For your reading pleasure, we are posting the first chapter of Steve Metcalf's recent release "Lot 23." It is the sequel to last year's "The Merchant of Time" and features young Charlie Attenborough attempting to mitigate the nightmares he has suffered since facing off against The Crow. Unfortunately, he is too adept at it, learning how to recognize when it's "just a dream" and, ultimately, gaining the ability to exert his own control over the nightmare.
Things, of course, take a dramatic turn for the worse when Charlie starts escaping his own dreams and infiltrating the dreams of other people! You can purchase the entire book at Amazon in either paperback or ebook format. https://www.amazon.com/Lot-23-Tale-Secret-City/dp/B0CTYPPWFK
Lot 23
Steve Metcalf
Prologue: Dream a Dream of Dreams
“I dream my painting and I paint my dream.” – Vincent van Gogh
The dream had a way of chasing Charlie. While he was asleep, awake, in school or taking a shower. He could feel it right behind him, threatening to grab him and pull him into the darkness. Sometimes he would close his eyes and count to ten. Sometimes he would clench his fists and tell himself that dreams weren’t real. Sometimes he would turn quickly to see that there was nothing behind him. Sometimes he would turn slowly.
Young Charlie Attenborough was no stranger to adventure. Two years ago, he had been charged with rescuing his entire kidnapped family from The Crow. That, however, is another tale for another day. Now, Charlie must deal with a disaster of his own creation.
Someone would like a word with Charlie. And that word, likely, is punishment. You can’t have such a disastrous effect on the world of dreams and not expect some sort of aggressive retribution. Charlie is not only being chased by a dream, he is being chased by The Lord of Dreams. King Morpheus. The Sand Man. Boss Fenix. And he’s angry.
But this tale does not begin with a chase. It begins with the heady exhilaration of accomplishment. The joy of adventure. And the shock of realization. Let us join the Family Attenborough for yet another quest through an unfamiliar world.
But, first, we must wake up. And before we wake up, we must dream.
Chapter 1: The Abandoned Robot Factory
“Dreams, if they’re any good, are always a little bit crazy.” – Ray Charles
If there could be an evil building, this was it. It was an imposing structure with a faded paint job on the wall facing the hard-scrabble lot. “Paradox Iron” was painted in light gray, eight foot tall letters high up on the wall. Charlie stood in the parking lot looking up at the sign, mouth agape.
“It’s hidden in there?” Charlie asked.
Standing next to him was the nodding figure of Charlie’s friend and schoolmate Alison Nguyen. Like a mirror image of her friend, her eyes never left the façade of the building.
“Yep,” Alison said. “That’s what she said.”
They had finished their freshman year in high school two weeks earlier, and were taking advantage of the cool June evening by riding their bikes to the outskirts of town. Now, five miles from home, the sun was setting on the abandoned robot factory of Paradox Iron.
“You’re sure that it’s not out here in the parking lot?” Charlie asked. “Maybe in the guard shack?”
Alison slowly shook her head from side to side.
“Sorry, buddy,” Alison said. She raised a shaky finger and pointed at the front door. “It’s inside.”
Charlie nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go get it before the sun is completely down.”
**
Had it been one o’clock in the afternoon, the creak of the enormous steel door would have been humorous. Now, however, at 9:15 at night, and a slowly descending summer sun, the big, scary doors were no laughing matter.
The deeper they walked into the factory, the spookier it became. There were large windows that covered the top third of the wall. What little light was left from the setting sun was filtered by the dirty glass. A small amount of fresh air was rattling broken glass as it blew into Paradox Iron.
The concrete floor was littered with broken wood, rocks, fallen steel beams and disused tools. Alison and Charlie were walking down the main aisle of the factory floor. They were flanked by rusty machines and broken conveyor belts.
“I can’t imagine that this thing ever built robots,” Alison said, quiet, almost whispering.
Charlie nodded.
“Yeah,” he said. “They started off with simple things like toasters and robotic vacuum cleaners. Eventually, they made it to bomb disposal robots for the Army and security bots for the police.”
“Why did they go out of business?” Alison asked.
Charlie was silent for a moment. There were mostly stories, not a lot of facts.
“Not sure,” Charlie said. “It was, like, 20 years ago. Rumor was that a bunch of security bots went on a rampage. Took over the factory.”
The fluorescent lights started to come on, awoken by some ancient motion-sensing technology. The majority of the lights were broken and they stayed dark. Random batches came on across the factory floor. The final group simply flickered, adding to the spooky ambiance of the abandoned robot factory.
“Nice,” Charlie said and shook his head. “What exactly are we looking for here?”
They were now in the center of the enormous industrial space. Ahead of them was a metal staircase leading up to the offices on the second floor. The one office they could see had a wall of windows, probably so that the managers could keep an eye on the entire operation with the benefit of perspective.
“It’s a black metal box,” Alison said. “We’re not supposed to look inside. Just find the box and bring it back to her.” Alison paused for a few moments as they continued to walk up the center aisle. “She said that our debt will be erased.”
Charlie nodded. There was no more explanation necessary.
Walking slowly, they had been pretty quiet. Charlie, however, kicked a stone that knocked over an old toolbox that fell into a huge pane of glass and shattered it. The sound was deafening as it echoed off the stark walls of Paradox Iron. Behind them, the main doors slammed shut and an alarm started going off throughout the building.
“Oh no,” Alison said. “We have to run. Head for the stairs.”
Alison took off and Charlie started to follow her.
Suddenly, gravity started doing strange things to Charlie’s body. His whole body bent forward. Everything seemed to click over into slow motion. He was trying to run, but his feet could get no purchase on the slick concrete floor. It was like trying to run underwater. He was leaning so far forward that he was grabbing at the floor with his hands. By using his hands and his feet, Charlie was starting to get some momentum going. Ever so slowly.
As he started moving, Charlie looked up in horror at Alison. She had reached the base of the metal staircase and stopped to yell back to Charlie.
“Hurry, Charlie,” she said.
While her attention was turned, a section of the wall behind her rolled up and gigantic robot arms reached out, grabbed her and pulled her back into the small room. The door closed on her screams. The whole incident had only taken five seconds.
Charlie, finally, was able to get to the stairs. He pounded on the door, but there was no reaction. He heard the sound of metal grinding across metal and turned to see what was going on. The alarm continued to blare. Flanking the huge entrance door were two smaller doors, 12-feet square. The doors opened and two sentry-bots began rolling out of their rooms on metal treads. They were clamping and unclamping giant metal claws.
“Crap,” Charlie shouted and started running up the metal stairs at the back of the factory. He got to the top of the stairs as the two sentry-bots reached the center of the factory floor.
Charlie slammed his shoulder into the door, and – with a great crack – he wound up on the office floor because the door had totally given away under his weight. He stood up to peer out the window down to the floor. The two bots had halted their pursuit, their metal faces and pulsing red eyes had turned upward. Looking at Charlie.
“That can’t be good,” Charlie said.
He looked around the room for either a weapon or an escape. Preferably, an escape. In the distance, he could hear a great motor begin to start up. He also thought he could hear Alison screaming in the darkness.
As he whipped his attention around the room, a black metal box caught his eye. It was resting beneath a messy desk . . . nearly hidden by cobwebs. Charlie crawled over and grabbed the box off the floor. It was shockingly heavy for its size. The box really was a cube, maybe one foot on each side. There was a handle built into the top of the box and a small latch holding the lid in place.
Charlie sat the box down onto the desk. He peered out the window again. The two big robots were gone, but their doors were still open. If they hadn’t gone “home,” then, where were they? Charlie turned his attention back to the box.
“I’m not supposed to open you,” he said to the black box. “But I’m gonna.”
Charlie peered at the box for a moment and flipped the latch on the front. There was no real reaction. The box just sat there. Charlie gave a nervous laugh.
“I’m not sure what I was expecting you to do,” Charlie said.
He grasped the two sides of the lid – one hand on each side – and slowly lifted.
The box was full of inky black darkness. Pure black. Vantablack. Charlie had to lean forward to peer inside. All of a sudden, he saw two red lights inside the box. Slowly rising out of the inky depths, a robot face. The head seemed to lift up out of the box on its own power.
Charlie screamed and fell backward away from the desk.
“No,” he yelled.
“Hello, Charlie,” Robot Alison said.
**
And then the lights came on in his world.
“Charlie, Charlie, are you okay?”
“Son, wake up.”
Charlie was sitting bolt upright in his bed. He was clutching huge handfuls of his blanket in each fist.
As he slowly got his bearings about him, his mom and dad, Julie and Wes, sat down on either side of the bed and tried to comfort him.
“Charlie,” his mom said. “Are you with us? You’re safe, sweetie.”
His dad had put a hand on Charlie’s upper back.
“You okay, son?” Wes asked.
Charlie was taking great breaths but they were slowing down. He looked at his dad and nodded.
“The robot factory again?” his dad asked.
Charlie continued nodding.
“Yep,” Charlie said. “Alison’s head was in the box this time.”
His mom shook her head.
“A robotic Alison?” Julie asked. “Wow. No wonder you were screaming.”
Charlie chuckled a bit at that.
“I’m so sorry to wake you guys up,” Charlie said.
“It’s okay, son,” Wes said. “We all have nightmares. Why don’t you try to get some sleep and we’ll talk in the morning.”
“Okay,” Charlie said.
His mom leaned in and kissed him on the forehead.
“Poor Charlie,” she said. “Close your eyes, honey. You’re safe with us.”
Charlie laid back in his bed. He could feel the sweat from his forehead that had soaked his pillow. He reached back and flipped it to the opposite side. He yawned largely and closed his eyes.
**
The next morning, Wes and Julie sat in the living room. It was a lazy Saturday morning and they were discussing their son. Charlie was still asleep on the other side of the house, as was their twelve-year-old daughter, Max. Their bedrooms were on opposite ends of the house separated by the living room, kitchen and dining room.
“At least he was able to get back to sleep this time,” Julie said. She took a sip from her coffee mug. She was sitting in the leather loveseat, legs curled beneath her. Her husband, Wes, sat on the end of the couch closest to her. He, too, was sipping from a coffee cup. The news played, muted, on the television.
Wes nodded.
“Yeah,” he said. “What was it, last month? We found him sitting in the dining room reading at three a.m. Scared to go back into his bedroom?”
Julie nodded and put her mug down.
“Right,” she said. “That time was the pirate ship.” She shook his head. “Poor thing. It’s been a couple years since the whole The Crow debacle. Do you think he’ll ever grow out of it?”
“I don’t know,” Wes said. “That’s what worries me. Are we bad parents for waiting so long?”
“No,” Julie said shaking her head. “I ask myself that every time he wakes up screaming. The frequency has gotten less and less.” She pulled a folded piece of paper out from under the lamp on the end table . . . her special hiding place. She handed it to Wes who unfolded it and read through the dates and notes.
“You’re right,” he said. “Looks like he has a nightmare once every six or eight weeks now.”
He handed her the paper back.
“I read an article online about “lucid dreaming,” Julie said. “Do you know about this?”
We nodded and took the final swig of his coffee.
“Sure,” he said, putting the mug down on the end table that sat in the corner made by the loveseat and the couch. “It’s something about recognizing that you are in a dream so you can control it.”
Julie nodded.
“Yep,” she said. “I tried to teach some of the techniques to Charlie when the nightmares seemed like they would never stop. I think I’ll turn him loose on the topic and let him do his own research. Maybe it’ll take.”
“Okay,” Wes said. “Sounds like a plan.”
**
Less than an hour later, the two kids were sitting around at the breakfast bar in the kitchen. Wes had retired to his home office to try to get some work done on his latest book. Julie was loading the dish washer. Max and Charlie sat on their stools, sleepily eating toast and scrambled eggs.
Charlie yawned expansively and drove his scrambled eggs around the plate with his final toast point.
“So, lucid dreaming, huh?” Charlie asked, yawning again.
Julie finished loading the dishwasher and closed the door. She turned to face her son, leaning back against the kitchen counter. Max, for her part, kept reading a Captain America comic book and continued to devour her breakfast without looking at the plate.
“Yeah,” Julie said. “It refers to the ability to control your dreams. Kind of.”
“Kind of?” Charlie asked. “Not real encouraging, mom.”
“Really,” she continued. “It’s more the notion of just realizing you are dreaming. The actual control is kind of iffy.”
“Realizing you’re in a dream could be cool,” Max offered. “You could give yourself super powers.”
Charlie nodded.
“Yeah,” he said. “Or at least, you could recognize that the scary stuff wasn’t really happening.”
“That’s the idea, kiddo,” Julie said. “Maybe you could hop on the YouTube and get some ideas for techniques or do some research about . . .”
“Hold on, hold on,” Charlie said. “I didn’t hear anything you said after the YouTube.”
“What’s the matter?” Julie said.
Charlie was looking at his mother, shaking his head. Max had actually looked up from her comic book, mouth agape.
“Mom,” Charlie said in utter disbelief. “It’s not the YouTube. It’s just YouTube.”
“I don’t get it,” Julie said.
“It’s not the Google, the Facebook or the Wikipedia,” Max added. “There’s no the.”
“Look it up on YouTube?” Julie said, but phrased it as a question.
Charlie and Max nodded.
“Yes,” Charlie said. “I will look lucid dreaming up on YouTube. Can I go to the library later?”
“Hah,” Julie said. “The library.”
Charlie sighed, bowed his head and walked away. Max, sorrowfully, turned her attention back to whatever bad guy Captain America was thumping at the moment.
**
The non-robotic version of Alison Nguyen got out of Julie’s car followed by Charlie. Julie grabbed her cell phone out of her purse. She set the timer.
“An hour?” Julie said. “Will that be enough time?”
Charlie and Alison looked at each other and shrugged in unison. They had been best friends for years and their mannerisms had synched up in a fraction of that time.
“Yeah,” Charlie said. “I think so. I’m probably going to do a little research and check out the best books to read at home.”
“That’s okay with you, sweetie?” Julie asked Alison.
Alison patted her messenger bag.
“I just needed a quiet place to finish these drawings,” Alison said. “My house is full of aunts and uncles celebrating my mom’s birthday.”
Julie laughed.
“Fine,” she said. “You’re always welcome to hang out at Casa Attenborough tonight if you want. Meatloaf for dinner.”
Alison smiled.
“Maybe,” she said and turned away.
“See you in an hour, mom,” Charlie said. “I have my phone if I need to call you sooner.”
“I’m just heading down to the mall,” Julie said. “Call me if you need me.”
Without another look, she turned her head and entered traffic. The kids waved goodbye to her and started up the steps to the Wilson County Public Library.
**
The library was a behemoth – three stories, multiple wings, and numerous private collections. The library’s benefactor was exceedingly wealthy and had set up a trust that fully funded the library for a few generations after he had passed away. The library’s government funding and local fund-raising efforts simply supplemented their coffers. For kids who had the inclination, the Wilson County Public Library was a spectacular resource for research, literary meditation and contemplative study.
Alison Nguyen and Charlie Attenborough were two such spirits.
Alison was enrolled in most of the AP classes that their high school offered. Charlie was bright, and was certainly a classmate of Alison’s in some of the advanced courses, but he had to expel great effort. Studies did not come easy to him.
Thus, neither of these high school freshmen were strangers to the library – albeit for different reasons.
“What was it this time?” Alison whispered across their large study table. They had taken up refuge on the top floor of the library. This was generally referred to as “the stacks” and was mostly populated with research journals and boring texts. Unless it was finals week, this floor usually had a pretty sparse arrangement of visitors.
“Paradox Iron,” Charlie said without looking up from his laptop.
“The abandoned robot factory?” Alison asked. “Eww.”
Charlie looked up at her. She was looking down at the series of five drawings that she had to finish. They were in various stages of completion. Alison had screwed up her features into an expression of gross-I-bet-there-were-spiders-in-there. In reaction to her dramatic look, Charlie giggled. Alison’s head snapped up. She was squinting a challenge across the table. Even though they were friends, Alison was fiercely competitive and wasn’t about to let Charlie get over on her.
Charlie held up his hands in mock surrender.
“Yeah,” he said, smiling. “Eww is right. They were trying to turn you into more of a robot than you already are.”
“Hah hah,” Alison said sarcastically and looked back down at her drawings. After a couple minutes of silence, she put her pencil down and looked up at Charlie. “Have you ever researched to see if Paradox Iron was a real place?”
Charlie looked up from his laptop. He had started to take notes on a fresh legal pad resting on a clipboard just to his right. He was on the second page already, and hadn’t even looked at any of the library books on the subject.
“You’re asking me if there are any abandoned robot factories in our city. Population 10,000. Is that right?” Charlie asked, smiling.
“You know what I mean, you goof,” Alison said. “I was kind of wondering where the name came from. Paradox Iron. You might have seen it on the news, in a movie or some sci-fi TV show.”
Charlie thought about this for a moment.
“Let’s ask the Wikipedia,” Charlie said and then laughed. Alison, who had not been privy to Charlie’s conversation with his mom earlier, just looked at him.
“It’s not the Wiki, you doofus,” she said.
“I know,” Charlie said. “Long story.” He was clicking away at the keyboard. “Hey, there is a Wiki entry.”
“Really?” Alison asked.
Charlie nodded.
“Paradox Iron was the main setting in the short-lived animated comedy El Diablo Robotico,” Charlie read. “This was a secondary headquarters for the main antagonist, the titular El Diablo Robotico (EDR).”
“That’s weird,” Alison said. “I don’t think I ever saw that.”
“It looks like it ran for three seasons starting five years ago,” Charlie said. “Hmm. I don’t remember seeing it.”
He was scrolling down the page. There was a list of the episodes, their titles, and the air-dates. Something on the right side, though, caught his attention. It was a thumbnail image of the front of Paradox Iron. Charlie clicked it and a full-size image popped into the frame.
“Jeez,” Charlie exclaimed.
Alison was up in a shot. She made it around the study table in a matter of seconds to see what had startled Charlie so much.
On the laptop screen was an animation still from the cartoon El Diablo Robotico. It was the front entrance of Paradox Iron.
“That’s exactly how it looked in my dream,” Charlie said.
“That’s weird,” Alison said. “You must have seen it then. Either on TV or maybe on YouTube. Or something. A commercial, maybe.”
“Yeah,” Charlie agreed. “Somehow the image got burned into my head, waiting to star in a nightmare to be named later.” He went back to the episode list on the previous page. “It looks like this setting was used in five or six episodes. Maybe I’ll look them up and watch them. Like you said, I had to see it somewhere.”
Alison walked back around the table to her chair.
“Weird,” she said.
“Yeah,” Charlie said. “I wonder how many more of my nightmares can be traced to movies, books, videogames, TV shows . . . that kind of stuff.”
“That’s a great question,” Alison said, and sat back down.
**
Minutes later, Charlie had surrounded himself with a plethora of materials. He had scholarly articles, pop-psychology texts and research materials spread out in a semi-circle on the table. He also had his laptop open and a clipboard at the ready for his notes. In truth, he had already taken several pages of notes as he was trying to assimilate the data.
“Psycho,” Charlie said under his breath.
Alison stopped coloring in her three-headed dragon and looked up. She looked across the study table at Charlie. He closed the text he was reading and rubbed his eyes.
“Who’s a psycho?” Alison asked.
“That would be me,” Charlie said. He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. “So my mom suggested that I look into lucid dreaming to be able to control my nightmares.”
“Right,” Alison said.
“Lucid dreaming,” Charlie said. “Is a theory. Different things work for different people, but there’s no set training method to give yourself the ability to control your dreams.”
“Oh,” Alison said.
“The best I can figure,” Charlie said. “Is that there are techniques that have worked for multiple people.”
“Techniques?” Alison asked.
“Yeah,” Charlie said. “The biggest thing is to figure out that you are dreaming, right? Once you do that, then the idea is that you can control what happens in the dream.”
“Okay,” Alison said.
“But,” Charlie said. “How do you figure out that you’re dreaming? You’re dreaming. Your mind believes in the dream. Believes everything that’s going on around it. Even the weird stuff.”
“Yep,” Alison said. “I had a dream once where I was riding a horse through Twin Pines Mall. I thought that was the most normal thing to do.”
Charlie was nodding his head.
“Right,” he said. “And even though the most rational thing to do would be to realize Hey, I must be dreaming. But your mind just skips over that fact.”
“Exactly,” Alison said. “I’ve never even ridden a horse, but didn’t make that connection in my dream.”
“So,” Charlie said, nodding. “The idea is to get your brain to recognize that you are dreaming while you’re dreaming. But you have to do all these crazy things while you’re awake to try to trigger that realization.”
“What crazy things?” Alison asked.
“Taken singularly,” Charlie said. “They are not crazy. But when you think about doing them all together over the course of the day, you’ll look like a psycho.”
“Ah hah,” Alison said. “There it is.”
Charlie laughed. He grabbed his clipboard and flipped back a few pages. He started reading off it.
“There are numerous techniques that can be used to enter the realm of lucid dreaming,” Charlie read from his notes. “None can be guaranteed to work for everyone. You simply must try the techniques in turn to see which one works for you. Also, patience is a necessity. Some techniques work for people right away, some take several weeks to take hold.”
“Wow,” Alison said. “That’s the worst instruction manual in the history of instruction manuals.”
“That’s the frustrating part,” Charlie nodded. “There’s no tried-and-true way to make it work.” He sighed.
“What are some of the techniques?” Alison asked.
“There’s a bunch,” Charlie said, looking at his notes. “These all get varying levels of support in the books.”
“Alright,” she said. “Lay it on me.”
Charlie looked back down at his notes.
“First is the Rubber Band Technique,” Charlie said. “The idea is to put a rubber band on your wrist while you’re awake. Whenever you see it, you are supposed to snap it and say some sort of mantra. The very real feeling of the snapped rubber band will become imbedded in your conscious. Then, you say something like, When I see the rubber band in my dream, I will know that I am dreaming. Eventually, you will get so accustomed to seeing the band on your arm that you will also see it while dreaming.”
“That’s interesting,” Alison said. “So the act of snapping the band in real life will become so habitual that you will also do it in your dream?”
“That’s the theory,” Charlie said. “The second technique is similar. I call it the Handwriting Technique. As in, you write something on your hand. Maybe a simple word or a number. Over the course of the day, every time you see the writing, you say the same kind of thing. When I read this word in my dream, I will know that I am dreaming.”
Alison looked down at her hands.
“You see your hands all the time,” she said.
Charlie looked down at his notes.
“Write it on your palms,” he said. “You see your palm much less than you see the back of your hand.”
Alison nodded and turned her hands back and forth – palms up, palms down.
“Okay,” she said. “That’s better.”
“Third,” Charlie said. “Is the Doorway Technique. Every time you go through a doorway, you ask yourself, Am I dreaming? Same with the other techniques, you will eventually go through a doorway in your dream and ask yourself that question.”
“Yeah,” Alison said. “But won’t your mind just say, No? Like we talked about, your brain is comfortable just accepting the weirdness of the dream.”
“Right,” Charlie said. “But this gives your brain a reason to stop and recognize the fact that you have a dog tail. Maybe I’m dreaming.”
“Okay, yeah,” she said.
“The fourth technique is the Text Technique,” Charlie said. “Over the course of your day, whenever you see written words, you should look away and look back to make sure the words do not change. So, when you look at the spine of a book, a stop sign or something like that, you should look away for a second and then look back. Usually, this text will change in dreams – although not always. So if you train yourself to truly examine these words, you might be able to recognize when you are dreaming due to the changes in the text.”
Charlie closed down his clipboard notes and leaned back in his chair. Alison was also silent. They were both thinking about Charlie’s problem.
“Probably the easiest method,” Charlie whispered across the study table. “Is what I’ve referred to as the Meditation Technique. Pretty much, you just lay there before going to sleep and repeat a phrase over and over again. The most common one I saw was, The next time I am dreaming I will know that I am dreaming. You say that forty, fifty times and then you fall asleep. Hopefully, the notion will carry over into your dream world.”
Alison had been listening to his last speech with her mouth open. All through this library visit, she was trying to get a handle on Charlie’s fascination with lucid dreaming. She knew, of course, about his battles with night terrors since the adventure with The Crow on the Bridge of Sorrows. Even though she had only played a small part in Charlie’s rescue of his sister Max, Alison had suffered through several nightmares about that scary time. She could only imagine Charlie’s terror since he was the only thing that stood between The Crow and Max.
Kind of.
There had also been Arthur, Persephone and Sal “Midnight” Robinette. Alison had heard most of the tale, if not all of it.
Now, she was beginning to grasp the severity of the situation. Charlie was truly willing to take these oddball steps to attempt to gain some control over his dreams. If that meant walking around with rubber bands all over his body all day and chanting to himself, he was willing to do it. She had to do her part to help out.
It was the least she could do.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Alison asked.
Charlie shook his head.
“Nah,” he said. “This is all pretty personal stuff. Things that happen in my dreams are way different than the things that may happen in your dreams.”
As he said this, he stopped short and quickly turned back to his clipboard full of notes. He flipped a couple pages and then smiled.
“That was something I forgot,” Charlie said as he closed the notepad back down. “A dream journal. When you wake up, you’re supposed to write down as much of the dream as possible. Even the smallest details.”
“How does that help you control the dream after it’s over?” Alison asked.
“Apparently,” Charlie said. “Most people experience common factors in their dreams. Like there’s always a house of a certain color, or a person named Freddy, or a purple bridge in the distance. After doing that for months, you start seeing patterns. Stuff like that. You’ll start to recognize those elements of your dream and realize that you’re, well, dreaming.”
Charlie shrugged as if he kind of believed it was possible. Alison picked up on the subtle non-verbal cue and thought she might be able to inject some positivity into the conversation.
“That’s a pretty cool idea, Charlie,” she said. “You should start doing that tonight. Also, the rubber band thing. Maybe you should start with the simplest, most straightforward technique first. Do it for a couple weeks and see if anything changes.”
Charlie leaned back in his chair. The wood creaked a bit against Charlie’s weight. He settled back and laced his fingers behind his head.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s worth a shot, right?”
**
The library was now six hours in the rearview mirror. Charlie’s mother had picked up the two kids, drove Alison home and then took Charlie home. Lunch was sandwiches and the rest of the day played out as most Saturdays in the Attenborough house.
With one slight change.
As soon as lunch was finished, Charlie searched the family’s multiple “junk drawers” to find the perfect rubber band to wear. He was in his dad’s study. Wes was typing away on his laptop but watched in silence as Charlie went from drawer to drawer. Every once and a while, he would put something on his wrist, fiddle with it and then take it off. After this happened for a fourth time, Wes decided to speak up.
“What-cha got going on there, son,” Wes said, resting the laptop in his lap and looking up from the screen.
Charlie seemed to notice his father for the first time during his exploration.
“Oh,” Charlie said. “Sorry, dad. I didn’t mean to bother you. I was researching these lucid dreaming techniques after talking to mom and I was looking for a rubber band.”
Wes remained silent as he was sure there was more to the story. When Charlie didn’t seem to be continuing in his explanation, Wes spoke up again.
“What-cha gonna do with the rubber band, Charlie?” Wes asked.
Charlie grabbed another random rubber band out of the drawer and fitted it over his wrist.
“All the lucid dreaming techniques are designed to help you recognize when you are actually dreaming, so you can take control of it, so it can’t frighten you,” Charlie said, turning and walking over to the leather club chair that his father was sitting in. “The idea is to wear the rubber band and snap it on your wrist during the day. When you get used to it . . .”
“You will start seeing it and snapping it in your dream,” Wes said. “Let you become more aware of the world around you when you’re dreaming?”
Charlie nodded.
“Exactly,” Charlie said and then snapped the band that he had put on his wrist in demonstration. He snapped it again and smiled. “Hey. This one feels perfect.”
“Glad I could help,” Wes said and then looked back down at his laptop.
**
The rest of the evening, Charlie went about his business. Alison came over for dinner to escape her extended family if for just a little bit. She and Charlie played video games for a couple hours after the food was cleared away. She rode her bike home after eight o’clock. Charlie rummaged through his bookcase for a notebook that he could use as a dream journal.
He found a nice leather-bound book that he got for his birthday last year, clipped a pen and a reading light to it, and placed it on his nightstand. Then he showered, watched some TV and then laid down in bed to read before going to sleep.
All through the evening, every time Charlie saw the rubber band on his wrist, he snapped it and relished the pain. He had the sinking suspicion that he was going to have a welt there tomorrow. It seemed like he snapped the band ten times each hour.
When his concentration flagged and he started yawning, he put the book down and shut off his bedside lamp. Charlie laid back and rested his head on the pillow. He yawned largely and started talking to himself.
“The next time I am dreaming,” Charlie said. “I will know that I am dreaming. The next time I am dreaming, I will know that I am dreaming.”
This continued for several minutes. Charlie eventually stopped talking but continued the mantra inside his head. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
**
“What do you want, son?”
Charlie was looking at the display of donuts. The display case was full of strange creations. Donuts with cookies on top. Donuts with peanut butter filling. Donuts with bacon-bits mixed into their maple-flavored icing.
Charlie looked up at his dad, who stood behind the counter.
“I’ll take two of these, and one of these,” Charlie said, pointing out his selections.
“Great,” Wes said. He opened the case from behind and reached in to grab the first donut. As he bagged all three, he handed them back to Charlie. “Enjoy your snack, kid.”
Charlie took the small bag of donuts and walked out of the living room. He walked through his kitchen and out the back door of the house. Without missing a step, Charlie wadded up the empty bag and threw it away. He walked out the large, open garage doors and down the driveway.
“Hey, Charlie,” Alison said.
She was resting on a cast iron bench at the base of the driveway. Her school backpack sat on the bench beside her. Alison stood up and finished the donut she was eating.
“What’s going on, Ali?” Charlie said, slinging his own backpack over his right shoulder.
“Ready for your final exam?” Alison asked as the two started walking down the sidewalk away from Charlie’s house.
Charlie was silent for a moment and then looked at his friend without missing a step.
“I don’t have any exams today,” Charlie said. Alison and Charlie rounded the corner to their left and started walking up the stairs to the school. “I finished my last one yesterday.”
Alison looked at him and squeezed her eyebrows together.
“If you’re done with your finals,” Alison asked. “Then why are you going to school?”
Charlie stopped walking at the front doors of the school. Kids were walking past Alison and Charlie into the school. Charlie shifted his backpack from his right shoulder to his left. He looked at the school doors, noticed the kids walking past him and looked back at Alison.
“That’s right,” Charlie said. “I’m outta here.”
He stuck his hand in his pocket and brought out a set of car keys. In so doing, Charlie noticed the rubber band on his wrist. He was staring at it for just a moment, but Alison noticed.
“What is it?” Alison asked. “Where are you going?”
Her question brought him back from his silent reverie. Charlie looked at her and for a split second, he had the strangest sensation.
“Is it weird that I think I can jump over this building?” Charlie asked.
Alison turned around and looked up to the top of the three-story school building and then looked back at Charlie.
“Yes,” Alison said. “That’s weird.”
Charlie smiled and looked down at his car keys . . . in the opposite hand as his rubber band.
“Okay, then,” Charlie said. “I’m taking off.” He turned and starting walking down the steps of the school. He held the key fob up and out at arm’s length. Charlie squeezed it and heard the familiar ‘beep beep’ of a car alarm being deactivated.
“Wait for me,” Alison called.
Charlie reached the sidewalk and stood in front of a sleek, red sports car. He had lost the backpack and changed out of his school clothes into a suit. He pulled open the door and turned to look back at Alison, who now wore a dress and had a highly stylized hairdo. He smiled as she bounded down the steps (gracefully) and got into the passenger seat of the low-slung sports car.
Charlie looked back at the camera and lifted an eyebrow.
“Time to go to work,” Charlie said.
The next moment, he was driving.
“I’ve always liked this car,” Alison said. She looked at Charlie and smiled. Charlie smiled, too. Although he didn’t look over at Alison. His eyes flicked from looking out the window to his rear-view mirror and back. He chewed on his bottom lip, downshifted into third gear and took a pretty hard right-hand turn. The fat tires held the ground like they were made out of glue.
Charlie checked his mirror again.
“Damn,” he said.
Alison looked over at him again, saw his eyes flick to the mirror. She turned in her seat to look out the back window. She saw the white muscle car that Charlie had been eyeing. She turned to Charlie in a panic.
“Is that Rico?” she asked. “Or Davis? I can’t tell from here.”
Charlie pushed in the clutch, pulled the emergency brake and slid around a corner to the left.
“It’s Davis,” Charlie said. “Always Davis when it’s the Mach One.”
He looked at the mirror again. The white 1971 Mach One with the dual blue stripes down its hood was keeping pace with the red RX-8. Charlie was afraid to look at the speedometer. He did, though, notice the entrance ramp to highway 280 coming up in a quarter of a mile.
Charlie took the entrance ramp hard, with Davis right behind him. As Charlie weaved in and out of traffic on the highway, Alison reached back into the tiny backseat of the RX-8. She brought her hand back.
“I have this,” Alison said. “Will this help?” Charlie looked over at her. She was holding a donut out toward Charlie. He did a double-take out the windshield and back to the donut, then to Alison.
“Yeah,” Charlie said. “That’s exactly what I need.”
He reached up and hit the button that opened the sun roof. When it was fully open, Charlie took the donut and threw it out the window. It flew backward out the roof of the sports car and smashed right into the windshield of Davis’s muscle car. The entire window was smeared with the glaze from the donut. Davis, his vision compromised, swerved hard to the right and hit the bright yellow rubber barrels that protected the exit ramp.
It was an explosion of water that totally obscured the muscle car.
“Wow,” Alison said, smiling out the back window.
Charlie had watched the whole thing through his rear view mirror.
“That’s not true, you know,” Charlie said. “Those barrels are actually full of sand. They just put water in them for movies to make it look more . . .”
And then he caught himself.
And let his foot off the accelerator of the car.
And looked down at his wrist.
“What is it?” Alison asked.
“They put water in them,” Charlie said. “To make it look better than reality.”
His car slowly came to a stop. All traffic around him had disappeared. He was totally alone on highway 280.
Charlie looked out the windshield. Everything looked normal, but then, slowly, the road just ended. He was looking at a wall, maybe fifty feet in front of him. There was a door. And a guard. Armed.
This guard started walking toward Charlie and Alison.
But Alison was now gone.
Charlie looked down at his wrist. The rubber band. Slowly, he reached over with the opposite hand and snapped the band.
Charlie smiled.
The guard started running.
“I’m dreaming,” Charlie said.
And then woke up.
Charlie sat up in his bed and looked around the room. His clock glowed brightly, illuminating the far corner of his bedroom. It was 2:45 a.m. Charlie started smiling and then slowly started laughing.
“Yes,” he whispered to himself.
He leaned over to the nightstand and grabbed his dream journal. Charlie flicked on the small reading light and started writing what he could remember about the car chase and the weird armed guard on highway 280.
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