Elizabeth Scott
Professor Sabier
World Science Fiction
Mar 30, 2020
Perchance to Dream
Day one
Maya was sitting in the back corner booth of the Squeeze In Diner, rubbing her fingers over a crack in the red lacquered cushions, listening to the wind rattling the window panes and the kids rattling the arcade machine when her eyes caught on a news report playing on the television. The text scrolling across the bottom of the screen read “MONSTER IN NEW YORK” in capital letters.
She rolled her eyes. What a fucking cliche. She didn’t bother to look up from her milkshake as the other patrons slowly noticed the TV and began to gather around it, their voices rising in panic at the flashing images, the scenes of destruction, and the text rolling by again and again: MONSTER IN NEW YORK, MONSTER IN NEW YORK. She took another sip of her milkshake. What did these people care? They were in California.
A young waiter slid into the booth across from her. “Aren’t you going to jump up and scream with everyone else?” he asked. She shrugged.
“Doesn’t seem worth the effort. You?”
“I don’t know.” he said, cracking a smile. “It’s not every day the world ends.”
“I’m Maya.” she stuck out a hand.
“Hector.” he shook it. It was cold from the milkshake glass.
She already knew his name was Hector. It said so on his nametag.
“A pleasure.” she said, and slid the milkshake across the table to him. He took a sip, slid it back. They sat together for a long time, two strangers watching the inexplicable, the long expected, the monster in New York. What a fucking cliche.
Day Six
“Did you see the news this morning?” Hector asked, sliding into the booth across from her. “Six more reported patients. That’s what they’re calling them now. Patients.”
“Like it’s some kind of disease?” she asked, dipping a french fry in ketchup.
“I suppose it is like that. It’s just a disease that calls your worst fear into existence.” he leaned over to steal a french fry.
“It might be contagious.” Maya said, whacking his hand away.
He rolled his eyes. “You just don’t want to share your fries. You’re not a ‘patient’.”
“You can’t trust anybody.” she said with a sharp sort of smile.
He frowned. “Are you afraid?” he asked, suddenly serious.
Maya hesitated for a moment. In all honesty, she didn’t know. “It feels so far away. Like, that’s terrible, but it won’t happen to me.” She looked up at him, meeting his eyes for once. They were brown, but in a surprising sort of way. Like they might turn gold if she looked at them long enough.
Hector nodded. “I hate it.” he said. “I hate all this normalcy.”
She smiled. “So let’s live like the world is ending.”
“I can’t. My break’s over in two minutes. And my shift doesn’t end until eleven.”
“You might wake up tomorrow with a monster in your bed. You going to spend your last night working?”
He laughed. “You’re a real downer, you know.”
She shrugged. “You hardly know me.”
“I’d like to.” he countered, throwing her a crooked grin as he stood up from the table. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” she asked hopefully. He nodded.
Day Seven
“They’re saying the monsters are being sucked in from a parallel universe.” Hector explained in between bites of hashbrowns. “The disease alters a patient’s attachment to this world, so they drift more fully into the next one.” He paused to slather his plate with more ketchup before continuing. “Then they bring back the thing they’re most attached to.”
“Their worst nightmare?” Maya interjected.
“I guess.” Hector shrugged. “Apparently we’ve been bouncing between worlds since forever. That’s where all our dreams happen.”
“Crazy.” Maya said, even though she’d read all the same news sites.
“It might be absolutely terrifying,” he said, digging into his omelet, “But we’re learning fascinating stuff.”
Maya shrugged. “Honestly, I’d rather talk about anything else.”
So they talked about his family and his job for a few minutes, both revelling in the sense of normalcy.
“You live in Truckee?” he asked her.
She reached up to run a hand through her hair. “No,” she said after a pause. “Just passing through.”
It wasn’t a place you just passed through really, especially in the fall when the ski resorts were all shut and the lakes were too cold to swim in, but he took her non-answer with no further questioning. It was nice. He seemed happy enough to just talk, and she was happy enough to just listen.
Day Twelve
“What can I get for you, m’lady?” Hector asked her in an awful attempt at a British accent as she sat down in her usual booth.
“Just a coffee and toast, thanks Hec.” Maya said with a smile.
He frowned back. “Can do the toast, but we’re out of coffee. There’s been a run on it.”
“How come?” she asked, though she could guess the answer.
“Well, the monsters only come out to play after bedtime.” Hector said, with a solid attempt at humor. “So everyone’s stockpiling it. And tea, Redbulls, you name it. If it’s got caffeine, it’s gone. The shelves are bare and so are we.”
Maya’s brow furrowed. “It doesn’t really make a difference, does it?” she asked. “You have to sleep eventually.”
“One would think. I’ll get you an orange juice then?”
Day Seventeen
The first thing Maya noticed was the bruise on Hector’s cheek and the way his smile seemed more pasted on than usual. She raised her eyebrows at him as he approached.
“You okay?” she asked, flicking her gaze at his cheek. He raised his hand instinctively to touch it.
“Just a bruise.” he mumbled. “Can I get you anything?”
“Who hit you?” she asked, not backing down. His shoulders slumped.
“My mom. She’s upset that I’m still out working. Afraid I’m going to get her sick.”
Maya frowned. It didn’t seem like a particularly good reason to hit someone. But it brought up an interesting point.
“Why aren’t you quarantining? Most people are at this point.”
Hector scowled, and Maya realised she’d forgotten to express her concern or condolences. Some friend she was.
“I could ask the same of you.” he said testily.
Maya didn’t answer, just waited for him to respond. She knew Hector would squirm under the silence, given time.
“I’m saving up for college.” he said after a pause. “If I don’t keep working, I won’t be able to afford it.”
Maya nodded. “Fair enough.”
“If there’s still a college to go to, anyway.” he added. Schools had started shutting down a few days ago. It was all over the news.
Maya reached out and grabbed his hand. Touch was a dangerous thing now, but he didn’t pull away. She met his gaze.
“There will be.” she said firmly, and let go of his hand.
Day Twenty-one
They sat on the swingset at Truckee Elementary School, looking out at the deserted playground. It was 1pm on a Wednesday, and the yard should have been littered with kids on lunch recess. Instead, it was empty but for a few crows picking at the remains of a forgotten lunchbox. The autumn wind bit at Maya’s hands, and she pulled her sweater over her palms so that she could grip the swing chains.
“Hector?” she asked, turning to face him.
“Yeah?”
“I’ve been thinking about something you said the other day.” He grunted affirmation, and Maya continued. “You said the patients ‘bring back what they’re most attached to’. That being their worst nightmare.”
“What about it?” he asked, finally looking up at her.
“Don’t you think it’s weird? That we’re more attached to our nightmares than to our dreams?”
Hector shrugged. “I always feel like holding on to a good dream is like trying to keep water cupped in your hands. But a nightmare? I can never seem to shake them.”
Maya kicked at the wood chips with her faded pink sneakers, wondering if Hector was attached to her.
Day Twenty-seven
The Squeeze In Diner had finally shut down the day before, so Hector met Maya at one of the public piers at Donner Lake. The lake would have been beautiful if it wasn’t so eerie. It was one of the last nice days before winter began in earnest, and the cool blue waters were so dappled with sunlight that it looked like someone had stuffed the sun into a ketchup bottle and covered the lake as generously as Hector covered his potatoes. But the usual boats and swimmers and water skiers were absent, leaving only the two teenagers sitting in the dappled sunlight and trying to remember a time before all of this. A time when the trees by the road a few yards away weren’t adorned with spray painted signs warning people to go home and stay there, a time when children and dogs still played along the rocky shoreline. It was a long while before either of them spoke.
“Hector?” Maya asked finally, “What are you most afraid of?”
He sighed, letting the silence stretch out longer than he ever used to.
“I’m not sure.” he said eventually, but Maya knew he was lying. It was what they were all thinking about in the in-between moments.
There was another long pause before he asked, “Do you know?”
“Failure.” she said after a minute. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to do… whatever it is I’m here for.” She wasn’t sure if that was really it, but it was as good a guess as any and Hector seemed to accept it.
“My mom’s not letting me back in the house, you know.” Hector said suddenly. “She’s too afraid.”
“You can stay with me.” she offered. “I’m in a motel down the road.”
“The one whose sign still advertises?” he asked incredulously.
“That’s the one.” Maya replied cheerfully, and they shared a rare laugh.
They stayed there until the last rays of light from the setting sun lit up the hair around Hector’s head like a halo and the air turned cold enough to make the skin showing through the ripped spot on Maya’s jeans grow goosebumps. Then they walked back to the hotel with the COLOR TV sign, all caps, and laid down side by side in Maya’s rented bed, not touching. They stayed that way for a while, both unsure what to say.
“I was lying earlier.” Hector said finally, not meeting Maya’s eye. “About not knowing what I’m most afraid of.”
Maya waited, heart pounding.
“I’m afraid that… the people I trust most…” he trailed off, fiddling with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. Finally, he met her gaze. “That they’ll betray me.”
Maya kept her eyes locked on his, choosing her next words carefully. “So what about me? Do you trust me?”
He nodded.
“Oh, Hector.” she said softly, and laid her hand over his heart.
As he watched in horror, her eyes turned red. Horns sprouted from her head, and her fingernails grew into talons, piercing his skin. As the first rays of moonlight illuminated her figure, he saw her as she truly was for the first time. Horrible.
Hector’s last thought was that, somehow, she looked even more beautiful in this monstrous form, her eyes blazing like some avenging warrior, her skin aglow. Then she yanked his still beating heart from his chest.
Day Twenty-eight
When the cleaner found their bodies the next day, the young boy’s heart still clutched in the now cold hand of the demon-girl, like some kind of perversion of Romeo and Juliet, she couldn’t be sure if the scene was real, or if it was some long forgotten nightmare, brought with her into the world of the living.
