Lair of Dreams

“Dreams,” they murmured, ravenous.

In Substation Number Eleven beneath Park Row, the rotary converters shuddered to a halt, flummoxing the two men on duty. They thumped the dials on their control panels but the dials did not respond. “I’ll go, Willard,” said the more junior of the two, whose name was Stan. He grabbed a wrench from the tool board and, flashlight in hand, made his way along a futuristic corridor of humming pipes and tubes, taking the staircase down into the rotary converter room, that marvel of modern engineering, now dark and silent. Flipping the switches on the wall did nothing. Stan’s flashlight beam swept over the hulking converters; in the dark, they were like the rounded backs of sleeping metal giants. On the far side of the room, light pulsed behind one of them—a downed wire, perhaps, or a small electrical fire trying to spark. Stan approached cautiously. He stopped when he heard the sound—a syrupy growl made deep in the throat. The growl shifted into a quick, low-pitched shriek that chilled Stan to the bone.

“Who’s there?” he barked, gripping the wrench tight.

It was quiet for a moment, so quiet that Stan could hear only his own breathing, which was amplified by the cavernous room. And then, without warning, the scream exploded like a storm front. It sounded as if it were being torn note by note from the throats of a hundred damned souls. It filled the room so completely that Stan couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

Behind the converter, the light crackled anew—one, two, three—projecting macabre shadows onto the substation’s high white-tiled wall.

And then the thing stepped out. It appeared to have been a man once. Now it was something else entirely, something not human: pasty skin as cracked as dry earth and blighted by red patches and sores, hair thinned to spindly tufts. Opaque blue soulless eyes stared from its chalky, skeletal face. The glare of the flashlight caught the razor-sharp edges of small, yellowed teeth inside a rotted mouth that hung partially open.

“Help me…” Stan whispered like a frightened child. Because this was the stuff of nightmares left behind in the nursery.

The thing saw Stan. It cocked its head, sniffing. From deep down, the growl started, like a dog giving warning over its food. Black drool dribbled down from the sides of its mouth, and then its jaw unhinged, wider than humanly possible. It shrieked again, and Stan didn’t care that he’d wet his pants or that he was blubbering as he stumbled backward toward the door. He was running now, but it was no use. Because there were more. Quick as beetles, they scuttled around the room. And there was nothing—no wrench, no flashlight, no reason—that could save him as the bright things closed in.

Back in the control room, Willard sat in his chair whistling to himself until Stan’s scream echoing up from the substation’s bowels stopped him cold.

“Jesus,” he said on a sharp intake of breath. “Stan?” he called. And again, “Stan, that you?”

There was no answer.

“Stan?”

Nothing.

Willard knew he should get up. He should grab the lantern and go see what was what. One foot in front of the other and down the stairs. Easy.

He didn’t move.

“Stan? You okay?” he called again, a little quieter this time.

He’d count to five. If Stan didn’t come back by then, he’d go see. Under his breath, Willard counted softly: “One… two… three…” He took a shaking breath. “… Four…” And another. “… Fi—”

A shriek answered him. Up and down the corridor outside the control room, the lights flickered wildly. And then they winked out one by one, as if the electricity were being sucked up through an invisible straw. Still, Willard could not make himself go in the direction of the sound, even as he heard the guttural growls and eerie, breathy screeches crawling closer.

So the nightmares came to him.

And like the people and their dreams, they were hungry for more.





At half past midnight, Memphis paced in front of the Hotsy Totsy, nervously jangling the change in the trousers pocket of his borrowed tuxedo. His stiff shirt collar felt as tight as a tourniquet. He read over the poem he’d written that day, folded the paper again and tucked it back inside his suit jacket, then resumed pacing and occasionally peering down the street.

“Lord, Memphis, you’re about to wear a hole through that pavement,” the doorman, Clarence, said. “Somebody after you?”

“More like I’m after somebody,” Memphis said.

A taxi pulled to the curb. Memphis heard a familiar husky voice calling, “Keep the change,” and turned to see Theta stepping out of the backseat in a black beaded dress and white fox stole. She’d ringed her dark eyes in heavy kohl pencil so that they shone like two dark pearls. Her black bob was sleek and sharp. A smile tugged at the corners of her crimson mouth as she moved toward Memphis like a vision.

“Good evening, Princess,” he said when he found his voice.