Dream Fantastic

[alexander]

Madness.

Madness is all that's left, all that drives me. It's happening every few minutes now, this... this thing. I haven't a name for it, for if I name it, then I admit that it's real. And if I admit that it's real, that I'm not mad, then the entire world is mad. I'd rather it were just me.

We are almost one now, he and I. Every minute or so, I go back and forth, one moment struggling against the straight jacket and gag, trying to free myself, the next, sitting in this locked room, writing on this notepad you are reading. I've written most of it down, on this notepad, a diary of disaster, one insanity following another. But none of it will make sense without what came first, so now, I will write last what came first. And wait. For my men are coming for me, for both of me, and we will be free, and I will see this thing end.

[alexander]

The first time it happened, at least, the first time I knew it happened, was an average normal day. I say the first time I knew, for, the imaginations of a child leave a lot of room for doubt. I had played such things, years ago. Were they real, the early manifestations of this insanity? I'll never know.

It was a bright sunlit day, as they always are here in June. Briefcase in one hand, paper folded in the other hand, I walked to my bus stop and sat down. I normally never take the bus, but my girlfriend had been badgering me to "reduce my carbon footprint", so whenever she stayed the night, I would take the bus that morning. Oblivious to my surroundings, I sat on the concrete bench and unfolded my morning paper. I was scanning through the paper, looking for something bright and funny, avoiding the darker stories. Rapes, murders, recalls, elections, pollution, all the ills of society, I tried to avoid thinking about. The world was going to hell, and I did NOT want to go along for the ride...

From the Final Journal Of David Sturnbridge

Sitting at the concrete bus stop, David thumbed through the paper, pulling it closer every now and then as the light faded out, as if clouds were rolling in. Oblivious to everything but the newsprint in front of his eyes, and the solid feel of the briefcase clamped between his legs, he muttered to himself as the pages turned. He stopped suddenly, his nose twitching, and started looking around. His gaze fell on a trash can sitting next to the bench, filled to overflowing with garbage, more trash piled around it. Faded packages and thin layers of mold attested to trash that had been sitting there for a while.

"Hunh, must be another garbage strike on," David muttered to himself.

"Say what again?" The gravely, raspy voice sounded directly in David's ear, causing him to jump, startled. Clutching his newspaper against his chest, his head slowly swiveled on his neck towards the sound. The leering face in front of him matched the voice perfectly, as grizzled and gravely as the words he had uttered. Tattered denim jeans with leather chaps, a black leather jacket, and short cropped, spiked hair sat with a predator's grace on a frame that would have seemed small on a giant. Sitting down, David realized, the man was as tall as David would be standing up. He was heavily muscled, and his leather clothing rippled with every breath. His nose and lips were studded with metal, and a large tattoo crossed his face, running from his right eyebrow down across his eye to his chin. It seemed to be a tattoo of a scar.

"They can smell fear. They can smell fear." The thought echoed over and over in David's mind as he pulled up what courage he could. Posing himself as arrogantly as possibly, he repeated himself. "I said, there must be a garbage strike on." For emphasis, he pointed his thumb over his shoulder towards the overfilled can.

The man-mountain sitting next to him turned in the direction David was pointing, his torso rotating at the waist. His face screwed up in confusion for a moment, then he looked back towards David, his face split in a grin as he laughed roughly. "Good one Davey!", he roared, slapping David on the back. "Garbage strike. Had to think back to 'member whatcha talking about. " Laughing, he leaned back a bit. "Good one, eh boys?"

Laughter roared around them, as David whipped his head left and right, realizing that another four men were standing behind them, dressed like the man seated next to him, and with identical scar tattoos on their faces.

"Garbage strike. I wish, Goal!" shouted one, as another clapped to himself, giggling.

David stood, realizing that he was right, at five foot ten, he was as tall standing as this giant was sitting, and it was a low bench. Fear gone, anger suffused his frame, a narrowed face hissing a response to the man.

"Do. Not. Touch. Me. Clear?"

To his surprise, the man was taken aback, and seemed afraid of him. "Yeah, sure Davey. Sorry."

Emboldened by this attitude, David kept going. "And another thing. The name is David, not Davey. No one has called me Davey sin..." David backed up a step, anger turning to confusion and fear. "How do you know my name?"

The pierced face wrinkled up in confusion again. "How do I know your..."
He trailed off, and leaned in close, staring at David for a minute, and then gently said, "Davey, are you alright man?"

David sat back down heavily, confused all the more. "I. I'm fine!" Glancing back at the man every now and then, he tried to bury his nose back in the the paperback he was reading. Flipping back and forth several times, David suddenly turned the book over, and read the back cover. Throwing the book on the bench next to him in disgust, David folded his arms to wait. One of the flunkies spoke up suddenly.

"Hey, bus is coming." Everyone stood, as David grabbed his book and shoved it in the backpack at his feet. He shouldered the bag, then stopped, his eyes rolling upwards as if trying to see inside his head. His face narrowed again as he held out the backpack and stared at it.

"Okay, which of you monkeys has my briefcase?" The men looked back and forth at each other, obviously clueless, and, oddly enough, afraid.

The large man that had been sitting next to him spoke up, cowering a little in spite of standing over a foot above him. "What briefcase? You don't have a briefcase, just your bag, Davey. Are you SURE you're all right man?"

David opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came as his eyes tracked the bus pulling up next to him. His mouth hung open loosely, staring at the sight in front of him.

[alexander]

I forgot all about my briefcase as the bus pulled up. The bus! HAH! Not a nice city bus, ohh no. This monstrosity looked like a school bus out of the fifties. Big, hulking, and steel, it belched smoke out of a pipe. Great pieces of iron had been welded to the front, like a cattle guard on a train. Razor wire was stretched across the top and down the back. Most of the windows were knocked out, except the windshield, which had been reinforced with a thick glass, maybe bulletproof.

Here and there patches of the original yellow paint showed through, but mostly the sides were covered in graffiti. In and among the obvious gang tags, hate symbols, and random crap, were a pair of painted faces, like with a brush, not spray paint. An outline of a face each, they were done in silver paint, with a black line that matched the tattoos on the faces of the men around me. The door, rusty and covered with welded on spikes, screeched halfway open, and the men started piling on.

I pulled away, shocked at the contraption, and that it even existed, let alone ran. The man giant they had called Goal got on last, then turned and stared at me…

From the Final Journal of David Sturnbridge

Standing with one foot in the bus, and the other floating on air, the giant man clung to the inside of the bus with one arm, the other reaching out towards David, as if to help him on.

“C’mon, man. It’s time to go.”

David took a further step back, nearly tripping over the bench. “Are you insane? Go in that... that... thing? I’ll wait for the real bus.”

The man shook his head, exasperated. Forcing back a sigh, he took a tone not unlike a child trying to paper train a puppy. “This IS the real bus. Downtown express, owned and protected by The Slings. Look, I don’t know what’s wrong, Davey. I mean, David. But I know you can’t have cold feet, that’s not like you. So get on the bus, and we’ll deal with whatever is up, but after the meeting.”

David folded his arms across his chest defiantly. “No. I don’t know you, I’m not going anywhere with you, and I have cold feet about nothing. And I notice your speech suddenly got a hell of a lot better without the other thugs listening in, Goal. What kind of name is that, anyway? Is your sister called Score, and your brother known as Three Pointer?”

The man known as Goal ducked his head inside the bus for a moment, then hopped out onto the ground. “Look, David. Something is obviously not right with your head, but remember this one thing. In half an hour you have a meeting with the Downtown Bustle. You have spent six months getting this meeting together, and if you do not get on this bus, you will be late. And if you are late, you will ruin dozens of hours of your work. Trust me.”

David looked at Goal, then at the backpack in his arms. Reaching into the backpack, he found a pad, not the same as the fine perfect bound parchment book he normally carried. In fact, it was a cheap yellow note pad. But at the top was his initials, marked the way he always marked his notebooks. Flipping it open to the last page that was written in, he looked at the bottom line. Mtg – Dtwn Bstle. 10:45. Drkbld Prtcn, Merger. The writing was his own. Drkbld Prtcn made no sense, but the rest of the note corresponded to what the large man said.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll come with you. Stupid to be late to my own meeting, right?” In a daze, he walked onto the bus behind the large man. The bus driver, dressed in a crisp uniform that was out of place in the grime covering the bus inside and out, saluted him as he started to walk past.

“Davey, sir. Pleasure to have you aboard. I’d hate to bother you with this, but there are a couple of gentlemen in back that are harassing some of the other customers.”

Goal turned suddenly, and David slammed into him. “The two with the white hats?” Goal asked.

“That’s them. Hate to bother you with it sirs, but I just drive the bus. “

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.” With that, the doors closed with a squeal, and the bus started on its way.

David picked a seat that was still mostly in one piece, and sat down sideways, back to the wall and knees tucked in. His mind still reeling, trying to take it all in, he gazed back and forth at the others around him. Piercings and scars seemed the norm. Tattoos were oddly absent in most cases. After the group with the faces, he had half expected tattoos to run rampant. Suddenly his attention was drawn by a commotion in back. The one everyone called Goal was standing in the aisle, confronting someone. David craned for a better look, but really couldn’t see what was happening.

In the back of the bus, Goal had his hands full. To be specific, he had his hands around the necks of two teens in white hats and black denim pants.
“Now, lets make sure wheeze got dis straight, right? You two won’t ride The Slings’ bus till you behave. And you two won’t never hustle, gamble, harass, blackmail, or threaten anyone on our turf again. That straight?”

Every few words, Goal shook the men back and forth, causing their heads to bang together and bounce apart. One of the kids managed to get a word or two out.

“Yeah, yeah, we promise man. Ow, just, ow, stop shaking us! We promise!”

“Good!” With that, Goal dragged them to the front of the bus. The bus screeched to a halt, and the front doors opened. With an offhand flourish, Goal sent both men flying out into the street, and the bus pulled forward again. Walking back down the aisle, Goal thumbed the air behind him.

“No ticket!”

David smiled weakly at the joke, then looked down. Picking at a scab on his finger, he suddenly became aware of his hands. Turning them over and back again, he stared, marveling at the calluses and scars he didn’t remember having. Goal sat in the seat opposite him, watching him, concern evident on his face. The landscape rolled past, both familiar and strange, made all the more difficult to discern by heavy cloud cover, and the appearance of being dusk, although it shouldn’t have been. Checking his watch, David verified to himself that it was indeed only ten thirteen in the morning. As David closed his eyes to think, trying to make sense of the last ten minutes of his life, the bus rolled on, the two men sitting in silence.

[alexander]

The bus bumped and swayed along the road, shocks long gone the way of the dodo. David watched out the window, looking at a world gone mad. Everything was what he knew, but different. Darker. Houses were boarded up or burnt, trash littered every yard. Store fronts were windowless, empty sockets staring at the street. A perennial night infested the sky, though the sun should only have been a quarter of the way through its daily trip. As the bus crawled closer to what had only yesterday been a large shopping district built around a pair of malls, the scenery began to change. Side roads were clogged with cars piled on top of each other. Here and there men with firearms sat or stood, guarding the streets. A large drainage pipe in the corner of a small park was manned by two men with shotguns, as if some creature might come crashing through the bars any moment.

David looked closer, and realized that there were no bars, as had been across the opening yesterday. Ruined metal curled from the opening. Something HAD come crashing through. Everything looked like a war zone.

Coming in closer to the mall, the general state of disarray turned from armed camp on the edge of destruction to simply run down. The bus pulled up in front of a movie theater next to the mall, and Goal hopped to his feet. Silently David rose and followed. As they entered the theater, armed men stood inside the doorway with rifles at their sides. They both wore fanny packs of some sort, with several layers of green and black cloth hanging over the pouch and dangling down over their asses. David suppressed a giggle. It seemed the Downtown Bustle wore bustles.

Goal gave the men a brief salute, and David copied it. His wonder circuits burnt out, he just followed along aimlessly. The giant man, towering over everyone, looked at his watch, and for some reason David could only think of the white rabbit, the smallest one of the party. The parallels to falling down the rabbit’s hole made his mind start to churn in wonder again, and he quickly choked off those thoughts. Goal spoke briefly with a few of the tattooed men, then put his hand on David’s shoulder and led him to the men’s room.

Quickly checking the stalls to be sure they were alone, Goal turned towards David, deflating.

“Okay man, what the hell is up Davey?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about Goal. Score. Basket. Shit, I wake up, my life gets turned around, the world goes insane, and I get carted around by a man whose name is a euphemism for winning.”

“The name, Davey, is Goliath. As in David and Goliath. The old myth? You named me, you should know that. I’m the oldest friend you’ve got, and you act like you don’t know me.“ Goliath’s eyes narrowed. He studied David’s face, turning this way and that to look at him from all sides. “And since when the fuck did you know how to pronounce the word euphemism, let alone what it meant? Shit. Has the poison in your face spread again?” He reached out a hand as if to touch David’s face, slowly inching closer. At the last moment, David turned away.

“What poison in my face? What are you talking about? My oldest friend? I’ve never met you before!”

“Never met... Never met me? C’mon Davey, whatever’s going on, you have to remember me. Hell, we used to ditch Mrs. Flint’s class in third grade together.” At the name, David started, and turned to look back at the man. “Yeah, you remember that. We learned to ride bikes together. Whenever kids picked on little ol’ bookworm me, you were the one that protected me, stood up for me. When I tripped and got stuck in the tracks at the trainyard, you were the one that pulled me free before that car crushed me like a bug. I sure as hell could never forget you, at least show me the same courtesy.”

David stared open-mouthed at the man, his head slowly shaking back and forth no.

“ C’mon. Jarod fucking O’Neil. You have to remember me.”

“Jerry? Little Jerry?”

Goliath’s face lit up, a grin splitting from ear to ear. “Oh thank god, he remembers. Yeah, little Jerry. Not so little anymore, as you can see.“ Goliath laughed, and wiped his hand across his forehead. “Shit Davey, I mean, David. You had me worried there for a moment.”

Goliath’s grin turned to puzzlement as fear spread across David’s face. David backed up slowly, arms in front of him as if to ward the man away. He stumbled into the sink, and stopped, back pressed into the corner of the bathroom.

“No. No, you can’t be Jerry. I look at your face, and you are, I don’t know how, but you’re little Jerry. But you can’t be him.” Panic took hold of David, his voice rising shrill as he repeated himself over and over. ”You can’t be. You can’t be him. You’re Jerry, but you’re not. Damnit, YOU CAN’T BE HIM!”

“Why can’t I be me?

“Because. Because you’re DEAD.”

[alexander]

“I knew where I was then... The darkness, the destruction, everything almost real, but not quite. I was in hell. I had died. Perhaps a heart attack walking down to the bench. Maybe a car ran off the road and struck me, killing me instantly while I read the paper. It didn't matter. I was dead, and in hell, and being faced by those I had failed in life. Starting with Jerry. I had no clue just how right I was…

From the Final Journal of David Sturnbridge


Goliath’s face fell. He looked down at himself, unbelieving, and patted his chest and stomach.

“I feel pretty damn alive Davey. Why do you say I’m not?”

Davey stepped forward and straightened up, confusion gone from his face.

“Because you’re not. When I was twelve, I went on vacation with my family, to see my grandmother before she died. I didn't want to, but I had no choice. When I returned, they told me. You had gone to the train yard. They didn't know why, but I did. You were looking for hobos, like we always said we would. They found your shoe and foot wedged under a tie, and the rest of you splattered across the gravel. High speed line, just passing through, not slowed to switch or stop, they said. Freak accident, they said."

David paused, taking a breath in deep, and holding it for a moment before releasing the air with a sharp sound.

"Your funeral was the day before we came back. Closed casket, of course. I didn't believe it, I couldn't, so I went down to the train yard myself, looking around. I found blood in places myself, under stones around the track where they said it happened. And then, climbing a loading machine, I found half a book. The Wizard of Oz. You had been reading it right before I left. It was torn in half, and stuck together with dried blood. I knew then, they hadn't lied. You were dead, and it was my fault, Jerry. I failed you. You asked me to run away, that night, come live in your tree house, like some old story. I told you no. Always the brave one, but I told you no, because I was afraid of my father, and I left you behind, and you were dead. And it was my fault. Is that what you want to hear? Is it?”

David stepped closer to Goliath, confident now. “You are dead, it is my fault, now let's move on to my next torment, shall we?”

Goliath went pale, his mouth hanging open. David smiled, expecting this. Whatever demon was tormenting him did not expect him to have figured things out yet.

“My dear god. You’re not Davey. You’re HIM.”

David’s smile faltered. This, he did not expect.

“You say you didn't run away, you DID go on that trip?”

“That is what I said Jerry, yes.”

"Are you also going to tell me that you did not, a few years later, drop out of high school to enlist in the Protective Forces?"

"The... Not only did I never drop out of high school, Goliath, but I have a college degree."

David put as much sarcasm and venom into saying Goliath's name as he could, and grinned to himself when he saw the big man disturbed by this.

"As for the, Protective Forces, as you call them, I've never heard of them."

Goliath nodded, stepping closer, a shark moving in for the kill.

"And I suppose you never fought against the darkbloods?" David shook his head no as Goliath took another step towards him. "Never led your men to safety in those South American hell holes?" Another shake, and another step. "And I suppose you never took the poisoned axe to the face that gave you, THAT!"

With the scream of "THAT", Goliath moved the final few steps towards David, grabbed his hair, and spun him to face the bedroom mirror.
David was about to spin back around and protest, when something caught his attention. His face was his own, and yet not. More deeply lined, longer haired, with a pierced ear. But all of that paled to insignificance after the scar.

Starting above his left eyebrow, it curved across the eye socket, down across his cheek, and to his chin beneath his lips. Pale pink flesh curled away from the center, years old scarring. The center line dove deep into his flesh, so deep one expected to see the white of bone like a raging river at the bottom of the canyon that wound along his face. But instead, a black so deep that no light escaped ran in a thin line at the bottom of the scar. Every now and then, David almost thought it moved, as if it were a running liquid, but it was so black, there was no way to tell. Almost offhand, David realized that the tattooed scar on Goliath's face, on the face of all the men with them, was a mirror image of the very real scar on his own. A scar many years old, that he had never received.

He turned to Goliath.

"Jerry... Goliath. Where am I?"