Vivid sparkling dreams of fantastic creatures, both good and bad, have plagued me since I could remember. Every dream was so real and detailed I could wake up screaming or smiling depending on which way that day and night had gone. The doctor's always said I just had an overactive imagination.
Water. Water was trickling down my face. All I could see was pitch black darkness. I wasn't sure where the water was coming from, but it was all over me. Had I just got out of the shower or a pool or a sauna, I kept asking myself.
Wiggling my fingers I opened my eye a little at a time, blinking to let my vision clear. It could have been morning with all the light coming through.
Clearing, my vision returned and I saw Bob, Remy and Alley over me. Bob had an empty water glass in his hand and was slapping my face trying to get me to respond. I grabbed his arm.
"You can stop now." He put his hand down.
"Oh, sorry, man," Bob gave me a smile.
The rest of the group seemed and looked worried, but didn't get too close and was a little standoff-ish. Alley was really backed up as she had a look of half terror on her face.
Pulling myself up to sitting, I saw Marvin coming up the stairs with a pitcher of water and some new towels. Putting my hand up I shook him off. Setting the towels and pitcher on the table, he turned around and headed back downstairs without saying a word.
Bob helped me to my feet and I stood there looking around at all the faces. Even Bob looked a little curious about what had just happened.
"Bob, as your first official job for me, I want you to get me home," I said with a weak voice.
"Sure thing, boss," he said with a grin.
"Shit," I laughed out. "Send Remy home in the limo. Tell Marvin to have a town car sent over and that you'll be driving so the driver will need to take a cab back."
"They do that?" I could tell it was a first for him.
"Yes. They'll do that for me. I'm a good client." A half hearted grin came across my face.
Bob pulled my chair up off the floor and placed me in it. I reached for the wine and drank the entire contents of the half full glass. Alley came over and sat on my lap rubbing the back of my neck.
Remy walked over to me, "I hope you're alright. We'll talk about this later this week?" I nodded feeling a bit embarrassed. She met up with Bob at the top of the stairs and headed off to take care of my list.
Looking up at Alley, I whispered, "Thought I scared you off."
"Never," she said back to me in a shaky voice. Maybe she didn't run off screaming, but that had definitely freaked her out. How could it not? It freaked me out and I'm the one that did it or it happened to.
I poured out the rest of the bottle of wine into the glass and proceeded to drink it in gulps. Picking up some steak in my fingers I put it in my mouth. For some reason, I was starving. I cut up the steak, around Alley, into small bite size pieces and ate it as finger food.
Alley leaned down and whispered in my ear, "Am I going home with you?"
Pulling her away I looked into her face, "Do you want to?" She nodded at me with a soft gentle stair. "I don't think I'll be very good company tonight." I took another gulp of wine and then a piece of meat.
"I don't care. I just want to spend time with you." Honesty was a good thing to hear after such a crazy thing to happen. Watching it from afar must have been very unsettling.
"Alright," I hated to tell her, "but you'll have to wear a blindfold." She laughed, of course thinking I was joking. I took another large mouthful of wine.
"Are you serious?!" I nodded in between drinks. "Why?" she sounded more upset than freaked out.
"You'll see." I had to keep my secret places secret even from people I was close to. "Go grab your bag," I told her.
She jumped up and hurried over to her stuff. I got up and walked over to the winding staircase and put my hand back for her. Looking down from the top, I saw Fred Willis sitting at his table alone. The boots were gone.
"Baby, go with Bob and get in the car. I'll be along in a second. I have to talk to someone," giving her a wink.
She smiled, "Okay," as she ran off for the car.
Marvin was standing at the podium in the front by the doors. From inside my jacket pocket I pulled out a large wad of bills. Dropping them down in front of him, I wanted some answers.
"Sorry about that, Marvin," apologizing even though I knew he enjoyed the break from the monotony.
"No problem, Michael. You were great as always," he gave a smile.
"Take whatever's left and pass it out. Take $500 for yourself," it was well earned and I was embarrassed.
"Thank you very much!" his eyes lit up.
"You're always a good sport, Marvin," I looked over at Fred sitting at his table enjoying a drink. "Marvin, do you know that guy sitting there?"
Nodding, "Oh yes. Mr. Willis. He comes in here quite often for business dinners."
"Do you know what he does?" it was always good to be prepared before entering a conversation.
Marvin looked over, "No, I can't say that I do. I just know he is in here a lot with potential clients, at least I think they are. He always picks up the bill." Good deductive reasoning on Marvin's part.
I walked over to Fred's table and put my hand gently on his should. Spinning around, "Michael. How are you after today?"
"Well, after a bit of a fracas upstairs…." pointing up the staircase.
"That was you?" I smiled at him. "Are you alright?" he asked concerned and not just to be polite.
"I'm fine." Time to get to the reason I was there. "I saw you sitting with some people here. Do you know them?"
"Oh yes," he paused, "I mean no. They are potential clients for our company. They wanted some marketing done." Interesting, but not informative at all. Marketing what? Tactical boots?
"Oh, there's my driver," I pointed out the front window. "It was nice talking to you. I'll come by your office so we can have lunch."
"Okay," I faintly heard him say as I walked outside heading for the car. Paranoia was creeping in after being shot at earlier. The boots and the restaurant seemed like a very strange coincidence. Tension and some fear were jostling around my head as I got into the car.
Alley was ready to jump me as I got in. "Bob, drive."
"Yes, sir," his foot stepped down hard and the Town Car jetted off down the street.
"Keep an eye out," in the rearview he nodded at me. "Will you get in the glove box and hand me the sleeping mask in there, please?" I watched him lean over and pull out the mask that I requested every time I rented a car, and handed it to Alley as she gave me a kiss. She was being flirty and sexy as she slipped it on. It was a how to spice up your sex life video starring a sleeping mask.
Bob rang out, "Where are we headed exactly?" Directions would be good.
"Take the scenic route to get on 405 South. I'll give you turns from there," feeling more paranoid I looked back behind us. "And Bob?"
"Yeah?" he looked back at me and out the window.
"Remember the directions because I won't give them to you again," once should be enough if he was good at this.
He laughed, "I figured. Don't worry about it." I smiled.
Alley was rubbing my leg, but I was too involved in my paranoia to bother with anything sexual at the moment.
"By the way, Bob, I call this place down here The Playhouse." He laughed hard enough to jerk the wheel. Alley even giggled a bit.
One last look behind and I knew no one was following us. Sinking into the black leather seats, I stared off out the window as Alley lay her head in my lap. Rubbing my hands down her face I started wondering about whether or not the guys at the restaurant with Fred were there for him or to keep an eye on me. My feeling was they were there to watch me. Nothing else felt right and I always went with how I felt.
"Right up here," I got the nod. "Then the third left and first right." Another nod and I wanted to test him out. "Then the fifth left, left at the second light and then stop in front of the docking bay doors."
If I was being watched by a rival company, I needed to know about it sooner rather than later. It wouldn't be the first time. The first time I didn't know what was going on until it was too late.
I was fifteen and still living with my parents. My first company was only a year old and rocketing skyward. To try and slow me down a rival company hired people to kidnap me for a fake ransom. The ransom was just a distraction tactic.
Walking out of my office building to go home with my father, I was grabbed by some people in a white van. It felt like something out of a movie happening to someone else. A black bag over the head and some zip ties was all it took. My parents got the FBI involved and kept everything out of the news. My father was smart to pay out the money it cost to keep the media at bay because it would have killed the stock price of the company which had already gone public. Corporate America knew it was me running things. The truth is, it wouldn't have survived the hit if it had got out. Of course, that was the plan for my kidnapping.
My prison was a small farmhouse in the middle of a Nebraska cornfield. They had thrown me in the van and drove around for days. There were multiple stops, partially to confuse me as to where we were and because one of the kidnappers had to go to the bathroom a lot. It was a constant topic of conversation. After about three days they pulled me out of the van and we were at the farmhouse for the final stop.
Every movie about kidnapping was always so horrible, at least how they would treat the victim. In my case, it wasn't that bad. There were four guys holding me. At the time I had no idea where, all I knew was it was in a farmhouse and I could see all the corn surrounding us.
Each one of them spent time with me teaching me their philosophy and style of cooking. This was where I learned to cook and I've carried that with me ever since. Some days I would make six or seven meals just trying out new ways to cook a specific dish or just trying a new dish.
This was also where I figured about the tactical boots. Each one of the guys holding me was ex-military. They all still wore some type of boot and filled me in on the differences between what the military and police wore and what was for sale at your local shoe store. I had even bought a few pair since just because of how useful those guys said they were. They were right.
"Okay, is this it?" Bob was turned around looking at me.
Snapping back from my own thoughts I looked out the front of the vehicle. A giant warehouse with a loading dock that had cement about as high as the roof of the car was sitting in front of us.
"How am I supposed to get the car up there?" he said with a smartassed tone.
"Get out your cell." He pulled it out of his pants pocket. "Type in 8983472442007 and hit send." He did and after a couple of seconds the ground in front of the cement of the loading dock started to sink creating a ramp heading under the building. "Drive down and then redial and send. It'll close behind us."
"You've got to be shitting me?!" He smiled and chuckled as we drove down under the building. He shook his head as we went down a spiral ramp that resembled something like that of a parking garage in downtown L.A. "I feel like we're in a James Bond movie. This is nuts."
"You haven't seen anything yet." We pulled up to the parking area that had three cement walls on the remaining sides.
"Now what?" he threw his hands up in the air.
Pulling the blind fold off of Alley and said, "Now we get out." Taking her hand we got out of the car with her in tow. Bob was out the front and waiting by the hood of the car.
"Is there a door?" Bob was out of his element and the sarcasm was coming out.
"Yes, Bob," I answered like a smartass, "How else would we get into the house?"
"What house?" I started laughing at him.
"This one," in the middle of the wall in front of us I stuck my hand against the cement and a door opened. Bob was just shaking his head. We walked into the glass hallway. "I have to get your hands scanned for this." Placing my hand on the wall on the other side, the door closed. At the other end I opened the door and then shut it as we walked into a dark house.
"Is this some kind of little bunker?" No one could see anything.
"Lights," I yelled and the Playhouse lit up. The wall opposite us looked like we were staring out of a window in the Florida Keys at sunset. Bob and Alley's jaws dropped open in amazement.
Alley spoke up first, "I was with Bob. I thought this was going to be some sort of underground bunker with a cot. This is amazing!"
"Well, my dad always said if you were going to do something you might as well do it right." I smiled and walked to the bar. "Anyone want a drink?"
Bob was looking at the thirty foot ceiling and the front windows, "Do you have Jack and…..," he stopped when he looked over at the bar and the shelves of alcohol with the giant fridge.
"Coke? We have a bar gun back here. The coke is on tap," I winked at him.
Alley sat on one of the couches, "I'll take a dirty martini."
"Any vodka preference?" she shook her head. I grabbed the Grey Goose and the Jack Daniels and made two dirty martinis and a Jack and Coke. They both came over and sat down at the bar.
Explaining to Bob, although Alley was listening intently, that I had seven hidden houses around the country including this one took his breath away. Each one had an odd name based on whatever I felt like at the time. Each had its own reasons to be admired. The Playhouse got its name because it was always Matt's favorite city to visit, meet women and then have an afterhour's party. Vegas was Matt's favorite place to party, but every place you went in Vegas was an afterhours party.
Giving him a tour I took him up to my office on the lift. At the computer, after I unlocked it, I scanned both of his hands and sent them off to my friend that setup the system telling him to add Bob to everything we had going, home and business. Then I showed him to one of the rooms.
"This one is yours when we're here." The room was the size of a master suite with a huge master bathroom including a Jacuzzi bathtub and a steam optional shower. The closet had a few clothing options in it, but nothing was his size. "I'll get some stuff made with your measurements and have the closets filled," he was busy getting the lay of the land. He fell back onto the custom bed and closed his eyes.
Heading back down to Alley, I closed the door. The rest of the tour could wait until the next day. Needing to focus on Alley, I wanted to try to mend whatever was broken after the incident at the restaurant. It wasn't going to be easy, but I needed to get around it without saying much. I really didn't have much to say anyway, but I didn't want her scared of me.
Walking away from Bob's room, I headed down the spiral staircase back to the rest of the house. At the bar I sat next to Alley and took a sip of the martini. Looking at her face it was easy to see she wasn't thinking about anything that happened at the restaurant. She had other things on her mind as she smiled at me and kissed my lips.
As she backed away her face slowly morphed into that of another woman's. I was caught off guard and jumped back and right off the bar stool. It was a woman with aqua blues eyes and white hair looking back at me. Rubbing my eyes with my palms, I looked again to see the same face.
"What? What is it?" Alley's voice coming from someone else. I drank down the rest of the martini and walked away from the living room for a moment.
"Nothing. My stomach was just upset. I have to go to the bathroom." Not wanting to turn around and see that face again I just stayed focused on getting to the bathroom. Hiding it would have been impossible and she would have known something was wrong.
"Hurry back," my mind was picturing a different face as she said it.
When I got into the bathroom and turned on the cold water I rested my hands on the counter for a second. Then reaching down and splashing some ice cold water on my face, which had started to shake in some kind of spasm, a couple of times and opened my eyes. The wall behind me was starting to get brighter and brighter until it was almost blinding. Frantically, I splashed some more water on my until it was washing all over the counter.
"Now what the fuck is happening?! Haven't I had enough for one day, God Damnit," I was thinking as the water kept washing over my face. Looking back in the mirror, my left eye opened first to see snow behind me in the mirror. "Shit," I thought.
There were some evergreen trees, mixed in with the snow, that went around in a circle. I was standing at the sink toward the center of the clearing. A large oak stump was dead center in the middle of all the trees and had only grass around it. The sun was beating down on everything and reflecting off the snow cause an extremely bright glare. Picking up the white hand towel on the counter I wiped off my face and whirled around to see whatever it was that was going to happen.
The clearing had a magic beauty to it with all the trees swaying a tiny bit with the wind and the birds flying around chirping at each other. In and out of the trees they went. The only place without any glare was the oak stump in the middle. I put my feet on the grass and stared at the stump. It was gigantic from one end to the other. Just looking at the sheer number of rings made me estimate the thing was six or seven hundred years old or at least the tree was before it was cut down.
Next to the stump were a couple of sunflowers growing about waste high. All around in the grass were tulips of different colors and varieties.
Remembering the sink, I spun around to see nothing but snow and trees. It wasn't a surprised in the slightest. My day had been like that from the moment I walked out of that building in downtown Hollywood.
"Hello, Michael," startled I jumped around to see the woman whose face I saw on Alley a couple of minutes earlier. Her hair was glowing white and her aqua eyes were amazing in the sparkling light of the sun off the snow. She had on a white flowing gown or robe that dragged behind her as she walked she seemed to never touch the ground.
"Who are you?" Oddly enough, I wasn't scared at all. She had a calming and peaceful affect on me.
"Hmmm. Well, Michael, it would be better if you figured that out instead of me telling you." She started to circle around the stump. "Close your eyes and feel it like you always have. It will come to you."
Doing exactly as she said, I closed my eyes and listened. Way back in my mind I could see something coming out of the darkness heading toward me. It was a whisper in the form of a white cloud. It was coming at me with a slight hum underneath it. As it got closer I could hear the word getting louder and louder coming out of the darkness.
Opening my eyes as tears spilled down my cheeks, "Mother?" She gave me the gentle loving smile only a mother could.
She walked up to me and ran her fingers through my hair. We were eye to eye, but I could have sworn she was shorter than I was. Touching the back of her hand to my cheek, she wiped away the tears.
"What's going on?" Her lips touched my forehead and I felt at peace as if a rush of tranquility past right over me and stole all the confusion and mystery. Everything felt right at that moment.
"We are in your mind, Son. Deep inside that magical imagination of yours." She was still running her nails through my hair.
"Why are we here?" I didn't feel the need to have an answer, but I asked the question anyway.
"Because you needed it to happen now. It could have happened anytime, but this is when you wanted it to happen the most." Her smile was captivating and so calming it could put a raging rhinoceros to sleep.
"Wait," shaking my head trying to get back to some sort of reality in the middle of all this illusion from my mind, "what did I want to happen?"
"Guidance, son, guidance," right then I was so confused. My brain brought up my fictionalized mother that it had created in order to give me guidance in some direction my own mind had made up. "You know how you have always made decisions based on how you feel about something inside your heart and body?"
"Yes, of course," it had always been that way.
"You need to stick with that. You need to keep that at the front of your mind now more than ever." She walked over to me and put her hand on my cheek. She was so warm and soothing. "I have to go now, son."
"Will I see you again, Mother?" I didn't really want her to go.
"That's up to you. We're in your mind. Only you can bring me here." She unbuttoned my shirt and put her hand over my heart. It started to burn a little bit and a glowing faint blue light was coming from her hand on my chest. "So you don't forget, Son."
Her voice started to fade away as was the rest of her. Snow and trees could be seen behind her straight through her body. "Mom, don't go. Mom!" She had vanished in front of me and the rest of the forest was starting to dim. The sun was no longer in the sky.
Night and darkness was overtaking the day and casting black over everything in the clearing. The birds had disappeared and so had the oak stump with the grass. It was starting to get cold around me, very cold. My arms, chest and face were freezing cold as the light faded to the point I couldn't see anything. I was in total pitch black.
Not being able to see, I started blinking and reaching out with my hands. Feeling something cold and wet right in front of me, it was hard and had a strangely familiar texture to it. Some light was spreading around me and it became obvious I was lying in the snow. I popped up and twisted over onto my butt sitting up. Looking up in the sky I could see the moon over me in a clearing of snow surrounded by trees.
"Twice in one day? What are the fucking odds of that?!" I said out loud.
Looking around the clearing it came to me what to do. There was no telling where I was and a tree surrounded snow covered clearing was not a landmark anyone could go by. The spot of the moon told me it was setting based on the last time I remembered. That meant left was west. Turning left and setting off out into the forest, the thought I was probably going to freeze to death before I found anyone went through my head. Wouldn't that just have been the perfect end to this day?
Moonlight provided the only guide through the cold darkness of the trees as I kept heading west and trying to decipher what is was that just played out in my head. Manifesting my mother in my own mind in order to give myself direction on things I was doing seemed pretty sick to me.
Thick brush was growing in between all the trees making it very difficult to walk through, especially in slacks and dress shoes. Working my way through tree after tree one at a time was the only way to keep my mind focused on getting to the closest civilization I could and figuring out where I was.
What did my mind's mother mean by "I needed to keep basing my decision on how I feel now more than ever"? It was like some kind of crazy warning I was trying to give myself. Maybe I was too paranoid at this point. It did seem strange, though, with all that had been going on. Of course, maybe my mind was just cracking under the pressure after so many years of growing up at an accelerated rate of maturity.
After about two hours of walking through the snow and brush my hands and feet were starting to feel numb from the biting cold all around me. Weaving through more trees I finally saw a light through the bushes and trees up ahead. I started walking faster toward the light, trying to keep my hands as warm as I could under my armpits.
Finally breaking out of the trees into a field covered in a blanket of softer powder snow leading up to a house, I could see a light on the top of an electrical pole which is what led me there. The house was dark from where I was standing. My teeth started to chatter uncontrollably as I started jogging toward the house.
At the front door my fist started hammering the door, though I had barely any strength left. Sliding down the door to sit on the step I pressed my face up against the door. It was cold on my cheek, but warmer than outside. Imagining the heat and warmth inside, I closed my eyes. I could see the made up face of my mother behind my eyelids.
The door opened and I fell into the entryway of the house. An elderly woman in a nightgown stood over me and a man with a shotgun in hand was standing in the middle of a living room. He was pointing the gun at me as I curled into a ball and shivered on the floor. My teeth were clinking and my jaw felt locked or I would have said something to them.
The woman looked up at the man, "Dear God, he's freezing to death Harry. Go run the bath on hot." Harry ran out of the room and all sight.
The woman grabbed a blanket off the chair behind her and threw it over me on the floor. She reached under the blanket and grabbed one of my hands. Rubbing it between hers, it felt so warm. The tips of my fingers where numb.
"It's warm, Beth," Harry yelled from the back of the house somewhere.
"You'll have to help me. He's too big for me to carry," Beth yelled back.
Harry ran to where I was lying and grabbed my arms. He was to elderly to lift me so he dragged me down the hallway into the bathroom.
"Just throw him in clothes and all, Beth." He picked me up under the arms and she picked me up my legs. They both pushed me over the side of the tub into the shallow water.
Shaking and shivering, I could feel the warm water rising up around me. By the time it was up to my chest the shivering had stopped. Warmth made me close my eyes and drift off.
In my mind I could hear my imagined mother saying to me, "Keep that at the front of your mind now more than ever." It kept rolling over and over in my head on some type of twisted loop.
When I opened my eyes a crack I could hear Beth, "He's coming round, Harry."
Harry was in the other room talking to someone. "Yeah, he just showed up at the door. Beth said he's starting to come around. How much longer?"
"Young man?" Beth seemed very sweet or at least her voice did. "Are you awake?"
Nodding was tough but I did it and then tried to roll to the side of the tub without the needed energy. My eyes were only half open. She was fuzzy and blurred. My eyes rolled back in my head.
In the darkness of my mind there was a sweet soothing voice. The voice was dancing all around me whispering something I couldn't make out, always moving. No matter what direction I went I could never catch up to it. A woman's voice so peaceful and pleasing all I wanted to do was catch it, needing more of it. Warm and inviting, singing all around me, always just out of reach.
A shot of light burst out of the sky in my mind. My eyes opened and I was frantically breathing as I lay on the floor of a bathroom looking up at a young woman's face. Concern and concentration was all over her as she looked down at me. A pen light was flashing through my eyes as I wiped her arm away. Panic set in and I jumped up breathing chaotically and slammed into a wall with my back.
Around the room were four people. "Sir," the younger woman said. "Sir, can you hear me?"
Blinking furiously, trying to get my bearings. Where the hell was I again? I couldn't remember. Snow images came heard from the back of my mind, flashing visions of the snow and the trees and the old people in the house.
"Yes, yes I hear you." My breathing was very fast like I couldn't catch my breath at all.
"Do you know where you are?" That was a tough one. The right answer would sound ridiculous.
"Beth and Harry's house," looking around the room to Beth and Harry. They looked rather confused. "I remember them talking as they pulled me into the bathroom."
Harry looked relieved as if he thought he might have a stalker and then found out it was just the neighbor trying to give him his mail. Beth sat down on the toilet seat as another man walked in. He was wearing a police uniform of sorts. It was a bright red coat with black or navy blue pants and brown boots. He had a brown belt with a shoulder strap to it. Add in the tan felt hat and brown gloves and it was obvious. Right out of a damn Dudley Do Right cartoon.
"Where," taking a deep breath trying to get out my question, "where in Canada am I?" Everyone in the room looked around at each other like I'd asked who in the room had seen aliens before.
"Vancouver," the paramedic woman said still holding the paddles in her hands.
Putting my hands on my knees, "Ah, hell!" breathing I was trying not to panic. This was not the same as moving across the room to plant my ass in a chair.
Staring at the floor as I tried to catch my breath, I saw under the sink a black thing I recognized. Moving across the room and picked up my cell phone, I figured it fell out of my pocket when Harry dragged me into the bathroom. Amazingly, it was still charged and still working.
Scrolling through my phone numbers stored and finding the one I wanted, I hit send. It rang five times before someone picked up.
"Bob, you're not going to believe this, but I need you to come pick me up." He asked the obvious question. "I'm in Vancouver, B.C. Oh yeah! Let's just say it's kind of what happened at the restaurant. Kind of." He was on the other end chatter away in disbelief.
"Bob," he was still going. "Bob, shut up! Thank you. Go down to the airport and fly up here. Oh, better grab my passport."
I put the cell phone in my pocket. "Beth and Harry, I can't thank you enough. I really appreciate it," pausing at all the stunned faces around the room. "Now, can someone take me to the airport, please?"