I have a mundane life. I’ve worked for the same insurance company for five years, and I don’t see any reason to change jobs any time soon. I’ve dated the same girl for the past four months, and so far it’s been going well. There are no big surprises or peaks of excitement in my day-to-day, but there’s no real valleys or dangers either, and overall, I’m pretty happy with that.
My best friend Will has always been the opposite. In high school, he was the one that pressured me into cutting class. In college, our couple of spur of the moment trips to Atlantic City and Mexico were his idea, not mine. I’d always followed his lead, at least after some harassment and nudging, and I guess he thought I always would.
When we graduated though, I was ready to put down roots in the real world. Get a job, build a life, that kind of thing. Will? He wanted to go travel Europe and Asia for a couple of years with very little planning and less money. I know he thought he could convince me to go with him, and I think when I stood firm and told him no, he almost saw it as a betrayal. He never said that, of course, but I could see the hurt in his eyes when I shut him down, and in the five years since he left, I’ve only heard from him a handful of times.
Maybe that makes him sound like an asshole, and I don’t know that I’d disagree. But it also didn’t change the fact that he’s been my best friend for most of my life, and when he suddenly showed up at my door one Saturday afternoon, I was excited and happy more than anything else. It wasn’t until we were past the initial greetings and sitting in my living room that I started to realize that something was wrong.
It wasn’t anything obvious, just little things. The way Will’s voice sounded—sharp and brittle in a way I didn’t like. The look in his eyes, harder and more wary than I remembered from just ten months ago when I’d seen him last. When I asked him how he was doing, he’d laugh and tell me he was doing great before launching into some new story about the two months he spent in Morocco, or how he got held by airport security in Kuala Lumpur for twelve hours because he accidently said the word for “bomb” in Bahasa Malaysian. On the surface, he was the same Will—full of life and stories and more than a little shit, but overall a good guy that was fun to be around.
Except now, it was just the surface. It was almost as though he was playing the character of Will, the version of himself that he knew I was used to and expected. And beneath that thin shell? Well, I didn’t know, but it worried me. Still, when he fended off my attempts to see what was going on with him, I decided my best option was to just let it go for now. Either it was my imagination, or he’d loosen up after we hung out awhile and tell me what was really going on.
That’s why, when he suggested we head into the city, I didn’t try to dissuade him. I wasn’t sure how long he would be around this time, but at least for the weekend, I was going to try to keep him happy while I figured out how worried I needed to be. I thought at first he was going to take us on a club or pub crawl, but no. He said he had something special to show me. A surprise.
Forcing a smile, I told him I was in.
We drove for two hours, past the heart of the city to the northern outskirts that were largely warehouses and industrial plants. I asked him where we were going a couple of times, but he’d just laugh and say that I’d see when we got there. When he finally pulled up to a chain-link gate and gave our names to a huge slab of a guard wearing an ill-fitting sport coat and an earpiece, it took everything I had to wait until we were inside the parking lot to ask again what this was. Was it something illegal?
Will snickered at me. “What, you think I brought you to a cock fight or something?”
I shrugged, my face growing hot. “I don’t know. Who knows with you, man. But this doesn’t look like a normal kind of party either.”
His smile faded a little as he parked next to the massive warehouse in the middle of the lot. “No, it’s not. It’s a pretty weird, exclusive kind of deal. I had to pay five large each for us to have a slot tonight, and I booked it two months ago. It fills up fast.”
I frowned at him. “What fills up fast? Enough with the mystery.”
Shaking his head, he turned off the rental car and opened his door. “Not yet. You’ll see inside. Come on.” I let out a sigh and got out of the car. Will wasn’t looking at me, but at the ten or so other cars parked around the edge of the building. “This is honestly more people than I’m used to seeing, but it’s the first time I’ve been to this one, or one in America at all.” He shrugged and pointed at a nearby door with another thick-necked guard standing next to it. “This way I guess.”
He again gave our names, which must have already been relayed by the first guard to the guy at the door, because he immediately turned to telling us the rules. No drinking, no drugs, and no electronics were allowed inside. Will winced and apologized, tossing me the keys to the car and gesturing for me to go stick my phone back inside. I was leery about going into this weird place without a way of calling, but…well, for all his recklessness and recent weirdness, I still trusted Will, and whatever wild orgy or bizarre show was behind that door, I didn’t think he’d ever put me in real danger. Once my phone was stowed back in the car, the guard opened the way inside the building and stepped aside.
We went down a short, dark hallway that doglegged twice before opening up into a huge open area. It looked as though most of the interior space of the warehouse had been walled off into one or more massive rooms, with the edges of the room being largely empty aside from a few chairs, mattresses and pillows. I felt a nervous twinge in my chest. What was this? Some kind of modern opium den? I didn’t see any drugs, or many people for that matter—there were a couple more guards standing in opposite corners, and a group of three well-dressed women talking to one side of the large platform in the middle of the room.
The platform itself looked to be made of white stone rising three or four feet off the concrete floor of the warehouse, with steps going up to a flat U-shaped top that was open at the bottom. At the top, with her head resting against the edge of the center void of the “U”, was a middle-aged woman laying on her back. In the center void itself was a man in a hospital bed, his body slid up enough and positioned just right so that the crown of his bald scalp touched the top of the woman’s head as they both lay there motionless.
“What the fuck is this?” I breathed the question like a whisper, but it still felt obscenely loud in the relative stillness of that place. Other than the low murmurings of the women speaking together and the periodic hisses and beeps of the equipment hooked up to the man in the hospital bed, there were no other sounds, and I felt a thrill of fear that breaking that silence would make everyone turn toward me, turn on me.
Instead, Will just put his hand on my shoulder and steered me to the other end of the room further away from the guards and women. If any of them even noticed us at all, they gave no sign, but he still kept his voice low when he responded. “I’ll explain. Just stay chill and listen, okay?” I nodded and he began.
“This place? There are places like it all over the world. They’re all very secretive and they go by different names. The most common one I’ve heard is ‘The Sleeping Man’, though it doesn’t have to be a man. I’ve been to three before this one, and the one in Beruit had a little girl.”
I leaned in a little closer as I tried to speak softly. “But what is this place? What’re these people doing?”
He nodded. “It’s all based on something called the Kaminsky Effect. It’s named after this scientist that was part of experiments on different kinds of consciousness that Russia was doing in the 50s. He found out that some people, particularly those in a long-term catatonic states, developed the ability to share information with other people—both other people like them and people that were awake but relaxed and touching them for awhile.”
Raising an eyebrow, I glanced back toward the hospital bed. “Like telepathy or something?”
“Kinda, yeah. Look, I don’t know all the details of how its supposed to work, and I don’t know that anybody really understands it, but over time some people have figured out how to replicate it and get it to work.” He gestured toward the platform. “They sell thirty minute sessions where you lay with your head next to theirs, and most of the time…well, I know from experience it works.” He shook his head. “It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before.”
I frowned at him. “What do you see? How are they thinking anything if they’re vegetables?”
His eyes widened slightly. “No, man. They still think and dream. And being near one is like being connected to a network. You aren’t just going into their dreams, you’re going into something a lot bigger that is connected to people like this around the world. It…It changes everything.” I saw a shimmer in his eyes before he looked away. “That’s why I wanted it for you too. It means that much to me.”
I was torn between being touched and being horrified. “Will, isn’t this like…human trafficking or prostitution or something? Isn’t it illegal?”
He shrugged. “Not really. These people…they aren’t coming back to…they aren’t ever going to be the same again, okay? And they aren’t stealing the people anyway. My understanding is that everyone has been released by loved ones or local governments to be used for study, usually for a big chunk of change. Now maybe someone might object if they knew how they were being used, but honestly I don’t think it’s a big deal. They aren’t mistreated—hell, they probably get better care here than most hospitals. They’re the cash cows, right?”
I shook my head slightly. “I guess. But if it’s all legit, why all the security and secrecy?”
Will grimaced slightly. “Shit, Sam. Legal or not, it still looks pretty sketch, doesn’t it? And they’re trying to keep all of this on the downlow anyway. Weird thrills for the rich and exotic thrillseekers, yeah?” He smiled. “And occasionally their stick-in-the-mud best friends.” He put his arm around my shoulders and steered me toward the edge of the room where there was another door. Past that, there was another room identical to the first in most particulars, except there was only one guard, with the only other people in the room being an old man smiling in our direction and the unmoving woman laying in the hospital bed at the center. Pushing me forward, he pointed me out to the old man.
“This is Sam. He’s going first tonight.”
“Are you comfortable, sir?”
The old man was wearing a white coat that reminded me of the dentist I used to see as a kid. Leaning over me, I could see my own anxious face reflected in his glasses, as well as the edge of red curly hair from the woman my head was resting against. “I…I don’t know. Are you sure this doesn’t hurt her?” I turned my head to look back at her, and I could see the low and steady blip of her heartrate on the equipment next to the bed. I looked back up at the old man and then looked over at Will. “I mean, this isn’t going to bother her or keep her from getting better is it?”
The old man’s fingers were cool and firm as he turned my face back toward him and the ceiling. “No need to worry, sir. She is well past any help or pain. The experiences she can still provide, however? They are a gift to us and give her renewed purpose.” He offered a thin, yellow smile. “Now just close your eyes and relax.”
I tried to shut my eyes, but it was all too strange. I could feel this poor woman’s head against mine, and I didn’t know what any of this was, but it felt wrong and…I started to sit up. “Will, I don’t think I can…”
Will’s expression was hard. “Don’t wimp out on me, Sam. I’ve been setting this up for months, all for you. You’re the only one I trust to share this with.”
Staring at him a moment, I swallowed and nodded. “O-okay.” I laid back down, suppressing a shiver as my head rested against the woman’s again. Closing my eyes, I felt suffocated by the black. This was all nonsense, it had to be, but I could just lay here for a few minutes, wait it out, and then maybe Will would at least feel like I’d tried to experience…whatever this was supposed to be.
Except…the darkness was going away now. At first, I just thought it was the ghost shapes you sometimes see behind closed eyes, but no, it was more than that…it was…I could see things. I was in a room, a giant room, but not like the warehouse…
The floor was made of hard, grey rock, rippling like the tides of a river as it flowed to walls of polished ivory shot through with thick, red vines. Crimson lashes and bloody, frothing leaves spread up to a ceiling taller than the highest cathedral, and at its peak, it opened up into a green night sky lit by a sickle of yellow moon. The sickly light of that moon seemed to shift as I watched, pooling around the far end of the chamber, highlighting the nest of thorny rock that pushed up there like an errant, stony wave.
But it wasn’t a wave, it was a chair. A throne. And while it looked empty, I could still sense a presence there, a terrible pressure like a coming storm, reaching out from the shadows around that dully glittering dais as I felt a hand grip my shoulder as a soft, feminine voice whispered in my ear.
“We see you. We know you.”
I jerked back, turning to find myself looking into the pale blue eyes of a woman…a woman that I knew from another place, another world, another…it was her. I was asleep in the real world, and this was all a dream, wasn’t it? And this woman, she was the woman giving me this cold and terrible place, and I could feel something coming up behind me and I needed to wake up before I…
“Gaaah!”
I sat up and rolled away from the woman, gasping like a fish out of water as I crawled down the steps and onto the concrete floor of the warehouse. Will was beside me now, patting my back and telling me I would be okay. After a minute or two, I gathered myself enough to crawl a few more feet away and sit up. Will came with me, waiting until I looked at him to speak.
“I guess you saw. Or…well, what did you see?” His face was tight and anxious, any pretense of fun or frivolity gone now. “Tell me what you saw.”
I shuddered as I looked at him. “It…it sent me some place. Some kind of throne room maybe? It felt like I was in some kind of horror movie or nightmare, but it also felt real.” I let out a shaky breath. “Too fucking real.”
“And did you see anyone? Did anyone talk to you?”
Staring at him, I nodded. “Um, yeah. I saw her. That woman was in my dream. She talked to me.”
His eyes widened slightly. “What did she say? Exactly?”
I frowned. “Look, what the fuck is this? Did you know this was going to…”
Will leaned forward and gripped my arm tightly. “Just tell me what she said, okay?”
Pulling away, I glared at him. “Fuck, okay. She said something like ‘I see and know you.’”
“We see you, we know you?”
I nodded. “Yeah. That.” Looking toward the platform, I could just barely see the edge of her hair from where we sat. I turned back to him. “How do you know that?”
“Because I heard that once too.”
Seeing motion out of the corner of my eye, I turned to see the guard and old man wheeling away all the monitors, the respirator even. “What’re they doing? Doesn’t she need that stuff?” I started to get up, but Will pulled me back down.
“No, she doesn’t. It’s just window dressing. You can pay a little extra for the pretense if you’re bringing someone that might be squeamish.”
“What do you mean?”
He met my gaze with a strange mixture of sadness and anger. “I mean she’s dead, Sam. They always are.”
Sucking in a breath, I started shaking my head. “That’s impossible. I saw her in my dream. In her dream. How would she do that if she was dead?”
Will rubbed his eyes tiredly as he put his head down. “Because Sam, death isn’t the end of anything. It’s just a door. And with some people, if their bodies aren’t treated in a certain fashion, dying gives the body over.”
I was trembling now. I wanted to scream at him for tricking me, for being crazy, for lying. But that was all just self-deception wasn’t it? What I really wanted to know was where had I been? What had I seen and been touched by?
“Dying gives the body over…to what?”
His smile was joyless when he looked up at me again. “You’ll see. Just like I have. Now that they know you, they will pull you back more and more.”
I stood up, my fists clenched as I stalked over to the open end of the platform. “This is all bullshit. It was a hallucination. Or maybe it was a shared dream, but she sure as fuck isn’t dead.” I reached out to touch her bare foot. “What, is this some kind of joke or con because you’re…”
She was cold as ice.
Will looked miserable as he got up and walked closer. “The dead still dream. They just dream of different things—dark and terrible places and things that…well, can see us. Can know us.”
I realized I was still touching her foot and yanked my hand away in revulsion. “Why? Why would you do this to me?”
When he looked at me now, his face was as cold as she had been. “At first it was to get out of the trap, yeah? I felt guilty, but the scareder I got, the more I wondered if I could make a deal with them, get you to take my place before they pulled me down for good.” Will shook his head. “But then they got me anyway. Four months ago. Maybe if I hadn’t let my stupid fucking conscience get in my way, I could have shown you to them in time to save myself, if it even can work that way. Hell, even now I don’t know for sure.”
I stared at him, tongue thick in my mouth. “What do you mean they ‘got you’?”
He gave me a rictus smile as he laughed. “Sam, the girl’s not the only one that’s dead. And I have things crawling in me now that…well, you still have a lot more to see.”
When he took another step toward me, I ran. I made it through the door into the other room where another of the chatting women was now lying on the platform thrashing about as though the dead man’s head she was pressed against was an electrode. Gagging, I headed for the hallway and the exterior door, expecting to be stopped at every turn, but I never was. When I reached the parking lot, I had a moment of fresh panic until I realized that I still had the keys from when I’d put my phone back in Will’s rental car. I was backing out of the space when Will came walking out, waving to me.
“Good to see you again, Sam. And don’t worry…”
I threw the car into drive and sped toward the gate, but not fast enough to escape his last words.
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