I told you to expect it: A rather healthy excerpt from the Dreamdarkers manuscript.  And here it is.

This is part of a flashback that spans several chapters of the book.  If you read the original “Darkness Comes to Kingswell” or have seen some of the mentions of Dave Lloyd in the various Dreamdarkers-related posts since that short story was published, you’ll undoubtedly know this is not happening in the current narrative since it’s between him and his wife.

While I’m rather pleased with how this entire conversation flows, I’m not entirely thrilled with the full extent of this extract.  That’s because it’s the first draft of the novel.

I therefore expect it to change.  Some things will expand (like, uh, most of it).  Some things will shrink (or disappear altogether).  That’s how this whole writing thing works, right?  Uh-huh.  I thought so, too.

For those who read “Darkness Comes to Kingswell,” you’ve not seen this before.  It’s new.  That’s also why it’s rather unfinished, a bit primitive even.  Compared to the original yarn, Dreamdarkers explores in greater detail the relationship between Dave and Beth, all via his memories (remember, the entire story comes from him in a sort of journal motif).

Oh, and please don’t pester me about typos, errors, and the like.  This is, much like “Darkness Comes to Kingswell,” nothing more than stream of consciousness.  It doesn’t represent a working over of the short story.  It’s new, different.  Because it’s the first draft, you can expect I’ll be manhandling it later.

So without further ado, here’s a robust tidbit from Dreamdarkers.

“Sweetie, I’d like to ask you a question but I want you to know it’s all right if you’d rather not talk about it.”

Beth turned and looked at me.  Her shower had been long.  I knew her day had been hectic and stressful.  The steamy indulgence served to relax her, and I respected her need enough to wait until she had finished before I stepped into the bathroom to interrogate her.

My curiosity about her stories of the Dreamdarkers had grown since she first mentioned them.  I’d finished Sing Larentia’s Song nine months after our last conversation regarding the wives’ tale.  Evolution’s My Gig, my fourth novel, already had a solid foundation and grew steadily.  Nevertheless, my interest in the Dreamdarkers saga exploded within my imagination as I pondered the idea of turning it into a novel.  I would need several months to complete the manuscript on my plate, and I had another premise brewing in the recesses of my mind to work on afterward.  Regardless of that, the idea of translating her grandmother’s fearmongering from a wretch’s abuse of an innocent child to a lucrative book had already taken root.  I knew my imagination could fill in the details.  It began offering scenarios the day after my wife mentioned the demons—or whatever they were.  But to be realistic to some degree, and already having failed to locate any reference to them via my normal research channels, I needed Beth to fill in many of the blanks.  Otherwise, I would create an interesting and frightening tale without hinging it on the truth.  For that, I needed her to dredge up those old memories.

Her childhood under the firm hand of an old battleax like Irene had been traumatic.  That much I understood.  I was alarmed by the many stories she had told me of growing controlled by an elderly demoness covered in a walking cadaver.  Each time Beth spoke of her upbringing, I could see it pained her.  Unpleasant childhoods were not uncommon as far as I knew.  What did seem unusual rested in the bewildering anguish left like oily residue all over her memories.  She couldn’t recall a moment from before her grandmother’s death without also reliving the stinging brutality that defined those years.  Remembering often drove her to weep or cringe, or both, and that only if she didn’t lash out verbally with revulsion and anger meant for a woman long dead.  I doubted she had it within her, but the enchantress who stole my heart explained from time to time how she longed to visit Irene’s grave, to spit on it, to douse it with gasoline and to set it afire, and to sit nearby so she might watch the devilish remains smolder and turn to dust.  “I’ll give her a taste of the hell she put me through,” I once heard her say.  Beth had a mean streak as long as mine, but she wasn’t cruel.  Hearing such thoughts drop from her mouth like poison gave me cause for concern insofar as those times revealed the true abyssal depth of her agony.

I rested against the doorframe with my hands behind my back.  She stood in front of me facing the mirror as she toweled her body dry.  I had placed a half-full crystal tumbler on the vanity beside me.  Although trying to appear timid and wanting, I knew she could see through the disguise.  Her story intrigued me.  I wanted to hear it, or at least more of it.

She gave me a quick sideways glance that screamed of offense.  Knowing I had poked a stick in a very sore spot, and knowing I would twist that stick repeatedly while prodding her for more, I allowed my eyes to drop from her gaze and slowly caress her naked form.  I ensured the gesture appeared as intentional and sultry as possible.  Her eyes never moved but instead remained locked on my face.  Meanwhile, I dropped my head at a glacial pace and made certain she knew of my admiration for her beauty and the raw sexual power she held over me.  Unless I crossed my signals, she would see through the ploy and understand I meant only to disarm her anger with shared lust.  It worked.

As my eyes slowly crawled upward from her feet where they had come to rest, she shifted her weight and cleared her throat with an erotic harrumph that screamed “Do me now!”  When our eyes again met, her face had softened.

“Don’t think I didn’t see that coming.”

“Not yet, but you will.”

She laughed a small laugh, one comfortable yet admonishing.  It was ingrained with a simple statement: “You bet I will.”

“So, can we talk about it?  I promise to make it worth your while.”

A smile passed briefly across her lips as she glanced at the partially full glass of Crown Royal.  Its position had been strategically chosen.  If I intended to push, I needed to be willing to give as well.  And I was more than ready to do just that.

“You bring one for me?” she asked with a nod toward the whiskey.

“Don’t I always think of you?” I replied as I leaned forward.

From behind my back, I produced one hand with another glass of the fine alcohol.  It too had been filled halfway.  She shifted the towel into her right hand as she stepped in my direction.  Our lips met in a fiery kiss that lasted mere seconds.  With my focus on the mambo our tongues danced together, I barely noticed as her left hand met mine, slipped around my fingers in a brief embrace, and slid the glass away from me.  Her movements always came across as graceful yet assertive, like those of a danseuse capable of ballerina-like movements but who could also kick ass with the best loggers in the forest.  Had I not surrendered the drink, she likely would have taken it by force.  And I would have enjoyed it.

After our kiss ended, she stepped back while taking a quick sip, and then she turned back to the mirror while saying, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts, right?  But you better have another offering.  I’m not feeling too generous this evening.  If that other hand is empty…”

Always too smart to be fooled, she knew I held my other hand behind my back for a reason.  In response to her, I moved it in front of me and held out a joint and lighter.  The freshly rolled sinsemilla produced an enticing aroma from within its thin paper blanket, a sweet bouquet of near-skunk cannabis and warm earthen spices reminiscent of teak and wood.  Unlike much of the schwag I smoked as a child, our combined incomes made it possible to indulge in the finer quality illicit drugs.  Neither of us complained about that.

As I held the marijuana in front of me like a gift, I bowed my head slightly and quipped, “But of course, Madame Lloyd.  I would never think of purchasing your favors with but a paltry adult beverage.”

She returned an appreciative smirk.

“Shall I light it for you or do you not trust me with such heavy responsibility?”

“You can either light it or we go straight to the sex and skip the conversation.”

“That’s a tough choice.  Can I think about it while we talk?”

“If you don’t spark that up right now, maybe the sex gets taken off the table.”

As I lifted the marijuana cigarette and lighter to my lips, I said, “Lighting it.  Right now.”

“I thought so,” she added snidely.

It took only a second to get the joint lit.  I also reached over and turned on the exhaust fan.  Although we both loved to get stoned, we appreciated not having the house smell like a flaming hydroponics garden.  After puffing on it a few times, I inhaled deeply before handing it to her.  The sweet smell of it wafted upward in tiny wisps and left a disappearing trail between us.

Before taking a hit she said, “I suppose you’ve offered enough gifts to your queen to deserve some consideration.  What do you want to know?”

I took a quick sip of my drink before responding, “I want to know about the Dreamdarkers.”

She coughed.  I didn’t move but waited silently.  After she cleared her throat, she sent a wicked look in my direction.  I would have called it devilish and even a bit nasty—not in a good way—had it not focused so intently on me.  I knew what to expect.

I added, “But only if Her Royal Highness has it within her to share a few tidbits without verbally lashing me—although oral lashing are welcome.”

Before taking another hit, and with her gaze still locked on me, she quipped, “Don’t think I won’t come over there and beat the fire out of you, Mr. Lloyd.  Husband or not, I have no qualms with kicking your butt all over this bathroom.  If you want to be sarcastic, take your smart-ass self out of this bathroom and leave me be.”

My laughter was hearty.  I could tell she felt better.  Despite having a strenuous day, the shower and company helped her to relax.  And I knew she would kick me out of the bathroom if she tired of my facetious inquiry, so it behooved me to at least behave enough so that she would not be forced into her dominatrix role.  Although that could be fun.  But I wanted more than the sex I knew would come later; I wanted information.

She handed the joint back to me as I set my tumbler down on the vanity and asked, “Who are the Dreamdarkers?  Or, if it’s more appropriate, what are they?”

With a quick gesture, she tossed her towel next to the sink, and then she grabbed her glass of whiskey and took another sip.  Only after setting it back down did she speak.

“I don’t know what the word means.  I know it’s plural if that helps.”  She refrained from looking at the daggers I shot at her but instead continued, “Grandmother never said what she meant by the word.  But she talked about them many times while I was growing up.  Back then, I assumed it was her way of frightening me, an intentional mental abuse she heaped on a little girl scared to death of storms.  That’s normally when she brought them up.  That was her thing, I suppose.  Anyways, she said they’d come with the storms.  I figured that was why they always came up when the weather got rough.  Considering how terrified I felt with thunder or lightning or a strong wind, her ranting about Dreamdarkers made it worse.”

The joint moved easily between us as we sipped our Crown Royal and enjoyed a good high with each other.  I remained leaning against the doorjamb.  She stood in front of the mirror and began plucking her eyebrows as she spoke.  She paused only long enough to take an occasional sip of her drink or to puff on the joint.

“I guess I already told you she said they were coming for all the dreamers, right?”  I nodded.  “Okay, so that’s what she said.  As time went on, the story became more…  Oh, I don’t know what you’d call it.  More robust, maybe.  Bigger?  Well, it certainly grew.  My fear of storms didn’t subside until my early teens, perhaps twelve or so.  Until then, she badgered me with the Dreamdarkers.

“At first, they were just generic somethings-or-other coming with the storms, coming for the dreamers, and without a doubt, coming for me.  It made for good mental abuse.  But then her tales began to change.  It wasn’t until she was dead and I was much older that I wondered if that was senility or an attempt to spill the beans because she knew she wasn’t long for this world.”

She paused to take drag on the joint.  I could see the stress in her eyes.  Talking about Irene and growing up made her uncomfortable.  Yet Beth was strong and faced her demons without flinching.  Had she been so unnerved that she didn’t want to talk about it at that time, she would have said as much.  Nevertheless, I didn’t push.  I let her work through her memories at her own pace.

I took the joint from her as she passed it back to me, and then she sipped from her whiskey again.  Her eyebrows had been meticulously plucked.  After putting the tweezers in a drawer, she wrapped the towel around her bosom and set about brushing her hair.

She snapped around and looked at me directly.  “Are you really thinking about writing them into a book?”

“The thought had crossed my mind.  It all depends.”

She took a deep breath before turning back to the mirror and returning to the methodical motions needed to expertly brush her short hair.  I found it amazing she could spend so much time with that activity given her hair was only shoulder length.  Still, she was a woman and would have it perfect and no other way.

“It took years for me to piece it all together,” she continued, “but I did.  I took each bit and filed it away.

“Grandmother started out with the little stuff.  They’re coming with the storms, they’re coming for all the dreamers, hiding under the bed won’t save you, and all that jazz.  Then it got more serious.  I think I told you already she’d told me once that nightmares where their way of calling back.  I wasn’t sure what that meant until one day when a storm was brewing and I surreptitiously went to my room ‘to read’ as I told her.  I actually went to hide.  She knew it.

“So there I was sitting on the floor against the bed.  I figured I could scoot underneath at the first sign of trouble.  But then I heard her stomping down the hallway.  She was so obese it practically shook the floor.  There was never a doubt when she was on her way.  Thankfully, I wasn’t under the bed.  I had a book in my lap and sat quietly.  She sprang through the door like an animal.  An overweight animal, yes, but an animal nonetheless.  She pounced into the room as though she’d caught me.  I stared at her and tried for the most sincere bewildered look I could come up with when I said, ‘What’s up, Grandmother?’  She propped both her hands on her hips, pressed her lips together, furrowed her eyebrows, and stared at me with a burning gaze that would’ve set me on fire had I not been so determined to stand up to her that time.  In truth, I hoped she’d see I wasn’t under the bed and would leave.  At least that way I’d be alone and could slip under the bed if the weather got bad.  But she either saw through the ruse or had other plans to begin with.

“After standing in the open door for a minute or so looking like a teapot with two handles, she finally lowered her guard a bit and dropped her hands.  Then she came over to the bed and sat down.  The damn thing creaked so obnoxiously I thought it would collapse under her enormous weight.  And let me be honest: I think she was around six feet tall and weighed 250 pounds, so she wasn’t very huge.  But to a little girl like me, she was a behemoth.  Anyways, she threw herself down on the bed and waited for the groaning metal to quiet down before she spoke.  I think she was just waiting to see if it was going to crumble under her weight.  When it didn’t, she patted the bed beside her and told me to come up and sit down for a bit because she wanted to talk to me.

“After I joined her, she said, ‘Elizabeth, dontcha go thinkin’ I don’t know where y’at.  Ya under the bed.  Now listen, child.  I knows ya scared of them storms out yonder, but they ain’t ya biggest worries, hon.  I done told ya before them’s nuttin’ to fret about.  Whatcha gots to watch for be them real storms.’

“Her bastardized French-Creole accent was thick yet aristocratic.  She could make bad English sound proper.  Still, I doubt I’m doing it justice, but that doesn’t mean you can laugh.  Just bear with me.  And another thing…  Yes, she really did stress the ‘real storms’ part that way.  It seemed odd.  I never understood why.

“So anyways, she said, ‘Them real storms will come when they not s’posed to.  They gonna come and they gonna be black like the night, only blacker.  They the Dreamdarkers.  No, the storms ain’t the Dreamdarkers, but the storms comes from ’em, and does their biddin’.  Ya gonna know what storms I be talkin’ ’bout when ya sees ’em.  There ain’t no mistakin’ them storms for nuttin’ but the Dreamdarkers.’

“And then she got up and left.  I was confused and just stared after her as she lumbered through the doorway and stomped her way down the hall.  We didn’t get storms that day.  I think they blew around us or never really formed.  Either way, we got nothing.  It’s possible she knew that ahead of time having watched so much television, but she didn’t want an opportunity to get away from her, so she came in and talked about them anyways.  I’m guessing, but it’s possible.

“The next time she talked about them, it was after I’d had a nightmare.  I woke up screaming early one morning.  I can’t tell you what the nightmare was about.  Probably her.  So I sat upright in bed just howling like I’d been stabbed.  And down the hall she came rumbling.  She almost bounced me out of bed when she sat down because she did it so quickly.  I remember because I was quite certain we’d collapse to the floor with the bed splintering beneath us.  But it didn’t.

“So this time, she showed me one of those rare moments of compassion, but she filled it with more mental abuse under the guise of comforting me.  After asking why I was screaming and wrapping her big sweaty arm around me, she rocked us both back and forth and shushed me without being rude.  She finally started talking when my sobs calmed down enough for her to be heard.

“‘Ya had yaself a nightmare, honey?  I’s sorry, baby girl.  That’s a cryin’ shame.  But it’s awright now.  Ya just hush.  Ya knows what them nightmares is, dontcha?  Them’s the Dreamdarkers sayin’ ya gots to go.  They’s tellin’ ya loud and clear ya ain’t welcome no more.’

“‘What do you mean?  Tell me, Grandmother,’ I urged.

“‘Dontcha fret ’bout it.  All ya gots to know is them’s Dreamdarkers visions.  They’s gonna be comin’ with the storms, ya betcha, but they’s already shoutin’ at us, at us dreamers, tellin’ us to get.  I don’t think they’s gonna wait much longer.’  She didn’t explain what that meant.  Believe me, I asked.

“The rest of her stories were similar.  She talked ad nauseam about how they would come with the black storms.  She went on about them using nightmares to talk to us—or as she put it, to call us back.  And as I grew less afraid of the weather, talk of the Dreamdarkers grew less frequent.  I suppose she realized they weren’t scaring me and it did little good to keep up pretenses.”

I puffed on the joint after she handed it back to me, and then I asked in a strained voice as I tried to hold my breath and talk at the same time, “Was that it?  That was all she said about them?”

Beth turned and looked at me.  For the first time during our conversation, she had a serious look on her face.  Her eyes projected a solemn glare I hadn’t expected.  She had seemed moderately at ease with my probing.  More importantly, she had seemed more comfortable than ever before when talking about her history growing up with Irene.  It troubled me to see something else in the cards shuffling through her mind.  She was holding back.

“What is it, babe?”

“There’s more.  And there’s a rhyme.”

I want to share some of the multitude of changes taking place with the manuscript as opposed to what you already saw.  They are many; they are vast.

Descriptive language
Much of the original short story was, as a draft, written in haste.  I’ll agree it included descriptive language.  You might remember some of that centering around things like the darkness itself and how it acted in the porch scene, as well as what Margaret and Helene looked like (and, to a lesser degree, what Joe and George looked like).  Because it developed in a short time and because it was a draft, I didn’t focus much on telling you what you should be seeing and hearing, what people looked like, what Carr Beholden looked like, what kinds of trees were in the surrounding woodlands, and so on.  That is a big part of the rewrite.  Readers need to see what I see, hear what I hear, and even smell what I smell.  Nothing can be of greater importance to a writer than to transport the audience to the place imagined, and they must experience it solely through the text.  Part of that, however, is to ensure the reader is not overwhelmed with descriptive text that leaves no room for interpretation.  It should engage the imagination, not override it.

Too much ‘to be’
One common failing of most writers is overuse of ‘to be’ verbs.  For instance, when referring to what someone was doing in the past, it’s rarely appropriate to say “they were doing this thing” even when speaking in passive tense (as appropriate).  ‘To be’ is a cheap verb, a common verb, a very plebeian use of language that takes away from the story.  There’s certainly a use for it.  You can’t really say what someone was doing when you did something without it.  For instance, if I want to say someone was on location and doing something when I arrived, I can’t well say “I arrived and he tried to open the door.”  That’s a responsive use and not an ongoing use.  Did he only try to open the door because I arrived?  That’s what that sentence infers.  If he was already in the middle of the action when I arrived, then it should say “I arrived and he was trying to open the door.”  Even in that sense, it would be better to say something akin to “I arrived and found him trying to open the door,” a better phrase that drops cheap ‘to be’ usage and instead offers more robust verbs.  Instances where it’s appropriate are generally rare, yet English vernacular has made such usage common for conversational purposes.  In writing, however, it’s cheap and paltry.  Verbs should be descriptive.  Instead of saying “He was wishing he had gone home,” it should be said “He wished he had gone home.”  It carries the same connotation yet does so with more depth and clarity.  That’s assuming it’s not an ongoing action while describing another action as stated above.  Anyway, limiting use of ‘to be’ is important.

Repeats
Words or phrases are repeated often in general conversation.  That’s fine when talking (although not entirely proper or creative).  In writing, on the other hand, it’s very bad.  Whether it’s overuse of “actually” or “‘insert quote,’ he/she/they said,” phrasing and vocabulary are everything.  It’s imperative that redundancies be minimized so as not to bore or alienate readers.  Quotes should be introduced or clarified in as many descriptive ways as possible (some before, some after, some said, some replied, some responded, some offered, some clarified, and on it goes).  Common phrases, colloquialisms, and “favorite words” should be limited.  Similarly, using the same word when mentioning something throughout the manuscript will be off-putting.  An immediate representation of this from Dreamdarkers is in regards to the woodlands.  Using ‘trees’ or ‘forest’ (or both) becomes grating and tedious; instead, you’ll find ‘trees,’ ‘woodlands,’ ‘forest,’ ‘woods,’ and ‘timberland’ used interchangeably to keep it from sounding like an echo.

Meaningless use of adverbs (a.k.a. empty adverbs)
Have you ever considered the word ‘actually’?  Do you use it?  Popular linguistic mechanics has made the word a normal part of English vernacular.  “What did you do?”  “I actually went to the store.”  In that sense, ‘actually’ is empty and meaningless gibberish.  If you went to the store, that’s action enough.  ‘Actually’ is used when it qualifies something less than believable or clear.  “She looks like she’s 20 years old.”  “She’s actually thirty-six.”  In that sense, it’s proper, but in writing a book, even then it’s questionable.  The emphasis should be on the fact and not on qualifying to make it a fact (although there are times, especially in dialogue, when it’s appropriate).  Another example is “The dog immediately leaped to his feet.”  Leaping is a sudden movement.  One does not leap slowly.  One does not leap later unless one says so.  Therefore, it’s a gratuitous adverb and should be replaced with something more meaningful (like “excitedly” or “clumsily”) or dropped altogether.  I’m notorious for empty adverbs in some cases (although more for meaningful adverbs in overabundance).  Tempering their use makes them a more powerful tool, and excluding empty uses makes the narrative clearer.

Mundane lists
More than two or three items (no matter what they are) become boring.  When used, they should be ramped up with descriptive language to make the list seem less like… well… less like a list and more like an experience.  E-mails are one thing; web posts are another; a novel is in a class by itself.  I didn’t use many list-like phrases in the original, but I employed a few.  They will either be scaled back or turned into sensory encounters.

Tight dialogue
A novel is a description.  Very few can fly as dialogue-driven works.  Even fewer can rely on dialogue that translates to something better described than said (i.e., what the author should have told in the narrative versus making a character say it).  I found a few pieces in the original that didn’t flow smoothly as believable conversations, although none of it was false in the sense that it reiterated something I’d already said.  Nevertheless, a significant amount of dialogue has been added (still much less than the narration by Dave) and it’s all being tweaked to ensure it’s appropriate.  Dialogue should reveal something (e.g., a character trait that would flop if simply described, or an important fact that is more believable when coming from the original source rather than third-party translation).

Flat narrative
A novel should be robust and flow like honey from the mind’s lips.  For instance, you probably remember this from the short story: “The dogs stood at the screen door waiting for their chance to leap from the porch and dash out into the world. Dad reached them first and pushed the door open. Both dogs bolted out, made the sharp turn northward toward the lake, and ran excitedly to the pier.”  Yawn.  For a short story moving at a pace similar to Darkness Comes to Kingswell, that was fine to a degree, especially true given the text was posted as soon as it was written.  A draft is not necessarily the best place to strive for excellent literary interpretations.  That’s even more true when it’s “stream of consciousness” like that one (spilling from mind to digital paper with little direct interference).  That’s the bases for most writing, but especially for fictional writing.  Put the story on paper first, and then go back and clean it up and fill it in.  For the three sentences above, you might remember its expanded version seen here where two paragraphs filled the same period of time.  That text has since changed, but the version seen in that post is a good indicator of what it looks like now (minor changes and clarifications have been made).  I’m still on the first rewrite of the short story, so a lot more will happen once I work through the second and third rewrites.  But is it already better?  You bet!  Again, the original was a draft and written in haste (it took me about two weeks to pump out ~100 pages), but I wrote it that way to get the story out of my head.  Manipulating and massaging it could come later, just as I’m doing now, and a major part of that is to ensure it’s not a dull, humdrum narration like Ben Stein’s character in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Style
If you read the original web exercise, you might remember it was full of extremely casual language.  Much of the narrative was peppered with “I’d” and “she’ll” and “won’t” and “didn’t” and other common contractions.  All of those are now relegated to dialogue only.  The tale itself is tighter and a wee bit more formal, although the examples posted thus far (this one and this one) probably clarify the still conversational tone sans the overly informal essence that pervaded the original work.  I am striving to keep the tome from being too abstruse while equally attempting to keep it from being too pedestrian.  I hope I am striking a reasonable balance between the two.  It is a comfortable writing style for me; that makes it easy to develop.  Likewise, I can easily slip into an esoteric style that undoubtedly would be too highbrow for many (most? perhaps…).

Vocabulary
To some extent, the book will contain some of my extended vocabulary.  I am intentionally limiting that to the most appropriate places or where I am forced to delve into various ways of saying the same thing (for example, when speaking of the screened-in and front porches, I bounce between ‘portico,’ ‘veranda,’ and ‘porch’).  I also utilize less common phrases and words to enable the descriptive sense without relying on common dialect that presents a boring picture.  A certain amount of this stems from my desire to avoid repeats as I mentioned above.  Using the same word or phrase throughout the novel will generate a mundane feel.  I want to circumvent that as much as possible.  However, if forcing a particular style or limiting its depth discomfits me in any way, the story will suffer and readers will dislike the results.

One, I’d like to correct what I said about there being 17-20 chapters in the book.  Sure, that was a huge guess and now I feel it needs to be retracted.  I don’t honestly know how many there will be.  The reason for that is simple: chapters are not logical extensions of writing; in fact, they’re only included for the reader’s benefit.  While there may be a few authors out there who think in chapters, they would be the exceptions and not the rule.  Writing is an outpouring that doesn’t come in logical blocks.  The story comes out as it develops, and only after breaks can be identified are chapters then added.  I know there are writers who include them up front, but I’m not one of them.  It forces my hand in a way that I don’t like.  Instead, I want the story itself to be my focus, not on how long each chapter is or where I need to go before including a new pause.  When it’s done, I’ll go back and work out where the chapter breaks should be.  They do serve a useful purpose, I know, and as an avid reader I appreciate them.  Nevertheless, guessing at the number now is being foolish.  Once I’m happy with the story, I’ll go through it and find the places where a reader can comfortably pause without losing the spirit of the chronicle, and that’s where I’ll put in chapter breaks.  It’s similar to the section breaks already in the narrative except a chapter is a longer pause in the read.

The original history of Kingswell and Carr Beholden (and Jefferson to a smaller degree) was about five paragraphs.  It’s now at 16 and growing.  That should give you an idea of how the story has hemorrhaged during the expansion phase.  It’s not a lot of unnecessary gibberish; it’s all pertinent information with very little filler except when/where appropriate.  The biggest difference is twofold: (a) the story is slower now, and that’s where a lot of the new material is coming from since the speed of a short story compared to a novel represents a significant difference, and (b) the idea is more revelatory in many ways, from Dave’s relationship with Beth to Beth herself to information on his current novel as will ultimately pertain to his experiences and so on, all of which is important to the story.  The point is that it has been quite easy to take the original ~100 page document and turn it into something more.  I already had a lot of the story in my head, and reading through it on the first rewrite proved an easy way for the additional details to develop.

I have no delusions about writing the “Next Great American Novel” or whatever in hell it’s called.  Mark Twain never claimed to be writing something as prolific as his social commentary eventually became; instead, he wanted to write.  Yes, it was that simple.  Read about him and you’ll see that his claim to fame was that everything you might want to know about him was in his books.  It was never about changing the world or narrating a story that would be famous for all time—or, at least, for a long time in America.  The same is true of Shakespeare and Bradbury and Orwell and Clarke and Sagan and Homer and EVERYONE ELSE YOU CAN THINK OF.  No one gets up one morning and says to themselves, “Gee, I think I’ll write a classic today, something that will be forever important.”  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I have no grand designs to write something that will be remembered in the annals of history.  If it happens, so be it, but my ONLY desire is to write what my imagination offers forth.

Along those lines, there are stories to be told—much like Dreamdarkers—that are just stories and for which there is no overriding theme or intent.  Sometimes it’s just a story.  Since my ability to create tales hinges solely on my own ability to find inspiration and to delve into that inspiration, more often than not what grows from my intellect is nothing more complicated than a story.  If it makes a point on politics or social commentary or world affairs, then so be it.  Don’t be fooled into thinking that was the point.  I may write non-fiction in the future that will focus on that sort of endeavor, but my fiction is fiction and fiction is fiction.  If there’s any confusion about what point I’m making with a fictional story, the confusion is on your part, not mine.

I am not Mark Twain.  I am not Arthur C. Clarke.  I am not Homer or Shakespeare or George Orwell or any number of authors who have written texts that speak to a greater goal than just the story itself.  I want to let my imagination run wild.  If that makes me too common for some, so be it.  I have no qualms with the clear understanding that such literature does not suit the fancy of everyone on the planet.  If you’re looking to me for some fantastic philosophical piece, some in-depth exploration of humanity, the human condition, or whatever, or are otherwise expecting something more than what I intend to write, you’re going to be disappointed.  Sometimes it’s JUST about telling the tale, about sharing the story, about speaking (via writing) some original concept or imaginative creation that has no intent other than to share the story itself.  If you want examples, look at Stephen King or Anne Rice or Julian May or Greg Bear or Terry Pratchett or Dean Koontz or Michael Crichton or a great number of authors who find in the creation of other worlds via written word the most magical and wonderful escapism and relief any human can ever experience.  That’s me.  It’s just some tidbit of information that forms into something greater than it was when it was seen or heard or felt or…  Well, you get the point.  Should such a cathartic experience prove to be more than the story itself, should any such work wind up being an overwhelming experience of the mind and heart as relates to really important stuff, that’s fine by me.  Just understand it’s not what I’m shooting for.  It’s as simple as this: I want to write, I want to let my imagination run free, I want to explore the recesses of my own mind and share that with others, and I WANT TO SELL BOOKS.  There is no secret regarding the financial interests in this, at least for me.  Don’t be fooled into thinking anything other than that list is my inspiration and point.  Doing so is unwise.  For the most part, I am not planning to write something above most plebeians.  That’s not to say I won’t eventually do so, but that’s not the target I’m shooting for right now.  Please don’t expect more from me than I’m willing to give at this particular moment.

Wayne said in a comment (now disabled as it was on one of the original Darkness Comes to Kingswell posts):

I like that you have… while not exactly “Dumbing it down”… have made it a bit more “Reader-freindly” for the common folk. What I mean is that normally, your writing contains a great many words and terms that I simply either don’t know or think far to [extravagant] for regular use. There was little of that in this writing. It made it more enjoyable, somehow, to be able to sit and read it and not [occasionally] feel like an illiterate idiot.

Precisely my point!  Exercising my writing and significantly advanced mental capabilities here on this blog is not an indication of what I want to write for publication.  I want people to actually read it, buy it, enjoy it, and want more from me.  I hope that comes from the exploration of my imagination which I believe to be full of stuff that many people will find exciting and entertaining and generally worth their reading effort.  If you’ve never read David Hume’s works on philosophy, you should try it.  His writing is a lot like what I tend to do from time to time when I get overly brainy.  For example, here’s something from his A Treatise on Human Nature:

Probability arises from an opposition of contrary chances or causes, by which the mind is not allow’d to fix on either side, but is incessantly tost from one to another, and at one moment is determin’d to consider an object as existent, and at another moment as the contrary. The imagination or understanding, call it which you please, fluctuates betwixt the opposite views; and tho’ perhaps it may be oftner turn’d to the one side than the other, ’tis impossible for it, by reason of the opposition of causes or chances, to rest on either. The pro and con of the question alternately prevail; and the mind, surveying the object in its opposite principles, finds such a contrariety as utterly destroys all certainty and establish’d opinion.

See what I mean?  Sure, I can go that route to explore the outer reaches of humanity, and more so from my own perspective, but how many people actually read his stuff?  Not many.  In fact, I’d suspect none of you have ever heard of him or, if you have, you’ve never read anything other than a quote here and there (something I do here from time to time).  I’ve read everything of his.  Can you say the same?  Would you want to read over and over again that kind of fiction (his is philosophy, but you get the point)?

My book aspirations revolve around actually being read by more than a dozen people willing to do the difficult thing of wading through overly intellectual prose.  Sorry, but that’s just how it is.

I’m thinking of putting together a collection of my poetry and creative prose (not fictional so much as poetic) in a book.  I’m not even sure I could get it published.  Some of this stuff dates back decades (more than two and slightly less than three if you must know).  It would be an emotional work instead of a fictional work.  Some of that poetry and prose has already been posted here.  Some has not.  We’ll see how I feel about it once I pick out some items that might be worth publishing.  It could just be wishful thinking, but it’s an idea I’ve recently begun considering.

Finally, I will probably post some excerpts from Dreamdarkers as I work and rework and re-rework the text prior to submitting it to the person who will be reading the manuscript for me.  All of that has to happen before I even try to get it published.  He’s already agreed to read it and is very interested in helping me from both the editorial and content perspectives, so I think I can rely on him to give me healthy feedback from which I can make a final pass through the text before moving on to the I-hope-I-can-get-this-published phase.  Between now and submission time, I’ll toss up a bit here or there that I think is worth sharing but that won’t give away the family farm in the process.  There won’t be a lot of those and you should know that ahead of time.  Still, it might be interesting for you to see morsels of it on occasion.

[Update] I meant to add this as well.  Assuming the second book idea remains intact (that all depends on inspiration and ability), it will be called one of three things.  Here are the options: Samhain, Samhuinn (less likely since that’s not the original word), or End of the Warm Season (or something similar, since the real translation is “end of warm season”).  That’s as much as you get on that one.

So you know.  The title of the book is Dreamdarkers.  That’s the new name for the darkness, the label for it and they and all that jazz.  It’s copyrighted now.

If you remember the short story, there were two pat-a-cake songs.  No more!  Now there’s only one.  Two was tedious and burdensome and… well, it was dumb.  One is all that’s necessary and having only one makes more sense.  It just makes them more believable not to be singing too many songs.  One is enough.  And here it is.

Darkness comes and falls
This we swear
Darkness falls and comes
You should care
With it comes the end of time
With it comes this simple rhyme
The hourglass sands are had in vain
There’s nothing left to erase the pain

Darkness fills the void
With violent strife
Darkness kills the worlds
With endless life
Tears blind vision like loss of sight
In our path there’s no equal might
Darkness comes and knows it must
See the worlds burned into dust

Darkness is the verse
Sing it loud
Dreamdarkers universe
We are proud
Look upon us we do not ask
Into hellfire your gods are cast
Hope is just a fleeting promise
Darkness comes and is upon us

Darkness rules time
Say we’re wrong
Darkness rules you
Sing the song
Your memories will never fade
Your memories feed our hate
Darkness touches all that lives
Dreamdarkers now are all that is

From the unedited manuscript, herein lies the tenth chapter from The Breaking of Worlds I: The Wedge in the Doorway, my first novel.  (Reformatted for web presentation).  This is posted as much for your review as it is for your comment—good or bad.

— — — — — — — — — —

A coin flips into the air, lands, flips again. Cold oozes over me and pools on my bare chest and legs, bleeds through my shorts and presses on my skin. Something brushes against a nearby window.

“No more deferments, Mr. Crichton, for the hour grows late. Time has become too meager for your self-deceptions.”

I keep my eyes closed and think to myself, What in hell is this? Haven’t I already come to terms with this crap? I know your secret name, buried memories, so you’re disarmed. Stop tormenting me with these tedious nightmares.

Chills run up and down my spine. Something scrapes against the window immediately to my left.

Clink!-Whoosh!-Slap!-Clink!

The coin flips continuously, deftly, never missed and rhythmically thumped skyward a breath after landing.

The room feels icy, shivers settling over me with frigid intent.

Thump! Something leans heavily against the window at the far end of the room.

“Humans are blind to a thing that is near enough and large enough, Mr. Crichton.”

“The forest for the trees.” I keep my eyes closed.

“Indeed. You however are the Untouched, Mr. Crichton, and you perceive both the forest and the trees while others cannot. We are out of time. You must confront that which is both proximate and substantial. Now, Mr. Crichton.”

Such authority in the voice, his voice, the sound of that formless thing my mind seems to know about without letting me in on the secret. A nameless shape speaks the words, a numinous power that should scare the hell out of any who hear it.

He’s not just unreal, he’s inhuman.

“Quite accurate, Mr. Crichton, but let us not incommode ourselves with inconsequential appellations or misemploy seconds endeavoring to explicate that which disavows elucidation. Open your eyes, Mr. Crichton. NOW!”

I rocket into a seated position and my eyes launch open. Gooey blackness drenches the sunroom, sheeting and dripping outside the windows, a wet impenetrable lightless fog billowing and roiling with liquid intensity, carrying with it countless pairs of fiery eyes so crimson they seem bathed in flaming blood.

Clink!-Whoosh!-Slap!-Clink!

Along three glass walls shapes of protean abominations too horrible to look at slither and stumble and rasp and stare, each a thing nature could never design, each a horrible incarnation of everything that cannot exist, each fading in and out of the ebony abyss around it, each made of darkness. They emanate a malignant hatred as their eyes bore into my being.

They’re hunters, these things, and I’m the hunted. They would have me for dinner but I would not be a guest.

“Indeed they are hunters, Mr. Crichton, predators of those who dream. Nevertheless you need not experience trepidation. You are the Untouched. They cannot injure you. Though you must comprehend this is their world, thus while you are in attendance you can perceive them. They will utilize that datum against you, attempt to fracture your sometimes tenuous embrace on reality by wielding terror.”

“They’re doing a pretty damn good job of scaring me,” I say with a bit too much childish complaint in my voice.

I’m almost whining. It’s unbecoming.

Those eyes. Those innumerable ruby eyes lit from within. Were I on the screened or open porch, I would have pissed my pants already. This new experience doesn’t compare to the previous dreams. Malice comes from the seething darkness, iciness seeping through the windows. And they hunger, those baleful things out there, those raven grotesqueries trying to take shape and pressing against the windows, those monstrous … those monstrous monsters. They offend me because they offend the universe.

Look at them licking their chops as they size me up. They have me completely trapped within my little glass world. But it’s not my world. No, he—the unnamable he—said this is their world. I’m in their world. And they despise me.

Avoiding the windows as much as possible I ask, “So who are you? What are they? Where is this? If time’s so important, maybe I need some answers.”

“Many of the remedies you seek you already possess, Mr. Crichton.”

Thump! Against the window next to me.

If eyes are windows to the soul, this demon peers into the depths of my being, the darkness’ own Peeping Tom. I do not want to look into those eyes yet cannot look away for fear it will interpret the move as a sign of weakness or an opportunity to act. Despite its nearness, confusion reigns when I try to focus on and comprehend the body that owns the horrible and death-filled flames that glare back at me from the empty nothingness beyond the glass. A terrible shape, a formless monstrosity, a vile and horrible thing.

I look away, I look into the room, and I ask of the coin-flipping voice, “What am I supposed to call you? Give me something to work with here.”

“You may call me Mr. Coin.”

Clink!-Whoosh!-Slap!-Clink!

In the corner of the room across from where I sit—nay, not sit, but where I cringe and cower on the couch hoping to wake up soon—in the opposite corner an eldritch form rests against the wall. This does not belong in my sunroom. I glare at it, trying not to notice movement outside, trying not to hear unmentionable things moving against the walls and windows, trying not to wonder what might happen if those dark things break the glass.

That form in the corner. Perhaps a white tee shirt. Definitely short sleeves. Blue pants. Jeans? Possibly. Nondescript shoes, probably sneakers but could be deck shoes. Hell, could be galoshes for what it’s worth. This thing is taking shape, it, him, Mr. Coin if you will.

“We have already established you are a visionary, Mr. Crichton, an imaginer of tales, a servant of words, so tell me what an avatar is.” The form continues solidifying, mist coagulating into fog, into a dense wall of blinding condensation.

Yes, definitely an unembellished white tee shirt. And yes, definitely blue jeans. And three for the score! Sneakers.

“An avatar is a god in bodily form. It’s a physical theophany, that which is without form taking unto itself a form.”

Inside the clothes, a man. He’s young, average looking, maybe twenty or twenty-five, but no older than that. His hair is white as snow, the peroxide look of the 1980s, but he wears it shorn close to the scalp which makes the unnatural color more apparent. Because he has skin the color of caramel. Beautiful, smooth, healthy looking skin. And frighteningly luminous.

Clink!-Whoosh!-Slap!-Clink!

And he’s flipping a coin. Repeatedly. Without looking and without missing a catch or a beat.

“Mr. Coin, huh? Banal, but it’s your avatar. Does that mean you’re related to Mr. Hat?”

“I am not your encyclopedia, Mr. Crichton. Let you and I minister to the concerns at hand.”

“Sure, let’s do that. Let’s start with an explanation for what’s happening.”

I shiver, the chill deep and penetrating. The billowing abhorrence outside transforms me into a piece of food on display.

I’m a lobster sitting in the tank at the entrance of a seafood restaurant awaiting the next customer to identify me as their meal. I’m a desperate animal wanting to live, yet this room offers me up as an unintentional entreaty to eat me.

Eyes … They surround me. They stare as they slowly change positions with each other, a bizarre waltz performed by the voracious dead that contain them. They consume me without being near enough to do so. They scare the hell out of me.

They must be the Dreamdarkers, and damn me for taking her story and filling in the details on my own.

“You are the Untouched, the appointed visionary, he who dreams in the light. The nameless cannot injure you. But you alone are safe from the lightless, Mr. Crichton, and no other.”

“What is the Untouched?”

“Not to put too fine a point on it, you are the Untouched, Mr. Crichton. You are he who stands liberated from Dominion, the sole mortal insusceptible to the gods and the power they wield.”

Nodding toward the glass walls I snidely respond, “Okay, sure. That’s nice. And what are they?”

“They possess no name. You call them Dreamdarkers. That epithet will suffice.”

“But what are they?”

His form looks solid. He leans in the corner against the rough-hewn lightly-stained pine walls. His eyes shine with a penetrating blue of crystal clarity. They contain a depth and wisdom that fail to match his young ordinary looks. When his eyes meet mine, I feel him as much as see him. They contain the same depthless, ancient, otherworldly wisdom I see in Mr. Hat.

Oh, and those are blue Converse high-tops on his feet. All-Stars if I’m not mistaken. How anachronistic. His appearance seems drawn from the 1950s, the punk kid riding around in his ’57 Chevy, flames painted on the sides, pack of cigarettes tucked in one of the rolled short sleeves of his white cotton tee shirt.

Clink!-Whoosh!-Slap!-Clink!

Mr. Coin also flips a coin with obsessive frequency and machine precision.

“The nameless are thoughts who dwell in the dreamworld, who see mortals as anathema. They are the lucifugous foes of he who dreams in the light. The Dreamdarkers represent the opening salvo, Mr. Crichton, the advanced guard dispatched to initiate a war.”

“What war?”

“The war against humanity.”

A chilliness knifes through me, this one unrelated to the insufferable cold spilling through the windows from the darkness outside. I shiver. Horripilation explodes along the back of my neck, hair dutifully standing at attention, a primal response from our feral days when our ancestors had to fluff up to look bigger, a way to face a threat, a response we see in animals these days but which evolution translated for us into a primitive warning system that tells us we know danger is afoot.

“As the Untouched you alone can endure what comes, Mr. Crichton. You are the visionary, he who dreams in the light, destined to dip your quill in the substance of the universes and write mortal future on the parchment of time. You alone can see beyond what is too large to see. You alone can bear witness and find within what you see the wisdom to guide mortals to safety. Or to watch them shrivel and die. You alone can face Dominion and remain unmoved by its force.”

“Conundrums don’t clarify.”

My response sounds caustic. I find myself growing pissed and frustrated. It stems from withering fear, for deep inside me in places I have never traveled, places where the shadows remain too deep to penetrate, a burgeoning sense of understanding lights up, a certainty, a revelation. An epiphany.

Clink!-Whoosh!-Slap!-Clink!

Occasionally from a murky realm of thought akin to genetic memory, intuition provides innate knowledge no human can contain, a natural understanding of the hidden and the obscured. It contains no information taught but instead burgeons with secret intelligence. From its impenetrable gloom timely illumination shines. This thing, this shapeless being who calls himself Mr. Coin, he comes from beyond—Well, not beyond a place so much as beyond everything. He represents that which we cannot name, that which has no name, that which takes unto itself the form it wishes, an avatar. The power behind the avatar is greater and more mysterious than any we humans have dared imagine.

He scares me. Him and Mr. Hat.

“The war against humanity commences, Mr. Crichton. Will you clash on behalf of your race? Will you pen the future on behalf of mortals? You are the Untouched. The fate of universes now rests in your hands.”

I cry anew, this time not from emotional turmoil related to Beth. These tears come from unmitigated terror, a fear so palpable it freezes me to the couch. The weeping comes from an overwhelming sense of hate for this thing, this Mr. Coin and his lofty proclamations of destiny. They come from lack of doubt in his words.

“I don’t believe in fate. It’s the refuge of the servile unwilling to chart their own course. You’re full of hokum, Mr. Coin.”

My words sound empty. The not-man in the corner flips his coin and simultaneously stares at me and through me. He represents a great and terrible threat. The things outside fear him while they drip with overflowing animosity toward me. The scales over my eyes of remembrance slip away, revealing more truth buried somewhere in the wreckage of my past, buried not by forgetfulness but by force. For I do not forget anything. Ever.

Clink!-Whoosh!-Slap!-Clink!

A new sound forces me to look away from Mr. Coin, to look toward the windows. Such a noise has never before reached my ears. Acrid, painful, loud and thunderous, the sound of the universe ripping asunder.

“We no longer enjoy the luxury of moments to squander, Mr. Crichton. This is, as I said, their world. Though I find conversing with you delightful and entertaining, your sometimes-plodding mentation represents a tiresome incongruity. Neither of us can afford such intermittent obtuseness.”

My ears will surely bleed. The assaulting sound has become so grave and intense that I slam my hands over the sides of my head. But the horrible din enters my mind anyway. It comes from this place, it defines this place, it is this place.

At the far end of the room glass bubbles and bends, an obscene image, some giant malformed infant trying to break through the window’s placental walls. It looks almost fluid, melted plastic stretching and bulging. Behind it, pushing against it, trying to pierce it, outside the window an obsidian mass of inexpressible ferocity, a foul fire-eyed fiend made of blackness that defies comprehension with its limitless depth.

More disturbing than raven pestilence filled with glowing jewel eyes, more disturbing than hearing that dreadful sound that surely represents that thing trying to tear a hole in reality so it can climb through the fabric of the world into my sunroom, more terrible than listening to Mr. Coin and realizing I must hear him and have faith in him no matter how much I do not want to … More frightening than those things and more disturbing than the overriding impression of dread and hopelessness that threatens to suffocate me, a new sound invades me and freezes my tears to my face with unadulterated horror.

From out there in the darkness, from that writhing mass of abyssal death that takes shape at will, I finally hear them, the bane, the Dreamdarkers. Distant yet real. Children singing. Oh but they do not sing. Chanting perhaps. Oh but they do not chant. The unbearable noise violates me, abuses me, sullies me. It is them, it is the Dreamdarkers, it is the end of the world.

My mind wrestles with voices welling in the background. A chorus of voices. Children’s voices. Yes, definitely children. Definitely chanting and singing a regurgitated horror. Definitely wounding me with words. The dissonance pains and defiles. It cuts and pierces. Their voices vandalize.

Clink!-Whoosh!-Slap!-Clink!

Above the growing clamor Mr. Coin says, “The universes resound with the music of existence, Mr. Crichton. It comes from all voices, from all places, from all times. It can sound like all things and like no things. It can sound like flowers blooming in the first warm breath of spring. It can sound like the whisper of a breeze through summer grass. It can sound like a thousand waterfalls rumbling in the distance. It can sound like the promise of change that comes with winter’s end.”

Their voices faint, I hear them without question. Children. The most awful, terrible, frightening children imaginable. Their words fade in and out, sometimes overshadowed by the rending, stretching, trying-to-break-through tearing of the world’s fabric that emanates from the end of the room.

We are pleasure’s anguish
And pain’s desire

Mr. Coin begins fading, as if seen through rime on a window. I don’t want him to go, not now, not when I want this to end. Yet I can’t stop watching the unnatural pushing through taking place at the far end of the room. The glass and wood distend and stretch and ripple, things these materials cannot do together. That thing, that shadow made flesh, that demonic filth has almost forced its way into the room. No more than a few seconds remain before it and its ilk pour through the barrier and fill this space.

We bring death to hope
And end of days

“But when the Dreamdarkers sing it, the melody is the sound of teeth tearing through flesh. They are the vanguard, Mr. Crichton, those sent to pave the way for what follows.”

He continues dwindling, now a vague impression of what was, a reminder that once a man—an avatar—stood in the corner flipping a coin, looking nonchalant, the revenant of James Dean who gives no thought to what presses against the windows. He fades and I can’t say a thing to stop him.

Those voices. That thing coming through—

Oh God, it’s almost inside, the glass stretched beyond imagination, the buttery wood rippling and sizzling, Oh Jesus Christ it’s getting through, it’s tearing through, I’m going to die.

We are the first blow
We are the wedge in the doorway
We are the army of your flesh
We are the crushing fist of the gods
We are legions of hate
And cruel uncare

“Dominion is the volume of that song, Mr. Crichton, and you are its composer.”

Clink!-Whoosh!-Slap!-Clink!

Fear paralyzes me. I accept my fate. Not the one Mr. Coin spoke of, but the terrible future I will experience when that thing breaks through. And when the voices reach me, tear me up from the inside out, consume me. I will die here in this nightmare, this nightmare made manifest in the darkest ways, this nightmare bursting with lightless malevolence. I will die at the hands of the Dreamdarkers.

“Reflect upon the future you wish to write, Mr. Crichton.”

His voice remains barely audible. I no longer see him in the corner. I no longer see a hint of what once stood there.

He’s leaving me. Deserting me.

“Consider the song you wish to hear. You are the Untouched. You alone can decide who sings loudest and what words their chorus brings. We will speak again, Mr. Crichton. Soon.”

Clink!-Whoosh!-Slap!-Clink!

He’s gone. I’m alone. The noise has grown deafening, the wall and windows now draping the dark beast with silky precision, existence stretched thin over its terrible, horrible, unmentionable self.

Pulled to its limits, the universe rips wide open. And a bloodcurdling scream rends the darkness as it pours over me.

***

The scream keeps flowing from my mouth when I jerk awake and leap from the couch. In the sunroom. Unscathed. Shaking uncontrollably.

Stippled morning sunlight shines through the windows. I blink repeatedly trying to wipe away the mist of tears, trying to wash away the fog of sleep, trying to comprehend where I am and when I am.

The scream dies on my lips—finally—though my trembling continues unabated. I glance around, but mostly my eyes yank back to the far wall, the windows, the place where some appalling and indescribable thing broke through a moment before.

No, that was a nightmare. Wasn’t it? It’s not real. It wasn’t real. Nothing came through. Nothing ripped into this world from the dark hell on the other side.

Thoughts do not convince my body. Tremors slowly subside until I stand rigid, yet palpable fear courses through every fiber of my being. Nothing—naught in the history of the world—has so terrorized me. In my years of diving deep into creativity to dredge up the next frightful vision, never have I discovered anything so overwhelming, so … so unimaginable.

I wipe sweat from my brow as it drips into my eyes. It drenches me from head to toe, my bare torso sodden and my shorts pasted to skin with the sour musk of terror.

The laptop sits quietly on the table. A half-empty beer bottle rests next to it. An empty pie wrapper gently seesaws on the floor where currents from the ceiling fans blow it to and fro. The world looks precisely as it should appear.

Or is it? Do we know the real world so we can juxtapose that with our perceptions in order to find where our understanding falters?

No eyes surround the house. No gentle, firm, young male voice speaks from the corner where an avatar named Mr. Coin once appeared. No impalpable monstrosity made of shadow digs through the fabric of the cosmos trying to reach me in my sunroom.

Morning light reveals the same world night covered when I passed out on the sofa. And yet I can feel the presences that shared this space with me, I can smell a hint of control, and the tinkling chorus of children’s voices echoes inside my head.

How can such blameless voices embody such wickedness, such malign force? How can children’s voices produce such intolerable anguish, such emotional suffering? How can those voices make me feel so abused and raped and filthy and disgusted?

That scream, primitive and brutal, a man disemboweled, a man dismembered, a man in the throes of his own murder. Remembering it sends a shudder through me.

That sound came from me. From me …

I keep expecting to hear the coin flip through the air, the slap as it alights on skin, the sharp hint of a fingernail sending it heavenward one more time.

It was a dream. A dream. Just a dream.

My thoughts give no salve. William Dement once wrote in Newsweek, “Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.” He has no idea.

My dreams—No, my nightmares do not feel safe. Does this constitute losing one’s mind? These experiences more than discomfort me.

Having come to a clear understanding of the previous dreams, my uneasiness with the third one greatly exacerbates the apprehension I laid to rest. Orders of magnitude worse than the previous two, its severity took on a life of its own. It came flying in from left field with no warning and smacked me upside the head with unbelievable potency.

Some part of me continues feeling the pain of the voices. They cut me, wounded me with their soulless stabbing.

Hannibal the Cannibal whispering until I swallow my tongue would sound like Gregorian chanting in comparison. Those children were worse, more painful, more threatening. More vandalizing. More real.

How completely out of touch with reality it left me, how threatened in the relative security of my own sunroom on a perfectly normal day.

Our assumed ontologies have changed. No, more fundamental than that. While our theories of existence indeed suffered cataclysmic alteration such that it leaves us reeling, the change comes at the behest of reality itself, which pulled away the veil to show its true face, a terrifying, beautifully insidious visage hiding behind the perceived safety of its disarming smile.

Perhaps the sleeping sickness does start this way. That would explain why investigators have discovered no predictive symptoms. No one would report the insanity that clutches the mind. No one would report the tangible sense of an artificial world ripped away to reveal the horrible truth hiding beneath. No one would admit how violated and adulterated they feel afterword, how soiled the soul and how mangled the mind seem in the aftermath.

The collective experience leaves me transformed. By dreams, by nightmares. The old ersatz world passed away while I slept. I now stand cognizant of, if still unfamiliar with, a whole new world a hell of a lot meaner and nastier than the old one, a place where nature is not indifferent and unrelenting but instead is a vicious mean-spirited bitch with a painful backhand she dishes out unstintingly. And she very much dislikes us. That vile truth explains the terrible thing I now begin to understand, the essence of this new reality which represents the real reality illuminated.

Okay, let’s put it on the line. This is real. This is happening. If I’m not coming down with SACSS, if this isn’t how the illness starts, then the pieces slowly fall into place and they indicate the shit’s about to hit the fan. Dreamdarkers. Mr. Coin. The Untouched. Visionary. A war against humanity.

And what about Mr. Hat? Coincidence or no? At this point, I vote against coincidence. Those for signal with aye. Good. Those opposed signal with nay. Nay! And the nays carry it. Not a coincidence.

Contemplation cannot deter horror. Something terribly wrong has unhidden itself. Maybe they are nightmares, but they represent more than that. Something in those sleepy places has as much reality as the floor upholding my drenched body. The sleeping sickness fails to explain it because one clue exists in the real world—Mr. Hat. He clearly demonstrates out here that the things in dreams can be the same as the things in the physical realm.

“‘All men do not dream equally, Mr. Crichton,’ he said. No, definitely not a coincidence. So what else did he say? Come on, David Allen Crichton, think!”

I scratch my scalp absently in thought, my hand coming away soaked with heavy sweat. At least the shaking stopped.

“Things aren’t always what they seem.”

Carrying on a vocal conversation with myself bothers me not one iota. In fact, it helps in some small way, perhaps giving me a chance to regain authority over the mayhem of head and heart while distracting me from the severity of what happened.

“Yes, he said that. ‘Things are not always what they seem,’ he said. But what does that mean? That sometimes a dream is more than a dream? Sure, that makes sense. He was warning me not to take for granted what might once have been regarded as a bad nightmare. Or did he mean that what seems like more than a dream is just a dream, perchance a nightmare, but nothing more than that? Crap on a cracker!

“No, wait a minute. He said a visionary dreams in the light—Mr. Coin said the same thing—a visionary dreams in the light whereas most people dream in the dark, and the dark can’t be fought with the dark. ‘And darkness cannot stand against darkness.’ Right, okay, that’s what he said. And something about those who dream by day—in the light like a visionary—wield strength. Potent strength.

“This is totally screwed up!”

I shake my head, drops of perspiration flying. No interpretation can deny Mr. Hat’s involvement. The world does not conform to the idea we hold and peril lurks right around the corner. Mr. Coin implied time has run out. “No more deferments,” he said.

“Oh, and no problem on self-deception, you vaporous tease! We’re on the same page now.

“A war against humanity …”

There’s something else. Those voices, the singing, the children’s chorus straight from the Village of the Damned. The Dreamdarkers, they said something. What was it?

“Christ on a crutch.” The words roll out breathless and weak.

“Mr. Coin said a war against humanity. They said, ‘We are the first blow.’ The vanguard of an assault? The first wave. The opening salvo. Mr. Coin called the Dreamdarkers that.

“They’re starting a war. A war against humanity. But starting a war for whom? Come on, memory, shake off fatigue and fear and give me all you got—”

My eyes grow wide and a spike of terror pierces me. My breath catches, my heart skips a beat and I begin shaking. “Oh no … ‘We are the crushing fist of the gods.'”

— — — — — — — — — —

Note that this is the last part of the novel to be posted—at least for now.  This represents a sixth of the novel and half of its first part.  I decided to share this much because it demonstrates the novel as a whole while also ending with identifying the challenge faced in the novel and the series it starts.