Dear Sleep Read online

  Dear Sleep: The Light, the Box, and the Dog

  By Kim Dickerson

  Cover by Shane Sparrow

  Copyright 2015 Kim Dickerson

  All Rights Reserved

  Distributed by Smashwords

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Part One: The Black Dog

  Part Two: Max’s Folly

  Part Three: Darkness

  Part Four: Ally’s Dilemma

  Part Five: Homeward

  Part Six: The Curse of the Gift

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  “In both writing and sleeping, we learn to be physically still at the same time we are encouraging our minds to unlock from the humdrum rational thinking of our daytime lives.”

  -Stephen King

  Thank you to my beta readers: Melissa Ziegert, Blynda Demonia, Justin McAlastar, Jenny Cholley, and Linda Green. The insights you gave were invaluable. Thank you for reading what I wrote in its roughest form and telling me the truth.

  Part One

  The Black Dog

  A single thought damned him.

  It was simple, something he had thought before, but this time it changed everything he had ever known.

  “There has to be an explanation for this,” he said to no one.

  John was sitting in his office staring blankly out the south window. It was around two in the morning and his client’s numbers were starting to blur, so he took a break. When he stopped for a few minutes and got a drink, or gave his mind a rest, he could usually go back and plug away the rest of the night. That night was different. As he looked out the window into the stark blackness that only the middle of the night provided, he noticed the street light flickering. As it convulsed, he saw something dancing in the light pool. It was as though the light was the ocean, the tide was coming in, and the something he saw didn’t want to get its toes wet. He was captivated. Instantly, his mind started justifying what he was seeing.

  “It must be the wind blowing the trees,” John muttered quietly.

  Before the thought even finished crossing his lips, he knew it was bullshit. The night was completely still. Silent all around him. While he was lost in thought, he didn’t notice that the streetlight in front of his window was not the only one flickering. In fact, two other lights on either side were giving the identical light show.

  John opened his office door. He covertly stuck his head out to survey the hallway. He looked like a prison escapee rather than a suave spy. He supposed since he was trying not to wake his wife that he was more like an escapee anyhow. He surveyed the hallway and saw that Marlie was sound asleep. He could faintly hear her deep, restful breathing. He quietly slipped out the door and tiptoed down the hallway. About five feet from the front door, he realized he was about to go outside in his boxers. Fortunately, he was near the laundry room. A quick detour and he was fishing through the dryer hoping there was something in there that he wouldn’t mind being seen in. He found a pair of basketball shorts and a sweatshirt that almost matched. He quickly dressed and headed for the door.

  His heart was pounding in his ears. He couldn’t hear the deadbolt click as he unlocked the portal to his mental demise. He felt so alive. The adrenaline rushed through him. Not even a couple of deep breaths could calm his nerves. He began talking to himself. If he woke Marlie, he was going to have to do a lot of explaining.

  He questioned himself. “Explain what? You don’t even know what you’re going to find. It’s probably nothing.” His power of self-persuasion astonished him. He put his hand on the doorknob. He felt the cold, smooth brass under his hot, sweaty palm, and turned it. The seconds felt like hours. He expected there to be something on the other side. He had never wanted to be wrong so much in his life.

  To his delight, there wasn’t anything there. His glee was short lived when he noticed the light he had been watching was completely dark. In fact, it was as if a black hole had appeared where the light should have been. The air felt electrically charged, it was like a storm was brewing. His skin was tingling and the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end as he looked up and down the street. The neighborhood was quiet. He was the only person in any direction. His eyes finally adjusted to the dark and he realized that all of the streetlights are dark. His ears picked up a faint buzzing sound like a fluorescent light bulb trying to illuminate. He walked toward the sound then he stopped. He whirled around. His heart was pounding like thunder, his breathing was heavy and shallow, and his hands were shaking. As soon as he stopped, he saw a black dog. He breathed a sigh of relief and let out a little nervous chuckle. He felt silly.

  Nothing exciting ever happened in the neighborhood. If the guy down the street farted in his driveway everyone knew. There hadn’t even been an ambulance in the neighborhood since they moved there. The kids were all good kids. All of the lawns were well manicured; the women in the neighborhood liked to keep up appearances. The landscaping was amazing, the floral gardens brimmed with coordinated color, but never overly intrusive. That’s why Marlie and he bought a house there. It was a great place to raise a family. Up until that morning, he thought so.

  As the dog and he stared at each other, he noticed unusual things about it. The first thing he noticed was one white toe. That was the only thing on the dog that was not black. The dog was standing completely still, frozen. He hadn’t even so much as twitched since their eyes met. His eyes were pools of dark chocolate, such a deep and rich brown that they almost look like the irises are swirling within themselves. After staring at them for what feels like an eternity, John realized they were, in fact, moving. They reminded him of those photos of hurricanes in magazines. The ones taken by the Coast Guard storm teams where they were looking down over the eye of the storm as it churned. It was eerie.

  At this moment, his wits come back from their short vacation. He wanted to run maniacally back to the safety of the house, but something told him that was a bad idea. Instead, he backed slowly away, never taking his eyes off of the dog.

  As soon as he clicked the door shut in front of him, he released a sigh of relief. Something was very wrong with that animal. Animal was not exactly the correct term, he was not sure what it was. It was so dark out that he couldn't even tell if it had hair. It looked as though his skin was swimming. He wondered it if was some type of exoskeleton.

  John had broken into a cold sweat and his chest heaved with the breath that only the terrified could breathe.

  “What the hell was that?” he asked the coat tree before he could stop himself.

  He sprinted back to his office to watch the thing walk away. That’s when his sanity left the premises.

  What he saw out the window was a sane individual’s nightmare. Suddenly, the streetlights snapped to their odd light show, breaching the darkness. The dog sauntered into view, just as if it was taking a stroll in the park with its owner. He wondered what would own something like that. It headed across the road to the Matelin’s. There were no lights on in their house, he was grateful for that. They didn't have to see the beast John had been forced to behold. As the dog meandered across the yard, he got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Something bad was going to happen. He just knew it. He thought about calling the Matelin’s, but it was three in the morning. He decided to call Tom’s cell. As he reached for the phone, the b
east walked through the front door of the house. John couldn't believe his eyes. The dog had walked through it, the door never opened. He’s not an apparition, John had seen him up close and personal, he was as solid as the door he walked through. He rubbed his eyes in disbelief. Suddenly, he was exhausted and completely forgot about calling Tom.

  He pulled the desk chair to the window, unable to process what he had just seen.

  The next thing he knew the sun was peeking over the horizon and there were sirens. Marlie came racing down the hallway and burst into his office. He whirled around in his chair, knocking the long forgotten telephone to the floor. When it hit, it shattered. She was out of breath and looking gorgeously disheveled.

  “John! What’s going on?” Without waiting for an answer she continued, “I heard sirens…You never came to bed…Thank God you’re alright!”

  Still dazed from the abrupt wake up call, he looked at her, confused. She walked over to his chair, her nightgown flowed behind her. His first thought was how beautiful she looks first thing in the morning. She quickly jolted that out of his brain when her expression changed from relief to horror.

  “What is it Marlie?”

  “J-j-john.” She managed to point a finger towards the window.

  As he looked out the window, there was a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Holy shit!” was all he blurted out.

  There was an ambulance and three police cars at the Matelin’s home. He flashed back to last night. The black dog that walked through a closed door. The beast he practically ran into last night.

  They sat there in silence and watched the events of the morning unfold. The paramedics brought a gurney into the Matelin house, and they were followed by four police officers.

  “Police. That can’t be good,” he thought to himself, “I must have had a nightmare, there’s no way I saw that beast. No way.”

  He must have looked mortified because Marlie shook his shoulder. He had no idea how long he was lost in thought, but it was long enough to concern her.

  “John, what do you think happened?”

  “I have no idea, Marlie. No clue.”

  “You don’t think someone broke in to Joan and Tom’s do you?”

  “Marlie, I know as much as you do. I was asleep when you came busting in here like the S.W.A.T. team.” he tried to smile, but failed miserably.

  John’s stomach was in knots because he was sure that black beast had something to do with it. He hoped that everyone was alright, but with the police and ambulance parked in the front yard, he was uncertain that even a genie could grant that wish.

  They sat there together for what seemed like hours. Watching. Waiting. The front door opened and one of the paramedics appeared. The medic was slate gray and his eyes held some type of disbelief. The fact that John could see the whites of his eyes from his window confirmed that medic had seen something horrible. That said a lot because those guys saw some terrible things in their line of work.

  John told Marlie he was going to go check things out and to stay there. She looked at him quizzically, but nodded as she took his place in the office chair.

  He lumbered down the hall to the front door. He played the previous night’s events over in his head. Did it happen? Was it just a nightmare? Was this coincidence?

  He was about to find out.

  John went out the front door toward the small crowd of neighbors that had started to assemble on the Matelin’s lawn. He looked warily at the streetlights, then darkened only by the light of day. He quickened his step to get across the street and shook off the memory of last night. He arrived to the group of spectators just as one of the officers exited the house through the garage. He looked spent, like a soldier back from the war. Between the officer and the paramedic that he had seen, he couldn't even imagine the sight inside. The murmuring from the neighbors was all speculation. Someone said Tom had an affair and Joan found out and had a nervous breakdown. Someone else said Joan had an affair and Tom found out and tried to kill himself. No one knew what happened, but speculation ran rampant. The crowd turned to John, since he lived across the street and the questions started coming. It was a barrage he was not ready for; he was exhausted and seriously freaked out about the night’s happenings. All he could do was shake his head no and hope no one else asked anything deeper than a yes or no question. He didn't trust himself not to sound like a babbling idiot.

  After about fifteen minutes, which felt like hours, he managed to shuffle away from the crowd. Quietly he rounded the corner to the open garage unnoticed. He slipped past the Matelin’s Beamer towards the entrance to the house. His heart was pounding in his ears like a set of timpani drums. He started sweating as he slowly opened the door to the house. He made his way inside and reminded himself to keep an eye out for the officers and medics.

  He slunk quietly through the mudroom into the laundry room like a thief. Everything looked normal. Then he spied the kitchen. Pots and pans were strewn on the floor and the heavy oak table was up-ended. The cabinets all hung open, some off the hinges, and they dripped with something that looked like radioactive slime. John panicked. He hadn’t seen anyone walking around with masks or hazmat gear on, so it wasn’t radioactive, but it wasn’t anything he had ever seen before. He looked through the doorway expecting to be spotted at any moment, but, oddly, there wasn’t a single person in the kitchen. Through the breakfast nook, he saw an officer walk by. He held his breath and decided to flag him down. After all, if it was a crime scene he didn't want to disrupt anything.

  He cleared his throat and waved his hand to get the officer’s attention. It worked so well that the officer jumped about a foot in the air and grabbed at his service pistol.

  “Excuse me, Officer,” John eked out, “I live across the street and came to see if there was anything I could do?”

  He gave John a wry look and worked his way through the kitchen. “You live across the street, huh? Got any ID?”

  He started patting his pockets for his wallet. Much to his chagrin he realized that he was still wearing his shorts and Notre Dame Sweatshirt from the night before.

  He sheepishly grinned and said, “Um, it seems that I don’t have my wallet on me. My wife woke me up when she heard the ambulance and…” he broke off mid-sentence when he saw the gurney roll by with someone on it. All of his breath was gone, the world began to churn before his eyes, and his face must have lost all color because the officer grabbed his shoulder.

  “You okay, buddy?”

  His brain tried to process what the policeman had just asked him, but his lips and tongue wouldn’t cooperate. He couldn't speak. It felt like something was setting on his chest, something massive that wouldn’t allow his lungs to expand. He started to black out. Gasping and sputtering, he tried to reach out for the dryer to steady himself so he didn't go down. The officer grabbed him before he hit the ground. He deftly moved the stepladder under him and set him on it. He looked as scared as John was.

  “Hey, buddy! You okay?” The officer shook John’s shoulders vigorously. The world started to come back into focus again, but John wasn’t sure what was going on.

  He was finally able to whisper something intelligible, “Sorry about that.”

  His eyes worked to figure out what’s going on. His mind attempted to come out of the haze. Suddenly, his wits came about completely and John had to stop himself from screaming. “Was that Tom?”

  The officer looks guardedly at him. “What did you say your name was?”

  “Oh. Sorry. I’m John Schellinger. I live across the street,” and he put out his hand to shake as though they were casually meeting in a bar. The officer didn’t extend his.

  “Mr. Schellinger, did you notice anything out of the ordinary last night?”

  His thoughts froze. He couldn't tell him what he saw. The medics would have slapped a strait jacket on him before he could even blink.

  “No, sir, he was in my office at home last night toiling away on a client’s accounting mess.” That was feasibl
e. The cop had to believe it or he was screwed.

  “Well, Mr. Schellinger, I can tell you that the victim was Tom Matelin and-“

  “Victim,” he echoed, not realizing that he had spoken.

  “Yes, victim,” he barked, letting John know that he didn’t like being interrupted. “His wife called 911 at about four this morning saying that something was wrong with her husband and to send an ambulance. She hung up before we could get her address. We traced the call and we ended up here.”

  “What happened to Tom?”

  He gave the canned response John would have expected if he were thinking straight. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “Is Joan okay?”

  “Well she’s doing as well as could be expected given the situation.”

  “Can I talk to her?”

  “That’s not a good idea, Mr. Schellinger.”

  “Well to be honest with you Officer…Officer Cantmen, I’m going to come over and talk to her after you leave anyhow. Please let me see if there’s anything I can do for her.” Finally, his brain kicks into gear. “Besides, if I go home without talking to Joan and making sure she’s going to be alright, my wife will have my head. Do you know what I’m saying, Officer Cantmen?”

  Officer Eugene Cantmen nodded and turned to walk away. John moved to stop him, but something told him not to. Officer Cantmen was giving him an opportunity to slip through and talk to Joan. He took the opening and followed Officer Cantmen’s footsteps through the kitchen so he didn't disturb anything.

  Joan was sitting on the couch. She looked terrible, but then again her husband was wheeled out on a gurney so he supposed he should have expected it. As soon as she saw him, his stomach began doing back flips and he felt like he was going to throw up. He pulled it together and crossed the room hastily to get to her so she didn’t have to get up. He didn't know what she was dealing with, so he sat down next to her and let her do the talking.