Sweet Dreams (33 page)

His thoughts spun around in his head like a top as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, saw the nightstand to his right, and had to look again. It had an old black alarm clock and a black touch lamp with a book hanging lopsided over the clock; it was Ted Dekker's,
Kiss.
Then he realized where he was--He was in his bedroom back home, in his room!
How did I get back here?

He reached out his hand, sliding it along the sheets to his left hoping, praying that he would find what he so desperately

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wanted to find, and he did! His fingers touched the warm skin of a sleeping woman. He could feel the slow rise and fall of her soft breathing and he closed his eyes again praying again that this dream would not end.

What? Maria?

He could not remember where he was or even what day it was. Confused and shaking, he reached up to the lamp on the nightstand and clicked it on. His head felt light and his heart began to beat even faster, making him feel like vomiting. Lying next to him was K!

The room was just as he left it, with everything frozen in time, as if he never left. Rushing to his feet, he ran to the bathroom, and threw up in the toilet and began to shake uncontrollably.
What is going on? Is this a dream?

His whole body ached from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. Every muscle tensed as he stumbled back into his bedroom. He just about made it back to his bed when he stumbled and fell to the floor twisting his wrist as he hit the ground.

It can't be, K is dead. Get a hold of yourself, this is not real and the more you hold on to it the worse off you will be!

He tried to tell himself that this was a dream, a
very
vivid dream.

Pulling himself to his feet, he could see the outline of K as she slept. Her blond hair lay softly on her shoulder, with a little curl hanging over one cheek. His brain tried to jumpstart fighting to pull him back into reality. Stumbling and shaking his way toward the bed Mark could feel hot tears stream down his face as he watched his beautiful wife sleep, she was so per-304 AARON

fect and now he felt his heart tear open, the old wound ripping apart and blood gushing out anew.

He tried to wake up.
I have to wake up.
He slapped himself. Nothing.

Then again,
slap
!

His nose began to bleed from the blow, dripping down his bare chest. Wiping the blood away with the back of his hand, he tried to focus.
What is going on?

He tried to stop his mind from bombarding him with questions. He needed to go with this--this dream was more real than he had ever thought a dream could be. There must be a reason for this, something I must see and learn from. Now he was thinking clearly, all eight cylinders firing and wide-awake, or as awake as you can be in a dream.

His bare chest was wet from sweating, and his hair clung to his scalp soaked and matted. Walking over to the bed, he got back in. As K rolled over, she reached out and felt for him. She moaned peacefully and put her arm around him as she dreamed.

Mark slid down into the covers and rolled over, turning off the lamp. He reached out, wrapped his arms around K and pulled her close. Tears ran down his face as he sobbed quietly, knowing that in the morning she would be gone. The feel of her next to him was the only thing he wanted, had ever wanted. To have her, the blasted thing about it was just how unfair it was! He wanted to cry out and curse God and demand to have his life back, to take his old wise face in his and make him see what kind of pain he had coursing through his veins because of him!

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Then he quieted and thanked that same God for this brief
moment, this space in time where for one night no matter how
small, he had her back in his arms. He knew that tomorrow
she would be gone again.

His world was perfect right now, at this moment. His beautiful wife lay in his arms, and his daughter slept soundly down the hall.

________________________________________

THE MORNING LIGHT BROUGHT Mark back to reality. He could tell that it was the next day from the soft sunlight that streamed through the window and danced on his closed eyelids. He kept his eyes closed, trying not to open them, knowing that when he did, he would be alone. He could feel the damp sheets under him from the long, intense dream the night before. Every day that he thought he was beginning to get over his wife, he would have a dream or a feeling that he could not shake. He missed her. He loved her more then ever and after the dream, he felt like he was back to square one.
What am I going to do without
her?
Slipping his hand across the bed, he longed for the warm body of his beloved K.

Nothing.

Alone, his fears were confirmed--it
was
just a dream.

"Honey, you better get up, or you'll be late for work,"

The simple sound of that familiar voice sent Mark into a panic, heart racing, mind whirring like an old machine that had been dead for a thousand years, Mark could not think or feel past the ringing in his ears and if it went on, he thought he might die!

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It was K!

He opened his eyes and looked down at his toes and past them into the bathroom. He could see K pulling on a blue shirt. Her blond hair was trying to resist being put into a ponytail, but she managed to make it to obey.

Think, Mark.
He tried to calm down.

"Honey, you okay? You must have had a bad dream. You were soaked last night."

Mark tried to speak without sounding crazy. "Uh, yeah, I had a really bad dream."

"I'm sorry, baby." K leaned out from the bathroom and smiled at him with a sympathetic and caring look on her face.

"You better get ready before Sam gets up."

"Okay, Mark, you are not crazy. This is just something that you will have to deal with. You were dreaming, I mean really dreaming!" He muttered to himself as he dragged himself out of bed. Walking over to the bathroom door, he stared at his beautiful wife; he could not believe it. She was alive!

"Honey! You look terrible!" K wiped his hair back with her hand. "Are you feeling okay?" Her hand! Her wonderful hands and they were touching him.

"I feel a little sick to my stomach." He
was
feeling a little sick.

"Why are you looking at me like that? You look shocked to see me." K scrunched her eyebrows as she looked at him with concern.

Mark reached out and grabbed her, pulling her close. He hugged her, kissed her neck, and began to sob; he started to cry uncontrollably and his whole body shook.

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"Baby? What's wrong? You're scaring me,"

Mark tried to answer, but couldn't. He just held on to K

and cried, until he finally managed to pull himself together.

"Tell me, what is it, Hon?"

"My dream... it was so awful, and it was so real. I thought...thought you and Sam were dead!"

K kissed him and whispered in his ear. "I'm right here, forever!"

Mark couldn't believe how he felt. His whole body was filled with unbelievable joy.
K's alive.

"Daddy!" Sam came bounding into the room. Her hair looked like it was gelled straight up.

"Baby Girl!" Mark took her up in his arms and kissed her all over, making her squeal with delight. Her laughter filled his heart with happiness as he tickled his little girl. He didn't know why he had dreamed such a vivid and real dream, but he knew that he had found that he loved his family so much more than he ever showed before.

After K had fixed breakfast and was busy trying to get Samantha to finish her eggs, Mark called in to work and took the day off. He needed to recoup from his dream, or whatever it was, he could not put it all together. It was as if he lived a year in a different world, or was it real and really in a different world?

K was overjoyed that he took the day off. She had to take Sam to a play date, and then they were going to take her out to her parents' place to spend the night.

Mark looked at the calendar, and then turned on the news. It was the day before his anniversary! Friday!

Mark sat down in his recliner and watched the news an-308 AARON

chor talk about the weather. K and Sam die on Saturday!
It
was a dream, Mark. It wasn't real!
He shook his head, trying to talk some sense into himself.

What if it was real, but just had not happened yet?
That's
impossible--you can't see into the future.
Mark did not believe in that sort of thing. You could pay some crazy woman at the fair and have your fortune read, but this...this was something completely different. He tried to remember his dream, but he could only remember parts of it. He hated having a dream and when you woke up you can't remember a thing about it other than if it was good or bad. All he could remember was that his wife and child had died, and that was enough for him to know that it
wasn't
a good one.

Mark remembered that he was going to take K to 'The Leaf' tonight for their anniversary and that he had gotten a hotel room as well, he wondered if the reservations were still there--they must be because as far as everyone else was concerned nothing had happened.

"K, I'm going to run into the City for a few hours today. I need to run some errands before we take Sam to Grandma's."

K answered from the kitchen. "Okay, I'll be a few hours at the park, and then we'll need a nap. I'll call and see if they can come over here to pick her up."

"Sounds great, are you excited about your hot date tonight?"

"You know it, baby!" K giggled as Sam mocked her and cried from her chair.

"Hot date!" Her little voice was muffled by the huge bite of scrambled eggs. "I hot, me, hot date!"

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"Yes, you are kiddo. You have a hot date with Grandma and Grandpa tonight."

Sam giggled with glee and hollered for her grandparents. She loved to be with them, but who could blame her. They always had candy and lots of chocolate.

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Chapter Twenty-Two

was. Kirk was not a night owl, it was just past midnight, and Mooch chatted and munched on corn nuts in Kirks ear furthering his down-spiraling mood. Kirk grumbled and scowled at the phone in his hand as if that would transfer his feelings to the annoying geek on the other end. Kirk filled him in on their little FBI party and the code name
Operation
Justice
, he wanted to see if there was something the FBI was not telling him.

"What is it, some FBI thing?" Mooch said.

"Yeah, I need to know everything about who might be involved, and also look up anything on the World Justice Agency."

Mooch laughed in Kirk's ear. "The WJA?"

"Yeah, why? Do you know who they are?"

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"Yeah, they're the thing of myths, man. You know, they hunt down the bad guys and then disappear into the woodwork, kind of like Xmen but for real and no mutants, but pretty cool, if they were real that is."

"So do you know who runs it?"

"No, man, it was an idea, just a bedtime story, if you think they are a real group then you might check out what is in your coffee."

"It's real, and they're a real organization. I need to know who is in charge and where they are located; if the FBI thinks they exist then I will take their word for it over yours. Besides I have it on a good source that they do in-fact exist."

"I'll do my best, but you better cover my butt on this. If I get caught hacking the Feds, I'm in deep doo-doo."

"Just get me the information, according to what you say; you're the best, so here's your chance to prove it."

Kirk hung up the phone, set it on the breakfast bar, and stared off into space. He needed to find out who was pulling the strings on this whole thing.

Kirk looked over at where Geoff had been sitting and watching TV. He was passed out on the couch, with his mouth wide open and a guttural snore vibrating through his chest. It had been a long day, and Kirk was getting tired himself. Tomorrow they had to try to get an interview with Captain Jacobson, one way or another. ________________________________________

GEOFF WOKE UP WITH a start and yawned, stretching his arms above his head. The TV was on, but the rest of the apartment was dark. His watch read Two-Thirty a.m. and he

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wondered what it was that made him wake up. He felt good and his mind kicked into gear reminding him why his internal clock had brought him back into the land of the living. Getting up, he leaned back, popped his back, and let out a sigh and then went over to the fridge to grab a Pepsi. Nothing was as good as an ice-cold Pepsi, of course at this hour it might keep him up, but he wasn't planning on going to bed anytime soon anyway.

He looked at the door to Kirk's bedroom. It was halfopen, and he could see Kirk's leg sticking out from under the covers like a dead branch on a very old tree.

It's time
, he told himself.

Walking over to his shoulder bag, he pulled out a 9mm and screwed on the silencer. It was a beautiful weapon; the stainless steel caught the white light from the moon and bounced it back like a mirror. Geoff looked at Kirk as he slept.
This is not much of a challenge,
he thought, but he considered Kirk to be a simple job anyway. Besides, he was a professional and he had a job to do.

Slipping to Kirk's bedroom, he stood over Kirk with an evil smile on his face. Pointing his gun at Kirk's chest, he fired.

________________________________________

MARK DROVE INTO THE City and tried to clear his head. This dream or vision had shaken him up to his very core. Maybe he was dreaming now and what he thought was his dream the night before was reality?