Grey Haven (Book 1: The Dreamer Chronicles)

For the first time since I had arrived at Grey Haven, I wasn’t pulled into the grey alone. Carrie and Tommy were there as well. Carrie had the same outfit on I had seen her wear when she had rescued me from the zombies. Her red hair was pulled back and her expression was fierce.

Tommy was another surprise. He was different than I had imagined he would be in the dreamworld. He was wearing navy-blue cargo pants, a blue shirt, and had heavy boots on. The dark clothes were not out of place, but something was. It was in the way he held himself. I stared at him, trying to find the reason for the difference.

Tommy noticed me staring. “What?” he asked.

“You look different,” I said.

“You don’t,” Tommy said.

“Can we focus?” Carrie asked.

“Right,” I agreed.

I concentrated, and my crossbow, knife, and other supplies appeared on my body. When I turned, the others were similarly decked out. Carrie had her shotgun and knives, while Tommy had a longbow, with a quiver of arrows on his back, and a knife on his belt.

“Ready?” I asked.

Carrie and Tommy nodded, and I immediately felt the pull of the dreamworld.

When we landed, we were in a room. The floor, ceilings, and walls were white and there were no windows or doors. We were locked in. A young boy with brown hair was in the middle of it. He sat on a white chair and stared at the wall with his back was to us. His unmoving state made the hair on my arms stand on end. It was unnatural. We placed ourselves so that we were facing the boy, an attempt to understand his strange stillness.

The boy didn’t acknowledge our presence, instead opting to stare at the wall, his eyes lost in thought. He didn’t feel like a shade, but he wasn’t 100% human either.

“Are you okay?” Carrie asked the boy.

The boy blinked a couple of times in surprise and focused on Carrie. “Okay?” he asked.

“What are you doing?” Tommy pressed.

“Trying to find the logic,” the boy replied.

“What logic?” Carrie asked.

“The logic of ending up in a room with no doors or windows,” the boy said.

“The room was built around you,” Carrie said.

The boy thought about that. “Yes, that’s logical, but I don’t remember the room being built. I would remember that.”

“It’s because you’re in a dream,” Carrie said.

“Dreams have memories,” the boy said. “I should remember. Logic never fails.”

“Yeah, well, can you logic us a way out?” I asked.

“If someone built the room around me, as your friend suggests, then it is logical that the same personal must dissemble the room to get us out.”

“Or we can try to knock it down,” I said.

“How do you mean?” the boy asked.

“Stand up,” I told him.

The boy stood obediently. The interest in his eyes was unnerving, perhaps because it was so analytical. I took the chair by the backrest and stepped over to the wall. I slammed the chair into the wall. A crack appeared in the white. I did it a second and third time. On the fourth hit, the chair punched a hole through the white wall.

I bent down to look through the hole and saw darkness. There was no way to see beyond, but I knew it was a doorway into another world. There was another dream waiting for us. I moved back and hit the wall four more times until the hole was large enough for us to fit through at a crawl. I threw the chair away and turned to face the others.

“That is certainly a way to do things,” the boy said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Listen, we’re going through. Do you want to come?”

“I don’t think so,” the boy said. “You are on a quest for something. Those are always dangerous.”

“Danger is part of being a dreamer,” I said.

“Unwarranted danger is not. You were sent in to deal with whatever built the box around me. Attention will be focused on you. If I am away from you three, I will be safe,” the boy said.

“He’s probably right,” Tommy said.

“Have it your way,” I said, turning to the hole again.

“It’s not what you think,” the boy added.

I turned back to him. “What’s not?”

“Everything,” he said.

He righted the chair I had thrown to the ground and sat in it again. I didn’t bother asking him what he meant. People who were enigmatic on purpose typically didn’t care to explain. It took away the mystery.

Figuring I would find out how true his words were by pushing forward, I got down on my hands and knees and crawled through the hole. The darkness immediately shifted into a warm, amber light of the library at Grey Haven. A young girl was sitting at the table. Books were stacked higher than her head. She was writing at a breakneck pace and kept checking her watch. I stepped around her and saw that we were on the second floor of the library. The large space was deserted. There was no subtle hint of a shade nearby. The dream was obviously just that – a dream.

Carrie gazed around the familiar sight of the library with an expression of characteristic longing. Tommy and I shared an amused smile, but neither of us teased her. It wasn’t the place or the time.

“Should we wake her up?” I asked.

“The shades haven’t found her yet,” Carrie said. “It’s probably safer for her to leave her alone.”

I nodded and navigated around the stacks and headed for the door on the first level. I opened it and again saw darkness. Feeling more confident, I stepped through and the library disappeared.

The next three dreams were like the girl’s. There were no shades or crawlers, nothing to give us pause for concern, beyond seeing the subconscious thoughts and worries of our peers and wishing I hadn’t.

The fourth dream was different. When I stepped into the bright setting of a lonely farmhouse, I immediately raised my crossbow. Carrie and Tommy had the same reaction.

The farmhouse we had landed near was large and sprawling. A red barn was in the distance. The rolling hills that surrounded us held a gentle sweep of time and comfort. The peace was overshadowed by the sound of crawlers in the distance, gunfire from inside the house, and the feeling that a powerful shade was nearby. The gunshots had only one explanation. A dreamer was fighting. The person needed our help.

I turned to the others and made two hand gestures for us to split up. Carrie and I went left, while Tommy headed right. Carrie and I reached the house first and walked the perimeter. The gunshots grew louder, more focused.

As we walked, I heard sharp claws digging into the shingles above us. The stench of decay quickly followed the sound. I looked up searchingly, but the crawler was using its skill of blending in. The sounds told me it was tracking us, edging closer for the kill.

To my right, there was a shimmer of motion against the midday sun. I fired an arrow. The crawler fell and hit the ground in front of us, changing back to black as it fell. The second it hit the ground, another crawler jumped out from behind the air conditioning unit. Carrie shot it and it fell on top of the first crawler. I kept my attention up as Carrie hunted for more crawlers in front of us. Finally, she gestured me forward again.

We stopped walking when we reached the corner of the house and crouched down. A glance around the wall told us that there were ten crawlers at the back door. They clawed at the doors and windows, desperate for a way in. Two lions paced just beyond the crawlers. The male lion was nowhere nearly as agitated as the female. She was eager to kill whoever was inside. Her impatience made her deadlier, harder to anticipate.

The sound of gunfire boomed across the space again. Someone was in the attic firing down. The lions dodged out of the way of the bullets with easy grace and continued their restless pacing. They were waiting for the crawlers to knock down the door. They were waiting for the person inside to run out of bullets. It was a matter of patience, and they seemed willing to stay as long as it took.

Tommy crouched down on the opposite side of the house and stared at me. His expression asked me what I wanted to do. I pointed at him then at the crawlers at the door. He nodded and pulled an arrow off his back and took aim. I turned to Carrie and pointed at the male lion. She nodded eagerly, prepared for the fight. I focused my attention on the female lion.

I took a deep breath, then stood again. I trained my crossbow on the female lion and fired an arrow. Even with the distraction of the dreamer, and the crawlers’ desperate attempts to get inside, the lion still saw the arrow coming. She jumped out of the way at the last second, though the arrow managed to graze her side. She roared out her anger and pain. The crawlers went silent as she roared. The male lion stopped pacing and focused his eyes on Carrie and me. It licked its lips hungrily.

The female lion closed her mouth and charged at me, flowing across the ground with deadly feline grace. I released two more arrows in quick succession. She dodged them, her muscles sinuous under tan fur as she ran. Her grace and power were impressive. It would have been more impressive had it not been focused on me.

Beside me, Carrie fired at the male lion, who had joined the female in her vengeful run. He was equally as graceful and powerful, though the female was faster. I heard sounds of fighting as Tommy took on the crawlers, but I didn’t have time to look. I released another arrow at the female, but it was too late. She lunged at me, her white teeth larger now that they were aimed at my throat.

I dropped down on instinct, the dirt flying out around me. The lion landed behind me and turned quickly to finish me off. She lunged to tear my throat out, but I punched her in the nose. She whimpered as my fist connected, and she shook her head twice to clear the stars. I took advantage of her distraction and kicked her in the stomach. She grunted, but all my kick seemed to do was make her angry enough to forget the punch in the face. She raised her front paw, claws extended. My eyes widened as the paw came directly toward my face. I had no defense for that.

Just before the paw landed, an arrow appeared in her throat with a slick crunch. She whimpered, then collapsed dead on top of me. I pushed her off with a painful grunt, relieved, heart racing with left over adrenaline. When she hit the earth, she dissolved into ash and bone.

I searched for my savior and saw that Tommy was standing near the edge of the house. His back was to me now, and he was firing arrows rapidly, faster than I thought possible. He had saved me, but the fight wasn’t over. The crawlers had surrounded us.

I picked up my crossbow, aimed at a crawler on the roof above Tommy, and fired. The crawler hit the hard dirt behind Tommy and died.

“Thanks,” I called, as I killed another crawler.

“You owe me a brownie!” Tommy yelled back.

I laughed and killed another crawler. “You know I can’t cook!”

“Store bought life-debt removers are fine!” he yelled back.

It was only when I killed the last crawler that I realized Carrie was missing.

“Where’s Carrie?” I asked.

“She disappeared around the side of the house,” Tommy said.

“Let’s go help her,” I said.

Tommy pointed. “I don’t think she needs it,” he said.

Carrie walked around the edge of the house. Her ponytail had shifted out of its sleek form and her clothes were covered in dirt, but she was satisfied with herself, a smug smile pulling at her lips. She waved once to let us know she was okay. I waved back, glad the fight had gone as well as it had.

The back door opened as she made her way to us. We pointed our weapons at it, prepared for more enemies. “Don’t be idiots,” a voice called from inside.

I sighed heavily. It was Dana. Carrie and Tommy lowered their weapons, but I didn’t. I didn’t trust the voice any more than I trusted the person. Dana stepped outside. She had a pistol holstered at her side and a heavy knife at her back. She was wearing simple clothes and her hair was in a bun. She was as pleased to see us as I was to see her.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Dana asked. “You don’t just walk into a fight like that. You get into a defensive position…You pick off your enemy. I mean, are you stupid?”

“You’re welcome for saving your life,” Tommy said dryly.

“Save my life!” Dana scoffed. “Hardly.”

She stepped out through the door and down the steps. She was cold and confident. Her appearance in the dreamworld didn’t surprise me as it had the others. She wasn’t different or hovering between the old her and the new one. She had grown into her dreamer skin.

“If I had known it was you, I would have left,” I told her.

“Didn’t you three, like, run away or something?” Dana asked.

“Or something,” I replied.

“Then why are you here?” Dana asked. “And what’s going on? Why am I in my own dream? I haven’t dreamt like this since I was eleven.”

I directed a silent plea at Carrie, who in turn stared at Tommy. No one wanted to speak to her more than was necessary, but she deserved to know. Tommy sighed loudly, gave in to the pressure of our silent standoff, and explained. When Tommy finished speaking, she was skeptical. “There’s no way a single shade and a traitor cut us off from our bodies. There has to be something else going on.”

“Well, I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” I said.

“We?” Dana asked. “I’m not going anywhere with you.” She gestured at the bodies of the crawlers. “You obviously just walk into situations without planning. It’s an effective way to get dead. I think I’ll go my own way to find this shade you’re talking about.”

“Fine by me,” I said.

Carrie frowned at Dana. “I know we don’t like each other, but don’t you think that’s dangerous?”

“Not as dangerous as being around inexperienced idiots,” Dana replied.

“I think she just called you an idiot,” Tommy told me.

“Yeah…” I agreed. I shrugged. “Do whatever,” I said.

“I plan on it,” Dana said.

“Fine. Make us a door,” I said. “I want the hell out of your mind before it rubs off on me and I get brain cooties.”

Tommy laughed soundlessly.

Dana focused, and a black door appeared in front of us. The door was small, only about waist height. Dana smirked at us, and I knew she had done it on purpose. I didn’t care about the size of the door. I was just eager to move on and get away before she decided to leave us trapped in her dream. I opened the door and let Carrie and Tommy go first. As I crouched down to join them, Dana’s words were on my mind. She had said that it was unlikely for one shade to be able to separate the dreamers from their bodies. I wondered if she knew for certain, or if she was just guessing. A part of me knew that she was right. Something more was going on. I had felt it the moment I had stepped into the dreamworld. The boy’s warning had been as true as Dana’s words. But the only way for the truth to come out was by moving on. So, I crawled through the door Dana had created and into the darkness beyond.