Lair of Dreams

She reached out her talonlike fingers. “Dream…? ” she pleaded in a hair-raising growl. “Dream!”

If Nathan Rosborough had been able to scream, it would’ve rung through the underground and rattled the windows of the trains passing through. Instead, it was Nora Hodkin whose mouth unhinged in an unholy screech.

“Jesus… oh, Jesus,” Nathan whispered, backing away.

The glowing girl in the blue dress dropped into a crouch, knees wide as she scuttled toward him, brushfire-fast. Nathan turned and ran as fast as he could toward the Fulton Street station. His earlier hopes deserted him. His one overwhelming desire was simply to survive.

Behind him, the thing that had once been Nora Hodkin loosed a second screech that bounced off the walls. Nathan was sober now, his mind sharpened by animal fear. Greenish lights pulsed between concrete subway columns.

A train?

In the dark, there were hungry growls and high-pitched, demonic cries that nearly brought him to his knees.

No. Not a train. More of them.

He heard the rapid click-click-clack of what sounded like many claws scraping across brick. She’d called them. Dear God! They were gaining on him. Nathan could smell their stench. Suddenly, Nora Hodkin leaped down, cutting off his escape. She was trying to talk. Her voice was a broken gargle, a fire consuming the last of its fuel. “Must dream…”

The distant lights of the subway train shone far down the tracks, too far to be of any help to Nathan. The night came alive with more like her—sickly, glowing, used-up things crawling from the depths, creeping along the walls and ceiling of the underground, hungry. The demonic drone escalated into a shrieking din as they dropped down like radium-painted rain.

Nora smiled at Nathan and opened wide.

The land of Flushing, Queens, was flat and favorable, with nothing to stand in the way of grasping aspiration. Already, steam shovels hovered on the edge of the proposed fairgrounds, ready to clear the way for Jake Marlowe’s vision of tomorrow. In the center of the field stood a makeshift wooden platform, which held the mayor and the city council, who eagerly awaited Jake Marlowe’s arrival. A huge crowd had turned out to watch their hero break ground on what would become the Future of America Exhibition of 1927. They stood holding small American flags on sticks under a sky so brilliantly blue it seemed wet with paint.

“Is he here yet?” Ling asked as she strained to see around the tall people in front of her.

“Would you like to get closer?” Henry asked.

“Yes, please,” Ling said.

“Mr. and Mrs. Chan,” Henry asked politely, “may I escort Ling closer to the stage?”

“Why, that would be lovely, Henry,” Mrs. Chan said, beaming.

As Henry parted the crowd for Ling, she looked back at her parents. Her father smiled, and her mother waved her flag. “I think my mother is already planning our wedding.”

“Well, if it gets you out of the house more often, I’ll try to look besotted. Prepare yourself, woman!” He stared, moony-eyed, at Ling, then flared his nostrils like a matinee idol in the throes of passion.

Ling curled her lip in disgust. “You look like you have gas.”

“It’s my secret love glance. I call it ‘From the Very Bowels of Love.’”

“Henry?”

“Yes, mein Liebchen?”

“Take me to Jake Marlowe.”

“That cad! I’ll see him on the field at dawn!” Henry made a gun of his thumb and index finger, pointing it skyward as if ready to shoot.

“Hurry up. I don’t want to miss this,” Ling said.

Henry let his hand drop. “Very well. I suppose I’ll let him live. This way, m’lady.”

“Did you speak to the crazy woman?”

“Not yet. I was afraid if I went this morning, I’d be stuck there through the afternoon as a special guest at a kitty-cat birthday party or an ancient mummification tutorial and miss this,” Henry said, just as he and Ling made it to the front. He grinned. “And I knew you wouldn’t have wanted to miss this.”

Mayor Jimmy Walker stepped to the microphone, his voice booming out in a long preamble that ended with the heart-quickening words, “A man who needs no introduction, Mr.… Jake… Marlowe!”

The crowd responded with cheers and a waving of flags. The air fluttered with red, white, and blue. With the sun shining behind him, Jake Marlowe stepped onto the platform, removed his hat, ran a swift hand across his slick black hair, and raised the hat to the assembled, a hero’s gesture. Applause erupted. The crowd loved the very idea of him.