Lucid Dreaming (2 page)

Fortunately the security doors were all wide open, and I ran out into another ward, where they kept the non-violent cases… not that you'd know
that
now, not with the blood everywhere. On the walls, on the floor, smeared in weird patterns that looked like ancient runes. I could smell the blood even over my own stench. Needless to say, I wanted to get out of
there
real bad, but the hallway in front of me was filled with people.

With women. The one nearest me was banging her head on a doorframe, leaving big wet patches on wood and skin; she didn't stop or look up as I walked by her. Another woman, who was even younger than me, sat in a doorway and grinned idiotically. The worst was a patient who had her fingers in her mouth and was eating them. The middle and index fingers were gone down to the first joint. She acted like she was enjoying a midday snack. Finger-
lickin
' good.

What the fuck was going on?

At least none of them tried to stop me.

Neither did anyone else, for that matter. No doctors, no orderlies, no nurses. I had no idea what'd happened to Ms. Conroy. I almost just split, but then I remembered that the facility was in the middle of nowhere, and I'd need wheels to get anywhere. A few other things would be nice, too: Money. Real clothes.

Prolixin
.

I sure didn't want to see whatever all the rest of 'em were seeing. Been there, done that.

I knew where the drugs were stored; we passed the dispensary on my twice-weekly walks to see my therapist, staid old Doctor Pembroke. The dispensary door was locked, but I found a maintenance closet with hammers and screwdrivers, and I managed to break the lock. The power was still on and it set off some kind of alarm, but there was nobody left who gave a shit. I found five big bottles of 10 mg
Prolixin
, and grabbed them all. I cracked the seal on one and dry-swallowed a couple of the pills. Then I raided the doctors' offices, finding money in forgotten wallets and purses. I found a big floppy bag that I emptied out to hold the
Prolixin
. I found a man's oversized suit jacket that actually looked pretty
phat
on me, and some sunglasses.

I also found a TV, still turned on. It was showing nothing but a symbol for the Emergency Broadcast System. I flipped through the channels, got snow on most of 'em, the EBS on a few others. One was still running old movies.

Only one news station was still live. The newscaster, who I recognized but couldn't fit a name to, looked wasted, with dark-circled eyes and messy hair. He was saying that reports had confirmed this “epidemic or phenomenon” was happening all over the world.

Then his expression went blank, and he just stared into the camera, slack-jawed. A little pool of saliva gathered around his lower lip and spilled over, running down his chin.

There was more screaming from behind me, within the bowels of the facility. It was so time to go.

I took keys wherever I found them, and tried them all on the cars outside until one fit.

Oh, and I took one other thing, too—a guard's gun. I found it still in a holster, the holster on a gun belt, the belt hanging from a low tree limb outside. I'd never used a gun, so I fired it into the ground once to make certain I knew how. Whatever had happened seemed to be everywhere, and if I came up against any more whack jobs trying to take me down, I wanted to be able to handle them.

The car I got that started up was pretty sweet, one of those big butch SUVs that felt like a military vehicle. It had three-quarters of a tank of gas, so it should get me back to Hollywood. It had a radio, of course, which I promptly turned on.

I pressed the fucking search button until my fingertip was raw, but there was nothing on FM. I found one AM station still transmitting, but it just sent an automated Emergency Broadcasting System announcement over and over.

I was pretty fucking scared by then.

Fortunately the
Prolixin
was kicking in, so I could at least think. Or maybe it was unfortunately, because I knew that whatever was happening, it was real.

I locked the doors on the car. Then I sat there and thought for a few moments. Something big had happened. Whatever it was, it'd been building for a while, sending more and more people to the loony bin. And it was also big enough that nobody had come to help—or to lock the crazies away.

And why hadn't it gotten me?

I'd deal with that later. Right now, I had to decide what to do. Where to go. I had money—about $300—and plenty of gas. Where should I go?

Tommy.

If anyone had figured out what was going on, it'd be Tommy. He was the smartest person I'd ever met—way smarter than that imbecile Doctor Pembroke—and he'd been writing me every month, so I knew he still lived at the same place. He was a good guy. He'd let me crash with him. Maybe together we could figure out what to do.

Just one problem:

I'd never driven a car.

Well, that wasn't completely true. Tommy had taken me out to an empty parking lot once and given me a few quickie lessons. It hadn't seemed that hard. And Tommy's car had been old and cranky, with no power steering so you really had to haul on that steering wheel to make a turn.

This baby was, as the car dealers liked to say, fully loaded. It should be a lot easier to drive than Tommy's.

Ignition first, then…right, put it into gear. Take off the parking brake. Accelerator on the right, brake on the left.

Easy.

Of course I hit the accelerator too hard at first and nearly smacked into a brick wall, but I got the hang of it pretty quick. This thing practically drove itself.

Sweet.

I was really into the driving by the time I hit the freeway. It was late afternoon, nearly five p.m., and the lanes heading east towards Los Angeles should've been packed, totally bumper-to-bumper.

Wrong. There was no traffic. I mean
no
traffic, as in I was completely alone. Only once did I see another car. It was driving straight towards me, on the wrong side of the 101 freeway. At the last second I veered aside, and the asshole shot on by. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw him go smashing through the guardrail, disappearing over the side. I didn't stop to help or look back. I had to get to Hollywood. I was scared and wired and I needed a friend.

The 101 finally came down out of the hills to the west of

L.A. and spilled down into the San Fernando Valley. I sped past Tarzana, Woodland Hills, Encino, Studio City. There were a few more cars on the freeway now—none of them moving. Just parked there. I swerved around them, doing a scared-shitless 80 miles per hour.

I drove over the
Cahuenga
pass and got off at Vine.

Hollywood was hell on earth.

The power seemed to be dead here, and stoplights weren't working. Car wrecks were everywhere. Trash blew in the streets (which was weird even for Hollywood). A coyote ran right in front of me at one point, looking like he owned Hollywood, which I guess maybe he did now. Because the people…

They were severely fucked up.

There were lots of them lolling about, in the streets, on the sidewalks, in the buildings. I had to slow down to a crawl to avoid hitting them. Some shambled along, like movie zombies. Some waved their arms in the air, or danced, or shouted. Some were naked; others dressed in torn and dirty clothing. At the corner of Fountain and Vine, a man wearing a rumpled expensive suit and a dead look in his eyes ran right in front of the car. I slammed on the brakes, and he started slapping the windshield and screaming, “They're here! They're here!!”

I gunned past him and headed for Tommy's place.

Tommy lived in an area of older, slightly rundown but funky apartment complexes, just south of Santa Monica Boulevard. I didn't bother to park in a real space, but just shut the car off in the middle of the driveway and got out.

A woman was lying on the sidewalk leading to Tommy's unit; she was beneath a smashed third-story window, one leg obviously broken under her, yelling, “I'm falling! Oh God, I'm falling—!”

I walked around her, as far away from her as possible. It didn't matter, because she didn't even notice me.

Tommy lived towards the back. Just before his door, an elderly man was dancing in the walkway. It was a strange jittery little dance, a combination of shuffles and hops.

“Why the fuck are you doing that?” I demanded, when I couldn't get by him.

“The fairies will give me a lucky cornflake,” he answered.

I started to tell him he needed to head for West Hollywood, but realized it was pointless. The way he sounded reminded me of Ms. Conroy, back at the hospital. They both mumbled the words, as if they could barely open their mouths.

They sounded like people who talk in their sleep.

But that was silly. They were both awake. “Do you actually
see
fairies?” I asked the old guy.

“No...now they've
scurbled
back to their...”

I couldn't make out the rest. He stopped his dance and just slid down the wall, staring at nothing.

I ran up the stairs to Tommy's apartment as fast as I could. Tommy was the best friend I'd ever had. He knew about my problems and didn't care. In fact, he thought it was cool. He'd asked me a lot about the drugs I took, because he was major into both computers and chemistry, especially drug chemistry. He really wasn't a total stoner, just an occasional tripper, but one who liked knowing how things worked.

Maybe he'd know about
this
, then.

My stomach turned over when I saw his door was open. Tommy had three locks, because he had a lot of really valuable electronic and computer stuff; he never just left his door swinging like that.

“Tommy?” I called, going in real slow.

I didn't have to go far. Tommy was dead on the living room floor. He looked as if he'd been dead for a couple of days, because his skin was white and mushy-looking and he smelled. There were some little bits of brown stuff spilling out of one hand, and when I looked at them I realized they were magic mushrooms.

Shit. Tommy had OD'd on '
shrooms
.

I started crying, but couldn't stay there, mainly because of that smell. I stumbled out onto the street, trying to stop bawling, trying to figure out what to do now.

It was getting dark, and I needed someplace to stay. A lot of people were still out on the streets, and they were starting to freak me out. One huge, foul-smelling man—a local transient Tommy and I had named The Ogre—was looking at me really strangely, and I didn't want to hang around to find out why. I thought about going back to Tommy's, dragging him out, but knew I couldn't do it. Instead I tried other doors in his building until I found one that was unlocked. I held the gun out before me and went through the whole place, but it was empty inside. I locked the door behind me, then huffed and hauled a big bookcase over to block the door, just to be really safe.

Feeling a little calmer, I dried my eyes and tried to force myself to think. First I decided to take inventory.

Whoever had lived here had had even less money than Tommy. There wasn't much in this place: A stained and tatty futon couch, a cheap coffee table, a television and stereo on top of some bricks and boards. In the kitchen, a few packages of Top Ramen, cans of chocolate pudding, and beer.

Obviously a guy's place.

The bedroom smelled musty, like old sweat, and held only a double bed, an upended crate for a bedside table, and some posters of girls with racing cars. I think it was safe to say this guy didn't get laid much.

Of course neither did I.

Fortunately he had some okay clothes, and I hadn't put on lots of weight during my three fun months in the institution, so they'd probably fit me, with some rolling and belting. Good. That was something.

I took a beer from the fridge (fuck, this asshole bought the worst, cheapest swill), and downed another
Prolixin
with it. Then I curled up on the futon couch, and tried not to think about Tommy.

It took a while, but I finally drifted off.

“HAHAHAHAHA!”

I had no idea what time it was when the high-pitched, hysterical laughter outside woke me up. I only knew that it was pitch dark outside—darker than I'd ever seen L.A., with no lights creating a red nighttime haze over the city—and it felt like the middle of the night. The laughter went on for a few seconds…

…and then was abruptly silenced by a loud, sharp BANG.

I waited, panting, heart hammering, disoriented. When it stayed quiet, my heart rate slowed back down, and I remembered where I was. It was so dark I couldn't see a fucking thing, but I remembered where I'd seen the TV and I lumbered over to it, barking my shin once on that stupid,
cheapass
coffee table.

I found the power button on the TV and pressed it, but remembered that there was no power. Nothing happened, of course.

I thought about the pudding I'd seen in the cabinets, and I stumbled into the kitchen. I rifled blindly through some drawers until I found a spoon. I took every can back to the futon with me, and ate them all.