I'm running down a deer path in the woods near my parents' home and the light is cutting through the trees in diagonal shafts of translucent honey. Ahead of me is Danny Porter, yodeling as he takes great bounds over the fallen trees intersecting the path. We are moving effortlessly, as if we and the forest are one being. This is the way I always dream it, that I am the master of this small world surrounded by the ever-encroaching housing subdivisions. Soon, too soon, these trees will fall to the bulldozer and this deer path will be cemented over to allow suburban mothers to push the strollers carrying their newborns.
But now it is still trees and moss and super-real sunlight and Danny and I are racing with unnatural speed toward "the Pocket," a swimming hole at the bottom of the railroad trestle in which great big carp lie motionless. It's a short run to the edge of the cliff and Danny is there a twenty seconds ahead of me, slowing to a jog and taking several great bounds along the edge of the cliff as he looks below to where the pool of water is. He raises his right hand aloft and twirls it clockwise before springing off his left leg and into the air. He hangs there for a moment in the buoyant air, drawing his legs up to his chest and clasping his arms around them. His hair stands on end and the world stops as my legs pound the soft earth.
In a moment, he's gone. He slips through the air and below the horizon of the cliff. We've done this a million times before and I slow to a stutter-skip, half-running, half-galloping, as I close the distance to the edge, giving Danny time to clear the middle of the pool. And then I'm out into the middle of the air, my hiking stick tumbling outward end-over-end as I become a cannonball and plunge downward into the middle of "the Pocket."
"Two ball in the corner pocket, no bank," I shout as I plummet, leaving me just enough time to gulp air before crashing through the surface.
You don't think it has anything to do with your life, do you? These dreams and this monster that haunts you, you can't believe they mean anything other than that they are dreams? But you do, and this is all some mess you've created. And you did it. Not Mordechai. Not Claypool. Not Sarah. You drank the alcohol. You had the sex. You compromised your story, your integrity. If you're seeking madness, does a symbiont in your body co-opting your life make it somehow better?
And back through the surface I pop, shaking the water from my hair as I paddle to the side and clamber onto the wet shale. Danny's gone and the sun is setting. It couldn't be this late, there should be hours of sunlight. Odd, but my clothes are dry.
"Come on, we've got to get back, it's getting dark," George says from the side of the creek.
He's standing there talking to Hans. Hans is smoking a pipe and blowing smoke rings. We start hiking the edge of the creek, sticking to the shale that juts out of the cliff like steps.
"Watch out for the drop-bears," George says over his shoulder as we leave "the Pocket."
The drop-bears can be anywhere. They hide in the trees waiting to pounce on your head. You have to be careful. And alert. Hans is just ahead of me, between me and George, and he slips off the shale into the creek with a loud splash.
"Shh, Hans," George hisses.
Hans shrugs and walks back to the edge of the creek. The sun is now gone and the stars are out. It's much too late to be in the woods, and we are all walking fast. At night, the trees can be anything, impenetrable walls or lurking serial killers. They hide everything. We round the corner and George raises his hand for us to stop. Ahead, dancing around a fire, is a coven of witches. They are chanting.
"Shit, we can't go back," George whispers.
"We can't go that way," Hans says, pointing at the coven as they move around the bonfire. "The warlock will have a sword."
George nods and looks at me. "We have to go up."
Up the shale wall fifty feet. In the dark.
"You first," George says to me.
I put my hiking stick down. I'll have to get it tomorrow, when it's light. I've climbed this cliff a hundred times before, though never in the dark, so I'm hoping I'll remember where the handholds are. I begin, and soon I hear George behind me. I'm halfway up when I hear Hans.
"Oh, fuck," he says loudly amid a din of crumbling, crashing shale. A second later there's a large splash accompanied with the tinkling of hundreds of pieces of shale collapsing into the water.
"Climb!" George shouts.
That would be good advice for you to follow. You've dug yourself into a deep hole. If only you had the truth to get yourself out. If only you knew what the truth was. If only you believed it. But you think everyone is lying to you, so you are lying to yourself and everybody else. Small lies, yes, but it really doesn't matter, now. Look where you are. Trapped here with no escape but the truth, and afraid of the truth for what it will do to your life.
It would be easy to see a shrink, wouldn't it? Work all this out. What these dreams are. You could find out what they mean, if anything. You could get your life in order, laugh at your stupidity and beg forgiveness from Sarah. You could apologize to John for screwing up your story, it might not matter, in the long run. It's not too late. You might even be able press charges against Claypool, Kara, and Mordechai, if they were ever even really at your apartment. What a story you could have for the paper if you figured it all out.
And there's the Monster right in front of me. Saliva dripping from its maw as it heaves breaths. The moon is diamond shaped through my tears as I stare at the Monster, wondering whether I can run. My legs won't move and I have no scroll. I can't tell where I am; with every blink the scenery changes: I'm in an alley, or a baseball field, or atop a sand dune.
The Monster grumbles and comes forward, raising its arms and flexing its claws. I can feel them as it grabs my shoulder, ten points of pain digging into my skin through my shirt. If only I could run again, I could escape. Find a new place to live, get more time to stabilize my life. The Monster lifts me high and rumbles a low growl, words, almost
"Nick. What the fuck?" Cap said, the sole of his foot resting on Nick's shoulder. "Wake up."
Nick blinked and looked around: He was lying naked in the hallway outside Cap's bedroom door, curled-up like a sleeping dog.
"I think I'm in trouble."
TWENTY-EIGHT