Flight to Freedom (Flight Trilogy, Book 3) (10 page)

She stroked his thick, brown hair. “I’m sorry you had a bad dream, but that’s all it was…a bad dream.”

“Are we still in California?” The moment he asked the question, he already knew.

“What do you mean ‘are we still in California?’” Her voice sounded concerned. “Ryan, are you feeling alright?”

He forced a fake smile. “I’m fine.”

“Well,” Keri said, “you sound like you might still be half asleep. I suggest you stay in bed until you wake up.” She stood. “Come join me when you wake up.” As she left the room she said, “Don’t forget, I’m cooking a big breakfast.”

Unanswerable questions swirled in his head. He was still in the same reality as before he went to sleep? Why didn’t he dream about 1974…and his last date with Keri? Why had he dreamed Rex died in the crash and Emily was murdered? He saw Rex at LAX last week and, unless something had changed, Rex was still married to Emily. Perhaps he had overdosed on the perfume?

Oh
,
no
!
What
if
the
dream
was
not
about
what
had
already
happened
,
but
instead
about
what
was
about
to
happen
?
Instead
of
a
corrective
dream
,
the
dark
dream
must
be
predicting
the
future
.

His mind spun to the next logical point on the timeline of his future: the horrid night Keri and the children were held hostage by the white freak—May 29, 2003.

But
it’s
all
screwed
up
.

If Rex crashed a year ago in July 2002, he and Emily should be dead, but he knew for a fact they were very much alive.

Not only had his number theory failed, there was no logic to the new twist in the timeline.

The reason Rex had been flying that particular flight on July 11, 2002, was because he had traded trips with Rex. But the flight never happened. That is why Rex and Emily are still alive.

He was confused. Nobody had died. Or had they? Would they? When? Nothing made sense. He didn’t know who, when, how, or where Evil would strike first, but something ominous darkened his spirit; something as real as real could be—a presence. A sense of death filled the room.

Please
,
God
,
don’t
let
anything
happen
to
my
family
.

CHAPTER 12

Southern
California

Sunday
morning
—
April
2003

Although Ryan wanted to believe the
Angel
perfume was somehow responsible for changing his past, his last nightmare had shed doubts on his theory.

Plus, the idea of time traveling in his dreams to a place in his past and making choices that would alter his future was
beyond
absurd. Any reasonable person would explain it as nothing more than double dreams or dreams within dreams. Nothing more than a subset of false awakenings in which he dreamed he had awoken from sleep while he continued to dream.

Regardless whether his experiences were real or imagined, he was not ready to simply blow them off as being false awakenings, double dreams, or dreams within dreams. The experiences were so strong and real he had to continue to experiment with the
Angel
perfume.

Perhaps the reason for his last dream being so different from the first two had something to do with the quantity of perfume he had ingested relative to the amount of caffeine he had consumed. During his years of fighting fatigue and insomnia, he had learned brain chemistry plays a major role in sleep performance. The proper mix of perfume and caffeine might be the solution.

After very little sleep, excited to continue his experiment, he returned to Starbucks with his
Angel
and a bottle of hand sanitizer.

Once he had his coffee, he returned to his car. When the cup was half empty, he sprayed the perfume on his forearm, and breathed deep, drawing the sweet fragrance into his lungs.

Within minutes, as he’d expected, he broke out in an allergic reaction—sneezing, red, itchy, watery eyes, and sinus drainage. On the way home his condition worsened, however this time, it was not as violent as the previous morning.

Entering the kitchen from the garage, he paused. Ahhh...chooo!”

Keri was at her usual place, drinking coffee and reading her Bible. “Another allergic reaction?”

“What can I say?”

“You might want to stay away from Starbucks for a while.”

This time, in her
unaltered
reality, she had continuity between yesterday and today. The timeline of life had not been changed by his last dream; a sequence he hoped would be broken today.

“I know for certain it’s not Starbucks that is making me sneeze.”

“Since we have been in California, you have had zero problems with allergies. Maybe a little sniffle when the Santa Ana winds blow in from the desert, but never with the westerly flow from the Pacific.”

“It’s probably a perfume or something. Who knows? Ahh…choo!” He rubbed his itchy eyes. “I’ll be in the bedroom sleeping it off. Wake me in time for church.”

“Okay. Try keeping those dreams dialed down. Think of something fun and happy before you go to sleep. I’ve heard that our dreams originate from actual experiences in our past. So if you haven’t been there, you can’t dream it. That awful dream you had yesterday must have been an exception.”

“I’ll work on that. Choo!”

He completed the ritual in the bathroom and then headed for the bed.

‘
Dreams
can
only
come
from
actual
experiences
in
our
past
.
’
I
hope
that
is
not
true
.

Exhausted, his body started floating within minutes.

* * *

The background sounds of air blowing from cooling fans and hissing through vents in the cockpit engulfed him in a protective white noise.

I’m
dreaming
,
but
where
am
I
?
What
is
the
date
?
Why
is
this
happening
?

He gazed out beyond the windscreen and into the still night. A wave of amnesia suddenly replaced his pre-takeoff anxiety. He had no memory of traveling to the airport. No memory of conducting the pre-flight planning. No memory of how he arrived at the end of the runway ready for takeoff. It was as if he’d been beamed from beneath the covers of his bed, transported to the Los Angeles International Airport, and dropped into the cockpit of a commercial jet waiting for takeoff.

OH
NO
!
Keri
!
The
children
!
They
are
being
held
hostage
!
The
freak
is
going
to
kill
them
!
It’s
May
29
,
2003
.

Before he had time to unravel his confused thoughts and any fascination he might have with mind paralysis or time travel, the voice of the tower controller crackled in his left ear. “Angel eleven heavy maintain three thousand, runway two five right, cleared for takeoff.”

A sudden jolt of fresh adrenalin charged through his veins vaporizing his reflective state. His heart rate quickened. His muscles tensed. His pupils dilated for extra sight.

I
need
to
get
out
!
I
need
to
go
save
them
!

The jet rumbled and shook as the large turbofans underneath each wing whirled to life, sucking in air like two, giant vacuums. The monstrous machine rolled down the runway, slowly at first, then faster and faster until it broke free of Earth’s hold and into the darkness.

His mind waffled back-and-forth between his pilot duties and his apparent lapse of memory. The dialogue between the air traffic controller and the copilot continued as the jet stair-stepped higher into the night.

“Angel eleven heavy turn left heading one eight zero.”

“One eighty, Angel eleven heavy,” the copilot replied.

Instinctively, his dream double reached up to the glareshield and dialed in one eight zero on the heading-selector knob, commanding the autopilot to bank the jet to the selected heading.

I’m
shouldn’t
be
here
!

The silky-smooth air beneath the jet’s wings masked the sensation of being hurled through the black of night at more than two hundred miles per hour.

Ryan’s uneasiness morphed into fear. He tried to speak but couldn’t find his voice. His mouth moved, but his words were muted. He was unable to engage the copilot in conversation, but he remembered his name, Chuck Smith.

Chuck
!
What’s
going
on
?
Why
am
I
here
?

“What are you doing?” Chuck had one foot propped up and was reading a novel.

Chuck slammed the book closed after marking his place with a two-dollar bill. He admired the cover. “That was amazing! You will love the ending…caught me completely by surprise.” He turned and looked at Ryan and said, “It all makes perfect sense, now.” Ryan saw the title of the book:
Flight
to
Freedom
.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

The cockpit door burst open and slammed against the wall. In a blur of bodies and flailing arms, two men charged through the opened door, screaming wildly, slashing the air with ceramic knives.

* * *

“NO!!!!!” Ryan’s body lurched. His eyes fluttered open in a frightened panic. Soaked in sweat, he jerked up on his elbow.

Keri rushed to the bed and held his hand. “Ryan, Ryan, its okay. You must have had a bad dream.”

He sat motionless as his thoughts synchronized with reality. “That was weird,” he said.

“Your shirt is damp.” She pulled away from the wetness.

“I was flying and two attackers burst through the cockpit door. They were about to slice us with knives when I woke up.”

“Strange.”

“How long have I been asleep? It feels like only a few minutes.” He glanced at the clock on the nightstand. “Impossible! I’ve been asleep for over an hour?”

“Yep, quiet as a baby until a few minutes ago. I was in the bathroom putting on my makeup when I heard you yell.”

This
is
definitely
not
good
.
I
don’t
understand
why
the
perfume
is
not
working
.

The same eerie sensation of death—as the day before—filled the room. It lingered like a dark presence stalking a wounded animal.

“I need to get up,” he said.

“Okay. We have about an hour before we need to leave for church.” Keri returned to the bathroom.

The first two dream regressions had worked beautifully, yet the last two resulted in nightmares and no change in reality.

The one glaring difference was that the first two dreams had occurred after inhaling the perfume worn by the woman named Angel. The last two dreams were after he had applied the perfume on himself.

It
must
have
something
to
do
with
who
is
wearing
the
perfume
.

He went to his office and flipped on his computer. After a quick search on the Internet—
does
perfume
smell
differently
on
different
people
—his suspicions were confirmed. He located a paper written by a post-doctoral college student studying biology and ecological chemistry.

He learned that each of the components of a person’s skin—fatty acids, fat, salts, sugars, proteins, fibers, and hair—binds the chemicals in perfume uniquely, releasing an individual scent.

It
makes
perfect
sense
that
different
smells
could
have
a
different
effect
on
my
brain
,
emotions
,
and
possibly
my
dreams
.

He Googled another phrase—
do
smells
influence
dreams
. At an annual meeting of the American Academy of Otolaryngology, research was presented from a study—
The
Impact
of
Olfactory
Stimulation
on
Dreams
—conducted on fifteen healthy women in their twenties to measure the effects of odors while they slept.

Tubes were taped to the subjects' nostrils, linking them to olfactometers. The devices pumped constant streams of air into their noses while monitoring the subjects’ brain activity. Once they reached the rapid-eye-movement (REM) stage of sleep when most dreams occur, a shot of scent was administered via the olfactometer for ten seconds: sulfuric scent of rotten eggs or the scent of roses.

The dreamers continued sleeping for another minute until the scientists woke them up and asked them to describe their dreams and rate the experience as emotionally negative or positive.

When using the unpleasant odorant, the emotional coloration of the dream was predominantly negative, while under stimulation with the pleasant stimulus, nearly all dreams had a positive coloration.

The study reinforced the known fact that the sense of smell is closely associated with the brain’s limbic system which governs emotion and behavior.

An ear, nose, and throat surgeon attending the meeting stated: “We know there is a link between smell and memory, and now there seems to be a link between smell and the sleep centers of the brain.”