The Devil's Dream: Book One (31 page)

"Tell me this
occurred to you before just now, that maybe she hated you? That maybe
she wanted everything you'd done to end, even if it meant you died?
You couldn't have thought I told her to stab you, right? You can't be
that dumb."

The pale man
straightened his head up and switched spots again, going back to her
daughter. He grabbed Marley by the hair, pulling up so that her neck
stretched.

"NO!" Allison
shouted, hearing the muffled screams of her daughter and looking at
her elongated neck. Brand brought his other hand around to the front,
his long fingers looking vampiric as he gripped Marley's neck. "Don't
you fucking touch her. Don't you fucking touch her!" Allison
said, trying to keep calm but her rage still spewing from her mouth
like lava from a volcano, the surrounding earth no longer strong
enough to hold it back.

"Why am I here,
Allison?" Brand's voice so low that Marley's cries almost
drowned it out.

"To take her. To
kill him. To kill me. I don't know, just please don't touch her."

"No, Allison.
That's not why I'm here. Even if what you said is true, even if Rally
hated me at the end, who put her in that position?"

For the first time
since she'd been woken Allison remained quiet. This was as personal
to him as his son's death. He'd traveled the country with a wound to
be here, to have this conversation—to make her say that she
understood why he was taking her child and murdering her husband.
What had Rally wanted from him? What had made her try to kill him? He
wouldn't stop, not until someone put a knife in his gut and twisted
it around until there was no chance his organs could heal. That's why
she had done it, and how long had she tried to change his mind? How
many times had she asked him over the phone, while Allison listened,
to stop what he was doing?

"I did, Matthew. I
put her there, but I didn't make her grab a knife and hang out while
you burnt the place down. She knew what you were doing, what you're
doing now, was wrong. Have you ever thought you might not be able to
bring your son back? That it might all just be theoretical? Even the
government hasn't been able to replicate what you were doing. What if
all this is for nothing?"

He smiled, his hand
still on Marley's neck, and her head still stretch upwards by her
hair.

"Allison, I killed
the only woman I've ever loved last week. Do you really think your
reasoning here is going to stop me from what I came to do? I'm here
because you put my wife in a position where I was forced to kill her,
indirectly or directly, it doesn't matter. She's dead. Everything
I've had has been taken from me. So this is your turn. Your turn to
have everything taken. We'll be leaving, me, your daughter and your
husband, and you'll never see them again. It's important that you
understand that, Allison. You can search the entire world, turning
over every rock, but you'll never find them. These faces right here,
this will be the last time you're ever in contact, so make whatever
you have to say matter. I'll give you what no one ever gave me. Go
ahead, talk to them."

The tears that she had
tried to keep still sprang on her face. Hot liquid that dropped to
her cheeks.

"Baby, I love
you," she said, looking directly into her daughter's wide,
terrified, brown eyes. "I love you and this is going to be
okay."

"Don't lie to her,
Allison. Nothing is going to be okay for anyone in this room. Say
what you want, but don't lie to her."

Allison tried to kick
her foot, out of anger as much as trying to get loose, but it barely
moved against the tape.

"Marley, look at
me. Mommy loves you and I need you to be strong right now. Okay? I
need you to trust me. I love you, honey, and don't worry, nothing's
going to happen."

Brand released the
girl's hair, looked down at the floor and shook his head. "Things
are going to happen, Marley. Your mother is lying to you. The only
comfort I might be able to give is that your father will be right
next to you the entire time." He looked up. "Allison, take
care now. We'll be going."

He put his hands on the
back of her daughter's chair and rolled it through the living room.

"No, no, Matthew!
Brand! Listen, don't take her, PLEASE DON'T TAKE HER!"

Allison screamed and
screamed, and Brand never looked over. He only rolled both her loved
ones out of the room and left Allison alone, sobbing in her house.

Jeffrey placed his bag
on the ground, and then unfolded the paper he'd bought from the
vending machine.

Matthew
Brand takes entire family of Resigned F.B.I. Agent.

The New York Times
screamed the headline in font so large it called Jeffrey from across
the waiting area. He wore headphones and was doing his best to avoid
looking up at the airport televisions. He didn't want to be reminded
of Brand, didn't want to know his newest escapades, because he didn't
want any temptation to stay. If he stayed, he would die, but the
chance of finding more was alluring. He had already told everyone
close to him what was happening and what they should do. They weren't
too pleased with him to say the least, quite a few ending the phone
call with a curse and a promise to hurt him pretty severely if they
saw him again. They probably wouldn't see him, which was fine with
Jeffrey. He hadn't received anymore emails and Jeffrey shut his old
phone off, completely, so there wasn't any way for Brand to contact
him.

If he had tricked
himself into believing there would be peace when he left, this
headline relieved him of that notion.

Allison Moore, the woman that had
called incessantly at the beginning of all this—she'd been
attacked? Her family taken?

F.B.I. Agent Allison Moore's
husband and child are gone, taken in perhaps the most horrific
fashion imaginable. Stolen from the house they were staying at, Jerry
Moore's parents were brutally murdered before Brand brought the
husband and daughter back to Allison Moore's house, where she was
staying alone. There Brand let her see them, while speaking at
length.

He took the daughter, Marley, and Agent Moore's husband,
apparently intent on them helping further his theoretical mission of
bringing his son back to life.

The article went on,
and Jeffrey scanned it, looking for important details but finding
none. He laid the paper on top of the vending machine and picked his
bag up again. Was there anywhere he could hide? If Brand really
wanted him, was there anything he could do to stay safe? The man had
just gone into two houses, killing and taking whoever he wanted. He
had invaded an F.B.I. Agent's house; did Jeffrey really think he
wouldn't be able to cross an ocean? He pulled his plane ticket from
his pocket and looked down at it. Gate A16, destination Italy. His
lawyer knew. His agent knew. The publisher knew. He'd be given six
months to get this thing hammered out, with a $700,000 advance. Half
now and half upon completion. Brand wouldn't forget about him, not
under any circumstances, but would he come for Jeffrey? Would he wait
for his son to be reborn and then decide that one last end needed to
be tied up? If that happened, there wasn't anywhere Jeffrey could go.
He couldn't hide, not if the person in charge of the entire
investigation had just had her whole family taken. Jeffrey could
leave this country. He could run to the other edge of the Earth, and
if Brand wanted him, he would find him. Here, there, anywhere he
went—he couldn't run if Brand decided that Jeffrey's life should
end. All he could do was turn Brand in now. To pick up the new cell
phone from his pocket and stop him. Jeffrey had everything he needed
for his book, and he could turn out to be a hero.

Jeffrey swallowed and
looked down at the bag. Everyone was on board with his current plan.
They might not respect him, they might not like him, but they knew he
would make everyone a shit load of money if he went forward. No one
in the business even tried to stop him.
Sounds
good. Let us know when you land. We'll make sure we have our lawyers
ready. It's important we have the manuscript ready in time.

On and on they went,
and on and on he had gone until now he was at the airport, listening
to planes being boarded with about thirty minutes until his own would
be listed over the speakers.

You
leave now, you might be forfeiting your life at some point. You get
out now and you publish this; he may come for you. You put him down,
there's no chance for him to come back.

Jeffrey wasn't drunk.
He wanted a drink, but he hadn't had one yet. He was going to wait
until he boarded the plane and then order a double something or
other. He hadn't drank last night either and so his head didn't feel
like it might explode off his shoulders.

Call,
now. Call and have it all over with today, then go write your book
and you won't have to worry about whether or not he's going to come
for you.

Jeffrey picked his
phone from his pocket and brought it to life.

Life for him or life
for Brand, that's what this was coming down to. A man he understood,
a man he might even respect, gone from this world so that Jeffrey
could live.

You're
not the one running around killing people.

No,
you're the one watching.

Do
you want to die for him?

That answer was as
clear as any had ever been for Jeffrey: no.

He dialed 911 into his
phone and waited as it rang.

It would have been
humorous if Matthew had the time to laugh. Both Marley and Jerry
taped down to the car so expertly that they couldn't move anything
but a toe. Even their fingers were wrapped in gloves of silver. They
would scream, especially the father with his fucked up face, when all
that tape came off, but that was a ways down the road. Right now, he
had to travel that road. Matthew kept the radio on and everyone in
the car listened to it, even if they were laid out across the back
seat. They could hear it, if not speak about it.

They knew that Matthew
had sprayed gasoline on a fire.

He knew it too.

He told himself when he
woke up from that freeze that life wouldn't be like this. That he
would do what he needed to do to get his son back, and that would be
all. None of the previous nonsense that ended with him wearing a gas
mask, laughing as cops surrounded him. Now what? Now he would be
lucky to drive another ten miles without a roadblock stopping him,
asking why he had two people taped up like packages in his backseat.
Maybe a cop would see the man's busted up face, something that hardly
looked human anymore, or maybe the cop wouldn't need to? Maybe the
taped up little girl and man, matching the descriptions of the
missing people, might be enough to go ahead and pull Matthew out of
the car? He had two more hours of drive time, and listening to the
radio, it sounded like the entire country might be put under martial
law to stop him. Mandatory curfews, mandatory roadblocks in almost
every state. He had stuck his hand in a beehive and removed it
without a single sting. Now the bees were pissed and looking for him.
It took them twenty-five hours to find Allison, and another hour to
get the word out to reporters. All Matthew could do, all he could
hope for, is that he wouldn’t hit a roadblock over the next two
hours.

He was driving through
Florida. There were long empty stretches of road, especially at
night, and he hadn't slept a bit since he'd wheeled these two out to
his car.

He took a quick look
over his shoulder and found the girl, Marley, staring back at him.
Her eyes were no longer puffy and red rimmed, instead they watched,
like he might have been a squirrel and she sitting on a park bench.
Matthew could smell the urine on her, having emptied her bladder
hours ago with nowhere to go except on herself. He glanced forward
again, and then turned back around with a knife in his hand. He
brought it to the girl's face and opened the tape at her lips with a
quick snip.

The little girl didn't
say anything as he faced the road again. She lay there in her
silence, staring at the back of his seat, while her dad probably
slept—his body trying to heal the wounds on his face.

"They're going to
catch you," the girl said after ten minutes or so.

"You think?"

"Yeah. There are
too many people after you for you to get away. The whole radio is
even after you."

"They haven't
caught me yet, and we're halfway home."

"You still got
another half to go."

"How about we make
a deal? If I get caught, I'll let you go. If I don't, you're stuck?"
Matthew asked.

"Doesn't seem like
much of a deal, seeing as that's what will happen anyway."

"Not really. If
they catch me, I could just kill you both."

* * *

Allison watched the
writer she had spoken with a dozen times on the phone. He was older
than the book jacket photo she had seen, but the same man. More
wrinkles, a little more gray, but still attractive if you didn't know
him. He sat in an interrogation room, his lawyer beside him, neither
cuffed although she would have put them both in a cell if it was her
choice. Hung them from a noose, even. Jeffrey Dillan called today,
and an hour later, Art contacted Allison and then she flew to Orlando
on her own dime, paying six hundred dollars for a one-way flight the
very next hour. Now she stood in front of a one-way mirror staring at
the man who had lied to her since they first spoke. A man who said he
was on some tropical beach, a man who said he could care less about
her investigation and didn't want to be bothered with it unless she
gave him information too. A man who had taken, and taken, and given
nothing back. Now here he was, trying to take more, just another inch
here and there, and holding her family's fucking lives as collateral.