The Dream Machine: Book 6, The Eddie McCloskey Paranormal Mystery Series (The Unearthed) (10 page)

Something about Warwick’s reaction bothered me. But I wasn’t there to probe Warwick’s psyche.

“Alison sees into the future?” I asked.

“You know she does,” White said, sitting back on the couch again. “That’s why you’re here.”

“Is it?”

“She saw something. And now you’re trying to figure out whether it’s real. That’s what this is about.”

I kept my face neutral. “So you both talked about the future?”

White’s grin was shark-like. “Yes. She told me when I’d get out of here.”

Slowly, White’s eyes drifted over to Warwick.

The guard said nothing.

“When’s that?” I asked.

“Soon.” White kept looking at Warwick. “Real soon.”

“She saw you leave?”

He nodded.

“What else did she tell you?”

“How I was going to die.”

“And how was that?”

“Old and rich, while I was banging some blonde bimbo’s brains out on a beach.”

“Talk about wish-fulfillment.”

“What can I say?” He shrugged. “Some guys get all the luck.”

“Right.” I nodded at Warwick. “Later, asshole. Have a nice life.”

“According to your little prophet, I will.”

In the hallway, I waited till Warwick had uncuffed White and come back out. His replacement, a younger version of him named Combs, was there. They nodded at each other and exchanged pleasantries, then Warwick came my way.

“You religious?” I asked.

“Not really.” He was confused by the question. “Why do you ask?”

“You were uncomfortable when White called Alison God.”

“Wouldn’t anybody be?”

“Not somebody that wasn’t religious.” His reaction was bothering me even more now.

“I believe in God,” he said. “I didn’t say I was an atheist.”

I nodded. “What have you heard about Alison?”

“Nothing officially.”

“How about unofficially?”

He motioned for me to follow and we walked past the main station where the other guard was still sitting. Warwick said his goodbyes and we walked to the elevators. Once we were inside, he answered my question.

“Just what White was saying. That she can see into the future. Is that true?”

“What do you think?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I never thought something like that was possible. But look where we are.”

“What do you mean?”

“This is a federal facility, out of the way, not on anybody’s radar. We don’t get visitors. All their research is hush-hush. If they thought there was a chance somebody could predict the future, isn’t this exactly the kind of place they’d bring that person to?”

I smiled. “Guess it is.”

The bell dinged and the doors split. Before I could step out of the elevator, Warwick grabbed my arm.

“Can she see into the future?”

I pivoted so Warwick had to let go. White’s guards were obviously not privy to the confidential nature of Zane’s research so I couldn’t share what I knew.

“Warwick, I don’t know why Alison is here either.”

Alison stood, hot tears filling her eyes. “How long?”

“We really don’t know. The disease is so rare, it hasn’t been studied to any great extent.”

“You told me I had six months!” Her fingernails dug into her palms.

“Sweetheart—” Dad latched onto her arm.

Mom cut him off. “She’s allowed to be angry about this! She’s
dying!
”

Then Dad and Mom burst into tears and the doctor clammed up and Alison stormed out of the room. Except it wasn’t quite
storming
anymore. Her vision seemed to be even worse than when she’d woken up. Even with the telescopes for glasses she was wearing, the room was fuzzy and so she
stormed
slowly. Okay, moved at a brisk pace.

She made sure to slam the door shut, at least.

Just a couple weeks ago they’d told her six months. From what the specialist had just shared, though, it sounded like she’d be lucky if she got six weeks.

The weirdest part? She felt okay. Relatively speaking, that was. Other than the eyesight going and the occasional seizure, she felt like she always did. Which was shitty, but shitty was better than dead.

She carefully walked down the hall, ignoring her parents’ pleas for her to come back, into the cafeteria, out the doors, onto the patio outside. It was a cold, blue day. Death in the air. She’d never see another summer, or spring. She might even croak before it was winter at this rate. Never see another birthday. Never kiss a boy, let alone get married. Never go to college. Never, never, never, never.

Never
. The worst word in the English language.

The tears burned her cheeks as she stepped onto the grass. It was all meaningless. She’d come here to find out if she could actually dream about the future. But they wouldn’t tell her. Dr. Zane feared her knowing the results would invalidate the study. She wasn’t even allowed to write her dreams down. From time to time she remembered them, a little bit…like that car accident that, with any luck, would happen soon, before she died, so they wouldn’t forget about it and would be able to say,
yes, Alison dreamed about that.

She was glad she’d talked to Warwick. At first she’d felt guilty but now what did it matter? Soon she’d be dead, she’d be worm-feeder. At least this way they’d all
believe.
Her parents would think she
was
God.

Wiping under her eyes, Alison composed herself and went back inside. She expected to see her parents waiting for her in the cafeteria but they weren’t there. They weren’t in her room either.

She was committed now. With time running out, she had to speed things up. She sat on her bed and grabbed her tablet and went online.

Pulling her email up, she saw a new message.

They’re investigating your dreams. They don’t believe they’re real. They’re trying to disprove them.

No…they couldn’t take this away from her. It was all she had.

She read the entire message, growing angrier with each sentence. She couldn’t let this happen. 

For a moment she sat in bed, trying not to feel defeated but failing badly. They were going to take this away from her. They were going to debunk her, even though she
could
see into the future. They’d try to find something, anything, to challenge her.

She didn’t have enough time to set them straight. Based on what the doctor had told her this morning, pretty soon her mind might just crap out, leaving her bed-ridden, possibly unable to communicate, seizure followed by seizure.

Whoever said it was right: the world was a cold place.

Alison was a petite girl with pale skin and brown, stringy hair. She definitely had been a cute girl at some point, and would have been still, but for the sickly pallor. From behind coke bottle glasses, she watched me, squinting the whole time like the script in the lenses wasn't strong enough. Poor girl was losing her eyesight. I knew she was fifteen from talking to Manetti, but she barely passed for twelve. From the look of her she had no shot of making it to her late twenties, but in a hypothetical world she would have been carded into her thirties.

"Hello," she said, her voice neutral.

I'm pretty good with kids for reasons that are beyond me. Maybe it's because I'm still thirteen years old at heart. But the vibe I was getting from her would have moved the needle on the Richter scale.

"Hi, I'm Eddie. It's nice to meet you."

She nodded once.

"Thanks for meeting with me. I expect you have a lot going on."

"Not really. I’m just dying."

"I'm very sorry."

She shrugged in a big, showy, stoical way that I saw right through.

"Do you mind if I sit?"

"I'd prefer it so I don't have to keep squinting through these ridiculous fucking glasses."

I got the impression she was going for shock value with the f-word. It didn't work.

"Are your parents around?" I asked.

"Why?"

"I want them present while we're talking. We have to discuss some unpleasant things and I don't want them finding out about it after the fact."

"They're around. Somewhere."

Helpful, I didn't say. "Could you call them?"

Deep breath. Her tiny shoulders lifted with the big inhale then fell back against the mattress. She was so small and looked more delicate than a dried-up leaf, like if somebody touched her little pieces of her body would flake off and take flight on the breeze.

"I guess," she said.

She got out of bed easily and moved like a teenager. I didn't know what I'd been expecting. She picked her cell phone up off the windowsill where it had been sitting in the sun and unplugged it from the charger.

"Dad, could you come up to my room?"

She listened for a moment.

"Everything's fine, Dad, can you just come up?"

She hung up without waiting for an answer.

***

Manetti came in with Alison’s parents. She was the spitting image of her mother.

Alison didn’t bother to introduce anybody. Manetti took it as her cue.

“Eddie, this is Mr. and Mrs.—”

The man extended his hand reluctantly. “Ted.”

“Karen,” the woman said.

I greeted Alison’s parents and shook their hands. Mom and Dad’s arrival had brought with it a somber mood. Alison pointedly looked away from them.

It was growing more awkward than a grade school slow-dance when Ted blurted out, “We’ve had a very difficult day, got some terrible news.”

“I’m very sorry.” I wondered how long Alison had. She looked sick, but she didn’t look like she was on death’s doorstep. I wondered if that made it even more difficult for them, to see a child still half-filled with life. If that gave them false hope every time they walked into the room.

“We can’t thank you enough for your help, Alison.” Manetti pulled a chair up to Alison’s bed and sat. “For your sake, we’ll get right down to it.”

She shrugged. “Whatever.”

Manetti looked over at me, like I was going to have more luck than her with the kid. I took out the tablet Manetti had left for me.

“Ted, Karen, we need to show your daughter a couple of videos. They’re both violent and one is sexual in nature.”

“What?” Ted said.

“Absolutely not!” Karen yelled.

Oh boy. This wasn’t going to be easy. The kid looked like she was writing her suicide note, and mom and dad were still feeling the aftershock of whatever god-awful news they’d received this morning.

“We wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important,” Manetti said. “Very important.”

“Are these her dreams?” Ted asked.

Karen was shaking her head. She had been beautiful once, a long time ago, probably before her daughter’s health had declined. “No. No. No.”

“Yes,” Manetti said. “If these are
prophecies
we need to stop them.”

At this, Alison sat up in her bed suddenly. “What do you mean
if
? What I dream happens. I know it.”

I jumped in because Manetti was dying. “We’re investigators, Alison, and we have to proceed cautiously here. What we’d like to do is show you segments of these dreams to see if you can identify the people or the places.”

“You mean like if I know them?”

“Yes.”

“No,” Karen said. “I don’t want her seeing anything…inappropriate.”

“We won’t show her the entire dream sequence,” Manetti said. “Just enough to see if she can identify anything.”

Karen folded her arms. “No.”

“Karen…”

She whirled on her husband. “Ted, you might be okay with the fact that our daughter is being used as a lab rat while she dies, but I’m not. I want her out of here. I want her home! With us! I want her—”

She burst into tears and nobody said a word for a moment. Her husband awkwardly put his hand on her shoulder. She responded by hurrying out of the room.

“Karen, wait,” Ted said, but didn’t move.

“Oh God. Such a drama queen,” Alison said. “Like she’s the one dying.”

Manetti shot me a look. For the first time since I’d known her she seemed uncertain what to do. Finally Ted left the room, presumably to look for his wife.

“And there he goes,” Alison said. “God, all they fucking do is fight. Why do they stay together?”

For a brief moment, I wondered if Sumiko and I would ever argue like that, if getting married was the right thing for me. So far we’d shared a sort-of-long distance relationship, only seeing each other once or twice a week at most. Living together, being married, it was going to be different. Would she be able to put up with me if I was around all the time? And vice versa? I was old enough now to be set in my ways, used to my own routine…

No. I was absolutely certain she was the one.

“Alison, we’re sorry to ask this of you, but it’s very important,” I said. “You can do some real good here.”

Her eyes burned holes in me. “If I dreamed it, it’s going to happen. You can’t
stop
it. Don’t you get it? That’s the whole point.”

Manetti kept her eyes on the girl.

Alison went on. “I dream it because it happens.
That’s
the point. It doesn’t happen because I dream it.”

“You remember your dreams?” I asked, wondering how that would impact Zane’s results.

Alison looked away and I saw the lie coming from a mile away. “Yeah. So that’s how I know you’re wasting your time.”

We were fast-approaching hopelessly philosophical territory where we could probably go round and round in circles for hours, not getting anywhere, not convincing her or ourselves of the usefulness of our mission. I got the weird feeling she didn’t
want
us to stop what might happen but wasn’t sure why. Maybe because she’d gotten the shaft from fate, she wanted others to experience the same disappointment?

It was a rotten idea and I didn’t want to believe a young girl like this could feel that way. But disease could very well have twisted her.

We had to be careful.

“Alison, Agent Manetti and I are assuming we
can
stop these things from happening. If there’s a chance, even a small chance, that we can, then we have to do something.”

“Why?”

Why was one of those questions that was both empowering and dangerous. Scientists asked it to solve problems, but if you weren’t careful and asked yourself why too many times it led you down an existential path to nowhere. At some point you realized maybe there was no why, and the stark coldness of that truth wounded you deeply. You were never the same the moment you admitted there might not be a reason for everything. There was a before and after.

“This is going to sound hokey and you’re going to roll your eyes probably, but it comes down to this. The choice facing us right now is we can try to help somebody else or not help them. I choose to help. You might not want to and that’s your choice, and if that’s your choice, I might not be able to convince you otherwise. In fact, I probably won’t be able to. But we face that question every day and ultimately we have to answer it one way or the other. I choose to help.”

“These people don’t have to…suffer,” Manetti said.

“Dr. Zane said I wasn’t allowed to watch my own dreams. He said that would invalidate the study.”

“Dr. Zane is more worried about his research than the people in these images,” I said. “So I say fuck him.”

Manetti shot me a quick look but didn’t say anything.

“I don’t care about him either,” Alison said. “What I care about is the study. I don’t want people to wonder whether I had the power or not. I want the study to be valid.”

My anger rose like water flooding a basement. Manetti must have seen it coming, so she jumped in.

“We won’t tell anybody,” she said. “It’ll stay between us.”

I was surprised by this move. Normally Manetti was by the book, but here she was offering to look the other way.

Alison looked away. “I’m just really angry right now…I’m not usually like…you don’t understand.”

“You’re right,” I said. “Neither of us understand and we never will. We’ll never walk in your shoes, not even if we get sick later in life because it’s not the same thing. We’ve had a life to live. You haven’t, not really. So we’ll never get it. I’m sorry about that.”

She turned back to me and there was something different about her eyes. She looked almost…triumphant, like my admitting this was a major victory for her.

She took some pride in her suffering.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll help you.”

I brought the tablet out of sleep and opened the first video, the one of the car wreck.

“Do you mind if I sit next to you?” I asked.

She shrugged.

I took that as a yes and sat on the bed next to her. Holding out the video of the car wreck, I tapped the screen with my other hand and the sequence began.

“This is what my dreams look like?” she asked.

I nodded.

She watched with fascination. “They’re so
real
.”

I said nothing.

“I mean…all the details.” She sat up so her face was literally inches from the screen. “It’s incredible.”

“It is.”

“Do you recognize this car?”

“It…”

“What?”

“I don’t know. I can’t place it, but I feel like I’ve been in it before.”

“What do you mean?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Just that it’s familiar.”

I let her watch, hoping it would come to her. She watched with rapt attention as the dream played out. A minute passed. And another. We were getting close to the crash.

“I have to turn this off in—”

“No!” She grabbed it out of my hands and turned away.

I gave Manetti a look because I didn’t want to strong-arm a teenaged girl. Manetti got up and rounded to the other side of the bed.

“Alison…we promised your parents.”

“Fuck them,” Alison said, holding onto the tablet for dear life. “I want to
see
this.”

With the speed of a cobra lunging, Manetti tapped the screen. The video paused. Manetti hit a button on the side of the tablet and the screen went dark. I assumed it was the power button.

“I’m sorry, Alison,” Manetti said.

Alison held onto the tablet and looked Manetti square in the eye. “I’m going to be dead, maybe inside of a month. Are you really going to take this away from me?”

Before Manetti could answer, Ted came back into the room. “What’s going on?”

Manetti grabbed the tablet and went to talk to Ted. She gave me a quick look. I knew exactly what it meant. We didn’t have long with Alison, so she was giving me the signal to keep asking questions for as long as I could.

“Ted, I’m very sorry about all this,” Manetti began saying, as she put herself between father and daughter.

“Did you recognize the car?” I asked Alison.

She didn’t answer me.

“Come on, Alison. Please. Anything you can share. Did you recognize the car?”

She shook her head in an exaggerated fashion. It made her look younger than she actually was.

What else to ask? I had no idea. I’d been hoping the dreams would prompt conversation. But we had nothing.

“I want you both to leave,” Ted was saying, loudly, so I could hear.