The November 2009 Selected Story 1 is by David Landrum
Feel free to email David at: davelandrum@yahoo.com
THE DREAM CATCHER
By David Landrum
When I got back to my apartment that evening, the weirdness started.
I opened the door. Suddenly light exploded all around me in flashes, colors, and from somewhere inside came a thumping sound. Disoriented, short of breath, feeling like I had temporarily exited my body, I could not get my bearings for several seconds.
Adrenaline coursed through me, and I slammed the apartment door, still standing outside it, sweating and panting. What was going on inside my apartment? Or was it within me…was I having some sort breakdown?
Slowly I opened the door again and peered inside. Nothing happened this time. Everything seemed normal, which at this point was strange in itself.
I went inside and turned on the lights, shutting the door behind me. Nervous and off kilter, I poured myself a beer and put on a CD of Big Bill Broonzy and then sat on the couch to drink my beer and compose myself.
That’s when I saw the cat.
It stood, perched on a bookshelf: a huge brown tabby with a long, furry tail. It stared at me as only cats can, not moving or taking its eyes off of me.
“How did you get in here, puss?” I asked.
My friendliness towards the cat was not rewarded. It began to growl. The low, menacing sound rose from deep in its body. I wondered if it would leap and attack.
I clapped my hands loudly. It arched its back, stretched its legs, and hissed. I hurried into my bedroom and grabbed a laundry bag. As I turned to go back into the living room I heard it hit the floor with a thump. By the time I got back, it was gone.
I was scared again, just like the first time I had entered a few minutes before, feeling that things were unfamiliar in my own apartment. The damned animal could have been anywhere, and I knew a cat that size could jump out and make hamburger out of my face before I had a chance to get away. I started looking for it.
My apartment is not large. I checked each room and finally found him in one of the closets. He glared and hissed. I threw the bag his way and surprised myself by trapping him. I quickly pulled it shut. The cat made hideous noises and thrashed around inside. Thankful for the thick nylon material that stood between me and its claws, I went outside the apartment, set the bag on the ground, opened it, and stood back.
The cat shot out of the opening, flew across the yard, and disappeared into some shrubs. I stood still a moment, making sure it was really gone, and then went back inside my apartment. Thankfully, this time all seemed normal, with no flashing light experience.
Sitting on the couch, I thought about the cat. My apartment complex did not allow pets. It wouldn’t have belonged to someone else here, unless they had one illegally. I figured it could have slipped off the street in when I opened the door. After all, cats are stealthy and the first time I had opened my door, I had experienced that weird illusion of colors flashing and general strangeness, like an LSD flashback or something. Anything could have slipped by me during that strange event. But just in case, I got up and checked the windows. None were open.
Sitting back down on the couch, I finished my beer. Alone in my apartment on this very strange night, I started to feel uneasy. The more I tried to shake that mood, the more creeped out I felt, with melancholy and paranoia enveloping me.
Finally I had to get out of the apartment, and out of my own head. I drove down to Logan’s Alley to see if any of my friends were there. I drank alone for a while until Rodney Red Deer and his girlfriend came in and sat down with me.
Rodney came from upstate New York. His family was mostly from the Mohawk tribe, though I think his mom was white. He never said a lot about his heritage, but he was into it big time—even practiced the spirituality of his tribe.
A year ago, he had given me a Dream Catcher for my birthday. He had come to my birthday party and had been one of the few people who brought me a gift (he was the only one there, I think, who had not just come to get drunk).
Dream Catchers were always popular as decorative items, but that wasn’t why Rodney gave one to me. You see, I had told him about the nightmares I’d been having. Rodney insisted the Dream Catcher was the answer.
“It will stop bad dreams,” he had said, “but it’s also a powerful charm against evil. This is not the phony kind you buy at Pier One Imports. I had one of our medicine men make it just for you. He went through all the proper rituals and then blessed it. It’s very powerful medicine, Daniel.”
On this night, when I saw Rodney come into Logan’s Alley, I figured he would be just the person to tell about the cat that had somehow made its way into my apartment.
“That’s an evil omen, man,” was all Rodney would say. “Better hang that Dream Catcher I gave you in your living room.”
We talked for a while, and then the two of them left, and I went back to my apartment, wondering what awaited me there. Emboldened by a couple of drinks, I was relieved when the door flashing light thing did not happen again; but when I walked into the front room, I saw the cat, sitting on the book shelf once more time.
I stood stock still. Somehow it had gotten back inside. It couched and hissed, spreading its claws and showing its teeth. I stepped around it, went into my bedroom, dug around in a basket where I kept things I did not know what do with—a lot of gifts I had received went there—and came out with the Dream Catcher. I found a hammer and a nail—all the time glancing back at the cat, which growled and tensed as if ready to leap at me. I pounded the nail in, took the Dream Catcher out of its wrapping, and hung it on the living room wall.
When I got down off the chair and turned around, the cat had tumbled from the book shelf, and was lying, motionless, on the floor.
It laid very still, its eyes open and without the light that indicated life. I touched it with my foot. It was still warm but did not move. No muscles twitched. I touched it with my hand. When it still did not move, I shook it. Nothing. It must have died in a matter of seconds.
My mouth felt dry. I glanced up to make sure the Dream Catcher was still in place. On my birthday, Rodney had said it did not merely keep bad dreams away. It kept evil out of one’s dwelling. I realized evil had been here. But why?
I grabbed some paper towels, and then gingerly put the cat into a garbage bag.
Walking out into the cool night, I threw the dead animal into the apartment’s dumpster. I wondered if I should call Margie, my girlfriend. She had recently complained about odd happenings and bad dreams. I felt tired and, glancing up at the clock, saw it was 2 AM. Too late to call.
I went to bed and tried to sleep, knowing I would be spending the next night with Margie, and feeling relieved that not only would I be out of my apartment, but in less then twenty-four hours, I’d be snuggled next to Margie in hers.
***
Margie was a quiet, passionate woman. After we were finished, we lay on the little bed in the quiet of her studio. She had placed a single candle on a table across the room. In the faint glow I could see her: her pretty face, strong shoulders and arms, her long hair. She smiled.
“A penny for your thoughts?” she said.
“I think you are the loveliest woman in the world.”
“Well, that particular thought is worth at least a dime.” She traced her finger along my jaw line and forehead. “You’ll have to let me do a sculpture of you sometime. There’s some pain in your face. You’ve paid your dues.”
Margie taught sculpture at one of the local universities. She also operated her own art studio. Her apartment was attached to it. I laughed. “Maybe in the past, but not much anymore.”
She drifted off to sleep. I got up and decided that maybe I should hang the Dream Catcher on the wall of Margie’s studio. But I didn’t want any sounds to wake Margie, so I simply draped it over one of her sculptures, the beautiful and realistic one she had made of her sister Amy.
I had the idea that I should bring the Dream Catcher with me everywhere I went, so I had started keeping it in an inside pouch on my jacket, taking it out whenever I felt nervous. If a cat could sneak into my apartment twice, who knows what else could sneak into my life.
***
We got up early in the morning and drove to an IHOP just down the road. I made sure I took down the Dream Catcher and put it back in my jacket.
After pancakes I asked Margie how she was doing.
“I slept pretty well last night,” she said. “Except I kept dreaming about the same things over and over—sort of like images in my mind.”
“What did you dream about?”
“I kept seeing a railroad building—not a depot, but one of those little houses way up on a platform they used to use for signals or something. You know what I mean? And the second thing is an anchor.”
“What’s the third thing?”
“Alabama,” she said. “I don’t know why, but I keep thinking Alabama. I don’t even know anyone down there.”
I licked my lips. My heart was pounding. “There’s one of those railroad towers down by Bridge Street.” I did not want to mention the other two things and, as I looked down at the syrup containers lined up in a neat row on our table, it hit me. An epiphany. I looked straight at her.
“The statue,” I said. “Your sculpture of Amy.”
She blinked. “What about it?”
“Margie, Amy is communicating with you.”
She looked at me, bewildered. “Daniel, Amy is dead.”
“You said yourself that you put your sister’s soul into that sculpture,” I said. “And you’re exactly right. It has some kind of connection. Your sister is trying to tell you something.”
Her face darkened. “Daniel, don’t do this to me. You know how Amy died. Please don’t dredge it all up for me again.”
“That’s just it,” I insisted. “They never caught her killer. Listen Margie, I’m going to tell you something. I don’t expect you to understand this, but I placed a Dream Catcher on Amy’s sculpture last night after you went to sleep. Dream Catchers ward off evil. And I believe that the Dream Catcher will help you find your sister’s killer—you know, catch evil. The Dream Catcher will catch evil.”
She looked at me, anger contorting her face. “Stop it!” she cried. When people in the restaurant turned to stare at us, she lowered her voice to a hiss. “How dare you come at me with your superstitious bullshit, rubbing it into my open wound? I’m shocked you could even say something like that.”
Faltering, floundering, I said, “The Dream Catcher is real. I saw its magic kill a cat first hand…”
Margie stood, leaving her pancakes unfinished. “I’m leaving now. Don’t follow me.”
She stormed out of IHOP, ignoring the staring patrons.
I cursed myself for being so abrupt with Margie. I should have brought it up in a more diplomatic way, but it had come as such a sure revelation I had not been able to contain myself. And not only did I know Amy was speaking, I knew what she was trying to say. I knew the place she had given to Margie in the vision.
I waited until the early hours of morning to go. As I sat around, I remembered Amy—pretty, one year older than her sister, bright, popular, a student at Grand Valley State. She was shot one night walking from the downtown campus—single gunshot to the head. Her murderer had sliced her thumb. Nothing else.
The vision Margie received told me where to find him. There could be no other reason Amy would send a message from beyond the grave to her sister.
So at 2 AM I drove down to Bridge Street. I came to a halt and parked under the old signal tower near the Anchor Bar and got out of the car. The streets were empty, the businesses around the area dark.
I jumped when the silence was broken by a hissing and growing sound. At the base of a ladder leading up the side of the signal tower, a huge tortoise-shell cat bared its teeth and crouched, ready to spring up at me. Undaunted and unafraid, I took a step forward. The cat made itself smaller, pulling in its legs and head, as cats can do. I came a step closer. I saw fear flash in its eyes. Then it turned and ran, disappearing into a shadowy alley.
I put a flashlight into my pocket and began to climb the narrow ladder than led up to the top of the small structure that had once served as a signal and observation tower for trains passing through town.
Clouds hid the moon. Things were so quiet I could hear every rusty creak as I climbed higher and higher. After a cautious ascent, I swung my body through the door of the small, square room with painted-over windows, where in the old days signal-men with flags would monitor trains. The tower had not been used in probably fifty years.
The moment I stepped into it I could tell someone had been there. I smelled candle wax and sweat. Switching on the flashlight, I scanned the interior. Something like an altar stood in one corner. Four black candles burned down to nubs circled a pentagram. At the top point of the inverted star a white candle, not lit, its wick undisturbed, rested.
When I raised the flashlight beam, I froze in fear. Five sheets of paper were tacked above the altar. A photograph of a young woman stood in the center of each sheet. All around the photos, spiraling in like menacing insects, were runes—symbols, hieroglyphs...some kind of lettering. The symbols engulfed the pictures. The fourth photo was of Amy. I did not want to focus the flashlight beam on the fifth one, but I did. As I expected, the photography was of Margie.
Only her photograph was different.
The lettering encroached on three sides of her face. On the fourth side, by her left cheek, a large, oblong space of white stood between her photo and the lettering. Oblong. Shaped like a teardrop or a snowshoe.
The Dream Catcher.
I grabbed the photos with the runes on them. It was then I noticed a neat stack of papers. They were copies of the photos. Two smears of what looked like dried blood marked the bottom of each. More writing—again, runes or some ancient language—surrounded the photos.
I stuffed the papers into my jacket and climbed down. The moment I set foot on the crumbling pavement at the base of the signal tower, something caught me and pushed me to the ground.
I swung my fists and kicked. I surprised it enough that it backed off and I was able to get to my feet, and then I was able to see what it was. It was some sort of creature… dark and shadowy. At first I could only make out the outline of a head, arms, shoulders. Yet I could feel its hatred the second we faced off. I felt my heart thudding against my ribs, and I ran to the car.
I had locked it. I couldn't get into my car!
By the time I got the key out of my pocket I could feel the creature behind me. I was fumbling with my car keys because I was shaking in fright. Oh god, please don’t let that thing kill me!
Finally I found the right key, and as I thrust it into the lock, I turned around. In the light I could see it now. It stood over six feet tall, its body dark as if it were made of night, its face white with red eyes and blue veins showing through its colorless flesh. What the Christ was it?
I threw open the front door of my car, but the thing grabbed me around the neck and began to choke me before I could slide into the front seat. I put my leg against the side of my car and pushed, using the car for leverage. We both fell backward.
The monster hit the iron pillar that supported the signal tower, cried out in pain, and let go of my throat. I rebounded, bounced off its spongy flesh, and fell against my car, hitting my shoulder on the sharp edge of the open door.
I flipped around and landed face-up on the seat, pulled open the glove compartment, and got my hand on the Dream Catcher. The creature leaped at me. I rolled over and thrust the Dream Catcher at it.
An explosion of light engulfed me. Then, in that one second, I could clearly see the open door of my car and the railroad tower.
I sat up. Whatever had attacked me was gone. Frightened, trembling, with waves of pain shooting through my shoulder where I had hit the door, I decided to stay inside the safety of my car.
Then I saw him. He seemed to materialized out of nowhere. It was a man. A real man, not a monster. Old, thin, grey, scraggly, in ragged jeans under a beat-up jacket, he pointed a gun at me through the car window.
“I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this,” I could hear him say.
I regard him a minute. And suddenly I understood. Revulsion made me want to throw up. But instead I opened the car door and got out to face him. “You killed Amy Strehl, didn’t you?”
He did not reply. He only held the gun up.
“And you planned to kill her sister.”
“You’ll never know,” he said.
“Yes I will. Because you’re finished.” I held the Dream Catcher up. “You won’t get Margie or anybody else now. Send more demon-possessed cats and send whatever the hell that thing was that tried to kill me just now. None of them matter any more.”
He shook his gun. “This matters. I wanted Amy and now I want her sister.”
“I know everything except why," I told him.
“I need Margie so that the circle will be complete. I need the blood of two sisters to complete my spell. The first sister was a random choice. But once I sacrificed one sister, I needed the other. Like I said, I need two sisters.”
I held the Dream Catcher higher. “This killed that cat you sent.”
“I sent a familiar to your apartment to destroy your Dream Catcher. You had it in a bag, but it still interfered with what I planned to do. It protected the sister and protected you. Your unbelief had dampened its power, but that changed for some reason. You suddenly became a believer.”
“Once I honored the power of this Dream Catcher, it began to protect both of us more strongly,” I told him. “And the cat you had guarding your little hide-out up there ran when it saw me.”
He licked his lips, and said, “Maybe your Dream Catcher magic works at those lower levels—against petty demons and dim-witted revenant cats, but not against the Powers I serve. That Injun charm may have protected you so far, but let’s see if it protects you from a bullet.”
“This ‘Injun charm’ draws on powers that were recognized and feared for thousands of years before your ancestors or mine ever set foot on this land,” I told him.
He shook the gun. Ignoring that, I got out my cell.
“Don’t use that phone.”
We faced off for a few more seconds, and then I began to punch in 9-1-1.
The man fired his gun. Nothing happened.
He tried to fire the pistol several more times. It seemed to have jammed.
Relieved, I said, “I told you the ancient magic is more powerful than yours.” But the reality was that I really hadn’t been positive until that very moment. My legs felt like rubber, but I knew my fear did not show. And that gave me the advantage.
A look of horror and amazement covered his face. He dropped the gun, turned, and ran down the street.
I did not need to chase him. I knew where he was going. I finished dialing 9-1-1 because my cell worked now, and told the police dispatcher I had found something related to the murder of Amy Strehl.
At first, of course, I was their primary suspect. They took me to the station and grilled me for a couple of hours. I can see why, of course. I suddenly show up out of nowhere, have pictures of five murdered girls in my possession, and I somehow know where the person I claim is the killer had stashed them.
What had happened was that the police searched the area and caught the killer. He was hiding in an abandoned warehouse . . . on Alabama Street.
His name was Randall Donaldson, a suspected killer. His prints were all over the things I had found in the signal tower. The pictures, plus items the police discovered in the warehouse, linked him to Amanda Strehl’s murder and the murder of three other women in various sites across the country over the last six years.
The blood smears on the pictures I found were from him and each of his victims; they were apparently the seal on the contract he had written in Gaelic to give the lives of these women to his demons. The characters surrounding the photographs were repetitions of the “finality” written in hundreds of different languages.
“How did you know he was hiding around here?” the police asked.
“I wanted to see if I could do anything to help solve Amy’s murder, so I would drive past the place it happened from time to time. I saw this guy come out of the warehouse and once saw him climbing up into the tower. He looked like he was afraid—like he was hiding something. I decided I’d investigate.”
The police still thought my story a little fishy—and, of course, it was. But I could not tell them one of the victims of the killer had spoken from the grave so that the crime came to be solved.
Donaldson’s capture made national news. His trial dragged on for a year. I testified and so did Margie. Finally the verdict came: Donaldson got a life term without the possibility of parole in a prison for the criminally insane. Margie and her family experienced that sad, bitter satisfaction such families receive when justice is done.
We’ve moved in together and I think more and more about marrying her. She has begun to do a sculpture of me. She works slowly and with diligence. I wonder if she is putting my soul into the sculpture the same as she did with the sculpture of her sister.
I keep the Dream Catcher hanging on our apartment wall. And we don't have any cats.
David Landrum
David W. Landrum teaches Literature at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. His horror/supernatural fiction has appeared in Sinister Tales, Macabre Cadaver, Ensorcelled, The Monsters Next Door, The Cynic OnLine, and many other journals. He edits the on-line poetry journal, Lucid Rhythms, at: