"I woke up screaming and did not stop. I was a criminal. I had tried to forget it, tell myself that it was behind me, that it was not so bad… but that dream made me realize how far I had fallen. How I had begun cutting corners and making excuses, and believing George Midler… Up to the point when I provided him with the poisons he used to get rid of the "failures" or patients that were not worth it… And how he made me administer them to keep me tied to him…
Yes. I know they showed up that in the show… I guess that having a strong self-possessed woman go to pieces because of guilt was too good to pass up. But again, they blamed Amos for it…
I screamed, and Danny could not calm me down. Amos was away so he was not there…. And I screamed so loudly that we did not hear Romney beating at the door."
-0-
"Let me in! She cannot go to sleep. She must not dream!" Romney shouted at the closed door.
Danny could not hear, nor Heather. but fortunately, Amos was coming back and he saw Romney beating at the door.
"Why are you here, Professor?"
"Miss Mattox is having the travelling dream. She MUST NOT open the door in it."
"Traveling dream?"
"Just let me in and talk to her. I will explain it to all of you."
-0-
"Amos had to calm me down before Professor Romney could talk. I was confessing all my crimes, all the things that I did to help Midler, believing at first that I was advancing science, and then that I was preventing the worst, and then… then to keep Midler to use the evidence they had against me, I did not realize how far I had fallen. I had told myself pretty lies, I did not believe them, but I kept repeating them.
But finally, Amos got through to me and let me calm down… enough to let Romney explain what a traveling dream was."
-0-
"A traveling dream is meant to harvest psychic energy from the sleeper. Create an obstacle that they have to get through, either to escape what they fear, or to get a prize at the other end. Getting rid of the obstacle uses up the energy and thus the energy is harvested. And then another person shows up in the dream, and this person will be the next one to have the dream and have its energy harvested."
"And this has happened?"
"Yes. It went from Beverly Hoover to Frank Carruthers, to Dinah Grady, to Wendy Pruitt, to Danny here, to Louis Benchley. Louis was supposed to have the dream tonight, but he dozed off in the middle of the afternoon and had the dream then. The next person is Miss Mattox. And considering Miss Mattox reaction, she would release a very large amount of psychic energy, and the harvester will not need any more."
"What will the harvester do with it?"
"Such harvesting is rarely done for beneficent purposes. I suspect that it means harm."
"Can it be stopped?
"Yes. All I have to do is enter the dream. I can confront the harvester and banish him."
"Is it dangerous for you?"
"I have done it before."
Amos though a bit about it. It was confusing. He had never heard of such thing, no idea of what he could do… He remembered Wendy asking him about repeated dreams, and he had been baffled… No one had told him of such things…. Same as no one had told him what being a vampire means.
'Well, Professor, you know best. What must be do?"
"I must go in a trance as Miss Mattox goes back to sleep. When she sleeps, I will enter her dream."