Dreamwalker (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

The hospice was only a few miles away, a forty minute stroll for most, an unnerving trek for Pete.

Maps being worse than useless, he had the computer chart out the course to Legacy Hospice. He counted the intersections and the changes of direction. Eight blocks, turn right, two blocks, turn left, etc. He wrote down the list. Twin Moon City he could get around, but Philly…

The neighborhood changed as Pete left downtown behind. The skyscrapers gave way to older, three-story brownstones. In contrast to Atlantic City, Philly's neighborhoods were vibrant and restored, streets clean and houses painted. Smiling people had places to go. Residents walked dogs and pushed kids in strollers. Life was normal.

Pete hash marked the blocks as they passed, always worried that he had missed a street or lost count somewhere. He made his last turn and saw Legacy Hospice.

The stone building was a one-story modern design, painted bright white. Six parking spaces separated the building's expansive, elevated porch from the street. A ramp connected it to the parking lot. Large windows draped with bright yellow curtains bracketed the polished wood front door. Planters filled with small evergreen bushes lined the porch. Neat white lettering on the wall read:

LEGACY HOSPICE

LOVING LONG-TERM CARE

Pete assumed he'd find a glorified warehouse of the slowly dying, but if this book could be judged by its cover, this might be a good place for Rayna.

If she's still here.
Anything could have happened in the last few months, and none of it would have garnered a mention in the press.

And what was he going to tell the staff if she was there? Something like “Hi, I'm Pete. Rayna and I met on vacation in Twin Moon City.” They'd bounce him back to the curb.

He'd gotten this far. He needed to see her, to attach something tangible to the ethereal Rayna who walked through his dreams. He needed to know that the woman who captivated him in some other world was, at least in some way, part of this one. He mounted the porch steps and hoped for a last minute inspiration.

The reception area lived up to the exterior's promise. Bright works of Impressionist art hung on the eggshell walls. A cushioned, light blue carpet covered the floor, not the usual thin, industrial type. Live floor plants bloomed in every corner. A lovely nurse in her thirties sat behind a, light oak desk. The dark blue cardigan over her white uniform had a “Legacy Hospice” logo on the left breast. On the other side was a pin that read “Marilyn Davies, RN”. An engaging smile graced her lips as she greeted Pete.

“Can I help you?” she asked, closing the file she had been inspecting.

“I am here to visit Rayna Fisher,” Pete said.

Nurse Davies nodded with satisfaction.

“How nice,” she said. She slid what looked like a registration book in front of her. “Your name is…”

“Peter Holm.”

“And how do you know Rayna?”

“We went to high school together. I had the day off and wanted to see how she was doing.” One lie mixed with one truth.

Nurse Davies gave a sympathetic nod. She passed the registration book to Pete. He printed his name and home address next to the date and time. She compared it to his driver's license.

“She's in room 18,” Nurse Davies said. “I'll walk you down.”

Pete followed her down the hall.

“Has her condition changed?” Pete said.

“No,” she answered, “not since we admitted her. We don't expect her to improve. That's why she's here instead of a hospital.”

Nurse Davies seemed to sense his disappointment.

“You didn't expect her to be better, did you?”

“I really didn't know what to expect,” Pete said.

The nurse turned and gently held his shoulders.

“Peter, our guests here never get better. That's not our mission. We're here to make them comfortable, give them an uplifting environment, and meet their daily needs. I hope you can accept that's what we do.”

Not likely when Rayna was concerned.

“How can you be sure she won't recover?” he asked.

“Peter, the damage to her prefrontal cortex is extensive. The body can't repair that kind of injury. She'll never wake up.”

Nurse Davies gestured to an open door.

“Room 18 is right here.” She let Pete pass through the doorway first.

Rayna's room was more hotel suite than hospital. Sunlight cascaded in through a frosted window. Panoramic vistas of mountain ranges hung on the walls. Any medical equipment was absent, probably tucked in the tasteful wood cabinets against the walls. An overstuffed couch faced the bed with a matching chair to the bed's right. If the bed had anything in common with the hospital version, the designer had disguised it completely. Other than having the top half elevated about a foot, the twin bed mimicked one in a fine bed and breakfast, down to the carved wooden head and footboards. A bright yellow bedspread defied anyone tempted by depression. The room's central light focused on the bed, and on Rayna.

She lay in bed, crisp covers turned down to her waist. She wore a white hospital gown. Her blonde hair was down around her shoulders, radiant as fine silk. Rosy cheeks highlighted her pink, full lips, a real life Sleeping Beauty

Nurse Davies took one step back and retreated through the threshold, leaving Pete alone in the room.

“You stay as long as you like,” she whispered. “I'll be at the desk if you need me.” She moved down the hall without a sound.

Pete sat lightly in the chair next to Rayna, as if too much motion would shatter this fragile moment. The girl he thought was a figment of his imagination was alive. But the nurse's prognosis tempered his joy.

The real Rayna wasn't here. The bright light that warmed his soul when they shared his dreams was nowhere near. Her true essence of life had passed over from the tactile world. Lovely as it looked, this body here was just Rayna's vapor trail, left behind to slowly dissipate.

Pete reached out to hold Rayna's hand, but froze. The body before him was corporeal, completely real, in every sense he'd learned to accept. However, inside, he knew that it was less real, less
Rayna
, than the girl on the beach, the girl in Twin Moon City. If he touched her, looking for that flash of passion she gave him, he'd find only disappointment.

Pete left the room.

Nurse Davies looked up in surprise from her desk.

“Such a short visit?” she asked.

“This time,” Pete said. “Do her parents come and visit her?”

“Oh, yes. They come into the city every week and spend most of Saturday and Sunday here.”

Rayna might not appreciate the cheery surroundings, but it was surely a comfort to her parents.

“How long can she survive like this?”

“It all depends on the individual,” the nurse said. “Most get weaker over time. Organs fail, and the person passes on. But Rayna seems to have great reserves of strength. She's been surprisingly stable. She could easily be with us for years.”

Pete wondered if that was good news or bad.

“Thank you so much,” he said. “It was good to see her.”

“Come back again,” Nurse Davies said. “I know she‘s happy for your company.”

Just not in this world,
he thought.
Only in the land where the sun never rises.

Pete stepped back out into the streets of Philadelphia. He didn't want to look up Rayna's parents. What he'd tell them would give them no comfort. The pretty room and the breathing body of their daughter did that. Who wants to know their children are in some living hell?

He backtracked his way to the bus station by reversing his outbound instructions. The return trip seemed twice as long. The anticipation of the outbound trek had been replaced with a Gordian knot of unknowns about the other world he visited.

After the tortured souls in Twin Moon City progressed from captive to zombie to dust, what happened to them? Did the soul continue its interrupted trip? Pete assumed not. Cauquemere had drained the soul of its energy by then and it probably blew away like dried leaves on the wind. A true, permanent end to existence.

The palace felt like the center of the gravitational pull that bound the souls in Twin Moon City. Would a disruption of that flow of energy rushing into the palace give the souls in the city the chance to escape, and finally rest in peace?

And then what of Rayna? Could she pass over out of Twin Moon City if her body was still alive? Would she be stuck there, or in some other netherworld existence bouncing between other people's dreams, caught for years in some confused limbo?

Instead of providing answers, this trip just raised more questions.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Johnny positioned himself across the street from the bus station. From there, he could see both sides of the street for several blocks. There was no way Dr. Pete was going to slip by him.

Johnny wore a, greasy coat that may once have been camel's hair. He couldn't remember that far back. His scraggy hair stuck out at all angles and his matted beard was now solid gray. Duct tape kept his shoes in one piece. He sat on his square of cardboard on the sidewalk and no one made eye contact with him. That was good, because he was here to see, not be seen.

The Dark One had awakened him an hour ago, warned him of danger on the way. A doctor was coming to the bus station. A doctor like the evil ones who had tortured him in the hospitals, made him take drugs that slowed down his brain, implanted the trackers under his skin. But Johnny would get the jump on this one.

“Tan jacket, blue shirt, tan jacket, blue shirt,” Johnny muttered under his breath. The chant wasn't to remind him what Dr. Pete was wearing. The voices were doing that. He was just joining the chorus. They sounded like the Dark One, just so many more of them. More and more, every month.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets against the cold. He fingered the wooden handle of his carving knife. For once a doctor would feel the edge of
his
blade.

He inspected each passerby against his two point checklist. Tan jacket! No blue shirt. Tan jacket! A woman? No, Dr. Pete was a man. Then…

Tan jacket! Blue shirt! A man! The only one all morning. It had to be him.

Johnny rose and walked down the sidewalk to intercept. Pedestrians with horrified looks gave Johnny a wide birth. He didn't notice, his eyes locked on Dr. Pete. Even the doctor didn't see him, preoccupied with something far from Filbert Street.

The voices began a new, darker chant.

Kill him, kill him, kill him.

The Dark One had said as much, and killing was wrong, but so was what the doctors had done to him. So was what Dr. Pete wanted to do to him. Killing Dr. Pete was self-defense. For once he and the voices were in harmony. He felt more complete that way.

Dr. Pete was just feet away. No doubt about it now. This was the face the Dark One showed him in his dream.

The voices' new chant drowned out his second thoughts.

Cut him deep, slit him good. Cut him deep, slit him good.

Johnny hopped in front of Pete and grabbed him by the collar. He poked the knife at Pete's belly. Pete looked startled. And scared. Good.

“In the alley,” he whispered. It wouldn't do to kill him here with witnesses. “And stay quiet.”

Pete held his hands to his side and shuffled into the alley. Johnny tossed him down behind an air conditioning unit.

“Hey, dude, whatever you want is yours,” Pete said. “My wallet's in my pocket. Take it.”

Cut him, cut him!
cried the voices.

“You can't buy me off,” Johnny said. “He warned me about you. You're going to put more demons in my head. Like the other doctors.”

“Doctors? I'm no doctor.”

GUT HIM LIKE A FISH!
screamed the voices.

“He showed me your face,” Johnny said. “The Dark One warned me not to listen to you.”

He lunged at Pete. But years of street living had slowed him down. His thrust went wide. Pete rolled and Johnny's blade struck pavement. Pete gave Johnny a kick in the chest that sent his emaciated body flying. The knife flew from his hand. Johnny hit the wall and saw stars. He slid to the ground.

Next thing he knew, Pete was on top of him. Pete's knees pinned Johnny's arms. He held Johnny's knife. The tip was broken.

“No, no! No experiments!” Johnny flailed uselessly. “No more experiments!”

“Calm down, calm down. I'm no doctor. Look at me. I'm eighteen. How could I be a doctor?”

“You must be,” Johnny said. He gave another weak thrash. “The Dark One told me.”

“The one who comes in your nightmares?” Pete said.

Johnny went still. “Yes.”

“Black peaked cap, dreadlocks, snake medallion?”

Johnny's mouth hung open. This boy was no doctor. Doctors never believed him.

He's going to trick you!
the voices shouted.

Johnny pressed them far back in his mind. “You know him?”

“He haunts us both,” Pete said. “He comes in my dreams at night. He finds all my darkest fears and tries to turn them against me. You aren't the only one.”

No one ever told Johnny that. For years he thought he suffered alone. If others saw the Dark One, maybe Johnny was…normal.

“How long's he been haunting you?” Pete said.

“How long is forever?”

A look of sad recognition crossed Pete's face. He stood and helped Johnny up. He kicked the knife back over to Johnny's feet.

“What's your name?”

“Johnny.”

“I'm going to help you, Johnny. Show me where you sleep.”

No one had offered Johnny help, honest understanding help, in forever. Pete's eyes looked kind. They weren't doctor's eyes.

A few streets over, Johnny showed Pete a grate near a parking garage. Pete told him to wait there and returned a few minutes later with a spool of speaker wire in a sack from a corner store. Pete took Johnny's knife and slit the casing off about twenty feet of wire. He wove it around the edge of the grate until it made a copper circle. He tied a loop at the end and stuck the knife in it, point down.

“Now you need to sleep inside the circle,” Pete said. “If you're in there, the Dark One can't come in your dreams. I know it sounds crazy.”

“I'm not a good judge of crazy anymore,” Johnny said.

“Well, the wire works for me,” Pete said.

Johnny sat down in the circle. Pete put the rest of the wire in his pocket. He touched Johnny's shoulder.

“Sleep, you'll feel better. But never sleep outside the wire again. Promise?”

Johnny nodded. It did sound crazy, but he believed that Pete believed, and that was good enough. He stayed in the circle as Pete walked away. In the circle, the voices were quiet.

Pete stopped at the end of the alley, looked lost, and turned around.

“Uh, could you walk me back to the bus station?”

Later, standing in the Philly bus station, Pete accepted there was no escape from the tempests Cauquemere could stir. If Pete slept outside the wire loop, he was a target. If he entered Twin Moon City, same thing. His encounter with Johnny proved that even in the tactile world, he wasn't safe. Cauquemere could twist the living into doing his bidding. Pete could trust no one, especially if Cauquemere could spread his influence as far away as Philadelphia.

How did Cauquemere know he was in Philadelphia anyway?

He hit himself in the head.

Because in his nightmare he told the lady on the bus. Even in his dreams, he'd have to be more careful. His chances of helping free Estella must be pretty good if Cauquemere was trying so hard to stop him.

At the station, Pete scanned the schedule to Atlantic City. There was a departure in about an hour. The excursion here had taken less time than expected. He might be able to put in some hours tonight. Tommy was filling in, but surely he'd welcome the help.