Authors: Brenda Sparks
Hunger beat at the Dream Stalker, pain twisting his energy. He hurt—the agony worse than last time. The ache grew inside until he thought it would drive him insane.
Only a day since he fed, he needed more. Emotions would take the pain from him, let him think again. Dark emotions. He needed fear and hate. They would sustain him, ease the craving that caused his pain.
A fresh wave of agony rolled through him, twisting him, turning him inside out. He could not help the scream that ripped from his being. It echoed off the harlequin patterned trees. If there were any animals in this dimension, they would be running for safety.
His energy bobbed back and forth. Amnon found he could not be still, the pain would not allow it. He needed to move, constantly move. Movement helped to ease the agony. A little—so very little.
The stalker switched his side-to-side movement to up and down instead, hoping the shift in momentum might help.
It didn’t.
He roared when a wave of pain tore through him. The desire to feed consumed his thoughts. He needed a ripe source and he knew just which human female could give him what he needed.
With a thought he opened a portal to her room and sent his energy through. His head materialized first on the other side and his eyes immediately found her sleeping form in her bed.
Curse the Great Spirits above!
She wasn’t alone. That damned Peacemaker sat next to her on the bed, his hand on her forehead. Bathed in the soft light from Zane’s hand, her face looked like the picture of happiness.
Emotions filled the room. Love. Lust. The sweet perfume of it filled his nose, threatened to suffocate him. He gagged.
With his eyes closed, the Peacemaker seemed unaware that Amnon opened the portal in the room. Maybe he should sneak into the room and take Zane’s head from his shoulders. But with what? From his previous visits, Amnon knew the woman’s home did not contain any weapons.
He could attack Zane, perhaps best him in a fight. He’d almost won the last time they battled. As another wave of pain washed through his mind, Amnon shook his head.
He couldn’t take on the Peacemaker in his condition. Maybe if he fed, his body strengthened by negative emotions, he could beat him, but not like this. With his thoughts distracted by the pain, the stalker knew he would not win in an altercation with the Weaver in his current state.
Pulling his head from her room, he once again became a ball of energy, as he reentered his dimension.
Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!
What to do? He could not access his primary source of emotions tonight. His energy swept from side-to-side as he thought things through.
If he couldn’t have the woman, another source would have to do. A backup. Another human he routinely visited. Unfortunately, the backup was more accustomed to the nightmares. His human mind obviously created terrible images and pain on a routine basis, without the help of manipulation from one like Amnon. He could tell by the way the man reacted to the images he created. Unlike the woman, whose fear increased easily by his additions, it took more effort in the nightmares of the man to elicit the same amount of fear and hatred.
Amnon kept his visits to the male less frequent because it took so much more effort, but he had yet to feed tonight, and with the woman otherwise occupied, he would have to make do. The male’s emotions were not quite as pure as the woman, but he would do as a backup. And, as the human saying went, something was better than nothing.
The increasing pain made Amnon desperate for some relief.
He pushed through the agony to open another portal and stepped through, emerging on the other side in his corporeal form. His eyes locked on his prey.
Amnon stalked toward the unsuspecting man. Prickly heat raced through him, causing sweat to bead on his forehead. His skin itched and burned, heart pounded. Adrenaline coursed through his blood bringing a hyper-alertness that played with his senses.
He noticed a sound. A steady beat of noise. What was that sound?
Footsteps?
Amnon waited, still as stone. His eyes searched the room for any sign of his enemy.
Could it be the Peacemaker? Had Zane somehow found him here?
No
, he realized with much relief. It was only the sound of water dripping in the bathroom.
Amnon chastised himself for his paranoia, chalked it up to the influence of the human in the room. He’d never been in a more paranoid mind. The diagnosed schizophrenic suffered from the most twisted dreams, which Amnon discovered were based on the human’s real life for the most part.
He looked down on the pathetic man.
The human lay on his back, one hand fisted around his limp sex. The stench of stale booze emanated from his pores, the aroma of which burned Amnon’s nose when he sank down onto the bed. The mattress sagged under his weight to emphasize its ragged condition.
His hand hovered over the bastard’s head. Closing his eyes in concentration, Amnon sent his energy into the mind of the human. Only his desperation to ease his pain, allowed him the ability to focus on the man enough to enter his dream. He opened his mind’s eye to the dream.
In a few minutes, his surroundings cleared.
Amnon noted how, unlike most humans whose dreamscape contained vivid color, this man only dreamed in black and white ghostly images . . .
He pushed through a door that opened into a landscape of gray, melting structures. Wavy apartment buildings stood next to a spooky house which eerily resembled a rundown version of a home from a gothic horror movie. A black tree with bare branches sat in the Salvatore Dali-style town square. As a crow flew by, the tree reached out a limb and snatched the bird from the air. The bird flapped its wings in an effort to escape, but to no avail. The tree brought the bird down to its trunk. A knot opened wide and the branch stuffed the bird inside, swallowing it whole.
Amnon stalked down the crooked road that ran through the center of the eerie town, looking for the human. He wouldn’t have to do much to change this dream. The man’s mind did an excellent job of making the scene look like something out of a slasher film.
The Dream Stalker peeked in the windows as he made his way through the town square. In one he saw a butcher shop, with a slaughtered pig hanging in front of the window. Through another, he could just make out the form of a man, dressed in black leather and carrying a chain saw. In the next building, blood covering its windows obscured the view inside. Everywhere he looked, Amnon found depravity and wickedness. Unfortunately, this dream lacked one thing—the human he sought.
Where was he?
“Foster,” Amnon called in his most nefarious voice. “Come out. Come out wherever you are.”
A sound of a twig breaking turned his head to the left. His body followed the noise, his feet taking him toward the sound.
He made his way between two of the melting apartment buildings, and emerged through the dark alley to find a meadow. Two horses grazed in the swaying gray grass. Their heads rose as he approached, turned to pin him with their malicious stares.
A little color
. Amnon looked into their now red eyes. Their lids pulled down at angles, giving the horses an evil look. The two white horses turned in unison to look at one another, dismissing Amnon as no threat.
The pain from his corporeal body flooded his mind, bringing agony with it to disrupt him in the dream. Amnon moaned in response, the sound low, mournful.
One of the white horses snorted Amnon’s way. Puffs of white smoke blew from his flared nostrils. The other horse took advantage of his opponent’s distraction and charged.
The sound of hooves clacking and pain-filled whinnies filled the air as the two muscular animals fought. Their front legs pounded against each other in a flurry of white. Each time a hoof connected with flesh, a distinct thud filled the night air.
“Beautiful, aren’t they.”
Amnon turned toward the familiar voice. “I’ve seen better.”
Foster emerged from the shadows. “They’ll fight to the death, you know. They always do.”
“They don’t scare you,” Amnon surmised based on the lack of emotion coming from the man.
Foster gave an insouciant shrug of his shoulders. “Not really.”
Well that wouldn’t do. Amnon’s pain increased with each passing moment. He feared if he didn’t get his fix soon, he might lose his concentration and their connection would be lost. He needed to ramp this dream up and quick.
He took control, added a being onto the back of one of the horses. He gave the beastly rider long horns on the sides of its head. Its face remained human, except for his nose which could be likened to a pig's. Thickly muscled, he held a mace ominously in one large, gloved hand.
Swinging the mace above his giant horns, the rider turned the demonic horse and advanced on Foster. The human gave a shout and began to run.
Ahhhhh
. The delicious fear blanketed Amnon with its soothing balm. He allowed it to wash over him to ease his pain. Each minute that passed, Amnon felt better, stronger. His breathing eased. His heart slowed to a more normal pace. The crawling of his skin lessened.
Watching the beast run down his victim, Amnon felt his strength returning, but it wasn’t enough. He needed more. Craved more.
He again changed the dream, creating a graveyard in front of the fleeing human.
Light gray skeletons clung to the overly large crosses as if seeking salvation. In unison their heads turned in Foster’s direction, watching him flee from the beast chasing him.
With a wave of his hand, the beast and horse disappeared. Amnon watched Foster slow his steps. Amnon approached the man, needing to steer the dream in a more dramatic route.
Amnon laid his hand heavily on the human’s shoulder. The man’s leg buckled a little under the weight. “Like it?” he asked, indicating the scene with a sweep of his arm.
“I’ve seen better,” the human repeated the stalker’s earlier words.
That insolent bastard needed to learn to be respectful and teaching respect just happened to be a specialized talent of his.
Amnon dove into the man’s memories, plucked from them his worst nightmare. With a wicked smile, the stalker created a haze up ahead. Foster’s eyes widen in recognition as the form emerged from the shadows.
“Evan.”
“That’s right, Foster. Your loving stepfather is here.”
The human’s shoulder stiffened under the pads of his finger. His revulsion rolled over Amnon in a heady sensation he absorbed down to the marrow of his corporeal bones. The stalker fed off the hate, letting it strengthen him. Utterly delectable, like soaring high above the clouds, it freed him. Made him feel invincible.
He could do anything. Be anything.
The human started to slip away from the dream. “Oh no, you don’t.” Amnon exerted his will over the man’s mind to keep him locked in the nightmare.
He held the man still as the image of his stepfather advanced. Foster struggled, but the stalker held him fast, forcing him to confront the object of his hate.
Wanting to push the man over the edge, he brought forth another image he had found in the forefront of his recollections—an image of someone he, too, knew.
Color painted the scene. Brown grass covered the graves of the dead. The skeletons turned a ghostly white as they began to laugh in unison, taunting Foster when his stepfather came to a stop right in front of him. Ash-gray mausoleums pushed up through the ground making a sound akin to a combination of scraping rocks and concrete. Amnon melted the soupy haze, lowered it down to hover an inch above the ground in order to assure Foster an unobstructed view of what came next.
From the left, the sound of concrete scraping against itself drew everyone’s attention. A red granite mausoleum stood, slightly taller than the rest, with the image of three skulls etched into the granite above the door. The hinges of the door creaked their protest as a woman emerged from the mausoleum. Her long strawberry-blonde hair flowed around her shoulders with each step. The candle she carried in her hands lit her pretty face from below. The light played off the yellow flecks in her eyes turning the green to the color of puke.
Her feet never touched the ground as she moved. She glided over the rough terrain, and came to a stop next to Evan.
“Hi, sweet cheeks.” The burly man taunted Foster by using the nickname he once called Foster’s mother to address the woman. “You come to watch?”
The woman leaned in, and planted a sloppy, wet kiss on Evan’s thin lips. “You know there is nothing I like better than watching.” Her head turned around backwards on her shoulders so she could look into Foster’s eyes. “Unless it’s participating.”
Amnon felt a shiver go through Foster when her eyes began to glow and she licked her lips.
Evan put a cigarette to his lips and lit the end. The smoke curled around his head. “Ready?” he asked the woman around the cig. He took a long drag, making the cherry flare an angry red.
She pulled the cigarette from his lips and turned to face Foster. An evil grin curled her lips as she began to walk toward Amnon’s prey. “I couldn’t be any more ready.”
Her announcement sent fear racing down Foster’s spine. Fear Amnon absorbed wearing a cruel smile . . .