Authors: Shannan Sinclair
Tags: #sci fi, #visionary, #paranormal, #qquantun, #dreams, #thriller
Dream Walker (41 page)
“I’m sorry, Mr. Lange. But I think you really should be in bed now, getting some sleep. Do you need some help getting into bed?” She moved next to the wheelchair to help him to his bed.
“I don’t need sleep to dream, sweet girl.” His fingers stopped twitching. “I only need you.” He reached a frail, wrinkled hand up and grabbed a hold of her wrist.
Startled, Aislen tried to pull her arm away, but his grip was strong, too strong for his age, and his yellowing fingernails dug deeply into the delicate skin near her palm.
“Now come here like I asked,” the old man screeched. He flung his other arm up and boxed her in the ear hard enough to make it ring, then he entwined his gnarled fingers into her hair and jerked her head down to his mouth.
“I don’t take no for an answer,” he growled into her ear. “Your daddy and your granddaddy may have gotten away with it, but I’ll be God damned if you are.”
Aislen tried to scream, but her neck was bent at too harsh an angle she could only emit a weak gurgle. She could feel the pendant burning hot against her hip.
“I will have you, little girl.” His words came out on a wet breath, his spittle splattered on her neck. “You will be the one to take me to the places I need to go, you hear? You will be the one to free me from this rotting body. Do you understand?”
Aislen choked on another scream and tried to wriggle herself free, but his hands and fingers were entangled around her and he pinned her next to him in a tight embrace.
“Reelaaax,” he wheezed. “You want to help your dear, old great grandpappy, now don’t you?” He twisted her neck, snapping her face toward his so they were eye to eye. He placed his forehead up flat up against her brow line and she could smell was his rancid breath. “Of course you do. Now,
let me in
.”
An icy surge of energy prodded Aislen between her eyes, scratching to get into her skull. Cold tendrils worked their way into her brain and her body went weak, losing volition. It was as if the old man was trying to climb inside her head.
A violent shudder of revulsion racked her body and with a sudden burst of strength, Aislen jerked away from Sigmund, pulling him out of the wheelchair. He yanked a chunk of her hair from her scalp as they both fell to the floor—she on her back, Mr. Lange on top of her. She scrambled, clawing at the slick linoleum until she was able to wrench free and get her feet underneath her. She stumbled for the door and out into the hall.
Mr. Lange made a weak attempt to crawl after her, slithering on his belly with his legs dead weight behind him.
“You can run, but you can’t hide.” His voice cackled in stereo, as much inside of her head as it did from the room.
She ran as fast as her shaky legs would let her, down the halls and back through the all the doorways she came in through. As she passed a large bay of windows that looked out upon the parking lot, she saw the white headlights of Troy’s Mustang pulling into the driveway.
“Thank God!” she heard herself say.
The pendant in her pocket electrified her again and her legs faltered. She fought the paralysis and pushed through the back doors of the hospital. The cold, winter air hit her like a wall. She tried to push through it too, but it was thick and sludgy and her feet still felt slow. It was like being in a nightmare and finding herself unable to run. She fought with all of her might to move forward but could only treadmill in one place. The amulet would not release its incapacitating charge. Her mind raged with anger and confusion. Troy was right there, her friend, her gaurdian angel, the one the pendant had led her here for. Why was it fighting her now?
Aislen saw the pulsing, red glow of Troy’s break lights on the far side of the lot and was invigorated. With renewed stamina, she broke free and started to make a sprint for him. But as soon as she leapt forward, two arms seized her from behind and yanked her backwards. A hand clamped down hard across her mouth, sealing it with a wide band of sticky tape, forcing her to swallow another scream. Tight arms encircled her waist, pinned her arms to her sides, and lifted her up off the ground. She was jerked in the opposite direction of where Troy was parking.
Aislen watched helplessly as he rose out of the car. She let out a guttural moan for help, but he was much too far away to hear her. As she was pulled around the far corner of the building he vanished from her sight and the pendant in her pocket went deathly cold.
The shock of the amulet’s sudden silence was even more terrifying than that of what was happening to her. Even as she was lifted up and spun around like she weighed nothing at all, shoved into the leather seat of a car so hard it knocked the wind out of her and blurred her vision, all Aislen could think about was the silence of the pendant.
It had led her to this place, she was supposed to be here, but then it obstinately obstructed her from her Troy,
her savior
. And now it was mute.
She knew what that meant. She
knew
what that meant...and yet?
There was a flurry of movement as she was restrained, practically mummified, into the seat. She couldn’t move. She could barely breathe. Suddenly a face appeared directly in front of hers, so close all she could see was the glacier ice blue of his eyes and a shock of his raven-black hair.
“You’re coming with me,” the soldier from her nightmare said. He looked so deeply into her eyes she felt her soul freeze. But strangely, just as it had when she found herself face to face with him in her room, the terror evaporated. The amulet remained silent.
She watched helplessly as the soldier slid into the driver’s seat and started the car’s engine. As she struggled to move just one finger of her shrink-wrapped body in an attempt to free herself, another feeling overwhelmed her, a horrible sinking realization.
This
was
not
a
dream
.
EPILOGUE
He lay face down on the cold, hospital tile, the odors of pine and urine burning in his nostrils, his cheek in a smear of his own drool, the front of his pants wet with his own piss. He had used every last once of his strength to pounce on the girl.
He hoped it had been enough.
The muted click of hard rubber tapped its way down the hall. He was ready to be lifted off the floor, but it didn’t sound like the squishy footfall of the night charge nurse. The tapping continued until it reached his door, then it entered the room.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here?”
A chill passed over him where the man’s shadow fell across his crippled body, and a sharp toe jabbed into his shoulder several times.
“Looks like you really are the slug they always said you were.”
Two rough hands dug into his shoulders, picked him off the floor and tossed him into his wheelchair. It rolled backwards into the wall, bounced off and inched forward again.
The hospital therapist, and Sigmund’s personal prison guard, pressed his foot against the wheel to stop the chair. Troy Kellen bent over and got into his face.
“Mr. Lange, do not think for one second that I do not know what you have been up to. Just what is it you are trying to accomplish? You trying to escape? You trying to get out of that decrepit, dying body of yours? You really think that is going to work? You’re pathetic.”
Troy reached out and grabbed Sigmund by the throat, squeezing his Adam’s apple until Sigmund thought it would pop.
“I was sent here specifically to keep you in check; and mark my words, that is just what I am going to do. You better get it through that numb skull of yours that you are no longer Number One. You hear me,
Ichiban
? Number One no longer exists.”
Troy shoved Sigmund by his throat, slamming the chair back into the wall again.
“You better stay inside your shell or I will happily extinguish what life you have left in you.”
Troy straightened up and cracked his neck.
“Now to find that girl you want so bad. And figure out why.”
Troy turned on his heel and resumed his clicking back down the hall.
“Well, hello there!” Sigmund heard Troy say with a voice as sensuous as silk. “You’re Leslie, right? You wouldn’t have happened to see Aislen Walker around here tonight by any chance, would you?”
Sigmund scurried his thoughts back into a far recess of his brain and went back to tapping mudras on his fingers.
He hoped he’d gotten a good enough grip on Aislen. He would need to climb into her soon and give Kellen a run for his money.
Sigmund was more than ready to escape his broken body. He was ready to let it die. But he needed to inhabit Aislen’s first. Blake was never expected to be a reliable host. But Aislen...she was perfect—young, vital and a genetic match. The 8 would never see her coming. She would show up with his fury in her and together they would reclaim
his
throne.
To be continued...
Stay tuned for Book 2 of the Walker Saga,
coming Summer 2013
Shannan Sinclair was born and raised in the heart of California’s Central Valley. She had the courage to escape once, but was sucked right back into its undeniably charming vortex, Modesto. When she isn’t saving the world as a 911 dispatch superhero, she’s a not-so-mild-mannered writer.
Dream Walker is her first novel.
Find her: www.shannansinclair.com
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DREAM WALKER READER’S GUIDE AT
SHANNANSINCLAIR.COM
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