Controlled Chaos (Deadly Dreams Book 1) (3 page)

“You think?” I said. I wasn’t a man-whore or anything. Just a guy who liked to have a good time. I always remembered a face. I took a drink of my beer and sighed. This girl officially thought she was out of my league; therefore she made zero attempt at flirtation. That, or she was in a committed relationship, and was loyal to her dude no matter what.

Steve looked at me and gave me a serious stare. “So, you told them to pull the plug?”

“Yep, I sure did. He had zero percent chance of coming out of it.”

“I’m sorry, man. Look, we don’t have to watch the game. Do you want to go somewhere to get your mind off it, like shoot pool or something?”

“Isn’t that the same thing we’re pretty much doing here?”

“No,” Steve said, “we would not only be watching the game, eating wings, and drinking beer. We would also be shooting pool.”

“Nah,” I said.

“What else will we do? I sure as hell don’t want to go to church and pray about it.”

“I’m just so tired that I’m not there in time. By the time these guys get to me, they are so far gone that it’s hopeless. I wish once I could get there before it happens. Stop someone from doing something awful to themselves and others. It’s not just him. It’s all my outpatients. I feel like I’m not even helping. I just wish that one time I could stop someone from ever getting addicted. Be there at the very beginning.”

As I said those words, something came over my body and the room started spinning. I thought I was about to throw up. I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes.

“You okay, man?” Steve asked me.

“Yeah,” I said, catching my breath. “I just got a little nauseous there.”

“You’re not having a seizure or anything?”

“You know I don’t have them while I am awake?” I said to my friend, who knew full well about my epileptic sleep paralysis diagnosis.

“Then we won’t shoot pool, but I don’t think you’ll mind me taking the rest of your wings and fries instead.”

“Go ahead,” I said. I pushed my plate in front of Steve and he began his second eating wind. “I’m going to make it a point to look into it first thing Monday morning.” Steve paused and swallowed his food. “You know, stopping someone before they hurt themselves or others is a common thing we all feel in our line of work. We give a shit about people,” Steve said. “It’s a curse. Even in my line of work. People come to me when it’s too late. I would love to be able to talk to families and tell the parents to love their kids better before they run away. Or speak to a man before he makes an impulsive decision to murder or hurt someone. It would be a great job to have that gift. To stop people before awful things happen, but that isn’t the way it works. You and I get called when it’s too late.”

“I know,” I said. “And it sucks. It makes me question why I got my degree in psychology, just to be a drug counselor.”

“You can always take the necessary steps to become a psychologist.” Steve gave me the usual look he gave me when this subject came up. Steve had wanted me to finish my doctorate for years, so I could get a cozy office and charge rich people an absurd amount of money to fix their issues, or at least make them think I did.

“You know why I do what I do,” I said to Steve.

“Your parents, Hunter. They would want the best for you. You can only fall on the sword in their name for so long.”

I nodded and thought about my parents. My mom died when I was sixteen, and my dad died a year later. They were both drug addicts. Eventually, drugs killed them both. I came home one day and found my mom hunched over: an overdose in bathroom, Marilyn Monroe style. She was dead by the time I got to her. My dad got so high one night that he decided to take his car and fly over a cliff in the San Bernardino Mountains, thinking he was Superman, apparently. “Are we done talking about all of this?” I asked Steve. “I do have 500 dollars on the game.”

“It kind of makes no sense that we pay a bookie to make a 500 dollar bet and for us to pick opposite teams. We might as well just bet each other.” Steve grinned at me.

“The difference is I know our bookie will pay me when I win; trying to get you to pay up is like trying to get this waitress to acknowledge my existence.”

We both laughed and I said, “You’re probably right.”

“What about your main squeeze?” Steve said, teasing me about a woman named Donna. She had been a friend of mine since high school. Steve teased me because I always spent time with her volunteering my services. The truth was, Donna was a dear old friend who I had cared about for many, many years, and just never could sort out exactly what I felt.

“Donna isn’t my ‘main squeeze.’ We haven’t kissed since college. We’re good friends.”

“Kiss? You did more than just kiss. Hey, that was what you told me.”

“Donna is a wonderful person. She just has a few more demons than the rest of us.”

“Speaking of that, are your debts almost paid off with Charlie?”

“Not even close. Charlie still keeps fifty percent of my winnings.” Charlie was the name of our bookie. No last name. Just Charlie.

“How much more do you still owe?” Steve asked.

“Ten grand,” I said. About nine months ago, I felt great about my bowl game pick. I had seen every game and you know what, I thought it was such a no-brainer, I put fifty grand on the game. The most Charlie allows. I lost. Let’s just say Charlie and I needed to do a payment arrangement plan. I paid him one grand a month and he kept half of all my winnings. I had gotten most of it paid off in the last few months. I had been on a hot streak.

“Well, aside from today, you have been on a massive hot streak. Your algorithm is unmatched. You’ve made us both a lot of money. Just once in a while there is a kink in it like tonight, where you make a horrid pick. Better than the alternative.”

“What?” I said. “Him hurting me?” I paused. “I’m sure that isn’t one of his tactics.”

“I don’t know. I hear things,” Steve said.

“I hear things too, and that’s why I bet with the guy; he has a chill enterprise. I have always paid out my losses on time.”

“Just hope your team covers tonight.”

“You better hope not. You bet the other direction.”

“It always makes for a fun game, doesn’t it?” Steve grinned and we both looked at the big screen TV in front of us. There were about ten others in the bar and they all had the football game on. I needed an escape and sports and betting was the best way for me to do it.

Chapter Four

10:00 p.m. Monday Night

I stepped outside Ricardo’s and I was glad I had my leather jacket on, because it was pretty damn chilly.

Steve followed me out with a giant grin on his face. “I don’t know what feels better; covering my bet or seeing you lose yours.”

“You’re a great friend, Steve,” I said. “Nothing like having your best friend kick you in the nuts when you’re down.”

“Don’t give me that, Hunter. If the roles were reversed, you would have a giant smug look on your face.”

“Probably not. Not on this day.” I was being honest.

“Yeah, well. Sorry your team didn’t cover.”

“The only thing worse than losing,” I said, “when you pick a team that doesn’t cover, is when they still win the game. You get to see them celebrate their victory while they stick a knife in your back because they didn’t win by enough points.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Steve said to me. “You’ll get your money back next week. You always do. You want to share a cab?”

“I’m thinking about walking home,” I said. “I’ll take a shortcut through Hillcrest Park.”

“Seriously? Even with a shortcut, you live three miles away.”

“Yeah, and I run five miles four times a week. I can handle a three-mile walk,” I said. I’d had a long day, and I really needed to feel the fresh air and walk.

“You been running that much a week?” Steve seemed surprised to hear that.

“Just recently, I have been on this runner’s high kick.”

“Well, with all the beer I had tonight, the very thought of walking makes me nauseous. Cab city for me.” Steve lived one city over in Placentia. “I’ll give you a call tomorrow, and we’ll play some basketball over at Peak Park.”

“Make it around noon. I plan on sleeping in.” I gave Steve a wink.

“You sleep in every day.”

“I get to make my own hours, and I’d rather work a swing shift than a morning shift. I can get things done in the morning or I can sleep a little longer if I like. Don’t forget, we have mass coming up, too,” I said.

“Yeah, the 11:00 a.m. service,” Steve laughed.

“It’s not my fault Father Fitzpatrick has late services,” I quipped. “He’s just begging me to go to the last one.”

“I think Father Fitzpatrick has that service just so you will go.”

“You and I both know that guy has had our backs for years. He’s a good dude.”

“No disagreement from me. He got me out of juvenile hall twice when I was a kid.” Steve liked to think he was a bad boy when he was young. He thought it gave him a harder edge.

“I’m probably going to meet up with him this week,” I said.

“Why is that?” Steve asked.

“I need to get some good old fashioned man-to-man advice from him,” I said as I zipped up my black leather jacket. I shook my best friend’s hand and wished him safe travels. Steve flagged down a taxi and he was off to his house.

I was wearing blue jeans and a grey sweatshirt with a hoodie. I had my leather jacket on, so I was pretty warm. I walked down the street and just thought about my life. I definitely needed some alone time with Father Fitzpatrick. He had always been there for me ever since grade school. He helped keep Steve and I out of trouble. When we did mess up, he was usually there to clean up our mess.

I had been Catholic all my life, but I had a serious crisis of faith when my parents died. I just couldn’t imagine a God allowing good souls to self-destruct. Father Fitzpatrick got me through it with a lot of solid counseling. Today, my belief system wasn’t exactly what Catholicism taught, but I do have faith. That seems to go a long way with me.

As I reached the end of the street, I decided to cut across the park. It was a little bit of a shortcut, but mainly I did it for the scenic view. Hillcrest Park was built on the side of a mountain and had some amazing trails across the park. I cut through the parking lot and went up some steps that led directly to the heart and soul of the park. The park had three levels, and now I was on the second level, making my way to the very top level to get to my house. I was trying to get to Chapman Street.

The park was dark and the moon was full. I decided to make my way over to a bench and just relax. I’d had a few beers, but I still had my wits. I looked up at the moon and stars. You can’t really see the stars too well in Orange County because we have Los Angeles’ smog creeping over our shoulder.

I just called out into the night, “I’m confused. I feel like I’m at a crossroads. I can’t keep helping people who are so far gone that it doesn’t even matter how much time I invest in them. Their fate is always the same. They either overdose or just return to crime and other means to make a buck. And I lose them to their old habits. I don’t want to do it anymore!” I stood up and walked around. I was sick and tired of trying to do the right thing. In my heart, I had always believed this was what I was called to do, but I was starting to doubt it.

Who was I talking to? God? The creator of the universe? Were they the same? All I knew was that I was talking to someone who wasn’t physically there. If anyone had seen me, they would have thought I had lost my mind. Maybe that was it? I was going crazy.

I took a seat back on the bench and just took a deep breath, a sigh for the ages. Very calmly, I said, “I need a sign if this is what I’m supposed to do!” I began to get a lot more emotional than I anticipated. My work had been everything to me since my family had been destroyed. “Am I on the right track?” I asked out loud. “Or am I supposed to get on another train?” I sat back down and tried to compose myself. “I just need a sign.” I exhaled and got up. I took some stairs to get to the third level. There were a couple of side paths that also led up to the top level once you were done with the stairs. I was now on the second path.

I reached the top of the dark steps, which were barely lit by a dim streetlight, so it wasn’t complete darkness. Something flew into me. It was bird. A big-ass black bird that looked to be a raven of some sort. I looked up ahead, and I saw three more giant black ravens.

What the hell is happening?

The four giant birds seemed to be bullying me. I yelled, “Shoo! Go away!”

Okay, that was not the thing to do.

The three black birds swooped over and nearly knocked me down. They looked like giant bats in the dark.

Then something happened that was beyond my human reasoning. I thought I was seeing things as the three birds reversed themselves in the moonlight and made their way back to me. This time they plummeted into my body. All three of them did. They were fucking attacking me. I saw the fourth bird, the one that originally flew into me. The bird flew away as if it was being chased. I couldn’t see if anything was chasing it as I was dealing with the three present birds attacking me.

What the hell was going on? Am I losing my freaking mind?

I decided to take off running. I got to the field that’s on the third level of the park. I figured if I could get to the street, I could gather my mind. As I ran, I could hear footsteps behind me. Human footsteps. What the fuck was going on?

I turned around, and now I was being chased by three men in trench coats. I must be losing my mind. What the fuck was going on? I looked on and now there were three men standing in front of me.

“What the hell do you guys fucking want?” I yelled.

I now noticed that each of them was wearing a different color trench coat. A blond-haired, blue-eyed man wore a brown trench coat. An African-American man that was short and very skinny wore a white trench coat. The third man was Middle Eastern in appearance and was wearing a black trench coat.

The man in the brown trench coat came at me and swept my leg out from under me. I fell face-first into the dirt.

I looked up and saw the three men standing over me. I was terrified. Nothing like this had ever happened to me in my life. The man in the black trench coat stared down at me and said, “Sorry, buddy, this isn’t your night.”

Was he fucking kidding me? The whites of his eyes cut into me.

“He looks really healthy,” the man in the brown trench coat said to the others. “You want to take him back with us?”

“Nah, guys like him are a dime a dozen out here. We can feed nightly if we want. We have a job to do with this guy, and that’s it.”

What the fuck? What were they planning on doing to me?

I was horrified. My heart began to beat rapidly and I knew I was having an insane adrenalin rush. Something snapped in my head, and I rose to my feet and ran as fast as I could. I had adrenalin running through me that I didn’t know existed. I was almost to the street when one of them tackled me to the ground. I was still on the grass, but the tackle really hurt and I scraped my knees and elbows as I hit the ground.

The next five minutes were a blur. All I knew was that they were taking turns biting me. They bit my neck, my ankle, my wrist. It was horrifying. I saw my life flash before my eyes. They were making me bleed to death. I felt as if I was slipping away. I was quickly losing consciousness.

The last thing I heard before I blacked out was, “Police! Get the fuck off of him!”

Then lights out.