Murder on Parade (11 page)

“I think I’ve heard of you, young lady.  You must be the one they’re after,” he said, nodding over his shoulder. “The whole damn injun nation is ridin’ up on our asses. Never seen that before.”

Springing onto my feet and performing a kick-flip so I landed in my newly imagined saddle facing backward, I observed the Indians galloping through the dream membrane, hot on our trail though wearing a strange mix of costumes from various tribes of the Plains and South West. 

“Damn.” I had hoped we had lost our pursuers.  Since one of their primary functions is to prevent tampering with dreams, they themselves will often avoid dream canvas contact, let alone inter-dream transit if at all possible.  I guess they really wanted me bad. Or they really wanted Thomas to stay behind for some reason.

Becoming concerned for Thomas, I looked to my other side to find that he was having the time of his life, galloping along on an old paint, swinging a lariat in the air, though there was nothing for him to rope.  I could only imagine what he was making of all the crazy colors appearing in this dream.  Doing another kick-flip, I once more faced forward to see that we were apparently racing after a steam locomotive upon which we were closing fast.

“You head on after the train,” Wyatt Jones yelled to me. He pulled a giant revolver. “I’ll head back and slow down them injuns. I think maybe a cattle stampede would do it.”

“Thanks, partner! I won’t forget it.”

Having no better plan in mind, I kicked my booted but consciously unspurred feet into the sides of my mount and received an amazing power burst as the horse surged forward in response to my silent plea. Our host was helping us get away. In no time at all, I was swinging from my mount onto the engine of the puffing train and reaching out a hand to help Thomas aboard. No Hollywood stuntman could have done better.

“Yeehaw!” Thomas screamed as I pulled him onto the engine.  “I’d never have thought of this, but from now on I’m a cowboy dreamer,” he added.  “And check out all the wild colors.  It’s like a psychedelic dream. That Wyatt guy must be nuts.”

“Or eating magic mushrooms.”

Seeing that we were pulling safely ahead of the NarcoNazis who were lost in a sea of rampaging cattle, I shared a laugh with Thomas before picking up a shovel of coal to stoke the fire in the hope of even more speed.  Feeling a surge of energy with every shovel full of coal that I threw into the tinder box, I was vaguely hopeful when I leaned my head out the window to check on our lead.

One look was enough to assure me that our poor steam engine wouldn’t be fast enough to escape the NarcoNazis. The cattle had been turned into prairie-dogs and a streamline, diesel locomotive was gaining on us from behind.  It was painted flat black and had a flaming skull mounted on the front on the engine.

So much for remaining within the proper context of the dream.  It looked like the Dream Police were out for blood this time. I began to feel genuine alarm. Not for myself. I had a sort of emergency, dial *69 and get-out-at-once escape route I could use. But that would mean leaving Thomas behind. He had adapted well to this dreamscape but I didn’t think he had enough understanding of The Narcoscape to get home on his own, even if I convinced the Dream Police to follow me and leave him alone.

“What are we going to do?” Thomas shouted, hanging his head out the other side of the train. “They’re gaining on us! Should I shoot them?”

At that point I was convinced that the Dream Police would do anything in their power to stop our escape. What remained to be seen was just how much power they had. I had never tested the limits before.

“Don’t start shooting. So far, they’re just mad at me.” I hoped this was true. I handed Thomas the shovel. “I’m on it. Just keep out of sight, shovel the coal and make sure we don’t run out of track.”

Thomas went to it with a will and I think that on some level he understood that it was our determination that fueled the engine. It just happened that it looked like lumps of coal.

My next action would take a bit of effort and was overtly hostile, but I also knew that it would produce spectacular results if I timed it right. Up to that point, I’d kept things playful—adversarial, but no one had ever been killed. If you
could
kill a NarcoNazi. I mean as in kill them forever. Making unnecessary enemies wasn’t my thing, but they had made me angry. I was ready to take the gloves off and put on some brass knuckles if that was what it took to get Thomas away from these guys.

We were traveling as fast as good fortune could carry us, but it wasn’t fast enough. We needed another diversion. Concentrating on the tumbleweeds and sagebrush that flew by the engine, I gathered my dream energy and everything Thomas had to spare, and focused it on the ground. The air around us filled with smoke and bright cinders of brimstone as Thomas’s own determination grew. Sparks began to fly from the iron wheels, the noise like nails on a chalkboard. It was unproductive activity, but quite threatening, so I didn’t stop him.

As the diesel struggled to reach parity with our steam engine, I glanced forward a final time and saw with satisfaction that new tracks were still laying themselves down in front of our speeding engine. Thomas was handling things fine on his own. I looked back to the black diesel and then let fly with my next manifestation which was a three foot thick steel wall that appeared immediately ahead of the chasing diesel. They had no time to apply the brakes.

“Holy shit!” Thomas yelled.

The crash produced by the collision of these two dream forces was nothing short of spectacular. I felt the backlash rattle my teeth. The sound of grinding metal was horrendous, and parts flew in all directions, some of them continuing to keep pace with our own locomotive.  Thomas jumped up and down and clapped his hands in response to the crash, but I knew better than to think we were safe. The DP weren’t giving up this time. I began to wonder if they had been bribed.

My suspicion that the DP couldn’t be hurt was proved correct. No sooner had the diesel disintegrated than a massive starship flew out of the fire ball that was the locomotive and positioned itself in the skies overhead.  As I had suspected, killing the NarcoNazis wasn’t an option. There would always be more.

Seeing the tip of the massive laser mounted on the side of the craft begin to glow with pent up dream energy, I grabbed Thomas’ hand and prepared for the next phase of our journey.  Fortunately the next dream membrane was right ahead and our train was turning on a new course that would come within a few feet of it. My first impulse had been to run the train right into the wall, but I wasn’t desperate enough to risk freaking out whoever was dreaming on the other side.

“Get ready to jump,” I warned.

Seeing the shimmering barrier ahead of us and recognizing it for what it was, Thomas’ resisted, pulling back against my grip.  “No, it’s too far, we’ll never make it. Let’s fight them here. I always wanted to fly a space ship.”

“Thomas, remember, in this world we can fly ourselves. Didn’t you have flying dreams when you were a kid?” I asked with a forced smile.  This reminder of this universally pleasant dream cheered him up immensely, and together we faced the rapidly approaching barrier.  “Please just trust me. If you don’t fight it, it won’t hurt.”

“Okay.”

We jumped not a moment too soon since our transportation was blown to pieces by a death ray fired from the spacecraft the moment our feet left its floorboards.

Flying through the air, or more like swimming in Thomas’s case, it required only a few flaps of our arms to travel the full distance to the dream barrier.  As usual, I penetrated the membrane without difficulty and was then pulled up short by Thomas who was sill hanging onto my hand.  Yanking on his arm, I tugged him through. We both summersault over the powdery ground.

Thomas coughed and tried to wipe the dust away.

“Where are we?”

The new dreamscape was comparatively quiet but I knew instinctively that we were not safe. Something strange was happening. I could feel power massing and everything was moving way too slowly. The world seemed hazy and out of focus.  Regardless of the disorienting atmosphere, I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt so good. 

No, wait a second, I could remember. 

“Oh no.” I finally recognized the signature of an adolescent wet-dream.  Letting go of Thomas’ hand, I knew that we had no reasonable choice but to ride it out and hope the NarcoNazi’s didn’t arrive until our host was done. 

Sitting down on the bed that formed behind me, I ignored the couple that was writhing in ecstasy beneath the sheets. I tipped my head back trying not to be too vocal as I enjoy the inevitable ride.  Fortunately, the kid had a short fuse because I doubt that I could have handled any more arousal and my inner-clock said we really didn’t have the time for this.

With a final thrust, in which I was not involved but of which I was still intimately aware, the situation came to a climax.  And this climax was long and hard like only a male, adolescent orgasm can be.  We climaxed together and I arched so hard I damn near broke my back.  As is always the case when I’m involved in such dreams, I wondered what my body was doing on the wakeside.  Was it currently arching itself as it moaned in ecstasy?  That would be embarrassing and would give the nurses on the third floor something to talk about. I just hoped to hell they didn’t think I was having a seizure and try to revive me.  If I got pulled back wakeside, Thomas would be left alone.

Rising to my feet, I grabbed Thomas and pulled him forward on wobbly legs.  I made a point of not staring at the large wet spot on the front of his jeans. Opening the bedroom door, we ran out of the room into a barren desert under a blood red sky.  There was some kind of small spacecraft hovering in the driveway. The hood of the flying car said: Fuckmobile.

Finding it strange that the boy’s bedroom was in the middle of a Martian landscape, I glanced back at the bed to take a look at what the boy had been having relations with. She looked like a green Barbarella in thigh-high silver boots.

There was just no accounting for taste, I thought as I dragged Thomas to the next barrier only a few yards ahead.

Looking out into the desert beside us, I saw that the mighty DP spacecraft had crashed.  It gave me quite a chuckle to think of the members of her crew trying to pilot the craft while having a massive group orgasm.  Unfortunately for us, the after-affects of sex were short lived, and black-clad storm troopers were already pouring out of the craft to fire pulse rifles in our direction.

Plunging through the next dream barrier was far easier.  I guess Thomas was getting the hang of dream-hopping.  I just hoped I wasn’t turning him into a dream-visitation junky.  It could and did happen to dreamers who lacked imagination and developed a taste for more exciting dream scenarios. I told myself that I would worry about this later. 

Pop.

“Get down!” I screamed. It appeared that we had just stepped into the middle of a full out military battle circa World War II.

Hitting the sand and pulling Thomas down beside me, I peeked over the top of a dune only to have a spray of machinegun fire force me to bury my head back in the relative safety of the sandbank.  Apparently we were hitting a beach with the marines, and based on the authenticity of this dream, I assumed that the owner had done this in the real world. He was having some kind of flashback.

“Keep your head down and try not to get hit,” I warned Thomas.  “It hurts a lot if you get shot.”

Propping himself up to ask a question, Thomas immediately took a bullet in the shoulder.  “Oh, shit,” he screamed, pressing a hand against the wound to staunch the flow of blood. “That really hurts!”

“I warned you,” I chided, and then I focused my attention on getting us to the next barrier. 
Why, oh why had I had the misfortune of entering the Narcoscape so many canvases away from my destination?
I wondered as I surveyed the beachhead for possible safe trails. I knew that there was an exit from this dream somewhere, but I couldn’t see it. Why hadn’t Thomas been where he was supposed to be? I would have to ask him about that later when he stopped whimpering. “Just stop the bleeding,” I said. “You know how.”

“I’m trying. It still hurts.”

“There it is—the next barrier. See it?”  I pointed. The next wall was just behind enemy lines over the top of a large hill.  Machinegun fire sprayed from that knoll and several Panzer tanks pulled up in reinforcement.  The Dream Police had arrived. The NarcoNazis and joined the regular Nazis and swelled their ranks.

“This is all wrong,” Thomas complained. “What did we ever do to them?”

Looking along the line of troops hiding behind our hillock, I quickly identified the dream owner as the lieutenant three positions down who lay shaking with his head buried in the sand. 

“Keep your head down and follow me.” Crawling down the line, I forced myself in beside lieutenant and tried to get his attention. Wearing my father’s body and what I hoped was a proper uniform, I nudged him in the ribs as I shouted: “Lieutenant, the enemy has brought in a battalion of Panzer tanks in support.  What should we do?”

There was a long silence.

“Panzers?  There are no Panzers in this battle. Where the bloody hell did they come from?” he replied in a terror-stricken voice.

“Sir, I’m afraid the enemy is not fighting fair. We need you— you’re our only hope against a bunch of damned Nazi cheaters. Those bastards just won’t fight fair.”

At the mention of cheating, the lieutenant seemed to perk up.  After considering my words for a moment, his face became downright livid.

“Cheaters, are they?” he said in indignation.  “Well, I’ll show them.”

Popping his head over the top of the dune, the lieutenant shouldered his Thompson machinegun and started to spray bullets at the enemy.  The amazing thing is that every bullet seemed to hit its intended target.  In the wake of his seemingly random fire, enemy soldiers keeled over and the gas tanks on Panzers exploded in a way that would never have happened in real life.  By the time the lieutenant had to replace the clip on his machinegun, the enemy forces were decimated and what few remained unharmed were running for cover. Since the dream owner had shot them, they were obliged to play dead.