CLOSER YET: Wyndham. His face is segmented. Tiny little lines, cracks, edges all over his flesh. His eyes are strange – they are black and have a chitinous sheen. As he opens his mouth to speak, we see he has no teeth. His voice BUZZES, DISTORTED, HOLLOW – the words jittering out like the beating of insect wings.
Wyndham: “I’ve got a message for you, and you’re not going to like it.”
John Carpenter’s PRINCE OF DARKNESS
TRYING TO REACH YOU
Carl’s forehead is soaked in sweat. He tosses back and forth on his pillow. He dreams of a church he’s never seen. The bright morning sun is a spotlight on its steel double doors. The walls are maroon bricks. There’s a concrete statue of the Virgin Mother behind rusted iron bars. Suddenly the door swings open and a dark figure in a translucent robe emerges. It’s backlit by an eerie glow. It staggers forward. Its movements stiff. It’s robe now a shroud. It seems to speak, and it sounds like a warped tape-recording.
“This is not a dream. We repeat, this is not a dream.”
Carl gasps and opens his eyes. He’s back in his room beneath his wet sheets. He reaches for his cell phone on the nightstand. It’s 3:45. He sighs and sets his phone next to his pillow. He lies there staring at the ceiling.
Should he try to go back to sleep? He might get another 2 hours at best. Maybe he should turn the t.v. on? He looks toward the foot of the bed. The background noise would help. But in the dream, he felt like he was watching television. He picks his phone up and tosses the sheets aside. He throws his feet off the bed and sits up.
The kitchen is small. There’s room for a table. Carl sits with his hand on his coffee cup and stares at nothing in particular. How long is this going to go on? What does it mean? “This is not a dream.” Then what the fuck is it? Carl sips his coffee. His eyes are bloodshot. He needs a shave. He needs to comb his hair. Did he brush his teeth? He’ll do that before he heads out the door. How much time does he have left? Carl checks his cell phone. Oh, shit!
The cubicle is small. There’s an 11×7 inch movie poster on the wall. It’s John Carpenter’s THE THING. It says: “Man is the warmest place to hide.” There’s the figure in the parka with the light beaming from where its face should be. Carl’s fingers rest on his keyboard as he stares at the poster.
This is why he’s having the nightmare. He’s been watching shit like this his entire life. From HALLOWEEN to CHRISTINE to IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS. How much Carpenter had he consumed? It’s from one of his movies, right? PRINCE OF DARKNESS! That’s right. But why wasn’t he dreaming of Michael Myer’s or Christine? Those were his favorites. Hell, he’d even prefer the fog. “There’s something in the fog!” He had that poster too. Carl turns his head a little more to look at his other poster. It is John Carpenter’s THE FOG. Jamie Lee Curtis is pressed against the door. A desiccated decaying arm reaches through with that same eerie backlit glow.
He’s got to stop watching that shit.
The Nissan Leaf sits at the stop light. Carl grips the steering wheel like it’s a life preserver ring. The dark circles beneath his eyes add some color to his pallid cheeks. The light is green, but Carl doesn’t notice. He’s fixated.
Why that movie? It was one of his favorites. He was 12 when he saw it. It was fun. He was terrified of the idea of what had happened to that one gal. What was her name? He can’t remember. But she tackles the other gal and they both go through the mirror into the abyss and the priest shatters the glass, trapping her and the Anti-God there forever. That was horrifying, but still.
Horns are honking. How long had he sat there? How long could you survive in the abyss? Would you live forever? Was madness your only relief? More horns. Carl drives through the intersection.
Carl sits in his recliner. A tumbler of sweet amber bourbon dangles from his fingers. In his other hand is an Amazon Fire remote. On his television screen is the Amazon Fire TV home menu. The remote is propped up by the arm of the recliner. Carl’s eyes are barely open.
Madness would be her only salvation. Or quick death. That Anti-God looked huge. It could swallow her like a gnat. She’d go right past its teeth, down its throat, and into its stomach. She’d be digested by its stomach acid. Assuming that’s how it worked. It was a god. It could have any possible digestive system. She could spend eternity being dissolved, flesh melting, burning, and only the sound of her own screams to offer distraction. How long before they became giggles and peels of laughter.
His eyes close. The tumbler hits the carpet, wobbles, but remains upright. The remote slips from his fingers and falls into the void between the cushion and the arm.
Carl sinks into his recliner. His leg twitches. He dreams he’s running through a forest. The branches scratch at him. He hears a howl. He sees sharp fangs. He runs faster. He emerges from the trees to find a bright morning sun. He looks across an empty city street and sees the steel double doors, the maroon bricks, and the blessed virgin behind the iron bars.
He wants to run back into the forest, so he turns but the iron bars are there. He turns back and he’s inside the fence. The double doors swing open, but they’re further away, as if he’s still on the other side of the street. The dark figure approaches. It’s no longer wearing robes. It’s a woman. Catherine. Her name was Catherine. The tape-recorded voice begins:
“This is not a dream. We repeat, this is not a dream. We’re using your brain’s electrical system as a receiver. We are unable to transmit through conscious neural interference.”
Yes. That’s what they said in the movie. This is not a dream.
Carl sits once more with his hand on his coffee cup. He stares into it as if he’s reading tea leaves. “This is not a dream.” No. It’s a nightmare. A never ending, always repeating, insanity spiraling nightmare. Carl sips his coffee. His left eye has busted a vessel, and a red, inky smear runs from the iris to the corner. He really needs a shave, or he needs to commit to having a beard. His hair is greasy, matted in some spots. He runs his fingers through them. He blows into the palm of his hand and sniffs his breath. That could kill a child or a dwarf. Carl checks his cell phone. Fuck it. He’ll text and let them know he’ll be late.
Carl’s hair is still wet from where he ran the comb under the bathroom faucet. He has a blank spreadsheet on his computer screen and his cubicle walls are bare. The posters are crumbled in the trash. This is not a dream.
Horns bleat. Carl extends his left arm out the window and his middle finger to let them know he got the message. He accelerates. This is not a dream.
The office is more like a small apartment except there is a desk in the kitchen instead of a table. The living room is filled with a plush sofa and two loveseats. Miss Harper sits in a hardwood rocker with floral cushions. She’s young, about half Carl’s age, and looks like Chloe Sevigny from Big Love when she lets her hair down.
“Do you take any active role in these dreams?” she asks as she scribbles on her notepad.
Carl slumps in the loveseat clutching a pillow on his lap. He looks as one would expect someone to look just before the guys in the white coats arrive.
“Not at the church. No. It’s like I’m stuck watching tv. It’s the same thing over and over. It changes slightly. Like in the movie. Now it’s the woman. Catherine. But that was the end of the movie. Does that mean it’s over?”
“Do you think it’s over?”
“I don’t know.”
“If it happens again, I want you to try something, Carl. I want you to try to talk to the figure in your dream. You need to talk to whomever comes out of the church. Can you do that, Carl?”
“And say what?”
“Ask them what they want.”
Carl sits up and sets the pillow aside. Could he do that? He had dreams where he became self-aware and took control of them. Perhaps he could do it again.
Carl smiles. It’s very toothy. Miss Harper stiffens and looks away.
Sweat rolls off Carl’s forehead. He tosses beneath his sheets.
The church. The iron bars. The statue. The double doors. They’re all there. Carl stands in the church yard and balls both hands into fists.
The doors open and Dark Catherine emerges, surrounded by the eerie glow. Her pupils are pen-sized and she has no iris. Her flesh is peeling off the bone as if she survived an atomic blast. Dark Catherine wears a black robe, like a cultist, over her beige blouse and waist high jeans (what the kids call “mom jeans”). She spreads her arms wide, in a Jesus-Christ pose, and Carl hears the voice once more, but it’s not coming from Dark Catherine.
“This is not a dream. We repeat this is not a dream. We are using your brain’s electrical system as a receiver. We are unable to transmit through conscious interference. You are receiving this broadcast as a dream.”
Carl struggles to speak. “What…do…you…want…from me?”
Dark Catherine looks him in the eyes. She drops the robe and steps forward into the sunlight. The backlight shuts off and she appears perfectly normal, skin smooth and brown irises. She smiles and offers him her hand.
“We have been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty.”
Carl screams.
He sits up in bed, panting and turns to his bedside table. He looks down at an open box with a device similar to a hearing aid on the side of it, sitting next to a tumbler full of whiskey. He knocks over the tumbler to grab the box. He holds it close to read the inscription on it.
Cyberbellum – Creating a unique brain interface to restore autonomy for those in need today and unlock the full human potential for tomorrow.
Carl touches the spot behind his ear where the device is implanted.
The End