Part 10 (1/2)
”I guess. You're six feet tall, blond-brown hair ... Ummm, I don't suppose you're super-strong, by chance?”
He thought of the dumpster. ”Maybe?”
Barry whistled. ”Who's the redhead?”
”Sorry?”
”There's a redhead in my dreams, too. Kind of cute. I think she wears ...” His voice trailed off. ”I think she might be a knight. Like a King ArthurExcaliburtype knight. Or maybe a Gundam pilot.”
”I'm sorry,” he said. ”I don't know. I haven't ... I don't think I've actually dreamed about you.”
He sensed the s.h.i.+ft, even over the phone. ”You haven't?”
”I don't think so.”
”So how'd you know to call me?”
”There's a girl out here,” explained George. ”A young woman. She knows ... she claims to know a lot of stuff. She says I've forgotten things. That everyone has.”
”Is she dead?”
”What? No. She's just-”
A set of sounds and images flashed across George's mind. Meeting Madelyn for the first time on moving day. Meeting her again in the cafeteria.
”I'm Madelyn Sorensen,” she said. ”The Corpse Girl.”
He glanced up from the magazine and saw a dead girl in a wheelchair.
His voice trailed off.
Barry cleared his throat. ”Still there?”
”Yeah, sorry. This is all ... this is all a little weird. And overwhelming.”
”Tell me about it. I've been thinking I was going nuts or something.”
George thought of the other thing Madelyn had mentioned. ”Is there anyone else in your dreams? Any other people?”
”A bunch,” said Barry. ”There's you, the redhead, this huge Army officer-”
”I've met him,” George said. ”He's here in LA. Lieutenant Freedom.”
”Lieutenant? That doesn't sound right.”
Something pulsed behind George's left eye, the faintest hint of an oncoming headache. ”I didn't think so, either, but it seemed to make him upset to talk about it.”
”But he's real? You've actually seen him.”
”I shook his hand this morning.”
”Frak me,” said the other man. ”Anyway, there's all of them, a ninja, the dead girl, and a ghost.”
Now the pulse was behind both of his eyes. It had grown from a firm hint to a scheduled meeting in no time at all. ”Did you say a ghost?”
”Yeah. I think that may just be a dream thing. I don't think it means anything.” He paused for a moment. ”Can I tell you something else? Or ask you something else, I guess?”
”Sure.”
”This one's going to sound really weird.”
”Weirder than the whole 'random strangers hundreds of miles apart sharing dreams' thing?”
”Yeah,” said Barry, ”I think so. This is like first-season-LOST-level weirdness.”
”Okay.”
”Have you ever heard of George Romero?”
He wrinkled his brow. It took a minute to get his mental footing again. ”The film director?”
”Yes!” The voice on the phone sounded relieved. ”Okay, part two. Do you know what kind of movies he makes?”
”Errrr ... horror movies?”
”Yeah, but what kind of horror movies? Can you be more specific?”
George rubbed his temple. The headache was swelling inside his skull. ”Ummm ... monster movies, aren't they? Gory ones.”
”But what kind?” insisted Barry. ”Vampires? Werewolves? What's the monster?”
”I don't know,” George said. ”I'm not really into the whole horror thing.”
”Well, I am,” said Barry. ”I'm a big ol' geeky fanboy. One of the biggest. And you know what?”
”What?” George's headache arrived and settled in. The sun hurt his eyes. The sounds coming from his phone were sharp and grating, like needles in his ear.
”I don't know what kind of monsters they are, either,” said the man in Albuquerque. ”I've checked Google, Netflix, Amazon, a couple fansites. I've been trying to figure it out for days and I don't know.”
THIRTEEN.
GEORGE'S PHONE SLIPPED from his fingers. His head was pounding. His pulse was pounding in his ears like a car blasting its subwoofer. He'd never had a migraine before, but this had to be worse. Some part of him wondered if a blood vessel or something might've burst in his head. Maybe an aneurysm. It wasn't hard to believe these could be the last seconds of his life.
He heard a rasping noise in front of him. He lifted his head and forced his eyes open. It took a moment for his vision to focus.
A group of people stood in front of him. Students and faculty, on a guess. There were three women and two men. In the corner of his eye he could see another man walked toward him. A couple watched from a few yards away.