Chapter 2

Nightmares

"Jane" was glad that they let her take Gary Bearstein with her to therapy. It made her feel slightly more comfortable.

She wished they didn't call her Jane – she'd name herself something more creative. She thought she was probably a Tiffany, or at least someone who fit that name. It wasn't her real name though. She didn't think.

"How are you feeling today, Jane?" Dr. Weller asked.

"I'm feeling okay I guess," Tiffany answered.

"Are you sure about that?"
"… no. I'm bored. I think I was a student or something – I want to go back to that," she tried to explain. She thought she was a nursing student – she was familiar with all the equipment in the hospital, and she knew she had been somewhere like this place before. Only she was fairly certain it was an old folk's home – she seemed to remember it being so, even though she couldn't remember anything specifically.

"We'd like to help you do that – either by helping you remember who you are and get you back to your life, or helping you move on to another life here." They just had to make sure she could live alone – and she wasn't ready to do that, by any means. She was fine until the lights went out – then she lived in terror. From the time the lights went off at nine o'clock until the sun came up at seven the following morning, she lay in her bed, clutching Gary Bearstein, with ears peeled for any sound, heart racing, until she finally gave in and fell asleep. If she woke up needing to use the bathroom, she'd hold it until the morning, rather than step off the bed. She was terrified of what might be underneath it. Sometimes the terror became so great that she started to weep through the night. And sometimes …

"The night nurses said that you cry out sometimes at night – do you have nightmares?" Tiff's face got hot and her stomach tightened …

"Are you okay Jake?" she called down the hall. The long, seemingly endless, incredibly dark, dark, dark hallway. "Jake!" she called, more adamantly.

Jake didn't answer. Something else did.

"No ma'am," Tiffany insisted, and put on a big smile. "No nightmares at all."

Too old, all of them. But beggars can't be choosers.

The blond, middle-aged secretary collapsed in terror at the sight of the fish monster her company had unleashed tearing apart her young son and spewing blood from it's back, waking herself up with hysterical tears.

The college-age intern who had no idea what she was working on screamed until her roommate woke her when confronted by an eerie burned face leering at her from the darkness.

The dark-headed douchebag manager went to pieces just at the thought of someone pushing the system purge button, unleashing all the ghouls and ghosties to have fun. He woke himself, shaking in fear and sobbing before any monsters even showed up.

Scaring them was easy, almost too easy – and all too soon, the blocks were back up. The only escape from cold sterility was, once again, the science student somewhere cold.

If only he would sleep.

The prone corpse of mouse 16-A twitched promisingly. Vital signs were promising. Herbert leaned so close his breath ruffled the white fur of the recently deceased mouse. But it didn't move again. The medical monitoring equipment modified for the tiny creature confirmed there was no further activity. "Damn it!" he said hotly as dropped the empty syringe onto the lab bench and leaned back.

"Now, now, Herbert … we're making progress at least," Herr Gruber said from the other end of the bench. He had watched just as intently, but seemed to take this most recent failure in stride. That wasn't surprising – he had been working towards this end all his life, and had either learned or always been possessed of more patience than his young protégé.

"I really thought we had it," the younger man said, his voice cooled to it's usual calm.

"Each attempt brings us closer – remember that even incremental progress brings us closer to the goal. Science cannot be hurried, Herbert," the older man said kindly, ever patient with his student's impatience. "We know now that the increase in epinephrine has produced stronger results – let's go back to the tissue samples and determine if further increases improve the effect, or if we need to move on to other components."
"Of course, Herr Doktor," Herbert answered and reached for his black notebook.
"In the morning, Herbert – go and get some rest," the doctor said, just a bit more sternly. He was a kind man, perhaps too kind, and with his own children flown from the nest (and none of them following his footsteps into science) he often acted in a fatherly way towards his young protégé. Herbert never quite knew how to feel about that, and he hoped but was not entirely certain his response was always graceful.

Herbert looked at his watch and realized that it was, indeed, very late at night, well after most people had quit working. Well, most non-scientists anyway – half the "pure" scientists came in very late in the morning or even in the afternoon and stayed at work until evening to make up for it. Herbert made it a point to be here when his mentor got there at nine in the morning, yet frequently stayed long after five. And often he took his notes or background reading home with him – he was dedicated and everyone knew it. Perhaps too dedicated, in the minds of some, but conquering death was no minor pursuit, and Herbert had no intention to give it anything less than his whole being. "I suppose I should head home and get something to eat," he said in response, but he still took the black notebook. He wanted to make notations while it was still fresh in his mind.

"Do you need a ride?"

"No, thank you, Herr, I'll be fine," he answered as he put on his coat and gloves – it was cold outside, but no longer unbearably so.

Switzerland was really very pretty – especially in twilight at this time of year, when there was still snow on the ground but it was no longer bitterly cold. He was from New England anyway … it's not like he was a complete stranger to winter. His cheeks and ears turned red with the cold and he could see his breath in a fog, but he didn't feel as though he were in danger of frostbite, as he would have just a few weeks earlier – it was nice, really.

He stopped for a bit as he crossed the bridge over a little stream that was close to his building, looking down into the crystal clear water. The stream ran deeper and more swiftly than it usually did due to snow melt. Watching the water run, he turned over the newest formula in his mind, along with possible modifications, and other considerations. Would it perhaps help to provide a blood transfusion to the subject at some point during the process …

"Guten abend," came a voice from behind. Herbert spun on his heel to see who had spoken, and found an older gentleman. He'd never exactly liked people – he usually preferred his own company, and social interactions were generally something of a chore for him. Even four years ago, he'd have been annoyed at the intrusion, at having to break his train of thought in order to conduct empty niceties. But that was then – now there was fear in it too. When he turned to the older gentleman, his eyes went first to see if he was armed. He didn't appear to be, but he didn't let his guard down, not yet. "I'm sorry I startled you," the man said apologetically in German. It only took a few seconds for Herbert to find the proper response – by now he spoke the language fairly fluently.

"It's quite all right, Herr, I was just lost in thought." He tried to keep the surliness out of his voice.

"Oh, one of the students, eh? Sorry to disturb you – go on curing cancer," the man said jocularly, and walked on.

Herbert waited until the man was gone, then very quickly made his way the rest of the way home. A soon as he got in, he locked the door and fastened the chain bolt behind him. Even though he knew it would do little good if they really did come for him – perhaps his hope was that it would take them longer to get the door broken down and therefore give him more time to prepare to defend himself.

He was angry with himself for disparate reasons – for letting his guard down enough to stop and stare at nature like some damn hippie while out in the open, and for being paranoid enough to be easily startled by a little old man.

There were really only two possibilities. Either the Company didn't care that he'd survived, and all this was for nothing, or the Company did still want him dead but hadn't found him yet, in which case he couldn't be paranoid enough. Well, perhaps there was a third option – maybe they only operated within the United States. Even then, it seemed unlikely they couldn't find even one willing Eurotrash assassin, if they really cared about killing him.

Whatever the case, there was nothing to be done at the moment, except fix supper and get ready for bed. He could do nothing to change the situation with the Company.

The sound came again. Herbert wanted to ignore it, but it was louder now and just outside.

He climbed out of bed and reached for the previous day's clothes, and also for the rifle under his bed.

He went to the door slowly, listening for any noise outside. He heard it again – a soft woman's voice, calling to him. Which was alarming enough on it's own, but …

"Herbert! Help me!" she called. It was a loud cry, but from far away. So what was it he'd heard that woke him in the first place?

He should stay inside. That was the only sane, logical thing to do.

"Herbert! Help me!" But the voice was different now.

"Mother?" he stammered.

"Herbert! Please!" she called again, and it seemed louder and closer now. Herbert was out the door before he was even aware of it, heading towards the sound of his mother's voice. He knew it was hers, even though he hadn't heard it since he was eight-years-old.

He should be outside in the cold, but instead he was in the funeral home in which he grew up, in the foyer. And there was a viewing going on and he wasn't dressed for …

Yes he was. He was a little boy again, dressed very sharply even then in a black suit.

The body in the casket was familiar. It was a redheaded girl, probably college-age … Charlie?!

As soon as he recognized her, she lifted her head and then sat up, and stared straight through him as though she didn't see him, but rather was fascinated by something behind him. No one reacted except Herbert. He turned away in shock, closing his eyes and covering his ears. "The dead are dead and they're going to stay that way until judgment day," he whispered to himself under his breath, the saying his mother had taught him when he was afraid of the corpses that were the family business. That hadn't happened often once he was over a very young age – you couldn't grow up around something and still find it terrifying. Most nights.

"Maybe it's judgment day, Herbie," a man said from somewhere in front of him. Herbert didn't want to open his eyes and look, and yet he was sorely tempted to. "Have you been a good boy, Herbie?" the man asked. Herbert felt an infernal heat on his face. "I don't think you have been." His voice was awful – it sounded somewhat distorted, and was gravelly and full of psychotic mirth. Herbert felt a hand on his shoulder, but also something else – something like knives. The man put his other hand under his chin and slowly lifted his face towards him, and leaned so close Herbert could feel the man's hot breath on his face, all while the heat he had initially felt got more intense and seemed to burn his tender skin. He opened his eyes to see – and wished he hadn't.

The man was surrounded by the hellfire Grandfather was always raving would come and get the wicked, and already viciously burnt by it with blistered … no melted skin all over his face, and the similarly burned hand on Herbert's shoulder was attached to knives or something. He screamed at the top of his lungs.

And kept right on screaming in the waking world.

Herbert sat up straight, and muttered curses replaced the scream. He was soaked in sweat, dripping with it even, his heart hammering so fast he could feel his pulse in his throat. He put his face in his hands, trying to get his breathing under control. What a ridiculous dream, he thought and almost managed a laugh. Mother had been gone since he was eight, and he hadn't lived in the funeral home for very long after she passed away. He hadn't been much older when he stopped believing in Hell and Judgment Day … probably the only good thing about his selfish father dragging him across the country and away from everything he knew to heathen California. He had no idea why that imagery would show up now of all times – but if anyone truly understood dreams, there wouldn't be so much superstition about them.

Herbert glanced at his clock and saw it was two in the morning – he knew he wouldn't sleep again for a while, so he sighed and reached for his glasses. He might as well read that paper by that intellectually limited plagiarist Carl Hill and see just how shameless it really was – surely it couldn't be as bad as he'd heard …

There was a sharp knock on the door. Herbert tensed again all over, any progress he'd made towards slowing his heart rate rapidly reversed. He reached for the gun under the bed and headed for the door, realizing as he went that this was exactly how the nightmare from which he'd just awoken started …

The knocking became more frantic, and he almost didn't go to it.

"Mr. West? Are you all right? The Holtzers phoned and said they heard screaming," his landlady called through in heavily accented but flawless English. He took a deep breath and sighed in relief, and set the gun down before going to the door. He unlocked it but kept the chain bolt on and opened it a crack.

"I'm all right, Frau Bauer, I just … had a nightmare," he said through the door. It was embarrassing to admit – but he had to if he didn't want any further fuss. He should have realized the Holtzers would hear him. He certainly heard their newlywed marital bliss seemingly every night.

"You poor thing!"

"I'm all right, really," he said, fighting to keep the annoyance from his voice. He was not a child – but he knew too many people saw him that way. Because he was slight and had a young face, and here in Switzerland he was an outsider. Well, more of an outsider.

"Of course – I'll tell the Holtzers there's nothing to worry about. Try to get some sleep." Well, it would help if you left …

"Thank you for your concern, Frau Bauer, have a good night."

"You too, Mr. West."

He shut the door, locked it, and retrieved the journal with the offending submission, failing to notice the smattering of ash on his shoulder.