14

Okay, we were all thinkin' it. We thought about it briefly. Who wouldn't? A little guy, really strong, crushed fedora, gravelly voice, laughs at his own twisted jokes, takes over your dream, sharp blades in one hand, whatever he does to you in your dream happens in real life.

But we still wouldn't say it. None of us would because that guy was fictional. A movie character. An actor played him. He wasn't real.

Geoff finished his breakfast, left to get dressed. Dorreen cleaned up, and then left to do her hair and makeup. Their daughter, Macy, eventually emerged from her room in faded blue jeans, high suede boots with what I guessed was fake fur protruding out of the tops of them, a zippered hooded sweatshirt featuring a raven and a dead tree on the front, angel wings on the back. "Is everything all right?" she asked me as she checked for leftovers.

I nodded. "So far."

"Dad's okay?"

"He's fine."

"You're not telling me something," she accused as Amanda came strolling out from her room in black suede boots, a flowing top of purple, black, green, magenta and white with sleeves that looked like something out of a Renaissance festival, her hair braided. I'd never seen her hair braided.

"You did that?"

"Did what?"

"Braided her hair?"

Macy shrugged. "I love her hair…it's always perfect. It blows in the wind like ribbons, then always lays perfectly back in place again. You can tie knots in it and it'll hold a ship's anchor."

I liked it. "Okay."

"You changed the subject."

"Did I?"

"You came over here at a moment's notice. No car outside. You left Amanda alone with Dad. That means she was helping him somehow. He got hurt?"

Clever, like her father, that one. "He went sleepwalking. Dory called me. Yeah, he got a little banged up."

"She wouldn't have called you for a little bang-up."

I said nothing as she dumped leftover Chinese from a box into a microwave-safe bowl with sausage patties on top of it. Amanda wanted to sit on my lap, but I held her at arm's length until she settled enough to examine my exposed skin again like she might've missed a bruise or two.

Macy set the hot food to the side and poached an egg in the microwave. She slid it onto the Chinese with sausage and strolled back toward her father's office, offering me a catty grin instead of saying goodbye.

Geoff returned looking considerably better in sand-colored jeans, hiking boots, and layered Henley shirts in oatmeal and avocado. "Shall we go?"

I shook my head slowly and lowered my voice to a near-whisper. "We can't tell anyone at work about this."

"Why not?"

"Because it's ridiculous."

"Did I miss something?"

I stood and seized his wrist. "Amanda, home!" I commanded and released him so I could flop down in a chair.

He was a little disoriented from making the journey from Connecticut to New York faster than he could blink, but exhaled, worked on lowering his heart rate, and finally sat on my couch. "What are you talking about?"

"We all thought it," I hated to admit. "Freddy Krueger."

He barked out a laugh of surprise. "What?"

"Bear with me here…you know any other phenomena where the people in your dreams can beat you up in real life?"

"Aside from Quasars?" he countered. "Huh. Let me think. Oh, sure! There have been alleged hauntings and demon possessions where people were bruised and scratched by unexplainable means, sometimes right on camera, sometimes live in front of investigators!"

He was exaggerating to let me know how foolish I sounded. "They weren't unexplainable," I said, gleaning that fact from his mind.

"Psychosomatic, Alex. All in people's heads. Mind over matter. You can hypnotize some subject and get the exact same results."

"Okay, so you think there's a new Double A they haven't told us about yet?"

"Maybe," he said, relaxing against the backrest. "I know they're still experimenting with subjects."

I said, "What about some other group? A different branch of ArtReal? Some copycat company playing with science?"

"Then how did the entity know to target us?"

I asked him, "Now it's a separate entity? It really is a dream-thing that came to both of us last night and busted us up real good?"

He said, "No, I think it's a movie character designed to scare teenagers out of the contents of their wallets at the DigiPlex."

I raised a palm and shook my head. "Do you know for a fact that it's not?"

"I know for a fact that hypothesis is absurd."

"So's what happened to us."

He asked, "Then why did he target us, Alex?"

"Because we're investigating the murders. We're the only ones who even suspect it could be him and we have the means to stop him."

"He isn't real."

I pointed at the Quasar who was sitting on the stairs, watching us. "She's barely real! Quasi-real! Didn't you tell me that if enough people believe in something that isn't real, then it might start to manifest?"

Geoff sighed and lowered his face into his hands for a moment. "There was an experiment years ago up in Canada. A group of people met for the express purpose of inventing a ghost they wanted to interact with. It took a long time, but they finally started getting results in the form of table tipping and knocking sounds. They asked this alleged entity questions about the life they had concocted for it, and it answered them as if it had all been true."

"How do you know it wasn't?"

He replied, "The nature of parapsychology is tenuous at best. I think someone once described it as looking for a black cat in a dark room while you're blind."

I said, "Run a can opener."

"Parapsychology doesn't have the equivalent of a can opener yet. Sure, maybe they psychically picked up on something similar that had happened to someone long ago and made contact with a spirit, maybe a demon decided to humor them in an attempt to beleaguer them down the road, maybe they tapped into their own telekinetic potential…no one knows."

I told him, "You don't believe in demons or possession."

"It's difficult to believe that the minions of hell are easily subdued with the right medication and some quality counseling." He smiled a little to himself. "Now, Quasar possession…that's real."

Amanda had possessed me before, using her ability to pass through solids to ensconce herself within me and then take over my body. It was usually pathetically comical. I tried, "So they're at the lab now messing with a body, testing it, and this one's abilities include dream influence, maybe some mild form of possession, and it can harm us in real life while we dream…the same as Freddy Krueger."

He rolled his eyes and sighed. "Don't go there. This isn't about that."

"Why not?"

"Okay—why target us? It doesn't know us, hasn't met us."

I said, "It's a psychic thing. He knows we're investigating the murders-"

"Wait. Where's your phone?"

I knew he wanted to call the police and see if any or all of the victims had been asleep, or at least in bed, on a couch or something where they might've drifted off to sleep when they died. "Horror movies, fantasy," I chimed in as I stood to find one of my phones.

"It's not Freddy Krueger!" he growled.

I pointed at Amanda. "If she had been a fan of those movies and got Quasared, she could easily bring the characters to life."

"You think they're experimenting at ArtReal with some kid who's a horror movie fan?" For the first time he started to really think about the possibilities.

I reminded him, "They achieved Amanda because she had a nightmare during the process. What if, to induce nightmares, they're over there exposing dreamers to imagery and sounds from the Nightmare on Elm Street films?"

"Then I should call ArtReal…."

I retracted the hand that held a phone in it. "You can't let them know."

"Why?" he said.

I told him, "Because the more people who are thinking about Freddy, the more people are likely to dream about him… Isn't that part of how those movies go?"

"But, if there's a Quasar creating a living, murdering nightmare that's running around the place, we have to do everything in our power to stop it."

I said, "Okay. Tell ya what. This thing's after us, right?"

"Why didn't it kill us like the rest?"

"I don't know. Maybe because we weren't thinking of him. Not specifically. So, say that's how this works and we know now…next time either of us falls asleep, it's lights out. Really."

He closed his eyes and shook his head. "This is crazy. Let me call the police at least."

"Go for it," I told him, and made my way to the kitchen for a cold drink.

The TV came on without anybody touching it or pointing a remote at it, and Amanda was thoughtful enough to leave the sound on mute.