The sound of her brother’s voice, so reassuringly normal, made Mariah feel misty.
“This better be good. You’ve interrupted genius at work,” he intoned.
Mariah grinned. She wanted to jump right in and tell him about her odd dreams, but she forced herself to keep the conversation light. If she got serious too soon, he would hound her until she gave him everything before she was ready.
While they yakked, she glanced at her right hand. She gaped in disbelief.
Over a week ago, Mariah had lost control of a sharp knife, slicing a deep gash in the soft pad below her thumb. The blood soaked through several cloths without a sign of clotting. Mad at just another klutzy thing she did, she wrapped it up tight and headed for the emergency room at the local hospital. The on-call resident sutured the wound, reassuring her she had not hit anything vital. She took the prescribed antibiotics and removed the dressing a few days later. No infection as of yesterday, but the area still looked raw and angry.
What she saw before her was skin that was whole and pink. No sign of trauma whatsoever. Not even a scar. She flexed her thumb and blinked, expecting her vision to clear and the nasty cut to reappear.
It didn’t.
First her back, now this. Were these Healings some kind of reward from God for a job well done? Did He work that way? Or was she experiencing something outside the realm of religion?
So, a week after Finding Joseph Armstrong, her body now had the ability to heal a wound. In an attempt to downplay the anxiety that threatened to suffocate her, she wondered just how many Findings it would take before the aging process started to reverse! Mariah shook her head; it was time to get to the point of the call.
“Stephen, I’ve had two really bizarre dreams. Usually my dreams make no sense, but these were so real. And they were in color. I never dream in color.”
She perched on the edge of the chair, her free hand waving in descriptive agitation. “I smelled flowers and felt dirt between my toes and heat from the sun on my skin. I stepped on rocks and it hurt the bottom of my feet! I even got vertigo! And if that’s not weird enough,” she said, “I remember both dreams from start to finish. I never remember dreams in detail. And the first one happened weeks ago.”
Unable to sit still any longer, she sprang to her feet and began pacing. “Did I mention these dreams are definitely not on this planet?”
She didn’t tell Stephen about the two Findings. She respected his opinion even though he was eccentric, but she was just not ready to tell him everything.
She had told him and Judith about the Visitation and her meeting with Michael Jenkins. Reacting as anticipated, they accepted the fact that Mariah’s perceptions were Mariah’s reality, even if they included a newfound belief in a Supreme Being. Judith neither believed nor disbelieved in God; she was mildly interested in the concept, nothing more. Stephen, however, was an avowed atheist. His doctorate in molecular phylogenetics caused his vocabulary to repress such words as “faith” and “miracles.”
So, why the reluctance to share the Findings? Because they were irrefutable? Instead of considering her a little off-center, they would finally believe that their little sister was the mutant their mother always hinted she was.
“I usually dream in color, Shrimpboat, but I don’t remember being able to smell things or feel pain.” She heard the smile in his voice. “Are you into a new sci fi book? Maybe you’re subconsciously experiencing it in your dreams. I dunno; you sound upset, but it sounds pretty interesting to me. Why don’t you write down when it happens and what went on that day? Maybe add what you had for dinner that night. Who knows, it could be heartburn! Seriously, try to control the events; try to wake yourself up when they get too grisly. You’ve never tried because you’re too caught up in them, but give it a shot.”
Sound advice, thought Mariah. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to tell him about her role in Finding the kidnapped children, and her family was not about to discover, on their own, what she had done. The newspapers alluded to a “psychic working with the FBI,” an event not altogether uncommon these days. Her identity was still a secret: no one would ever suspect her of a talent like this. Hell, no one would suspect anyone of being able to do what she did!
“Is there something else?” Stephen’s voice held a faint note of concern. He’s tuned in, Mariah thought, even over the phone. But I just can’t tell him. Before hanging up, she assured him the dreams were just an excuse to call, and that everything was fine. She felt like she was lying by not revealing her role in the rescue of the children.
Now she knew why she called him. It was not to talk about the dreams; she knew how Stephen would react. She just wanted to hear his voice, something ordinary and familiar in a world that had suddenly fallen off the edge of a cliff into Weirdsville.
That night Mariah had the most terrifying dream of her life. It wasn’t on her alien planet, she was sure; however, it might as well have been for the sensation of otherworldliness it conjured.
Darkness, like a straightjacket, restrained her in an inescapable embrace. It plugged up her nose with the smell of wrongness; filled her mouth, tasting like dried remembrances; and breathed destruction into her ears. Mariah felt pressure in her chest, like the insidious blackness meant to suffocate her. She trembled. This nothingness was malevolent and cold. She could not tell if she was naked or clothed; she was unable to move her extremities—if she still had them.
And then an image formed before her.
Three bands of color, in dissimilar patterns, all gyrating to different rhythms. What made her head ache and her stomach lurch was the surging and receding of the images.
The bottom layer, undulating like a belly dancer, was the color of a swamp. Tiny spots of yellow and maroon zipped and bobbed within the gangrenous green swell. Mariah thought she could detect, although faintly, the foul smell of methane. Her eyes watered, whether from the gas or the visual effects.
The middle layer was filled with dozens of multicolored strings, gyrating frenetically. Dingy white ellipses oscillated on top of the strings. After several seconds of this madness, the elongated circles floated upward and disappeared, only to be replaced by clones.
The top layer was the sickly gray of a junkie’s skin replete with blue flecks like blown veins. Ghost-like shapes roiled, the larger ones slamming into the smaller ones as if trying to obliterate them.
A shadow materialized, superimposed over the multi-layered image as the dark around her began to thicken. She was paralyzed with fear, and could do nothing but stare at the apparition.
Mariah had no idea when the music started. Distracted from the putrid colors and the malignant shadow, she concentrated, if for no other reason than to divert her attention from the vision.
It was Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head, from the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. And someone (something) was humming it. Just a jaunty, absurd tune, so out of place in this hellish nightmare. Instead of lightening the mood, the song made it more sinister.
Mariah shot up, wide awake, the remnants of the tune echoing in her head. When she realized she was hyperventilating, she forced herself to calm down which then relieved the constriction in her chest. Cold sweat made her shiver and she stank of fear.
Crawling out of bed, she staggered into the bathroom. Without turning on the light, she splashed cold water on her face. It seemed to do the trick; her autonomic nervous system settled everything down.
Back in bed, she prayed she would never experience anything so abhorrent again.
Weeks slipped by with no terrifying or planetoid dreams and no Findings. Mariah was not fooled by this lull; she knew that Joseph Armstrong was not her last kidnapped child. There were flyers in her mailbox with pictures of missing children (she even saw another newscast on television) but the anticipated reactions never occurred.
Her thoughts kept jumping between the supernatural happenings in her life: the two dreams on Planet X; the two Findings; the two Healings of her body; and the Visitation. Everything had begun after the Visitation. Fear simmered just below the surface as she fought to tamp it down.
She purposely did not include the “Dark Dream” as she now thought of it. She was sure it was only a one-time occurrence.