Scott Sigler - Nocturnal - A Novel

She walked out, slamming the door behind her.

The pain faded a little, but the cold feeling in his chest would not leave.

He still had to go to school.

Rex sat up on the bed. His boner had gone away. Roberta had always told him boners were bad, and the lingering stings on his back, his legs, his ass told him she was right.

He’d dreamed again, and this time he’d remembered more. He’d been watching Alex Panos, waiting for a chance to kill Alex. And that was what made Rex feel funny. Not girls, not even boys — the stalking gave him the boner. Hunting Alex felt exciting, arousing , but the dream also carried a dark fear that someone was watching Rex, waiting in the darkness to hurt him.

Dream-Rex had turned away from Alex. Instead, Rex and his friends had grabbed some random homeless guy. Grabbed him, taken him, but taken him where? Rex couldn’t remember.

He stood. That fear, it sat in his stomach like a block of ice. It wouldn’t go away. He picked his jeans up off the floor. As he slid them on, he looked over at his desk, at his latest drawing of Alex Panos and the bullies.

The drawing wasn’t finished.

Maybe he could finish it in history class. Rex had read the whole textbook the first week of school and got 100 percent on every test — Mr. Garthus didn’t care if Rex did any work, as long as he kept quiet. No time to finish the full drawing, but Rex felt an urge to sketch that symbol again. He had to sketch it, right now.

When his pencil completed the symbol’s final half-circle, the lingering dream-fear finally eased away. Rex’s more familiar, ever-present anxiety remained, however. Roberta was wrong; it didn’t matter if he minded his own business or not, the bullies would come for him no matter what he did.

Rex shivered. He wanted to skip school, but he didn’t dare. Whatever beating the bullies had for him, it couldn’t match what Roberta would do if she switched from the belt to the paddle.

Rex rubbed his new welts. He finished dressing. He gathered his books, then slid them, his pencils and his art pad into his bag.

Maybe today would be better.

The Drawing

Bryan opened the Buick’s door, moved Pookie’s pile of folders, then sat.

“Pooks, you ever clean up this crap-ass car?”

Pookie leaned back, affected an expression of hurt. “My goodness, did someone wake up on the wrong side of the bed?”

Bryan shut the door. Pookie pulled into traffic.

“I had some messed-up dreams,” Bryan said. “Couldn’t sleep for shit.”

“That could explain why you look like the wet side of a half-dry dog turd.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. But seriously, folks, you do look awful. And trim that beard, man. You’re starting to look like a gay hipster. I’ve no room for such nonsense in my life.”

Bryan’s chest pain had faded from sharpness to a dull, nagging ache, like a jammed finger, or a knot in his spine that refused to crack. He dug his right fist into his sternum and rubbed it around.

Pookie looked over. “Heartburn?”

“Something like that.”

“Not sleeping, pale as a ghost, and chest pains to boot,” Pookie said. “If we weren’t meeting Chief Zou, I’d drive you back to your apartment and tell you to take a sick day.”

Chief Zou would already have the preliminary overview from the shooting review board. A full investigation was under way — standard procedure — but the early overview would determine if Bryan stayed on normal duty or was relegated to a desk until the final report came in.

There was also the option that Zou could just suspend him altogether. For most cops, that wouldn’t be a worry. Most cops, however, hadn’t just killed their fifth human being.

“I’ll be okay,” Bryan said, which was a lie. His fever had grown during the night. He felt hot all over. He was still a little dizzy, congested, and on top of that the body aches were even worse. His knees and elbows, his wrists and ankles, all his joints felt like they were filled with gravel. His muscles throbbed with an entirely different feeling, as if someone had spent hours pummeling him with a meat tenderizer.

“Don’t breathe on me,” Pookie said. “You get me sick, I’m kicking you in the nuts. Tell me about these messed-up dreams. Anything involving either a naughty cheerleader, detention with the MILF-a-licious assistant principal, or a shy-yet-stacked nun questioning her life choices?”

Bryan laughed, a short, choppy thing that drew a raspy cough. “I wish. Weren’t those kind of dreams.”

“Nightmares?”

Bryan nodded. “Dreamed I was with a couple other guys. I don’t know who they were. We were hunting this kid as he walked down Van Ness, and at the same time something was hunting us. Something real bad, but I never saw it. Then we were going to do something to this old bum. I was still scared out of my gourd when I woke up. I had to draw something from the dream.”

Bryan pulled the sheet of paper out of his pocket, opened it and passed it to Pookie. Pookie looked at the image: an unfinished triangle with a circle slicing through the lines and under the points, a smaller circle in the center.

“Wow,” Pookie said. “Your father and I are so proud, honey, we’ll put it right on the fridge next to your report card. What is it?”

“No idea.”

“And … what happened after you drew it?”

Bryan shrugged. “The fear went away. So did most of the dream. But I think I remember where the dream took place.”

“You recognized the spot?”

“Uh-huh. Pretty sure it was Van Ness and Fern.”

“Crazy. You want to check it out?”

Bryan shook his head. “We have to get to the chief’s office.”

“We’ve got fifteen minutes to spare,” Pookie said. “Come on, this could be good material for our cop show. I can see the log-line now — an overstressed rebel cop can’t escape nightmares of the hit man that got away .”

“I didn’t dream about a hit man.”

“Dramatic license,” Pookie said. “Come on, Bri-Bri, this could be like a whole episode for me. Or even a three-episode mini-arc. You in?”

Bryan remembered the crawling sense of creeping death, the fear that had gripped his stomach even as he descended on the bum. But he didn’t feel that fear anymore. And besides, it was just a dream.

“Sure,” he said. “Let’s check it out.”

Pookie changed lanes again. He left angry honks in his wake, and — as usual — he really didn’t seem to care.

Van Ness and Fern

Bryan looked around the alley. So damn familiar. Maybe he’d been here before. Had to have been here before. He couldn’t know this place from a dream.

Pookie lifted the lid of a beat-up blue dumpster and peeked inside. Seeing nothing of interest, he shut the lid, brushed off his hands and adjusted his sunglasses. He kept looking around the alley. “So you saw a bum. And some kid wearing crimson and gold?”

“Not sure,” Bryan said. “The kid could have been crimson and gold. It was a dream, Pooks.”

“Yeah, but this is cool. Episode is practically writing itself. It’s rare for a dreamer to think of a specific spot and not have there be some kind of a connection.”

“And you know this because of your doctorate in dream-ology?”

“Discovery Channel, asshole,” Pookie said. “There’s more to life than reality TV.”

Pookie pulled out his cell phone and checked the time. “All right, we better get rolling. Can’t be late for your chitchat with Zou. Maybe the Brothers Steve already tracked down Joe-Joe. The Steves find Ablamowicz’s killer, and we go back on nights and can grab the Maloney case away from Polyester Rich.”