The Devil's Dream: A Nightmare (8 page)

“Truth doesn’t need time,” is what he told her, and Karen could take no more. She wasn’t going to sit here and listen to his nonsense the whole way up the coast. She told him to stop talking if he didn’t have anything else to talk about, and so he had, and now they drove in silence.

Karen didn’t mind looking out the window anyway. She’d been married to her husband long enough that she knew what he was thinking. Right now the man was sitting over there, wondering how his wife could be so dense on something that seemed so clear—without a single inclination that his complete flip-flop was incomprehensible. So, yes, she would pass on discussing anything else about abortion with him. The hills in Massachusetts weren’t bad to look at either. They had traveled this road before, maybe ten times over the years, always on their trip up to Canada. They would park the RV another two hundred miles up the road, sleep for the night (they were past the point in their marriage that either one of them would ever sleep on the couch), and finish the last leg of their journey tomorrow.

“What’s that?” Martin asked.

Karen didn’t know if he thought she had said something or if he was asking about an object on the road, but she didn’t care either way. She wasn’t answering him until he either recanted the statement about abortion or at least started making sense on his new stance.

“Right there, Karen. What is that?”

He was pointing now and she followed his finger with her eyes.

Twenty feet off the road were...crosses. Ten of them in a circle, with each of the ‘arms’ touching the other. And...

The RV rolled closer.

People hung on the crosses.

The first thing Karen thought was that this had to be some kind of new-age art, stuff that passed for art but really wasn’t even in the same genetic pool.

Martin pulled the RV to the side of the road, thirty feet away from the circle of crosses. He got out of the driver’s seat without a word to her and walked along the front of the RV so that he stood on the green grass. Karen cracked her door, then opened it fully and stepped out herself.

This was no artistic enterprise. Not a single cross stood empty; naked bodies hung from each one. Different sizes, but all women, hanging nude, with blood on their faces and their hands and their feet and
oh, dear God in heaven have mercy on us sinners.

Karen vomited on the grass, some of it spraying onto her shoes.

H
i
, world.

My name is Matthew Brand; perhaps you remember me? Of course, there will be some newcomers to this spinning rock who were not yet born or were not yet old enough to hear about me. For them, hi! Your parents, or whoever it is you are close with, should be able to give you a brief background on me, so I need not go into it now.

Surrounding this letter are the crucified corpses of ten women. I found them all last night, nailed them all to their current homes, and then planted them all in New England soil. I had a busy night last night, and I’m tired now. Had I thought this thing out a bit more, I would have written this letter first, but if you bear with me, I think I may be able to make some progress in educating you all on my goals. This letter would have received no real traction if it wasn’t combined with a dramatic display, thus the poor women who will need to be identified by their parents at morgues over the next few days. Fear not, they suffered little and were not sexually harmed. In reality, their fate is going to be much better than the people still surviving, than those reading this letter—whether that be on a newscast or the Internet, it makes no difference.

The FBI knows what I’m up to, they simply haven’t made you aware of it. I’ve contacted them. I’ve told them that this would happen if they did not get my message out to you all. They refused. So, I’ve taken it into my hands. In a way, it’s better. Now they know I’m not playing, and hopefully, you, dear citizen, know this is not a game as well. Four years ago, I killed a handful of people. Ten years before that, I killed the same number. Last night, I killed ten, and for no other purpose than to get your attention.

I trust I have it now.

The plan, what the FBI is refusing to tell you, is that within a month or two, all of you will be dead. There are Aborigines living in Australia who won’t get the chance to see this letter, but they too will be dead. Everything living on this Earth, from the tiniest bacteria, to the largest mammal, all of it will die. You’ve all heard of the atom bomb, doubtlessly remember the devastation it caused in Japan last century. I’ve found a way to create about one hundred billion, trillion of those—and that’s on the conservative side, really. You see, each one of you, each human being on this Earth has countless atoms inside themselves. If we could part one human from the energy inside his or her atoms, we could power cities for years and years. I know how to do it. I’m including, with this note, a copy of the formulas I derived to accomplish it, with a few key parts redacted. No need to give the governments of this oppressive planet any more firepower, as I’m sure you agree. The point here is that I have the knowledge, as well as the capability, to harvest energy from human beings.

Why would I want to do that? Am I planning on stopping climate change? Ridding the world of fossil fuels? Ah, but then remember the paragraph above where I said I would kill you all?

I’m going to use the energy I extract from fifty-five humans (to be honest, I picked that number because that’s all I could fit on the contraption I built to hold all of this energy) and fire it at our sun. That life giving orb that we take for granted every single day, the thing that allows the flowers to bloom and your babies to thrive. So what happens when I hit it with one hundred trillion suns of my own? I have two theories, but I lean (and hope) to the second. The first is that all of that energy in one place, at one time, causes the sun to contract massively and in the shortest of time you can imagine, before bursting out in a supernova. That would mean we all die by fire about seven minutes later. I hope that doesn’t happen. I really do. The second option, and what I think is most likely—though these things are never definite in cosmology—is that the sun simply dies. All of the gasses in the ball are burnt up within a day or so, and nothing is left but a hardened rock.

Then comes the fun part.

For the next month, you wait it out. You hope that scientists can somehow figure out a way to live without the sun, and believe me, they’ll be working furiously. They won’t succeed, however. The atmosphere will hold in much of the heat that the Earth currently has, but everything else stops. Plants die in a few days. Animals are blinded and die from thirst or starvation. Disease breaks out en masse across humanity as they now lack the vitamin D needed to fight off infection. Within a month, everyone’s dead.

That’s what I’m bringing to all of you.

The world didn’t want me to have my son. They thought it terrible that I wanted the cops who shot him, who filled his young body with bullets, to pay with their lives so that he could have his again. I wasn’t asking for a lot. Justice. Maybe for some of you to look the other way while a father went and dealt with the people who had harmed his family. Four years ago, Allison Moore (who is one of the first four in my Death to the Sun plans, followed by her daughter, and the literary giant Jeffrey Dillan/his girlfriend) decided that maybe I shouldn’t have my wife either. She decided that my wife might be a good idea to take from me, and so she did, first mentally, and then physically. This world left me with nothing but my mind. You celebrated my achievements when I was formulating genetic theories that halted aging. You celebrated my accomplishment when I created the first viable treatment for cancer that didn’t cause the destruction of healthy cells in the human body. When I gave to you, you celebrated, but when I asked for you to give back to me, you refused. You took everything I had and left me with nothing.

So, world, this will be my gift to you. I will take everything. I will take your sons, your daughters, your family, your futures. All of it belongs to me now, and I’m going to cast it all into eternal darkness, where nothing will ever rise again.

Cheers, friends.

M
atthew Brand
, Ph.D.

* * *

“
Y
ou better have more
for me than what you had yesterday. A lot more.”

Gyle paced behind his desk. His hands were in his pockets, his eyes looking at the floor, his mouth barely opening as he spoke. There wasn’t anger in his voice, just resolution—at what, Art didn’t really know. He had known Gyle for ten years, but never heard this voice before.

“Well, we have something. I don’t know if it’s what you would term a lot, though.”

“You've both seen the news over the past eight hours, right? You’ve both seen the immaculate handwriting of Matthew Brand—whom the experts have identified as a one hundred percent match, by the way—plastered all over the television? They’re looking at his formulas right now and all I’ve heard is that it’s mind blowing. I’m not sure what it takes to blow the minds of astrophysicists, but I imagine it’s quite a lot. So, please, Art, or your wonder boy here, tell me what you’ve done in the past day.”

Art sat down on the chair in front of his desk. Jake remained at the door, hands behind his back. Gyle kept pacing.

“Jake had probably the best idea out of anyone yesterday, and we’re searching deeper into it right now. I’m not sure if last night’s little soiree will cast doubt on Jake’s theory, but he doesn’t think Matthew is going to play the game the way he played it last time. He doesn’t think Brand is going to try to find people that are attached to families. It’s too dangerous, especially for the amount of people he’s trying to take. Even last night, he barely pulled off the crucifix stunt. By one in the morning, people were reporting these women missing. Male dates were heading to cop stations, talking about some black assailant having taken their girlfriends. Had he hung out another hour, there wouldn’t be anything to discuss this morning except how quickly we could have Brand strapped into the electric chair. So, I think Jake’s right. He can’t go after people this way because of the sheer number, fifty-one now, that he’s trying to grab. He would make a mistake. Someone would see him. He wouldn’t be able to kill every witness. We would pin him down. There’s just too many variables he couldn’t control. Jake pointed all that out and then asked who could he take? Who could be snapped up and no one ever notice? The homeless. We’re already looking at shelters and soup kitchens across Mass and New England, and we’re stretching that out to all of the northern states today as well, looking for abnormal disappearance rates, looking for drops in clientele at homeless shelters, et cetera.” Art folded his hands on his lap and crossed one leg.

Gyle stopped pacing, but didn’t turn to face anyone.

“What have you found?” He asked.

“Nothing,” Jake said from behind Art. “No one has seen anything abnormal.”

“So he had this great idea, and as of now, it’s panned out to exactly nothing.”

“It’s only been a little over twenty-four hours, Gyle.”

“I have another meeting with the President today. World leaders are calling. The President of Russia has been on the phone with our President for an hour, trying to figure out if this is a hoax. We need more from you, Art, and if you’re staying, Deschaine, we need more from you as well.”

Art nodded while Jake only looked on.

“The pressure has picked up. Yesterday, we could go about this the way we wanted because we had time. Today, there’s no time. Today, we should have had Brand captured yesterday. Today, I need more. So tell me, now, what’s the plan for today, for tomorrow, for this week. What overarching plan do you have to stop the destruction of the world?”

Art looked out the window behind Gyle. He had never wanted to sit in this office. He had never wanted to be a phone call away from the President’s voice. Gyle had. Gyle wanted to push himself so high and so far that he might one day sit in the White House himself. One wanted it and one didn’t. One had it and one did not. Yet, here were both of them in the exact same situation—Art almost able to feel the President’s breath on his own neck.

“Are you worried about the President, Gyle? Be honest with me. Is that what this is?”

Gyle’s head snapped up as quickly as a dog’s mouth clamps down on food. Art knew Gyle rose this high because he could play politics, and that meant he wouldn’t let someone slander his character. Hard work and hard networking all came into play this high up and here was a direct report questioning his character.

“You want to ask me that question again, Art?”

“I mean, what are you really worried about? Do you think Brand’s going to be able to do what he says he will? Is that what is scaring you? Or is it the fact that we might look like fools again?” It hadn’t been easy on Gyle four years ago. He had been in Art’s current position, and the field operations looked like bumbling idiots as Brand pranced around the country increasing his body count. Somehow Gyle had survived the purge, even moving up.

“Step outside for a second, please, Deschaine.” Gyle didn’t look away from Art as he spoke.

The door closed leaving the two of them alone.

“If you ask me something like that in front of a subordinate again, you’re fired. Do you understand that?” Gyle asked.

Art nodded. “I do. I’m sorry.”

“No. I don’t think this guy can blot out the sun. I don’t care what those scientists think; it’s a farce. He’s insane. He’s always been insane. Maybe twenty-five years ago he was some kind of genius making massive changes in the world, but that’s all in the past. Twenty-five years before that people were using rotary phones and no women worked outside of the home. Twenty-five years is a long time, Art, and whatever this guy used to have is gone. It’s been replaced by some freak of nature, rapist monster walking around acting like he’s still the same man from all those years ago. He’s not. He’s nothing like that man. I don’t know if these scientists are having their collective minds blown like they’re being visited by a Vegas prostitute because they think he’s the same man, or what, but no. Categorically no, I do not think he can do what he’s claiming. And that leads me to yes, it is the President that is bothering me. It’s the international pressure that’s now being put on this whole event which is causing me to lose it. I don’t want to look like we did four years ago. I won’t look like we did four years ago. If you’re going to turn into another Allison Moore, then I’ll go ahead and take your resignation now. If you think you can handle what I’m asking, then I want a strategic report on my desk by midnight tonight.”