ONE
I think about monsters a lot.
Real ones, I mean, not Frankenstein or Dracula or Godzilla. I work for the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, where I use my degree in criminal psychology to help profile offenders; my area of expertise is homicide-fixated nonstandard patterning. It's my job to figure out why the crazy ones do what they do and who they're going to do it to next. This makes me Miss Popular at cocktail parties--until my third tequila, when certain details that really shouldn't be heard on a full stomach somehow become the punch lines to jokes of incredibly bad taste.
I usually don't get invited back.
Which is why I'm home alone, again, nursing a throbbing hangover and trying to get back to sleep. I've got a bad case of the 3:00 A.M. guilts--you know, when you lie in bed awake and replay all those things you didn't do right? Because, as we all know, nothing solves insomnia like a nice warm glass of regret, depression, and self-loathing.
Okay, I don't really hate myself. But I do piss myself off--quite a bit, actually--and sometimes I need a good, stern talking-to about important elements in my life. I think I was criticizing my own taste in clothes when I finally fell asleep.
It's funny. Dreams can be intimately revealing, or incomprehensible. They can be ridiculous or terrifying, deeply significant or inconsequential. I find other people's dreams intriguing, because extracting meaning from the psychological jumble of a healthy mind is similar in many ways to finding coherence in the fractured mindscape of a psychotic.
But no matter what they represent or how scrambled they are, dreams are just that--dreams. They aren't real. But to those whose grasp on reality isn't quite as solid, a dream can be a message from another dimension, a psychic telegram from their own personal God. It can change their entire life.
I guess that makes me crazy, too.
The dream starts simply enough. It's not unusual to dream about your work--I know a shoe salesman who kept having nightmares about ogres who came in demanding sandals--so for me, a dream about catching a killer can be pretty mundane. I'm sitting at my desk doing paperwork, when a colleague walks in and tells me I'm wanted in the Director's office. I get up, walk down a hall, and knock on the Director's door. A voice I don't recognize tells me to come in.
On the other side of the door is my bedroom. That's okay, because I'm wearing my nightshirt. There are two men sitting on my bed, quite formally, backs straight and their legs together. The one on the left is my boss; his name is Robert Miller and he's spoken to me maybe three times in my entire career. He looks vaguely annoyed--but then, that's the only expression I've ever seen on his face.
The other man is a stranger. He's dressed much like the Director, in a plain black business suit, but I can tell at a glance there's something very unusual about him. Sharp eyes, hooked nose, dark hair slicked back, bony, angular features. I have the immediate, strong feeling that he's an undertaker from another country--somewhere in Eastern Europe, maybe, or some corner of Mongolia.
"Agent Valchek," says Miller. "You're being reassigned, effective immediately. This is your liaison. He'll get you settled." Miller doesn't introduce the man, and I don't ask.
"You can bring three things with you," the man says. He has no accent, but somehow that just reinforces the idea that he's a foreigner. In fact, I'm sure this is the first time he's ever been to my country. "The three things you feel are most instrumental to you doing your job. Choose carefully."
I'm pretty straightforward. I grab my handgun, my laptop, and the carton of ammunition I keep under my bed. In typical dream fashion, the undertaker is now standing beside a door in my bedroom wall that wasn't there before. The Director has vanished. The undertaker opens the door and motions me to step through, cautioning me to close my eyes for my own safety.
"Of course, yeah," I say. "Thanks."
The first sensation I'm aware of after stepping through the doorway is the cold wooden floor under my bare feet. There's a strange noise behind me, like a recording of an explosion being played backward. I open my eyes.
I'm standing in an office, one very much like the Director's. The blinds are drawn. A green-shaded lamp throws a pool of light on the desk, and leaning against the front of the desk, arms crossed in front of him, is a young man. He's dressed in standard FBI-wear, black business suit and polished Oxfords. He appears to be around eighteen, handsome in an innocent kind of way, and has curly blond hair that makes him look more like a surfer than a Federal agent.
I note three things in quick succession:
One--I'm still in my nightshirt.
Two--I have a loaded gun in my hand.
Three--I'm not asleep.
I file number one as embarrassing but not vital, double-check number three and confirm my first impression, and bring point number two to Mr. Surfer's immediate attention by aiming it at his chest.