Dream Job (The Dreamwalker Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  Dream Job

  Gregory Pettit

  Copyright © 2016 Gregory Pettit

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN:

  Cover Design: SelfPubBookCovers.com/Shardel

  DEDICATION

  To Sanna – who always watched my back

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1 2300–2350, Sunday, July 19, 2015 11

  CHAPTER 2 0700–2300, Monday, July 20, 2015 15

  CHAPTER 3 0800–0900, Tuesday, July 21, 2015 23

  CHAPTER 4 0800–1300, Tuesday, July 28, 2015 26

  CHAPTER 5 1300, Tuesday, July 28–1000, Wednesday, July 29, 2015 32

  CHAPTER 6 1000–1400, Wednesday, July 29, 2015 38

  CHAPTER 7 1400–1500, Wednesday, July 29, 2015 43

  CHAPTER 8 1150, Tuesday, July 28–0005, Wednesday, July 29, 2015 47

  CHAPTER 9 1500–1600, Wednesday, July 29, 2015 52

  CHAPTER 10 0800–1000, Friday, July 31, 2015 59

  CHAPTER 11 1000–1100, Friday, July 31, 2015 65

  CHAPTER 12 0700–0800, Saturday, August 1, 2015 69

  CHAPTER 13 0800–1800, Saturday, August 1, 2015 74

  CHAPTER 14 1800–2200, Saturday, August 1, 2015 82

  CHAPTER 15 0600–0745, Sunday, August 2, 2015 89

  CHAPTER 16 0745–0845, Sunday, August 2, 2015 95

  CHAPTER 17 1100–1200, Sunday, August 2, 2015 100

  CHAPTER 18 1100 –1930, Sunday, August 2, 2015 104

  CHAPTER 19 1930–1945, Sunday, August 2, 2015 108

  CHAPTER 20 1945–2030, Sunday, August 2, 2015 115

  CHAPTER 21 1200–1425, Monday, August 3, 2015 127

  CHAPTER 22 1425–1500, Monday, August 3, 2015 133

  CHAPTER 23 1500–1525, Monday, August 3, 2015 137

  CHAPTER 24 1525–1535, Monday, August 3, 2015 145

  CHAPTER 25 1535–1555, Monday, August 3, 2015 152

  CHAPTER 26 1555–1630, Monday, August 3, 2015 159

  CHAPTER 27 1630–2230, Monday, August 3, 2015 162

  CHAPTER 28 2130–2230, Monday, August 3, 2015 170

  CHAPTER 29 2230, Monday, August 3–0001, Tuesday August 4, 2015 178

  CHAPTER 30 0001–0230, Tuesday, August 4, 2015 188

  CHAPTER 31 0230–0400, Tuesday, August 4, 2015 196

  CHAPTER 32 0230–0330, Tuesday, August 4, 2015 201

  CHAPTER 33 0330–0500, Tuesday, August 4, 2015 208

  CHAPTER 34 0500–0630, Tuesday, August 4, 2015 214

  CHAPTER 35 0630–1030, Tuesday, August 4, 2015 221

  CHAPTER 36 1030–1200, Tuesday, August 4, 2015 226

  CHAPTER 37 1200–1500, Tuesday, August 4, 2015 232

  CHAPTER 38 1500 –1845, Tuesday, August 4, 2015 240

  CHAPTER 39 1945–-2030, Tuesday, August 4, 2015 244

  CHAPTER 40 2030–2100, Tuesday, August 4, 2015 254

  CHAPTER 41 1400–1600, Wednesday, August 5, 2015 262

  CHAPTER 42 1600–1700, Wednesday, August 5, 2015 267

  CHAPTER 43 1700, Wednesday, August 5–0005, Thursday, August 6, 2015 275

  CHAPTER 44 0005–0200, Thursday, August 6, 2015 282

  CHAPTER 45 0200–0300, Thursday, August 6, 2015 291

  CHAPTER 46 0300–1400, Thursday, August 6, 2015 299

  CHAPTER 47 1400–2000, Thursday, August 6, 2015 307

  CHAPTER 48 2000–2050, Thursday, August 6, 2015 315

  CHAPTER 49 2050–2145, Thursday, August 6, 2015 322

  CHAPTER 50 2145–2200, Thursday, August 6, 2015 333

  CHAPTER 51 2200–2215, Thursday, August 6, 2015 339

  Epilogue 347

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book would not have been possible without the support of my family. This book would not have been readable without the support of my Editor, Kelly Cozy. This book would not have caught your attention without the support of the Goons on the SA forum. To all of these people, and all of the people that otherwise lent support, Chris W., Kieren T. and many more, please accept my sincere thanks.

  “All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”

  ― T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph

  CHAPTER 1 2300–2350, Sunday, July 19, 2015

  ***Julian***

  I opened my eyes. I didn’t know where I was, and I didn’t know whose house I was in, but I did know that there was a monster in it, and I did know it’d be pissed off when I found it. The usual. I took two deep breaths and oriented myself. I was in a kitchen, standing behind a small, granite-topped island. The only illumination came through a set of patio doors behind me. The vista outside showed the sun setting, purple and red, behind a stand of pine trees. I stood perfectly still and reached out with my mind. After a few moments of concentration, understanding flooded into my consciousness. This was going to be ugly.

  I heard nothing for long seconds, but then a slow creak drew my eyes to the stairs at the front of the house. Another long, soundless pause followed. I rummaged through the pockets of the midcalf-length trench coat that hung open from my shoulders. I found a snub-nosed revolver in one pocket and a mobile phone in the other. My investigation was interrupted by another creak, a momentary pause, and then a rapid thump, thump, thump. Whatever was making the noise was going up the stairs. Behind me, the light was fading quickly, but it didn’t matter because this was going to be over, one way or another, in five minutes.

  “Whoever or whatever is up there, I’m giving you until the count of five to get down here or there’ll be real trouble!” I yelled in my sternest “Dad voice.”

  “One.” Silence.

  “Two.” Nothing yet.

  “Three.” The slightest squeak sounded as something heavy shifted its weight.

  “Four.” Something BIG lurched into motion above me, rattling the pictures on the wall as it pounded down the stairs.

  “Five!” I smelled the stench of cheap alcohol even before the figure rounded the final bend in the stairs. It loomed into view, a creature that looked like an oversized hobo in a cheap suit with a head as big as a basketball. The man-thing that barreled toward me down the final steps into the kitchen was at least eight feet tall and four feet across, with hands like Christmas hams, each clutching a leather belt.

  The monster launched toward me with an utterly incongruous scream of, “You’ve been a naughty boy!” that revealed a booze-rotted grin set in a swollen, red face. I sidestepped slightly so that the creature flew over the island and crashed hard into the countertop and kitchen sink. The impact sent splinters of particle board ricocheting everywhere, tearing his rumpled brown suit and shattering a window. I could have taken one step forward, extended my arm, and used the .38 to end this instantly. I didn’t. One glance toward the stairs told me that the most important participant in this little drama wasn’t here yet.

  The creature picked itself up off of the floor and directed a mad, hate-filled look toward me. Then, he spit out shards of broken teeth, rasping around a mouthful of black blood and ropey spittle, “You’re out past bedtime. Now you get punished!” A leather belt whipcracked past my face, but I could hear the pitter-patter of tiny feet descending the stairs behind me. My audience had arrived.

  The gun was overkill, and I hadn’t planned on using it unless something went very badly wrong. A small effort of will let me easily vault back over the top of the center island, snagging a heavy cast-iron frying pan along the way. This still felt like a bit much for the coming guest of honor, so I focused on a memor
y of my fourth grade teacher, Mr. Leikowski, playing a guitar in front of the class. When I snapped back into the present, a heavy country-and-western-style guitar was in my hands, and the frying pan was nowhere to be seen.

  Before I could locate my enemy, another whipcrack of the belt slithered past and landed across my shoulder. Fortunately for me, I knew that my jacket was more than up to the task of handling that blow, and I only felt a momentary pressure. Quiet sniffling from the stairs told me that the moment was right. I stole a glance out of the corner of my eye and spotted a brown-haired little boy, not much more than a toddler, peering out from behind the railing. The kid was wearing Winnie the Pooh pajamas. My daughter had an almost identical pair.

  “Hey! Asshat!” I growled, keeping the monstrosity’s attention focused on me as I wound the guitar back over my shoulder. I bounded toward it with a bellow of, “KABOOOONG!” The guitar crashed into the creature’s skull, and it crumpled to the floor, head stuck in the guitar. Worn loafers pounded on the linoleum of the kitchen floor as the oversized buffoon thrashed, trying to break free. I turned my head toward the little boy and put on my most child-friendly smile. He immediately bolted up the stairs. Smart kid.

  Turning my focus to the thrashing thing on the floor, I reached into my jacket pocket and withdrew a sword that hadn’t been there a few moments earlier. The blade reached a length of twenty inches, with the hilt adding another five or six inches, and a width of two inches; it was an almost perfect specimen of a gladius.

  I bunched my shoulders, took the grip in my right hand, and thrust into the empty air in front of me. I focused as hard as I could on absolutely nothing; I focused on oblivion; I focused on the void. I’d done this hundreds of times before; it was almost always the trickiest part of the operation, but it was also the most important. The air in front of me started to waver, and as I drew the sword upward, a tiny rip of blackness followed the path of my arm up and around in a rough circle. When I was done a few moments later, I grabbed one edge of the circle and yanked it toward me. There was a ripping noise like wet cardboard, and then I was holding an oval cutout in one hand while a flat, black patch of nothing floated in front of me. The snarling man-beast had almost crawled back to its feet, so I put the gladius back into my pocket, where it fit in perfectly—as always.

  “AARRGGH!”

  The creature charged again, but instead of being eight feet tall and four feet across, the thing couldn’t have been much more than my own six foot two (wearing shoes) and had the kind of build that you’d expect from a sedentary thirtysomething who drinks too much. He was also in just a pair of tighty-whiteys. I stood my ground, not moving a muscle. He didn’t know it, but the fight was over. He pounded toward me. My coat billowed as I sidestepped the charge, and the monster’s howl of rage turned to fear as it flailed wildly. It couldn’t slow down in time, and the creature plunged into the darkness.

  One moment he was there, and the next he was completely gone. Where did he go? I’m not sure, but what I was sure of was that he wouldn’t be back. I’d never seen the same perpetrator twice on my nightly patrols. It was time to finish up.

  “Hey, kiddo!” I yelled out again, as sweetly as I could. “I think that there’s an ice cream van outside just waiting for you to try some free samples! I’ll be going now.” And with that, I let myself out of the patio doors, unsurprised to see that the sun had quit descending, and the sky was brighter than it had been a few minutes before. I heard some footsteps pattering down the stairs and the distinctive sound of an ice cream truck jingling out Elvis’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight” as I ducked behind a barbecue grill.

  A minute later, a little boy stood in his kitchen, which was whole again, smiling and eating an ice cream cone. Looked like pistachio. Yuck. Anyhow, my work here was done. I didn’t know what this kid would wake up to; I didn’t even know his name, but I did know that at least for a while he’d sleep a bit easier. It was time to go. I climbed up onto the grill, closed my eyes, jumped toward the ground, and…

  I woke up.

  CHAPTER 2 0700–2300, Monday, July 20, 2015

  ***Julian***

  The gray blur in front of my eyes told me that it must be at least six thirty in the morning; the warmth radiating against my back told me that my wife, Dana, wasn’t up yet, so she couldn’t see and wouldn’t wonder about the satisfied smile on my face; the pressure in my bladder told me I had to get up. I swung my legs out of bed and lurched toward the bathroom, passing the full-length mirror opposite the wardrobe. I had a pretty good idea of how I’d look at this time in the morning without having to glance at it: I was an inch or so over six feet tall, about one hundred and eighty pounds, and a right hairy bastard. When I was growing up in the States, it hadn’t mattered that my hair had a reddish tinge that I would have described as auburn, but after I had to move to London for work five years ago, I learned all about being a “ginger.” Of course, I thought as I stumbled into the bathroom, even if I had looked in the mirror, I wouldn’t have seen anything but a beige blob. Without my contacts in, I was as blind as a bat.

  A couple minutes that I’d rather not describe later, I finished sticking contact lenses in and gazed back at my reflection in the mirror, seeing that my green eyes were surrounded by dark black circles that seemed like the only way that all of my recent late nights were going to translate into being “in the black.” Putting that thought out of mind, I hopped into the shower.

  By the time that I had finished the shower and dried off, Dana was already up and making coffee. I paused on my way back to the bedroom to admire the full curve of her bottom as she stretched to put the coffee can back on its shelf.

  “I’m picking up Olivia tonight, right?” I shouted over my shoulder a few moments later, while straightening my tie.

  “Nope, I’ve got that dinner with Sky tomorrow, not tonight,” she replied. “Can you get some milk on the way home?” she continued as I suddenly heard a shriek. I didn’t have time to move a muscle before I was under attack…

  …by thirty pounds of screaming two-year-old. “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” Olivia squealed as she clung to my leg.

  I pried her little hands from my suit trousers and swung her up into a big hug. “Daddy’s got to go to work, sweetheart,” I explained.

  “Daddy go work. Bye-bye, Daddy. Jabber rubber burble guppies down!” she replied back to me excitedly, with long blond hair covering her baby blue eyes. I set her on the floor and grabbed my laptop bag. She took off to the living room at a run, her chubby little legs pounding across the hardwood floor.

  The blond hair was either a throwback or would change color soon, I thought to myself as Dana met me at the door, her dark-brown hair drawn up into a ponytail.

  “Kiss,” she insisted in her pleasant alto, so I obliged. “Mint,” she grimaced and went to her handbag to dig one out while I waited with one hand on the doorknob. Dana turned back to me, and I could see that my recent late nights at work weren’t doing her any favors either. Watching Olivia alone the last few evenings had left her looking tired, with blotchy skin and a slump in her shoulders that was there more often than not these days. Sometimes I wondered where the bubbly college freshman I’d met had disappeared to, but most people started to think those kinds of thoughts when they were closer (much closer) to thirty than twenty, with a kid or two. I resolved to myself for the hundredth time that I needed to cut back on my hours, and for the hundredth time knew it was a resolution that I’d break.

  “Open wide,” Dana said as she popped the mint into my mouth.

  “Round two?” I fished, but got only a quick, “See you tonight,” in return.

  I walked toward the bus stop while chewing the mint, my mind drifting back to the dream that I’d experienced a few hours earlier. It had been a pretty typical nightmare of a type that I’d dealt with dozens of times before, and it always broke my heart. I’d almost certainly never learn the name of the kid who’d been dreaming or get to meet the drunken asshole that had inspired his fears. I
could only hope that he’d get to sleep easier for a while. Thinking back on my performance, I couldn’t find anything to fault, except to wonder at my initial weapon. I usually showed up with tools that were appropriate to the task at hand, but if I had used the .38 on that lousy sot, then I might have left the poor kid scarred for life. Seemed like overkill, and definitely something to think about.

  I’m what I’ve decided to call a “Dreamwatcher.” What that means, as far as I can tell, is that whereas most people close their eyes and stay within their own skulls, I end up visiting the worst nightmares of my local slumberers. This has been going on since I was a kid, and at first I had no control over where I went or what I saw. I’d struggle each night just to stay awake before eventually succumbing to a night of writhing terror. However, soon enough I learned to control what was going on around me, to an extent, and to run or hide or fight the monsters that terrorized my sleeping hours.

  It was when I was about ten and wandered into my best friend’s dream that I realized that there was something special going on. Kasie, a pretty little girl in pigtails, was having a nightmare about her upcoming move to a new school district, and when I mentioned the dream to her the next morning, she freaked out. She moved away a few weeks later, and I haven’t talked to her since.

  Eventually, I made the discovery that I was most proud of: if I could find the source of a bad dream and destroy it utterly in the view of the dreamer, then that nightmare would be gone forever. I wasn’t saving the world, but I liked to think that I helped someone a little every day. My other option would have been to just sit back and watch people being terrorized, and no matter how frustrated I got at not being able to deal with the real issues affecting them, there’s no way I could just spend my nights watching people suffer. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I was the only Dreamwatcher, but I’d certainly never met another one.