Tonight’s dream was especially vivid. In it, I knew there were children being held captive just below the surface of the earth, and I had to go rescue them. I prayed for strength as I leaped into the air and landed hard, punching the ground with my fist. A huge hole opened, and I dove down into it. There was blackness everywhere. The blackness singed my skin, but I kept flying. I passed droves of wicked creatures writhing in pain, but I wasn’t there for them. I was being directed where to go. I had to find the children.
The heat could have been suffocating, if it weren’t for the cool light I felt in me, protecting me. The stench from the wickedness surrounding me was horrible. I knew I was only able to survive this because of the light’s pure strength. It was as though I had a suit of armor made of the most beautiful iridescent light. It was both on me and inside me so I was aware of the pain going on outside this protection, but unaffected by it.
I rounded a corner and knew I had to punch through the wall in front of me to find the children. With a deep breath and intense focus, I punched the cement-like barricade and it shattered open. There were the children, cowering in the far corner. I rushed to them, gathered them and flew back through the wicked rooms of this hell.
When the shadows would try to attack me for taking these innocent, delicious souls away, I simply held out my hand, palm up, and a pillar of light would shoot from my wrist blasting all the darkness away from me and my precious cargo.
I flew the children back up through the hole I had punched in the earth’s surface and set their feet gently on the ground. A crowd had gathered. I handed the children to these good people telling them to take care of the children—I had to go back for more. I dove back down into the wretched, stench-filled, black hole and kept battling as I searched for more children I knew were still there.
Again and again, I repeated my mission. Each time I would find two or three of the innocent ones, gather them up, cast light to clear our paths and fly them back up to the surface.
Every time I had this dream, it was similar in that I was casting light against evil and rescuing children. Sometimes the location was different, but they had a common theme: Heat, fire, burning flesh, stench, screaming, pain and innocent souls.
The souls of the innocent were delicious to the demons. A delicacy. They craved them. The evil became stronger the more innocent souls they consumed.
Well, now you see why I felt the need to get up in the middle of the night and brush my teeth. Some nights, I’m dripping with sweat and have to take a shower, and change my sweat-soaked bedding. Some mornings, I wake and my jaw is hurting so badly I can’t even open my mouth to shove that proverbial toothbrush into it. Apparently, I clench my teeth during these dreams. I have a pretty high pain tolerance, but when I’ve been fighting in my sleep all night, even I feel the effects come morning.
I’m still trying to figure what it all means, but I can tell you one thing: Something huge is on the horizon, and I think I’m being prepared for it through my dreams.
18 The Life of the Hunted
If my family and I weren’t being hunted by a madman, our new life would be pretty great. We were staying with an old professor mom and Theo worked with some twenty-five years ago. This was the man who secured those fake IDs for mom when she first took me and my brothers away from Dr. Williams and the Facility as babies. This man had been a true friend to my mother all these years by keeping her secret while she tried to raise me and my brothers in seclusion on our Texas ranch.
It was he who Dr. Andrews called from a newly purchased cell phone even as we drove away from the Kansas hospital that day five months ago. His name is Dr. James St. Paul, but he insists everyone call him “Paulie.”
Paulie lives in Hawaii and he can usually be found in one of two places: his personal laboratory at one end of his house or out on the waves, surfing. Paulie is a bit excentric. He’s always wearing his swim trunks, even under his lab coat, making him look like he’s wearing a white dress with extremely hairy, tanned legs sticking out from beneath. He says you have to be ready in an instant to hop on your board if the waves are good.
The man is probably sixty-five, and besides surfing and winning awards for biogenetic engineering, he also plays a right-handed guitar upside down to accommodate his left-handedness and can catch a gecko without breaking its tail. Sounds like one very cool guy, right? He is. He’s like the grandfather we never had. Not having a family of his own, Paulie seemed to love the role.
Alik, Evan and Cole worship the ground he walks on. Paulie has taken them under his wing and taught them how to live like locals. They’ve done everything from cliff diving and parasailing to whittling and hiking.
That’s right, Cole and Theo came with us. Theo gave up his entire tenure and practice in Kansas to be with our mom. Cole, of course, came with his dad. What sixteen-year-old wouldn’t want to graduate from high school early and go live in Hawaii rent free?