Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest #10 Read online

  That man. What did he look like? There was something familiar about him. The hair? Brown? black?

  No, it was gone. And that worried him.

  He was supposed to remember dreams. It appeared in his job description.

  He wrote down what he could remember. The notebook by the bed. The gnawed-at pen. The light of the lamp, which he had turned on. That silence, of the small hours of the night. That's why he lived without neighbours. So he wouldn't wake up to the roars of dinosaurs, or an all-out gangster war, or a crashed spaceship. People dreamed Hollywood movies, and it made him sad. He wanted to see more love dreams, more dreams without sound, for instance, or dreams in black and white about abandoned cities and silent statues.

  Peaceful dreams.

  Pleasant dreams.

  Sweet dreams.

  He fell asleep again.

  * * * *

  Raphael woke. Light poured in through the window. And so on.

  Michal waited for him in the kitchen. She sat at the big table, a mug of coffee in front of her. A coffee for him, too. Black, three sugars.

  "Good morning."

  "Good morning."

  He drank the coffee. Michal was dressed for the field. Now what?

  Michal laid some papers on the table. No. A volume of something. A newspaper? Magazine? Focus, Raphael. Pay attention to the little details.

  "Besides,” he said, remembering. “I do have a surname. And my name really is Raphael. It's not a secret code or something."

  "What?” Michal said.

  "Do you think I should change my name?” Raphael said.

  Michal sighed. “Do you know this magazine?"

  He pulled it towards him. A woman with purple hair and an impossible, inflated chest, threatened to crush with her foot a small bug who looked terrified. Raphael felt pity towards it. He felt that way with Michal, sometimes.

  "How to bring back objects from a dream. How to bring the dead back to life,” he read. “What is this?” He looked at the table of contents. “Fiction? What's this?"

  "As far as I understand,” Michal said, “this is an ancient magazine, something that's been coming out for years and years, and it began as a science fiction magazine."

  "What's that?” Raphael, who only ever read in order to fall asleep, asked.

  "Imaginary stories about adventures in space and stuff like that,” Michal said in an embarrassed tone. “You know, dragons, fairies, spaceships that crash-land on Earth, lost worlds, dinosaurs, time travel, that sort of thing."

  "But that's not imaginary!” Raphael said. “Only a week ago I stopped a Martian invasion into a house in Tel Aviv, and fairies have been an ecological disaster for years now all over the coast."

  "But then,” Michal said patiently, “these things only appeared in print, or in people's dreams. Dreams that didn't come true."

  "Daydreams,” Raphael said, and giggled.

  "Exactly,” Michal said.

  "So how come they still operate?"

  "When dreams started becoming real, they changed the magazine. A professional journal, they called it. Articles about controlling your dreams, ads for devices that were meant to help with the dreaming—but they also continued with the stories."

  "Why? Who reads these things?"

  "Ah,” Michal said. “That's exactly it."

  * * * *

  Dreams, it seems, are no simple matter.

  Everyone dreams. But in a world where dreams come true, people want to dream of special things. They do not want to dream of the bully from school who, in any case, died of cancer thirty years ago. They don't want to dream of arguing with their partner, or shopping, or the day mother took them to the beach and it was cold.

  People want to dream exciting things. They want to dream hair-raising adventures. Of princesses who need rescuing. Or princes. Or the Swedish volleyball team.

  People want to dream about spaceships. Of floating in zero gravity. Of being fearsome, handsome, muscle-bound heroes. Of being telepaths. Of being special.

  People want to dream, but imagination, for some, had dissipated. Taken from them gradually at school, at work, at home, until all that remained were regular, everyday, boring dreams.

  People want to dream stories, with a plot, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Simple, clear stories, exciting on a basic level, appealing to the lowest common denominator.

  Movies, of course, fulfil this function for the vast majority of the population.

  But there are, still, stories. They exist. The people who write them live alone in cheap apartments and rundown houses. They are dreamers of another sort. Their dreams appear in print, in ink on paper, in the few shops that still sell books or magazines.

  And people still buy them, and read them, and dream their way to other lives, lives that aren't theirs but become, if only for a little while, a part of their world.

  And so on.

  * * * *

  But what's it got to do with me?” Raphael said. “With us?"

  "The magazine editor claims someone is trying to assassinate her."

  "Nu?"

  "In her dreams."

  Raphael sighed. “And is it for real or just a dream? Wait, is she still alive?"

  "Yes."

  "Then it's just a dream."

  "Possibly,” Michal said. “You'll have to decide on your own."

  "But—"

  "The car's outside,” Michal said.

  Raphael gave up the fight. As always. He, he liked to think, was the senior partner in this particular relationship. His superiors at the REM, however, made it clear that, as far as they were concerned, it was Michal. Go figure.

  "Where are we going?” he asked, as they were driving. He was still holding the magazine in his hand. He tried not to look at the Amazonian woman on the cover.

  "Ramat Yishai,” Michal said.

  "Where's that?"

  "Does it matter?” Michal asked.

  Raphael thought about it. “No."

  "Then don't ask,” Michal said, and the rest of the drive passed in silence.

  He leafed through the magazine. How to return objects from a dream. He considered snorting, but Michal didn't usually appreciate his noises. Why would anyone want to bring back an object from a dream? Most of the time they were inaccurate, like a blueprint for a chair instead of a chair, or strange, complex, building-sized machines that did nothing, or ... anyway.

  He skipped the first story—Lior Tirosh? What kind of a name was that?—and began to read, out of boredom, The Wolfmen of Tel-Hannan.

  And fell asleep, of course.

  * * * *

  In the place where the famous ice-cream stand of Tel-Hannan once stood there remained only wreckage. The road passing close by had become a scarred band of devastation, and broken cars lay on their backs and rusted in the dim sun.

  Raphael walked along the road. Elongated shadows extended before him.

  He stepped in something. Something unpleasant.

  Crap. Fresh stools, but strange. Some human, others...

  He heard the howl of a wolf in the distance. It passed like a colony of bats upon the face of the sky. Darkness fell at a speed that scared him.

  He searched for a weapon. An abandoned metal rod became a temporary club in his hands.

  A wolf's howl sounded again, from another direction.

  Closer.

  Raphael stopped.

  Something was wrong.

  He took a deep breath, and suddenly knew: it was a dream. That ability, to recognise, first thing, that he was in a dream, that he was, if only temporarily, outside known reality, was the first condition for work in the REM.

  Step one: confirm you are in a dream.

  He pinched himself. “Ow."

  Another howl, coming from beyond an overturned truck on his right, by the side of the road. Close by.

  It's only a dream.

  The wolves appeared like the ghosts of wolves, silently, immediately. All around the wrecked truck. He turned, consid
ered running.

  More wolves appeared, closing him in a circle.

  Step two: if it's a nightmare, try to wake up.

  He tried. He shook himself, thought himself back into his body, tried to feel the heavy eyelids, the fingers resting on his chest...

  The wolves came closer, quietly. The silence scared him more than the howls. He looked at them. They had human heads.

  Their teeth, however, were those of wolves.

  Step three: try to change the dream.

  He focused, listening to the background noise, to the way the wind moved. Small details. That was important. But here there were so many small details, and he knew that only a particularly strong dreamer could have created this place. The steps of the wolves. A lonely bird in a tree whose leaves shook in the wind.

  He concentrated ... but it was no good.

  The wolves attacked.

  * * * *

  Raphael woke up. He breathed deeply, wiped sweat away with the hem of his shirt. Michal was leaning above him, her hand still reaching for his shoulder. “Are you all right? You became so quiet I decided to wake you up. We've arrived."

  She had saved him.

  They'd need to talk.

  But first he needed some fresh air.

  He stepped out of the car. The magazine was still in his hand. He looked at it. Stories, he thought, should all end with the sentence, “And then he woke up and it was all a dream.” If he, Raphael, was a writer, he would have ended all his stories that way. The wolves almost ate him, but then he woke up and it was all just a dream. Great.

  He wondered if anyone else had ever thought of that before.

  "Raphael?"

  He was awake, now. He looked around him. Quiet neighbourhood. A house separate from its neighbours, surrounded by wildly-growing plants. Dirty windows. Cats disappearing into the gloom.

  "Varda Talit?” Michal said.

  "Yes,” the woman who approached them said. Raphael looked at her and tried not to show his alarm.

  Varda Talit looked like a creature out of an entire nation's nightmares. Scars covered the organic part of her body. Engines noisily lifted the metal gloves that were her hands. Armour covered her stomach, its colour that of dried blood. Acid scars ran down her metallic legs. Her head was a helmet, a glass aquarium, her face hidden inside it. Transparent pipes connected her head to her body, and liquids the colour of semi-digested food passed through them. She looked like a mad scientist's lab.

  "Who did this to you?” Michal asked, weakly.

  "That's what I hope you'll find out,” Varda Talit said. She approached Raphael and reached her hand to him in a jerked motion. The engines hummed. “Raphael, right? I hoped we could talk about an article on you for the journal. Our readers are most interested in your work at the REM. In fact—” and here it was possible that the hidden face behind the helmet smiled “-I myself am a fan of yours. The job you did on the Gunslinger of Chelem was a classic. A classic! A very creative solution. Our readers were very excited—in fact, one of our better writers, Lior Tirosh, even wrote a story about it. He wants to write a whole series of stories with you as the hero."

  Michal smiled. Raphael didn't know what to say.

  "When did the attacks start?” he asked.

  "About a month ago,” Varda said. “In the beginning I really thought they were just nightmares—I have quite a few of those, particularly from stories I get from beginning writers.” She giggled. “Only joking. But gradually they became more violent, sharper, and he began to appear in the dreams occasionally, to mock me."

  "He?"

  "He, she, I don't know. He appears as a faceless man. Sometimes he talks to me. He says he admires the journal, sometimes he sounds like some sort of fan, you know?"

  Raphael didn't know. “And he caused these changes to you?"

  "Gradually, yes."

  "It doesn't sound like he was trying to kill you,” Raphael said. “I think if he wanted to, he would have."

  "And this?” Varda Talit said, pointing at herself. “You call this a life? You know I woke up one day and my helmet was full of water? And goldfish? Goldfish that were breeding in my head!"

  "Goldfish?” Michal said.

  "Breeding?” Raphael said.

  "In my head,” Varda Talit said.

  There was a silence.

  "When does he appear?"

  "When I sleep."

  Raphael sighed. “Yes,” he said patiently, “but when?"

  "Look, these days, I try to sleep as little as possible. In any case I don't have much time to sleep. You know how long it takes to run a journal?"

  "Magazine,” Michal whispered to him.

  "Ah,” Raphael, who really didn't understand the term, said. “No."

  "A lot,” Varda said. “So I only sleep when I don't have a choice. And at different times."

  "And he always appears?"

  "Very often,” Varda said. “Not always. But I think he sleeps a lot. Maybe he even works as a dreamer. I don't know."

  "Neither do I,” Raphael said.

  "So find out,” Varda said. “I pay my taxes, you know?"

  "Really?” Raphael said.

  Varda looked like someone—something?—who wanted to hit him. Michal intervened. “Raphael, should I make the bed?"

  "What?” He looked at her with clouded eyes. The previous dream still disturbed him. “Yes,” he said without enthusiasm. “And Teddy."

  "Teddy?” Varda said suspiciously. “What is the meaning of Teddy?"

  "It helps him sleep,” Michal whispered.

  She moved towards the car. Raphael joined her. “Michal,” he said, “earlier, when I slept? He tried to attack me."

  "He? Who?"

  "I don't know. I didn't see him."

  "And what happened?"

  "You woke me up. The nightmare I was in ... I couldn't change it."

  Michal stopped. “You're saying he's that strong?"

  "And close,” Raphael said. “Very close."

  Michal reached into the car and came back with a handgun the size of a small cannon. The gun was silver and alien-looking, like an illustration from the magazine—or journal—Raphael was still holding. The gun was a present from Raphael, an object he had found in the dream of someone who, he now realised, must have been a science fiction fan. Or whatever that stuff was called.

  "Could you find him?"

  "I can try."

  Michal waved the gun. Raphael blinked.

  "Shall I prepare the emergency equipment?” Michal said.

  Raphael nodded. Michal looked worried.

  Rightly so, he thought.

  She prepared the field-bed for him. The teddy bear, missing one eye, waited for him with its head on the pillow. Raphael stretched out on the bed, Grotesqa still in his hands.

  "Wait,” Michal said. She hooked him up to the equipment. It measured his heart rate, the amount of sweat, the small, unseen movements of his muscles. The equipment would tell Michal if Raphael was in trouble. If he found himself in a nightmare, and it was too horrible, and there was a need to wake him, fast.

  "Ready,” Michal said.

  Raphael sighed and closed his eyes. He began counting to ten. Not sheep. He hated falling asleep with sheep. Raphael counted numbers. Numbers had no smell.

  One.

  Two.

  Thhhhhh ... three.

  Fou ... rrr.

  And fell asleep.

  * * * *

  The planet was purple. So was the sun it orbited. It was purple in the way only something that broadcast combined rays of red and blue light could be. It was purple like the clothes of aristocracy, purple like cheap prose.

  Raphael was scared of it.

  Not of the sun. Not exactly.

  Raphael was afraid of the colour.

  The fear came and went in waves of terror.

  The fear had a name.

  Porphyrophobia.

  The fear of the colour purple.

  Raphael's spaceship circled the plan
et in orbit. Large windows were cut into the body of the ship. There was nowhere for Raphael to escape. The purple surrounded him, pressed on him, tightened around him.

  The purple planet.

  It's only a dream, he thought. I am currently lying on a field-bed in Ramat Yishai (where is that?) outside a gloomy house where a magazine (a journal?) is edited, and Michal is beside me.

  The purple hurt him, penetrated his eyes.

  I'm not really scared of the colour purple, he thought. There's no such thing, porphyrophobia.

  "Yes there is,” said the purple man. “You can check in the encyclopaedia."

  He looked at the purple man. The purple man stood before him. There was indeed a book in his hand. An encyclopaedia. But it, too, was purple. He couldn't look at it.

  "I believe you,” he said. He couldn't see the purple man's face. Couldn't stand the colour of his skin.

  "Racist,” the purple man said.

  Raphael shook his head. “Who are you?” he said.

  The purple man laughed. To Raphael's surprise, he didn't have a loud, crazy laugh as of a typical villain. In dreams of this kind, he sort of expected the villain character. Instead, the purple man had a pleasant, friendly laugh, as if they were both good friends and Raphael had just told a joke they both knew well and always laughed at.

  There was something familiar about that laugh.

  "Me?” the purple man said. “I'm from another dream."

  "Do I know you?” Raphael asked.

  "I know you,” the purple man said.

  "The Passion Knights of the Purple Planet,” Raphael said. “That's from the magazine. I saw it. It's only a story."

  "A journal,” the purple man said. “And what are stories if not dreams? You idiot."

  "What do you want?” Raphael asked. He was beginning to get annoyed. And when he was annoyed, the fear of the colour purple dissipated, a little.

  "To kill you."

  Of course. Raphael almost sighed. So predictable.

  "I waited for you,” the purple man said. “I've been waiting for so long."

  "Varda Talit,” Raphael said. Now he was really annoyed. He looked at the purple man and this time didn't look away. He could almost see his face. “You used her as bait? To bring me here?"

  "Good,” the purple man said. “You're not as stupid as you look."

  He smiled, and now Raphael could finally see his face.

  And took an involuntary step back.