s lying on the floor now, in its case, unopened. She got pretty close to it, apparently.”

  “Someone up front said you don’t know how the perp got in?” Art asked as he walked to the closet.

  “Nothing official, but I’m pretty sure he came through a window in here.” Jake pointed next to the bed. “The left window isn’t locked but the right one is, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. Of course, the victim could have slept on one side or the other and opened one window or the other, but why she would do that during a Texas summer is beyond me. The rest of the windows in the house are locked too.”

  Art found the window and looked at the latch. “So, then, how did this one become unlocked?”

  “At some point, the perp had to have access to the house. That’s the only thing that makes sense if the theory holds. He came in, unlocked the window, and left again.”

  “Why not just take her then or come in the same way the next time?”

  “Because this window is facing the backyard would be my biggest guess. The front door was locked when we arrived, and the only other door to the house actually exits on the side that faces a neighbor, with a stone pathway that leads to the backyard. That door was locked, too. So it would be hard for the perp to come in the front door and drag people out that way. Someone would have seen. He arrived when no one was home, unlocked the window, and then left. He came back later, I don’t know how much later, when people were home and came through the window, then took everyone out the window as well.”

  Art nodded. He wasn’t sure if any of what the kid said was true, but it made some logical sense. Art walked back to the closet, having gone to the window before getting a chance to look inside it.

  “The blood is smeared in a consistent pattern with someone getting their head whacked on the wall a few times. You can see where the original blood splatter happened here, and then as the perp continued to hit her, how it smeared as her face continually touched the wood.”

  Art looked over to the gun case on the floor. Two feet and a combination password away from safety. That’s how close Allison had been to staying alive. Or maybe she was still alive, just in serious pain. That was Brand’s modus operandi, wasn’t it? He hadn’t been able to kill any of the people previously because he needed them alive to create his ghastly experiments. Except, in his mind, there weren’t any experiments happening. To Brand, the theory was reality, all he had to do was walk through the steps.

  That would be the worst, if she was in some kind of suspended state, not dead, not alive, perhaps knowing the same fate awaited her daughter.

  “And then on the wall above the bed...”

  Art stopped listening to the detective. He hadn’t wanted to look there yet. He had purposefully avoided looking above the headboard, because he didn’t want to see the message. He didn’t want to face the possible implications, and maybe he had tried to hide that from himself earlier, but he couldn’t now. Art needed prayer and while he might hide things from himself, he couldn’t hide anything from God.

  Give me the strength, Father. God didn’t always listen, especially to Art, and he understood that. Put simply, God had a lot to do, and worrying about Art—with his foul mouth and temper—well that couldn’t always be at the top of His list. Maybe now though, this one time, God could alter His plans just a bit and listen. Because this shit might get difficult.

  Art looked up at the bed and saw the maroon streaks which looked almost like a child’s finger painting—besides the message.

  The question read: How about we stop with the nonsense and end all this?

  “There’s nothing here. I mean nothing. This detective feels pretty sure whoever broke in came through the bedroom window, but other than that—nothing. No DNA. No forced entry. Just Moore’s blood dabbled in a few places,” Art said into his cellphone.

  “And the scribbling on the wall?”

  Art sighed. “Well, by nothing, I meant nothing besides that. That is, unfortunately, a pretty fucking big something. They managed to get some partial prints and it checks out as a ninety-eight percent match with Arthur Morgant.”

  “How do you feel about having the same name as someone who is going to be famous for horrible crimes?”

  Art didn’t smile. “Man. Fuck. What do we do?”

  “Elegant as always, Art,” Gyle James said. “How are the media stations down there playing it?”

  “There’ve been a few stories, nothing major. They mainly just mention that Moore was involved in the Brand case a couple years back.”

  A few seconds of silence came over the phone before Gyle said, “Arthur Morgant, that’s the escapee right? The one you told us couldn’t possibly be Brand. That one we didn’t need to worry about?”

  “That would be him.”

  “Just as long as you know I went to bat for you back then. So don’t say anything stupid this time because I can’t go to bat twice in this game.”

  “I know,” Art said.

  “There’s nothing else down there? No other signs of what might have happened? Why she was taken? What the message means? Where Morgant is? Nothing?”

  “No. She’s gone. Her daughter’s gone. The house is empty and no one is hanging out that shouldn’t be. Family comes in tomorrow to begin gathering things. The police are questioning neighbors, but there isn’t a lot to use right now.”

  “Who’s in charge?”

  “The detective I told you about. Jake something or other.”

  “Okay, stay with him for the next few days. I’m going to get some analysts on this and see what we can find out if we start looking cross country.”

  “Yes, sir,” Art said.

  “I’ll give you a call tonight.”

  Art waited hours on the call before falling asleep, phone next to him and silent.

  4

  The moonlight always fell down out here as if the heavens were trying to speak with Matthew. He had reveled in the beauty of science’s creations, marveled at the genius of an electron collider or a telescope. But here, in this place, the moon struck him just as powerfully; he saw it as gorgeous. It turned everything into a black and white hue and cast shadows all the way from the smallest blade of grass to the lighthouse he had come to visit.

  He could only visit at night, so he was never able to see the place during daylight, but it was still something to behold now, for sure.

  Matthew walked from his van across the graveled driveway and to the bottom of the lighthouse. The structure stood so tall, and yet the door he entered through was barely big enough to allow him in. He found the key in his pocket and twisted open the lock. Stepping inside, he left the beauty of nature for the beauty of his mind.

  He hit a light switch and the building illuminated, cascading upwards in a series of rings.

  He had two new additions, but he wanted to get a look before he started working. That’s what this came down to: work. What stood before him was work. What
came next was work. His whole life, except for maybe the early years where he half listened to his professors and stayed inside his own head, had been work. There was a lot left to do, a lot, but soon all his work would end. He could finally rest and place down the yoke he had thrown on his shoulders all those years ago. He wanted a second just to admire this though, just a moment. It would grow much greater, without any doubt, but even now, he thought it rivaled everything produced by any other mind, ever. Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci—none of them could look on what stood before Matthew and say they could have done better.

  It took Matthew two years to figure out that God had a sense of humor. Two years of struggling with the design, of not being able to create what his mind said was possible. Staring at a notepad, scribbling down formulas, sitting in a shitty Texas apartment with the heat having no end, he finally understood the reason he wasn’t able to extract the power he wanted: he was positioning the bodies wrong. The feet needed to be placed over one another. The arms outstretched. The bodies needed to resemble a dying Christ. From that realization, the whole structure before him was born, and he began building.

  He had removed the steps that once wound their way upward along the edge of the lighthouse’s wall. Matthew hollowed out the building and then replaced it with his own ideas. A large pole stood implanted into the ground, shooting all the way to the top of the lighthouse, to where a light once burned for ships. Surrounding this pole, supported by beams sticking outward from it, were large, circular rings. The largest was at the bottom, and every ten feet, another (and smaller) ring was added. Until at the very top, the smallest ring had been placed, and Matthew thought he might be able to attach two people on it. If he was wrong though, and off one person, everything would still work. To be honest, his plans were a bit overkill. Better safe than sorry and all that, plus, Matthew was never short on dramatics.