Sweet Dreams Read online

  “That or face Sanjaman alone.”

  “First thing in the morning, Bud, I’m going in and talk to Sheriff Lennox.”

  “I will send you a Christmas card every year, Leo. I promise.” The old Indian walked away in a stately manner, only weaving slightly.

  “He says he fell,” the father said, disgust in his voice. “But I think he got smart-mouthed with someone and they popped him on the nose. He’s been kind of a smart ass lately.”

  The boy had nothing to say about that. He sat motionless on the examining table, staring at the wall.

  Jerry looked at Matt Bradford. The boy’s nose was spread all over his face. Jerry guessed it was broken in several places. Marc had really put some muscle behind it when he’d hit him with the baseball bat. And Jerry was becoming more and more convinced of the truth in Marc and Heather’s story. If Van Bishop came straggling in, it would all fall into place.

  He checked the boy’s nose. Marc had hit him so hard, both eyes were black. “You might require some surgery, Matt. I think perhaps you should go on up to Sikeston and – ”

  “I don’t need no surgery, Doc,” Matt said. “Just fix my damn nose.”

  “Boy!” the father said. “Now you better watch that smart mouth of yours.”

  The son looked at the father. “I don’t need none of your shit, either.”

  Jerry stepped quickly between the pair before the father could belt his son. “Easy, both of you!” He looked into Matt’s eyes. They chilled him. The eyes were cold and lifeless. Dead sprang into his mind. The boy is dead. Somehow he is walking about and functioning, but inside he is dead.

  That was the only word Jerry could think of to describe the sensation he got when he looked into Matt Bradford’s eyes.

  “How much pain are you experiencing, Matt?”

  “None. You gonna fix my nose, Doc?”

  Jerry knew he would have to wait until the swelling went down before a lot could be done, but he wanted to see how much pain the boy could endure. He worked on the boy’s nose for several minutes. Cold fear began to wash over the doctor-that, and a numbing sensation that crawled around in his guts like a slimy snake.

  He placed a piece of tape over the broken nose and sent father and son home.

  Then Jerry sat down in a chair to ease his shaky legs. He could not believe what he had just seen. Matt had not felt a thing, had not moved during the entire procedure. He hadn’t even blinked his eyes.

  “Jesus Christ,” Jerry said. “What in the hell is happening around here?”

  10

  “Don’t do this to me, boys,” the young teacher said, real panic now evident in her .voice. “For God’s sake, think about this.”

  It was ten-thirty, the high school almost deserted. The report cards had been handed out, the kids and most of the faculty were gone.

  Only one teacher remained. Claire Bolling. Claire had decided to take a little extra time in cleaning out her desk. She was in no hurry. She was not married, lived alone in Sikeston. She looked up at a noise in the hall. Five seniors filed into her room. Four boys and one girl. The girl had a knife.

  “Open your mouth or cause any trouble, bitch,” the girl said, “and you get cut.” She held the knife menacingly.

  Claire believed her. Of all the teachers in the system, she alone had been the first to detect the subtle changes taking place in the personalities of many of the kids in Good Hope high school.

  While one boy kept watch, the others forced Claire into the gym, into the dressing rooms under the bleachers.

  “Strip!” the girl with the knife told her.

  “I won’t,” Claire said.

  The girl slapped her hard, then backhanded her. She put the point of the hunting knife under Claire’s chin. “Peel,” she told her. “The boys wanna see your pussy.”

  “Why are you doing this to me, Marta?” Claire asked.

  “Shut up!” Marta said. “You prance your ass around here all year teasin’ the boys. You ain’t nothing but a cock tease. O.K.” She grinned, and the grin was nasty. “Now let’s see what you can do with some cock.”

  Claire slowly undressed. The four boys and one girl watched her, their eyes showing no emotion. Claire picked up on that and wondered about it.

  “Great tits,” a boy observed.

  Marta placed the blade of the knife against the bare skin of Claire’s stomach. “Bobby’s got ten inches for you, teacher. And he’s about to bust his jeans just thinkin’ about it. Personally, you don’t do nothin’ for me. So I think I’ll just watch and make suggestions. Get down on the practice mats and spread your legs.”

  The boys took turns raping her under the harsh lights of the dressing room. Then Marta suggested something. Claire was held in position and taken anally, a torn T-shirt tied around her mouth to prevent her from screaming against the pain.

  Marta thought the entire show extremely amusing.

  After the assault, Claire was locked, naked, in a small closet. She heard the teenagers leave, the door lock behind them.

  Claire knew she could not break down the closet door. She also knew it was entirely possible weeks would pass before anyone came into the far room where the closet was located. She was afraid of the dark. She had suffered from severe achluophobia since childhood.

  Claire began screaming as darkness folded itself around her, the sweat from her body acting like a damp stinking shroud.

  Jerry cleaned and stitched up the largest of the cuts on Van’s head. He used no local anesthetic to alleviate the pain, yet Van did not move or protest at all during the entire procedure.

  “All right, Van,” Jerry finally said. “That’s it.”

  Only then did Van lift his eyes to meet the doctor’s gaze. Jerry fought a battle within himself to control his suddenly rising concern, suspicion . . . and fear.

  The youth’s eyes were totally devoid of any type of emotion.

  They were dead.

  Van rose from the narrow table, nodded his head at Jerry, and walked out of the examining room.

  Jerry sat for a moment. His hands began aching. He looked down. He was gripping the arms of the chair so tightly his hands were white with strain. He released his near-death grip and opened and closed his hands until the blood was once more racing through them and the joints had ceased their aching. He rose from the chair and walked into the reception area.

  This day was one of those extremely rare days when no patient was waiting. He looked at Janet. She had been quiet all morning, quite unlike her usual happy self. He wondered if she had heard about his visit to Maryruth. Janet had briefly expressed her condolences about Lisa, but other than that had had nothing to say about his wife’s death or why it happened.

  She looked up from her work. “Sally still hasn’t shown up,” she explained. “So I thought I’d better start on her work.”

  “Did she call?”

  “Not a peep.”

  “Odd,” Jerry said. “That sure isn’t like her.” He reached for the phone.

  “No point,” Janet said. “I’ve been trying all morning to get her. No one answers.” She met his eyes. “Jerry? I had the . . . well, strangest thing happen to me last evening.”

  Quiet dread filled Jerry. He knew what Janet was about to say and he didn’t want to hear it, did not want any further confirmation of his suspicions. But as a doctor and a very intelligent man, he knew he could not run from this. He knew some of the most dangerous words in any language were: Maybe it will go away. He tried to shake off his sudden sensation of doom, but found he could not.

  “Oh?” he asked, deliberately keeping his voice level.

  “Yes. Jerry . . . I, well, I lost about three hours last night.”

  He sat down in the reception area. “What do you mean?” He knew what she meant.

  “I’m not sure what happened to me last night. That’s what I mean.”

  “Janet, if you tell me you don’t have any recognition of what transpired between a certain time period last evening, I
am very likely to run screaming out that front door.”

  She blinked at him. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, Jerry. But then, I also have absolutely no idea what happened to me between eight and eleven last night. I am totally, one hundred percent blank.”

  Jerry put his face in his big hands and sighed. He rubbed his eyes. Suddenly, he was very tired. He thought: It’s all true. Everything is falling into place. And I don’t know what to do about it. Who do I turn to with this? How can I convince anyone it’s happening? For what can I prove?

  Janet said, “There is an old Oriental proverb that reads: One should only rub one’s eyes with one’s elbows.”

  Jerry thought about that for a few seconds and then laughed. “Yeah. I can see the logic in that. All right, Janet. What were you doing when you lost track of time?”

  “I was getting ready to watch a movie on TV. I had just finished washing the dinner dishes and was sitting down on the couch in the den. I woke up on that couch three hours later. I didn’t full, didn’t bump my head – had taken no medication that would cause me to fall asleep. I wasn’t even tired. I just . . . Well, Jerry, I don’t know what happened.”

  I do, Jerry thought. But how do I tell you without sounding like an idiot?

  Just then a car pulled into the parking lot of the clinic, cutting into their conversation. Lieutenant Voyles’s bulk soon filled the doorway. Jerry introduced him to Janet and was mildly amused to observe them jockeying for position. Jerry had noticed that Voyles wore no wedding ring, and the relationship between Jerry and Janet, while sexually satisfying to both of them, had always been a very loose and casual affair. Neither loved the other and both knew it. Neither made any pretense that things were otherwise.

  “Let’s talk, Doc,” Voyles said.

  “First you listen to what Janet has to say, Dick,” Jerry told him. “Tell him what you just told me, Janet.”

  Janet repeated her story verbatim. Voyles wore a puzzled look on his broad face when she finished. His looked changed to one of pure disbelief as Jerry told him about Heather and Marc.

  Janet looked at Jerry as if she were viewing a candidate for the nut house. “Dolls and teddy bears that come to life, Jerry? Now come on!”

  “Toy soldiers that fire their little guns?” Voyles queried. “A mysterious light that bobs up and down and follows people? A bed that jumps around? Now, Doc, I know you’ve been under one hell of a strain, but this stuff? . . .” Voyles sat down. He had changed to civilian clothes. They softened his physical appearance, made him appear much more human and vulnerable.

  “It’s true, people,” Jerry said. “As far-fetched as I know it sounds, it’s all true.” Then he told them about Van and Matt.

  Voyles jerked his head up, meeting Jerry’s direct gaze. “A mysterious light,” he said softly. Then he shook his head.

  “Maybe that’s it, Dick,” Jerry said.

  “No way, Doc. No way. That light out by the tracks is some kind of natural phenomenon. It is not anything supernatural.”

  “How do you know?” Jerry challenged, feeling a little bit foolish defending something that he really didn’t believe.

  The cop just shook his head.

  “I’ve been seeing that light all my life,” Janet said. “It scared me the first few times I saw it, but after that? . . .” She shrugged and Jerry watched Voyles’s eyes follow the lift and fall of her breasts.

  “As far as those boys, Doc,” the cop spoke. “The force of the blows could have had a numbing effect on them. That could explain that, right?”

  “Bullshit!” Jerry said bluntly.

  Jerry grinned and shook his head. “I guess that was a stupid thing to say, right, Doc?”

  “For once we agree.”

  Voyles laughed loudly. “You’re all right, Doc,” he said. “Sorry about the tough time I gave you at the beginning.”

  “My brother used to say a cop that doesn’t have a suspicious nature better hunt a different profession.”

  “I didn’t know him well, but I knew him,” Voyles said. “Brave man. I kind of think you’re a lot like him.”

  “I consider that a compliment.”

  A friendship began forming.

  Voyles said, “I’d like to have a talk with those two kids. What’re their names?”

  “Heather Thomas and Marc – that’s with a C –Anderson.”

  “Addresses?”

  Jerry looked at his watch. “I would imagine they’re at the Health Center right now, with Doctor Benning. But we’re going to have to talk to them without their parents’ knowledge.” He told Janet and Dick about the parents being ‘asleep.’

  “Man, this is getting weird!” Voyles said.

  “Sleep all right last night?” Maryruth asked the young people.

  They had, they said.

  “No dreams?”

  Both hesitated.

  “It’s all right,” Maryruth assured them. “I sure had some bad dreams.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Heather answered for both of them. “We sure did have some bad dreams.”

  “You understand though that they are only dreams, and can’t hurt you?”

  “We’re not stupid,” Marc said.

  Very, very bright, Maryruth thought. Be careful with these kids, kid. “Now that you’ve had time to think about the incidents of last night, what do you think we should do about them?”

  The kids looked at each other. Heather again spoke for both of them. “I think we’d better find out what’s happening in this town.”

  “And then?”

  Heather’s young shoulders seemed to sag a bit. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m just a kid; what do I know?”

  Plenty, Maryruth thought. And don’t go defensive on me. Please. “How do you feel about deceiving your parents about last night?”

  “Kind of bad,” Marc said. “I never lied to my Dad or Mom before. But . . . they were put to sleep by that . . . thing while so much was happening to us,” – he jerked a thumb toward Heather – “so I guess we didn’t have much choice.”

  “Yeah,” Heather agreed. “But what really bugs me is this: how come, out of all the kids our age in this town, how come Matt and Van and that light came after Marc and me? What do we have that . . . that, well, they either want badly, or ... maybe they’re afraid of?”

  Sharp, Maryruth thought. This pair is very, very astute. Much more so than I first thought. Don’t ever go condescending with them. They’ll pick up on that quickly and you’ll have lost ground with them. “Those are good questions, Heather. I can’t answer them. But let me ask you this: Have either of you considered that what happened to you last evening is not supernatural, that it isn’t something sinister?” My God, what am I saying? I don’t believe in ghoulies and ghosties and demonic creatures of the night.

  At least I don’t think I do.

  Heather cast serious eyes on the woman; eyes that held more wisdom than someone her age should possess. “Ma’am, I don’t know what is happening. But I do know – sense – this: It is somehow all connected with that old Indian burial site just outside of town. I don’t know how I know that, but I do.”

  “I’m with Heather on that,” Marc said. “That place gives me the creeps.”

  Maryruth looked at her wristwatch. “You two want to take a ride out there?”

  “Suits me,” Heather said.

  “Sure,” Marc said. “But you gotta O.K. it with our parents.”

  “No problem. I’ll call right now.” She put her hand on the phone just as it rang. “Hello?”

  She listened for a moment and said, “They’re right here, Jerry. I just finished talking with them. Sure. That’ll be fine. I’ll call their parents and well meet you out there in about twenty minutes. See you.”

  She hung up the phone and turned to the kids. “Doctor Baldwin is going to meet us out at the dig site. That O.K. with you two?”

  It was.

  Maryruth smiled. “Then I’d better get busy callin
g your folks.”

  “I’m tellin’ you, Sheriff,” Leo said, exasperation in his voice. “I’m not lyin’ bout this. I know what I saw out on the tracks and I’m tellin’ you it was just plain awful.”

  Sheriff Pat Lennox looked over the hood of his car at the old man. “Leo,” he said patiently, “how much booze did you drink last night?”

  Leo’s shoulders slumped in defeat. He had told his story three times. Now it was time to call it quits. Bud was right. They thought he was crazy. “I tried, Sheriff. As God is my witness, I tried. Thanks for listenin’ as long as you did. See you around.”

  Sheriff Lennox watched the old wino walk away. “Poor old crazy drunk,” he muttered.

  The sheriff turned away, hesitated, then looked once more at Leo’s retreated back. He shook his head, thought a minute. The old man had been sober, that was sure. Maybe . . . ah!

  Having been born and reared in this part of the Bootheel of Missouri, Pat Lennox had seen “The Light” many, many times. He, and his father before him, had taken the girls out to the site of the light. That used to be a very popular game among the kids. But Pat now thought it had lost its popularity among the young, kids being so hip and supercool nowadays . . . or so they thought.

  Kids didn’t act like they were very happy anymore. And that wasn’t confined, solely to this area. It was all over. Pat thought too many of them walked around – rode around was more like it – wearing frowns on their faces, like the world owed them something.

  Pat almost called to Leo, to tell him to come back and talk some more. Maybe the goddamned light was somehow connected with the death of Doctor Baldwin’s wife?

  “Aw, crap, Pat!” he muttered. “Come on. Clear your head, man.”

  Sheriff Lennox walked into his office. Ten minutes later, he had forgotten the entire meeting with Leo.

  It was as if his brain had been wiped clean of the encounter.

  It had.

  11

  Jerry hung the CLOSED sign on his door. People would know of his wife’s death so he decided to take the rest of the week off. The funeral was scheduled for Wednesday. He would reopen a week from today. But he would stay on call, not call in his friend from Sikeston to handle his load.