The Devil's Dream: A Nightmare Read online

  I trust I have it now.

  The plan, what the FBI is refusing to tell you, is that within a month or two, all of you will be dead. There are Aborigines living in Australia who won’t get the chance to see this letter, but they too will be dead. Everything living on this Earth, from the tiniest bacteria, to the largest mammal, all of it will die. You’ve all heard of the atom bomb, doubtlessly remember the devastation it caused in Japan last century. I’ve found a way to create about one hundred billion, trillion of those—and that’s on the conservative side, really. You see, each one of you, each human being on this Earth has countless atoms inside themselves. If we could part one human from the energy inside his or her atoms, we could power cities for years and years. I know how to do it. I’m including, with this note, a copy of the formulas I derived to accomplish it, with a few key parts redacted. No need to give the governments of this oppressive planet any more firepower, as I’m sure you agree. The point here is that I have the knowledge, as well as the capability, to harvest energy from human beings.

  Why would I want to do that? Am I planning on stopping climate change? Ridding the world of fossil fuels? Ah, but then remember the paragraph above where I said I would kill you all?

  I’m going to use the energy I extract from fifty-five humans (to be honest, I picked that number because that’s all I could fit on the contraption I built to hold all of this energy) and fire it at our sun. That life giving orb that we take for granted every single day, the thing that allows the flowers to bloom and your babies to thrive. So what happens when I hit it with one hundred trillion suns of my own? I have two theories, but I lean (and hope) to the second. The first is that all of that energy in one place, at one time, causes the sun to contract massively and in the shortest of time you can imagine, before bursting out in a supernova. That would mean we all die by fire about seven minutes later. I hope that doesn’t happen. I really do. The second option, and what I think is most likely—though these things are never definite in cosmology—is that the sun simply dies. All of the gasses in the ball are burnt up within a day or so, and nothing is left but a hardened rock.

  Then comes the fun part.

  For the next month, you wait it out. You hope that scientists can somehow figure out a way to live without the sun, and believe me, they’ll be working furiously. They won’t succeed, however. The atmosphere will hold in much of the heat that the Earth currently has, but everything else stops. Plants die in a few days. Animals are blinded and die from thirst or starvation. Disease breaks out en masse across humanity as they now lack the vitamin D needed to fight off infection. Within a month, everyone’s dead.

  That’s what I’m bringing to all of you.

  The world didn’t want me to have my son. They thought it terrible that I wanted the cops who shot him, who filled his young body with bullets, to pay with their lives so that he could have his again. I wasn’t asking for a lot. Justice. Maybe for some of you to look the other way while a father went and dealt with the people who had harmed his family. Four years ago, Allison Moore (who is one of the first four in my Death to the Sun plans, followed by her daughter, and the literary giant Jeffrey Dillan/his girlfriend) decided that maybe I shouldn’t have my wife either. She decided that my wife might be a good idea to take from me, and so she did, first mentally, and then physically. This world left me with nothing but my mind. You celebrated my achievements when I was formulating genetic theories that halted aging. You celebrated my accomplishment when I created the first viable treatment for cancer that didn’t cause the destruction of healthy cells in the human body. When I gave to you, you celebrated, but when I asked for you to give back to me, you refused. You took everything I had and left me with nothing.

  So, world, this will be my gift to you. I will take everything. I will take your sons, your daughters, your family, your futures. All of it belongs to me now, and I’m going to cast it all into eternal darkness, where nothing will ever rise again.

  Cheers, friends.

  Matthew Brand, Ph.D.

  “You better have more for me than what you had yesterday. A lot more.”

  Gyle paced behind his desk. His hands were in his pockets, his eyes looking at the floor, his mouth barely opening as he spoke. There wasn’t anger in his voice, just resolution—at what, Art didn’t really know. He had known Gyle for ten years, but never heard this voice before.

  “Well, we have something. I don’t know if it’s what you would term a lot, though.”

  “You've both seen the news over the past eight hours, right? You’ve both seen the immaculate handwriting of Matthew Brand—whom the experts have identified as a one hundred percent match, by the way—plastered all over the television? They’re looking at his formulas right now and all I’ve heard is that it’s mind blowing. I’m not sure what it takes to blow the minds of astrophysicists, but I imagine it’s quite a lot. So, please, Art, or your wonder boy here, tell me what you’ve done in the past day.”

  Art sat down on the chair in front of his desk. Jake remained at the door, hands behind his back. Gyle kept pacing.

  “Jake had probably the best idea out of anyone yesterday, and we’re searching deeper into it right now. I’m not sure if last night’s little soiree will cast doubt on Jake’s theory, but he doesn’t think Matthew is going to play the game the way he played it last time. He doesn’t think Brand is going to try to find people that are attached to families. It’s too dangerous, especially for the amount of people he’s trying to take. Even last night, he barely pulled off the crucifix stunt. By one in the morning, people were reporting these women missing. Male dates were heading to cop stations, talking about some black assailant having taken their girlfriends. Had he hung out another hour, there wouldn’t be anything to discuss this morning except how quickly we could have Brand strapped into the electric chair. So, I think Jake’s right. He can’t go after people this way because of the sheer number, fifty-one now, that he’s trying to grab. He would make a mistake. Someone would see him. He wouldn’t be able to kill every witness. We would pin him down. There’s just too many variables he couldn’t control. Jake pointed all that out and then asked who could he take? Who could be snapped up and no one ever notice? The homeless. We’re already looking at shelters and soup kitchens across Mass and New England, and we’re stretching that out to all of the northern states today as well, looking for abnormal disappearance rates, looking for drops in clientele at homeless shelters, et cetera.” Art folded his hands on his lap and crossed one leg.

  Gyle stopped pacing, but didn’t turn to face anyone.

  “What have you found?” He asked.

  “Nothing,” Jake said from behind Art. “No one has seen anything abnormal.”

  “So he had this great idea, and as of now, it’s panned out to exactly nothing.”

  “It’s only been a little over twenty-four hours, Gyle.”

  “I have another meeting with the President today. World leaders are calling. The President of Russia has been on the phone with our President for an hour, trying to figure out if this is a hoax. We need more from you, Art, and if you’re staying, Deschaine, we need more from you as well.”

  Art nodded while Jake only looked on.

  “The pressure has picked up. Yesterday, we could go about this the way we wanted because we had time. Today, there’s no time. Today, we should have had Brand captured yesterday. Today, I need more. So tell me, now, what’s the plan for today, for tomorrow, for this week. What overarching plan do you have to stop the destruction of the world?”

  Art looked out the window behind Gyle. He had never wanted to sit in this office. He had never wanted to be a phone call away from the President’s voice. Gyle had. Gyle wanted to push himself so high and so far that he might one day sit in the White House himself. One wanted it and one didn’t. One had it and one did not. Yet, here were both of them in the exact same situation—Art almost able to feel the President’s breath on his own neck.

  “Are you worried ab
out the President, Gyle? Be honest with me. Is that what this is?”

  Gyle’s head snapped up as quickly as a dog’s mouth clamps down on food. Art knew Gyle rose this high because he could play politics, and that meant he wouldn’t let someone slander his character. Hard work and hard networking all came into play this high up and here was a direct report questioning his character.

  “You want to ask me that question again, Art?”

  “I mean, what are you really worried about? Do you think Brand’s going to be able to do what he says he will? Is that what is scaring you? Or is it the fact that we might look like fools again?” It hadn’t been easy on Gyle four years ago. He had been in Art’s current position, and the field operations looked like bumbling idiots as Brand pranced around the country increasing his body count. Somehow Gyle had survived the purge, even moving up.

  “Step outside for a second, please, Deschaine.” Gyle didn’t look away from Art as he spoke.

  The door closed leaving the two of them alone.

  “If you ask me something like that in front of a subordinate again, you’re fired. Do you understand that?” Gyle asked.

  Art nodded. “I do. I’m sorry.”

  “No. I don’t think this guy can blot out the sun. I don’t care what those scientists think; it’s a farce. He’s insane. He’s always been insane. Maybe twenty-five years ago he was some kind of genius making massive changes in the world, but that’s all in the past. Twenty-five years before that people were using rotary phones and no women worked outside of the home. Twenty-five years is a long time, Art, and whatever this guy used to have is gone. It’s been replaced by some freak of nature, rapist monster walking around acting like he’s still the same man from all those years ago. He’s not. He’s nothing like that man. I don’t know if these scientists are having their collective minds blown like they’re being visited by a Vegas prostitute because they think he’s the same man, or what, but no. Categorically no, I do not think he can do what he’s claiming. And that leads me to yes, it is the President that is bothering me. It’s the international pressure that’s now being put on this whole event which is causing me to lose it. I don’t want to look like we did four years ago. I won’t look like we did four years ago. If you’re going to turn into another Allison Moore, then I’ll go ahead and take your resignation now. If you think you can handle what I’m asking, then I want a strategic report on my desk by midnight tonight.”

  Joe Welch held the letter in his hand. He had printed it off a hotel computer earlier this morning.

  Joe traced his fingers over the lettering. The man’s handwriting truly was beautiful, awesomely so. Joe even liked the way Brand constructed prose. Every word both flippant and of all importance. He had read it a hundred times, at least, and thought that he might read it a hundred more before the evening was over. He printed the thing off around nine in the morning, had a single egg for breakfast, and then came back up to his bedroom to sleep. It was the first time in forty-eight hours he had closed his eyes outside of blinking. Joe was no longer in Boston, but had followed the crucifixes out to the small New England town of Licent. He found a bed and breakfast, swiped his credit card, and then went directly to the site where the crucifixes were found.

  Just a day after ten dead girls were posted on crosses, it all was cleaned up. The only things left in the field were the holes left from the wood. Joe was close to Brand but needed to be closer. He didn’t know how to get there yet.

  It didn’t trouble him though, that he didn’t know exactly what he was going to do. This wasn’t an if thing for Joe, it was a when.

  A year after Patricia’s death, his mindset changed from if to when. He decided the direction the rest of his life would take and forsook everything outside of that direction.

  He had lived with his brother for a year, the year after Patricia’s death, the year after his son, Jason, turned into a science experiment with holes poked into his body. Joe hadn’t started using cocaine yet, instead he lived in his brother’s basement—his life nothing but darkness and television reruns. His brother’s wife might have had some problems with him being there, but either she kept her mouth closed or Larry kept her misgivings from Joe. She couldn’t understand, and really, neither could Larry. Larry wasn’t exactly a brother, not if the DNA and bloodline were to be consulted; he was a distant cousin that had come to live with Joe and his mother a couple years after Brand killed Joe’s father. Maybe Brand knew about him, maybe he didn’t, but he had left Larry alone, so neither he nor his wife could know the terror that Joe had lived with much of his life or the sorrow he lived with now. That first year had been dark. Comparatively, the cocaine and rushing around the country for evidence was a tiny piece of heaven.

  Joe watched a lot of television, if watching meant lying in bed while images streamed over his eyes. The screen was small, little bigger than a computer monitor, and he watched sitcoms. Every one that seemingly existed, both in and out of production. He knew every character’s name; he knew their back stories; he had predictions on where the show would take them. It became, or rather the people in the shows became, his family. The brother and sister-in-law that lived upstairs were roommates. People he saw from time to time if he decided to join them for dinner, which was a rare, rare thing.

  Dinner, during that first year, had been awkward at best.

  Joe didn’t know what to say to these people. He didn’t know what they wanted to talk about and he knew he didn’t have a single topic worthy of discussion. If they wanted to talk sitcoms, he might be able to add some value, but other than that, what did he have? He could talk about feelings. They tried that the first few times, Larry asking how Joe felt.

  Joe told him, and the dinner ended with Joe’s plate on the floor, tears streaming down his and Larry’s wife’s face with the vast majority of the meal going uneaten. So they quit talking about feelings when Joe came to dinner and tried to move onto other things. Eventually, Larry and Sara-Beth spoke as Joe ate in silence. Which was fine with him. The awkwardness abated some, and he needn’t wait until they were finished eating before he cleared his plate and headed back down to the basement.

  He couldn’t sleep back then, which turned out to be ironic, because that’s all he wanted to do now. Besides find Brand. That took precedence, of course.

  The first year, he tried to sleep, but he only saw Patricia when he closed his eyes. He saw her in front of him again. Her eyes wide, sweat blossoming across her forehead and upper lip. Pain lit through her eyes, pain and fear. Then the knife came down. Joe knew it would come, knew it each time he dreamed of her, that the knife was going to drop and she couldn’t escape it even if he begged the knife to stop. The knife came down, began separating flesh directly under Patricia’s left ear, and had it been only that one poke, maybe everything would have ended fine. Instead, the knife pulled across her throat, opening it as if it was a Ziploc bag. Blood poured out like it had simply been waiting for someone to give it the go-ahead, like it actually wanted out of his wife’s body. The blood was a traitor.

  That’s what he saw every time he tried to sleep and so he finally stopped trying. Even if he did fall asleep, he woke up soon after, as soon as that blood started to drop. It occurred to him at this point that he may need to develop a drug habit. He didn’t get his brother’s permission, didn’t mention it to them despite living in their house. He paid his rent and he didn’t cause trouble. During that first year he sold his landscaping business for a nice sum, given that he had contracts locked up on multiple business parks for the next four years. He didn’t spend money, besides his rent and his portion of the utilities, so he could afford to develop the habit, and he needed one because he needed to not see his wife dying nightly.

  The question was, what habit to develop? He tried drinking, which put him to sleep, but did nothing to squelch the dreams. They still came, only now he couldn’t wake up because of the drunken stupor he created inside himself. So alcohol was out. The next two logical choices were
heroin or cocaine. He tried cocaine first because needles just seemed a bit too far, which was kind of funny when he thought about it: searching for an addiction, but would rather avoid needles if possible--it sounded like some kind of Craigslist ad. He would have gone to heroin, without a doubt, had the cocaine not done the job. Maybe had he tried heroin first, he wouldn’t be sitting in this small town, searching for a man who looked completely different than the one that killed his wife. Maybe he would have overdosed in Larry’s basement, and maybe that would have been for the best.

  Alas, it turned out he liked cocaine.

  Dopamine and serotonin filled his brain in a way he didn’t know possible. The sadness of his loss was immediately replaced by the happiness of the time he had been able to spend with both his wife and son. Even watching her sit tied up while her throat was slit paled some, unable to reach the full crescendo of pain that he felt when sober. There wasn’t anything else he could do to match the feeling and he realized he had found his habit. He didn’t want to go back to the darkness of the room, go back to the constant and pervasive thoughts of his lost family.

  So Joe picked up an addiction, and decided to figure out what he would do with the rest of his life.

  Looking at the letter, fresh up from his nap and no cocaine ingested yet, Joe wondered if Brand knew he was coming for him. Probably not, and if he did, he wouldn’t care. Brand thought himself invincible. The letter showed that, if nothing else. The man thought the world was created for him, and because it didn’t give him exactly what he wanted, it had somehow betrayed him. So he would punish the world, and in his mind, what could one man do against him? Nothing. Joe hoped Brand was thinking like that; it would leave him vulnerable. It left him only looking for the big things, not the small ones, and he would make mistakes then. Small ones, but mistakes.

  Joe understood that the FBI was hunting Brand too, but Joe and the FBI had very different ideas of what should happen once someone found him. Joe made his decision, the decision of what he would do if he found Brand, early on. The FBI had failed to truly avenge his father’s death, his wife’s death, his son’s death. Each time they tried, somehow, improbably, impossibly even, Brand came out on top. Joe decided that he wouldn’t allow that to happen again. That if the FBI was incapable or unwilling to kill Matthew Brand, as they seemed to be, then he would do the job himself. He would kill Brand and there needn’t be any law enforcement involvement for that to happen—indeed, Joe preferred they stay out of his way.