Chapter 50
Mark sat up in the darkness, a cold sweat drenching his body. For several seconds he had difficulty remembering where he was, the dark room as unfamiliar to his newly awakened senses as some sleazy Juárez hotel room. The clock shone the time at him in luminescent, bloodred numerals, reminding him of a dimly recalled stained-glass window.
2:03 a.m.
His room. He remembered now. He had gone to bed in his own room, so that must be where he now awakened, even if it seemed thoroughly alien in the post-midnight darkness.
Mark listened to the stillness in the house, his enhanced hearing analyzing the smallest of sounds. Down the hall he could hear the breathing of Jennifer in her room. In his parents’ room, amidst his dad's soft snoring, the sound of his mother’s own rhythmic breath softly whispered.
The old house creaked, issuing a small crackling sound as the timbers adjusted to the wind. Outside, that wind moaned through the pines, the sound rising to a wail before dying out completely.
It had been many a year since he had awakened from a dream in terror, but that was apparently what had just happened. The details of the dream were vague, and when he tried to focus his attention upon them, they drifted away as if they didn’t want to be remembered.
But that was crazy. He did want to remember. In fact, he had a strong feeling that he needed to remember the dream, that somehow his very survival depended upon pulling its contents from the depths of his mind.
That new kid. What was his name? Raul. Yes, that was right. He had been in the dream, although Mark couldn’t think why that would frighten him. All Mark had to do was reach out, grab Raul by the neck, and give a quick squeeze to snap him like a twig. But something in that dream about Raul had scared him.
Mark felt the sweat-soaked bed and received another surprise. Where were the sheets and blankets? Even the bottom sheet was missing.
Mark glanced toward the window. Something was there, blocking his view of the night sky.
An irrational, deep-seated dread consumed him, constricting his chest in bands of iron. The dream. Something in his dream had made its way into his room, had somehow attained physical form in the non-dream world.
Mark struggled to gain control of his thoughts. This was stupid. He was one of the quickest, strongest, and most coordinated people on the planet, with neural enhancements that seemed to be continually growing and refining themselves. But here he sat, bathed in sweat, petrified into inactivity by a dream he couldn’t even remember. And all because of something draped across his window.
Mark forced himself to move his hand toward the lamp on his nightstand, feeling carefully for the pull chain, while keeping his eyes firmly locked on the window.
With a quick tug on the chain, the lamp illuminated a scene that brought him to his feet, his heart thundering in his chest. One of his red sheets had been tied between the curtain rod and his Olympic weight bar, which now lay directly below the window. The other sheet had been tacked to the window frame.
There, silhouetted against the darkness beyond, was the bloodred image of an inverted cross.