Poet Anderson ...Of Nightmares (2 page)

Gunner grinned and Sketch dropped into the seat next to Jonas. “Oo…” He sucked in a breath, staring meaningfully at two empty seats across the row. “I swear to Christ they're wearing Poet Anderson T-shirts. They must know how fucking cool you are. Wait…they
were
wearing T-shirts…”

Jonas finally turned to him. “Poet?” he asked.

Sketch snorted and looked at Gunner. “I knew naked girls would get him,” Sketch said. He turned back to Jonas. “Yeah, fucker,” he said. “I'm talking to you. Did you forget again?”

Poet shook his head to clear it. “Maybe,” he said, slightly disoriented. “I'm not sure. I was just…I was remembering this dream.”

Sketch furrowed his blond eyebrows, running his pale eyes slowly over Poet. “This dream?”

“Yeah,” Poet said. “I was driving with my brother and then the sky opened up and a storm blew us off the road. Alan bashed his head.” Poet rubbed roughly at his face. “There was blood and then water came up and…everything went dark.”

Sketch widened his eyes and then exhaled heavily. “That's intense,” he replied. “I bet a dream analyst would say you need to get laid.” He laughed and slapped Poet on the back. “Look on the bright side,” Sketch added, squeezing his shoulder. “At least you weren't dreaming about dead parents again.”

Poet felt a sick twist in his gut and stared down at the train floor, at the dirt embedded in the crevices and bits of bright-colored gum stuck on the ridges.
But my parents are dead
, he thought.

“So where are we heading tonight?” Gunner asked, sounding impatient. “I wanted to go into the city.”

“You always want to go to the city,” Sketch said. “But we do the same damn thing every night. This is a train to nowhere, my friend. Besides, Poet has other things to worry about. Right?”

Poet stared at him a moment and then nodded, even though he couldn't quite remember what Sketch was referring to.

Gunner took out his can of spray paint. “Fine, whatever,” he said. “I just wanted to make some art.” He crossed the car and pulled open the door, stepping out into the space between train cars.

“That's not art!” Sketch called after him. “That's coloring!”

Outside the car, Gunner leaned his head between the train and the tunnel. On the wall were dozens of spray paint lines, stretching the length of the tunnel, creating a multi-colored mural tracing the train's path. Gunner sprayed the wall with a steady red stream. The train's motion shaped the line as it became part of the mural.

Back inside the car, Poet watched as Sketch shook his own paint can.

“Anyone can do that,” Sketch said. “Now, this…this is art.” Sketch stood up and started tagging the train wall with a flowing zigzag of lines that took the shape of an astronaut straddling a rocket. Poet leaned forward, staring at the quick blur of Sketch's arm, the peculiar way he would move—in and out of focus like he was moving too fast to catch. Occasionally, Sketch would look over and grin—slowed down to a normal pace—and then zoom out of focus once again.

Sketch glanced at Poet and when he saw the bewildered expression on his face, he groaned as if he didn't want to deal. He set the can on the seat and grabbed the pole in front of Poet.

“You really are trippin',” Sketch said, shaking his head. “I swear we go through this every night—I thought you were better. Look, I didn't want to say anything in front of Gunner since he doesn't know.” He paused to measure his words. “But Poet…that dream about your brother…you know that wasn't a dream, right?”

Poet's eyes rounded, and sickness rose in his stomach. The image of Alan hitting his head on the windshield. The impact when the car hit the water. Poet's heart rate exploded, panic set in. He darted a look around the subway train, trying to make sense of everything.

Sketch winced at Jonas's reaction, and squatted down at his knees. Jonas stared at him, a thought on the edge of his understanding. A thought he couldn't quite grasp.

“What's going on?” he asked in a low voice.

“I told you,” Sketch said. “That wasn't the dream.” He motioned around him to the subway car, and when he turned back, he met Jonas's eyes and said, “
This
is the dream.”

Chapter Two

J
onas and Alan Anderson were
Lucid Dreamers. Both brothers found they had the ability to become aware in their dreams, achieve a consciousness while sleeping. This rare talent gave them control of their surroundings, control of their dreams. While most kids their age would be sneaking alcohol or using
the Ouija board to try to contact the dead, the Anderson boys would meet up together in a dream—reliving past memories or recreating them.

For a while they returned to the beach where Alan failed to learn how to surf. But in the dream, he was able to create the perfect board, able to try over and over without the worry of time. After he mastered that dream, the boys moved on to another.

Once in a while, they even ended up on a subway car on their way to an unknown city. Sometimes there were other people on the train, sometimes it was just them. These dreams were different from the others, though: the train wasn't a memory or a place they'd seen in their waking lives. It was entirely new, and that excited them more than anything.

Back when Alan first realized that he and Jonas were self-aware in their dreams, he set out to spend his waking hours studying lucid dreaming, specifically dream control. He read multiple psychology journals on the topic (and the occasional Wikipedia page). He asked his science teachers, who largely discredited the phenomenon, and he eventually hunted down a college professor at the University of Washington who'd written papers on the subject. Alan would bring back all this information to Jonas, and together they tried different techniques.

Alan had better control than Jonas. In the dreams, he was able to change their surroundings. He could alter their appearance or take Jonas to parts of the world he'd only read about in books. Alan could even make people appear, plucking them from a memory.

The professor had advised Alan to channel different feelings for a desired outcome. Heightened emotions affected the brain chemistry, and as a result, the mind would be more active. Using this technique, Alan was able to call up small objects, usually a can of paint, and tried to help Jonas do the same since his control only seemed to extend to the self-awareness.

Shortly before their parents' death, Alan and Jonas found themselves on the train once again. Alan was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, whereas Jonas was still in his pajamas, something he found particularly embarrassing. They'd occasionally run into strangers here, other Lucid Dreamers along for the ride. From what they could tell, this place seemed to be its own dreamscape, open to whoever could get here. Which meant it was exciting as hell, even if they had no idea where the train was heading.

Alan looked over his brother's pajamas from the seat across from him. “It's okay, man,” Alan said. “Less than twenty percent of the population is even aware when they're dreaming. And of that percentage, only one in five can actually impact their dreams.” Alan sounded like the professor, grating deeply on Jonas's nerves. Alan grinned and climbed up on the train seat, tagging the high corner on the train wall—something he would never do in his waking life. “So I'm officially the coolest fucking dude you know,” Alan added.

Jonas snorted and stared down at soft cotton pajamas. He wanted to be like Alan. He wanted control, too. Jonas looked at his clothes and thought
jeans
. Nothing happened. Alan was spray painting a phrase from George Orwell's
Nineteen Eighty-Four
, but Jonas clenched his jaw, trying to force his emotions. He tried anger, hope, jealousy—nothing seemed to work. He was getting frustrated, but then he closed his eyes and calmed himself.

I'm not wearing my pajamas
, he thought confidently.
When I open my eyes, they'll be jeans
. He gave himself over to the thought, waiting until he was convinced it was true. He opened his eyes—pajamas. His heart sank, but then wisps of blue smoke began to wrap around his legs, covering him in denim until he was wearing jeans. Jonas jumped up from the seat and yelled to Alan. By the time his brother turned around, the smoke had dissipated and Jonas was wearing a completely different outfit.

Alan looked him over, pride in his blue eyes, but he shrugged indifferently. “So your talent is fashion,” he said with a smile. “We all have our gifts, Jonas.”

“Fuck you,” Jonas said back, staring down at his clothes. It was a start.
I'll get better
,
Jonas thought, and he sat down contently, swaying with the movement of the train.

Alan came over and took the seat next to Jonas, looking sideways at him. “This could help us, you know,” Alan said. “If you get stronger, I bet it will work.”

Alan was convinced there was another part of the Dream World—an entire city of shared consciousness that only Lucid Dreamers could get to, like some kind of members-only club. It was a reality documented in one of the sleep studies he'd read. He believed that with practice, he and Jonas could get there. And so Alan would get them on this subway train, imagining they were going deeper into their dream, heading toward the other world. But they never got that far; they never got beyond the train. They'd always wake up before the last stop.

The train rattled along
a curve, startling Poet from his memories. He glanced around, realizing that he was on that same car right now, the very same one he and Alan would ride on. He looked up to the far corner and saw the phrase Alan wrote all that time ago: “Big Brother is watching you.” And now Poet knew why he was there, too; he was trying to go deeper into the Dream World. He was trying to find the other part of the dreamscape in hopes of finding Alan.

“This is the dream,” Poet repeated. In front of him, Sketch nodded, and Poet felt his sense of purpose renewed. “Listen, Sketch,” he said. “I have to find my brother. He's—”

There was a deafening bang on the roof of the car, and the entire train shook. The lights flickered. When they snapped back on, Poet saw the color had drained from Sketch's face. Gunner darted back inside, his mouth hanging open. All three guys lifted their eyes to the ceiling of the train car and waited. No one dared speak.

There was a thump and the high-pitched screech of nails on metal. Gunner winced, covering his ears, but Poet kept very still. What the hell was on the roof? He tried to remember if this had happened before, but his thoughts were too jumbled. Memories of his dreams often disappeared the moment he woke up, or at least they had since his parents died.

The sound above the car quieted and the moving train pulled to the platform, hissing and staggering to a stop. The three boys moved down the row of seats, staring at the doors, worried what would happen when they opened.

“What's on the roof?” Poet whispered to Sketch, not taking his eyes off the doors.

“I think we're about to find out.” Sketch's voice shook, and he looked sideways at Poet. He nodded down the car instead of toward the platform. “On the count of three,” he breathed out, “run.”

Poet clenched his hands into fists, his adrenaline spiked. Gunner backed quietly toward them, his chest heaving.
How long is this train?
Poet wondered. Long enough to outrun whatever was after them? He sure as hell hoped so.

He swallowed hard, darting a look between Sketch and the doors. The view outside the train window was dingy white subways tiles, no longer pristine and new like earlier. There was no exit on either side of the platform, almost like there was no outside. Like they were trapped.

“One,” Sketch said, reaching to put his hand on Poet's upper arm. Gunner stepped back. There was a hiss in the gears above the door, signaling they were about to open. Poet could barely breathe.

“Two.” Sketch gave the others a hard look, preparing them. He took a big gasp of air and said, “Th—” The subway doors opened.

Long silver nails clicked and cut into the metal as a creature pulled itself through the doorway. Its feet thudded on the grated floor, and it turned to scan the three boys, a low growl issuing from its throat. Poet's eyes rounded as he took in the image of the beast—its composition a mixture of every terrible thing he could imagine. It was huge, a four-legged creature nearly too big to fit in the train car. It had green scales along its raised back—jagged like shards of glass. Its eyes were blood-red, and its double rows of shark-like teeth looked ready to tear into Poet.

The creature settled its gaze on Poet, as if it knew him. Poet's stomach twisted in horror, but it wasn't just because he was scared. He was sure he'd seen this monster before. In fact, he thought he'd seen it every night since the accident.

The monster rolled back its head and let out an ear-splitting roar, making the entire car shake and the windows rattle. Poet flinched and the subway doors closed, trapping them in with the beast.

“Run!” Sketch yelled, reading the threat before the monster attacked. The three boys hadn't taken two steps before the creature was galloping toward them, laying waste to the subway car. Smashing seats and lights, pulling down half the ceiling as it maneuvered its massive body further down the train. Gunner—although a big guy—was out ahead, running faster than Poet thought possible. Sketch was using the pole to slingshot himself forward, his movements fast and blurred, leaving Poet behind with a monster at his heels.

Poet tried to imitate Sketch, but his sneakers kept slipping on the floor. The monster lunged for him, just missing, sending a hot, foul-smelling breeze over the side of Poet's face.
I'm not going to make it
, he thought, his chest heaving as he sucked in air. He turned to look over his shoulder at the monster, hoping it would fall back.

It did. Its nails scraped horribly, but slid against the metal, slowing it down. Hope surged and Poet rushed ahead—noticing that the end of the car was coming up. But more alarmingly, Sketch and Gunner were gone. Completely disappeared.

Poet scanned for them quickly, but found only an empty subway train. He was running out of room. He skidded to a stop at the back of the car without an exit. He spun around quickly, finding the monster galloping toward him again. He only had a second to think. The closest door was behind the monster—meaning he had to get by him. He had to be fast.

Poet began to charge forward knowing he'd be no match for the horrible creature in front of him, but there was space. If he could get the beast to jump, he could slide along the floor and make it. But that was a big fucking if.

He ran, waiting for exactly the right time, though he worried it wouldn't come. And then, just as he was in leaping distance, the monster reared up and jumped, his spiked back colliding with the roof, cutting through the metal as he hurtled toward Poet. It would have crushed him. But Poet moved as fast as he could, becoming a blur like Sketch had. He dropped down and slid under the creature, popping up on the other side.

Stunned that he'd actually pulled it off, Poet stared for a moment too long. The monster crashed down on the floor of the train, its claws tearing through the exact spot where Poet had been standing. The beast roared when it realized it had come up short, and turned its massive head to train its red eyes on Poet.

Poet cursed and started running to the other side of the train. He'd run out of room soon, and then what?

There was a rumble, and at first Poet thought it was the beast, closer than ever. But he looked to his side and saw a man on a motorcycle racing alongside the platform next to the stopped train. Only he wasn't riding a regular bike: it was a jet-powered monocycle—a vehicle with beat-up metal slapped onto one oversized spinning tire, blue flames spitting out of the engine. The man turned his head as he passed Poet and nodded. He disappeared past the next set of windows, and Poet wanted to scream for him to stop. To help.

Poet darted for the exit, squeezing his fingers into the rubber between the doors. He grunted as he pulled, afraid he'd never get the doors open in time. The car shook as the beast neared, closing in for the kill. Finally, Poet got his hands in and peeled back the doors, leaping through before they slammed closed behind him. Without hesitation, he ran, hearing the monster slamming against the doors to break out after him.

Poet's shoes slipped on the concrete, but near the end of the platform, he saw the man skid out on his cycle, swinging around to look back at him. The monocycle idled, and Poet shot ahead faster, hoping to make it before the man left. And then behind him, Poet felt a breeze, followed by a sharp burn across his back. He screamed out, off balance as he stumbled a few steps. He heard the roar of the cycle just ahead.

Don't leave me
, he thought wildly. In a blur, he was running strong again. The man was heading straight for him. On Poet's left, the subway car, broken and cut up, pulled away from the platform with a loud screech. The man was getting closer, his head downcast like he would ride right through Poet. But then inches in front of Poet's sneakers, the man skidded again, blackening the concrete, and swung the monocycle around.

“Get on,” he said in a deep voice. Poet didn't have time to hesitate. He could feel blood running down the back of his shirt, the burn of the creature's scratch. He hopped on the cycle, turning to look at the monster racing toward them. They'd never make it.

The man revved the engine, the inside of the tire spun, blue light emanated from heated sparks, and then the cycle shot forward. Poet could feel the heat of the flames from the engine, and he leaned forward against the man. They moved toward the tunnel where the subway train had disappeared, but there was no way off the platform—no stairwells or doors. Poet looked around and realized they were trapped.

“Use your gun,” the man said. “We need to get deeper now that the creature's found you.” He motioned toward the monster and Poet turned to find it was getting closer.

“But I don't have a gun!” he shouted.