Dream Thing

Melissa Juk felt the compacted human bones under her bare feet. She felt the iron grip of Mick Chad on her wrist. She was going to die and she was helpless to stop it. Her head was ringing from the beating and her vision was tunneling.

It occurred to her she was still naked. What a cinematic way to die! A naked young college girl with great boobs gets hauled into the mouth of the monster. If they ever made a movie of this, it would be spectacular.

“There it is, God,” she heard Dr. Williamson wheeze as they were pulled inside the pyramid to face the leviathan.

“A creature no man has ever seen before,” Goodall agreed from bloody lips.

“I suppose you’ll be retiring now,” Dr. Williamson slurred.

Goodall didn’t answer. He was constricted in the tentacles of the thing and lifted skyward. Williamson went next, then a few of the other researchers. Finally it was Missy’s turn. The tentacles took her. The suckers were painful against her skin. She saw the beak come closer until it was as big as a VW Beetle.

In she went.

Missy Juk felt her mind being eviscerated. A little strand of something was being absorbed from her brain and she suffered incredible agony for a long, long half minute. Then, with a sloppy crunch, all agony ended.

Lagrasse observed as the two older men and the naked college girl were dragged into the pyramid. He felt satisfaction and pride. He had done a good job. And the thing in the pyramid was pleased. And it was eating better than ever.

That was just the beginning. The other survivors began to respond to the same invisible lure. There was a perpetual train of human beings marching from the shore to the pyramid. Lagrasse monitored the progress from his rooftop lookout.

Sandy joined him there in the early evening, looking tousled. He knew what she had been doing, and he didn’t care. “It’s not feeding anymore,” he explained worriedly.

“He’s full,” she said.

“No. It’s the people. They’re not right. The ones who responded early were good, but the rest of them are not correct,” he said.

Sandy watched the thing in the pyramid scoop up human beings in one tentacle after another and bring them to its massive beak. It was tasting them.

But they must have tasted bad. They were released and they dropped into the pool of algae-thickened water. Some of them struggled then, as if some of their free will was restored by the fall. A few tried to scale the slime-coated walls of the pool, but other tentacles emerged to drag them down.

“What can you do?” Sandy said with a shrug. “Come on.” She took his hand and pulled him onto the rooftop, where they did their favorite thing, although Lagrasse for once found it hard to enjoy himself.

Chapter 43

He was dreaming of being ten years old.

“You did it, boy!”

It was his dad, standing on the far side of the Crying River, where the brook evaporated to leave a thin crust of sand in the dry months. Walking on it made a sound like walking on potato chips, but in ancient days they came up with a more poetic comparison. They said it sounded like maidens crying, so it became the Crying River.

Crossing it without making it cry was something that only Remo’s people could do. Remo’s heart swelled. His father sounded so happy at what Remo had done.

“Come on home now, son,” called Sunny Joe Roam. He waved to Remo. “Your mother is waiting. Come home.”

Remo wanted nothing more than to go home and be with his proud father and his mother. He hadn’t seen her in so long. He missed her so much. Yes, go home, now—be with them.

“I’m going home.” That’s what he was saying as he woke up.

Chiun was looking at him. The tires squeaked as the aircraft touched down in Honolulu, and Remo saw palm trees and high-rise hotels zipping by the window. He was going home—the urge was strong. He would be surrounded by so much pleasure and love when he reached his home. He must go.

He was nearly there.

Chiun watched him, and said nothing.

Home was—where? The Native reservation? He was in Hawaii, not Arizona. He was nowhere near that home.

And the dream was a lie. He hadn’t grown up on the res. He grew up in a home for orphans in New Jersey. He never experienced the intense joy of seeing his father’s great pride in him as a kid. He didn’t meet Sunny Joe until he was an adult.

Remo never met his mother, who had died when he was an infant.

Remo Williams had never known what it was like to grow up in a family, but in his dream it felt so real. The urge to go home was so strong. It was still there, nagging him. When he came home the joy would return.

But the home that was calling to him was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The urge went away, replaced by anger. “That was a cheap shot,” Remo said, but not to Chiun. “Son of a bitch.”

Chiun, thank God, for once, said nothing.

They rented a sailing craft. Prices were sky-high in Honolulu as the city cleaned up from the devastation of the tidal wave.

“Kinda steep, isn’t it?” Remo asked the wharf rat who was renting sailboats.