Dream a Little Dream, part 2
[Continued from Part 1:
http://asylums.insanejournal.com/city_limits/162193.html ]


Thumbs pushed against Gavin's closed eyelids before his large palms roamed across the short hairs on his head, his fingers clasping at the base of his neck as he stood there, elbows pointing out as his eyes opened slowly. Tall obscure buildings loomed forward, their crooked tips raised towards the amethyst sky above. Lightening yellow clouds floated casually along, the small breeze ruffling the werewolf's shirt, his jacket flapping against his hip with a small, soft whump of fabric meeting fabric. "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."

The words were quiet, hushed even in the eerie silence that cloaked them. Gavin turned, his hazel eyes dancing over Rosalyn's face. For a moment he did nothing, he couldn't let his own rising panic show, whatever was happening he had to stay in control of himself. Not just for himself, but for her, and he would do it. He would keep it together. Reaching out with his left hand, Gavin entwined his fingers with the vampire's and pressed his warm palm against her slightly cooler one.

One thing was for certain, his memory still worked, and he knew without a doubt that he was laying somewhere unconscious. Which didn't explain where he was, but at least he knew where he wasn't and that was a start. The ground looked damp, the grey of the sidewalk deeper like charcoal. Across the street were rows of very different gardens. Some looked normal enough with flowers and bushes, others had dead animals and garbage. The smell had yet to reach him. Twisted lamp posts towered like spot lights, until one of them began to flicker, the hiss and buzz of electricity sparking ringing in his ears. Without warning the bulbs all dimmed, like someone had turned them down, and the only source of bright light was harsh against a naked window inside one of the houses.

With a heavy sigh, Gavin tried blinking harder, but nothing changed. Instinct told him to go where the light was, the problem with that was how uneasy it made him feel just considering it. "Feel like seeing if anyone is home?"

"Truth?" Rosalyn tipped her head in time with her rising shoulders. The uncertain shrug spoke volumes. "I'd rather rise and shine."

That she was asleep and this was a dream of sorts, the vampire knew. The world was too changed; houses leaned at precarious angles, like the broken front porches of derelicts; the unreal colors of the sky seemed artificially lit, the clouds swirling in the heavy-stroked patterns of a Van Gogh. But being in a dream didn't erase the fear of harm. The acrid stench on the air still burned her nostrils, and Rose felt rather than understood that hurt could happen here.

She squeezed his hand. They couldn't just stand there in the street like a couple of dopes. That lamp light seemed to crook its golden finger. "Okay, Clyde." She took a step, noting that the sound of her shoe was muffled, as if no echo existed there. Rose started up the driveway, inching in front of Gavin when they came to a parked car and the space to pass it became narrow. The vehicle looked broken down, an old jalopy with its hood up, paint scratched, and the taillights busted out. She jumped a mile when something hard clacked against the window. The glass was fogged up from lovers' breath. Rose saw the sole of a girl's shoe, the swirl of white petticoats beneath a skirt, a boy's hand sifting through dozens of layers.

Rose averted her face and tugged the werewolf's arm, feeling the fervent urge to pull him beyond reach of that car pronto, and whomever was inside.

Dread felt like a blanket that had been lowered onto his shoulders, making them feel heavy as his booted feet took slow, short steps. Everything inside Gavin was telling him to stop, something wasn't right, and of course it wasn't. They were stuck somewhere that made no sense, and there was nothing to make the werewolf feel safe or comfortable. Tightening his hand in Rosalyn's, he followed her as she pulled him away from the rusting car, the figures inside lost in shadows.

What struck him then was that there was no sound, not with real depth. Like it was all muffled, stifled in some way to make it sound flat, or dead. As they got closer to the house, Gavin suddenly caught movement in a garden they were passing, his eyes taking in the sight of a black dog chasing an equally black cat. That wasn't what sent a chill down the back of his neck though, the thing that bothered him most was the way they moved in slow motion, in a circle, never getting faster. "This is enough to make me want drugs." His bewildered glance shifted to take in the decrepit old house with the single glowing window.

Pulling Rosalyn closer, the werewolf wrapped his arm around her waist and inched up the path, turning so she was slightly behind him. "We need a plan." Whispering, his right hand grabbed the door handle until his knuckles turned white, "What are we thinking here, weapons? I doubt a phone would be any use. Whatever happens we don't split up." Then Gavin paused, offering a weird look and mild shrug, "I like watching horror movies. Might come in handy."

The vampire crowded closer to Gavin, looking behind them once for the source of a rustling sound. It was like the one in the alley, a soft scratching noise. A figure slipped behind an impossibly narrow lamp post and was gone. "What if no one's home?" she asked, preempting his suggestion of a game plan. "I can't go in uninvited." Unless the house was abandoned, but the light shining upstairs didn't bode well for desertion. Rose considered the knob. Would this world bend its rules for her? Impulsively, she covered the werewolf's hand and turned the knob, giving the door an inward nudge. The vampire's fingers passed the threshold without resistance.

A marble floor awaited them, its tiles slippery with melted snow, a huddle of umbrellas in the corner. There was a smell of damp wool coming from a coat rack and the muted sound of piano music. Rosalyn's brows twitched. "I know this number."

Stepping farther inside, she crossed her arms in a hug meant to warm her up; she couldn't remember the last time she felt truly cold, but the sensation had returned. The brunette's shoes tracked a moist path of prints through the entryway to the foot of a staircase, so much grander than the house had let on from outside. There she stopped, turning her head to watch a scene playing in the formal living room. There was a piano and it was surrounded by people, their mouths open to carry notes of a happy melody that both the vampire and werewolf could hear, but they were motionless. Nothing stirred at all: not the man's fingers on the ivory and black keys, not the swirl of smoke above a woman's cigarette, not the gold-colored drink being poured down a balding man's throat.

"Then I'll do a quick scout around and be back here in two minutes to get you." It wasn't the best option, but it was the only one he could come up with if Rosalyn couldn't enter. Distracted with the sudden scraping, Gavin let his head swivel sharply to look behind him, but he saw nothing, and so he kept his mouth shut. Then her cool hand was wrapped around his, and the door gave way, their entwined hands breaching the entrance of the hallway. Lifting his eyebrows, the werewolf fell into step behind the brunette as she sauntered straight in without any force preventing her.

The music was soft, but he could hear its haunting notes floating through the air, like butterflies falling past his ears. Without any reason his skin prickled, thousands of tiny goosebumps raising, "Where did you hear it before?" Gavin had honestly no recollection of it, but his curiosity to go look drove him further into the house, leaving the front door wide to the world. The floor was slippery, so his steps were careful as he moved behind Rosalyn to look over her shoulder. The sight before him left his jaw slack. "I don't like this, we should check the rest of the house and then go." The werewolf's natural rough voice seemed so very small in such a grand home. While his eyes swept the room, Gavin was unconsciously rubbing the back of his neck furiously, his skin damp and cold. "Those people... How can they be singing when they aren't moving?" It was like something straight out of a Stephen King novel, without the luxury of sitting in his comfy chair with the choice to close the book.

Taking a deep breath, Gavin swallowed the sickening feeling as it began to rise up his throat. Despite wanting to look away, the werewolf was finding it very difficult, much like witnessing a car wreck as you drive on by. Swiping his large palm across his face, the werewolf shook his head and backed away from the formal living room, his lower back hitting a door knob. Frantic for a distraction, and the overwhelming urge to get out of the building, he pivoted in order to yank open the door. Salty air hit him in the face, causing his eyes to screw up and his face to contort, the gentle spray of water wafted up and kissed his cheeks. There was a blue sky, shining like a beacon for him but instead of a floor there was, quite unmistakably, sea. With the soft breeze ruffling the surface, the water lapped at the bottom of the door frame, wetting the tips of his boots in an almost childish way. "Hey Rosalyn..." Gavin turned his face towards the vampire, "You should take a look at this."

Once his attention was brought back to the door leading to the sea, Gavin placed both hands on either side of the frame, and leaned into the room to have a better look on either side. What he didn't expect was to suddenly witness the water shoot up wildly as a monster of a shark burst through the surface. Mouth wide and rows of gnarled, pointy teeth growing out from the layer of pink gum as it lunged forward, fully intent on snatching Gavin. Miraculously, the werewolf managed to do three things at once. Slam the door so loudly the hinges wobbled as the echo filled the hall, scream as his childhood nightmare, Jaws, met him face to face, and managed to successfully not shit himself as the terror soaked into his bones.

"We're leaving! Did you see that?! We have to go, don't touch that door, I need to find a bathroom." The words tumbled from his lips in a rush of panic. What the fuck was this place?

"The bathroom," she said in a small voice, "It's just past the stairs."

Rosalyn had felt the gust of salty air at her back. It tossed her brown pin curls into a messy heap that obscured her peripheral vision. The foyer had become a passage between two worlds. There was snow melt at her toes and a splash of ocean water on her heels; the latter would dry and crust on the marble. Even when the werewolf yelled, Rose hadn't been able to do much but cringe. While it was his nightmare beyond the closet door, the prelude to Rose's was before her.

"This is our party. These are Lawrence's friends." And her husband was amongst them, a dull, motionless man at the mantel who smoked a cigar that never burned down. Beneath the music, Rosalyn could hear his voice droning on about a blue marlin mounted there. That was a decoration she didn't remember. Its fins were as sharp as razors, its eye able to roll within the socket, its gills quivering in the open air. The vampire watched a droplet of water plop onto the hardwood.

"Get a grip." Rose snapped into focus. She wouldn't stand there, a halfwit staring into a wax museum of her old life. She and Gavin had come for something. A knife? Weapons? Safety from the thing outside? Backing out of the fine room, she bumped into the werewolf's arm and grabbed onto it. Down the hall, she could see another source of light, flickering orange from underneath a study door. "Upstairs. We should go upstairs, where the lamplight was."

When Rosalyn bumped into him Gavin almost went into cardiac arrest. Struggling to breathe, he shifted his large form so that he was facing the woman, his hand moving to clasp hers tightly. Calming himself as best he could, the werewolf coughed and cocked his head to the left. "Who's Lawrence?" Was this how the vampire knew the song? "This has happened for you?" Whatever this was he wasn't sure, but Gavin certainly wasn't enjoying it.

Darting eyes meant that Gavin spotted the pale light glowing beneath the door further ahead casting shadows that curled and vanished, as if coaxing you closer. The rational part of him wanted to check the bottom floor before moving upstairs, because fuck knows what he would find, and he wasn't risking it without something heavy in his hand.

"I want to see what's behind that door first, there's a light." Little did the werewolf know that Rosalyn was fully aware of that. Squeezing her hand gently, Gavin pressed his lips together until they became a thin white line, and moved forward. The sound of his boot squelching on the polished floor was soon accompanied by another. Creeping along with his hand tugging lightly at Rosalyn's, fully intent that they go together. "Maybe there's something in there that explains what's going on."

The werewolf showed his fear and uncertainty in expressive ways: he shouted, he touched his face, he prowled and searched for something useful so he could go on the offensive. For Rose, fear was a thing that had gone unfelt for decades. Maybe it was making up for lost time, because it surged to life, becoming a physical entity as it coiled and tightened around her stomach like a python. Fear made her a paralytic. She hung back and tugged on his arm.

"Lawrence was my husband. This is his house." Except for the porch onto the sea; Rose hadn't gone to the sea until long after she was dead.

The firelight spilled across the threshold and bathed the werewolf's shoes in warmth. A dainty voice filtered through the door, a tinkle of flirtatious laughter that went unanswered, as if the woman within were talking to herself. Dread like iron weights ached inside Rose's ribcage. She squeezed in front of her lover and pressed her back against the door, hanging onto the knob. "Gav, please, it's just the study! Boring old books and dust bunnies."

The woman screamed. Rose closed her eyes.

For a brief second hurt flashed across his face, "You were married?" That was like a can of worms opening in his head, firing off questions he wasn't sure he wanted the answers for. Did she love him? Was she happy? What if he didn't compare? Amidst his train of thought Rosalyn's voice broke through and pulled him back to the hallway. Clearing his throat, Gavin rubbed a rough palm against his jaw stubble, the faint sound of the coarse hairs scratching his palm melted into the air.

Tilting his head to the side, the werewolf gave Rosalyn a confused look. "I can hear voices, someone's in there, Rose." Which meant if he could hear it, so could she, and Gavin couldn't understand why she would lie, or why she would block the door. Of course, he could smell her fear just as much as she could smell his, and the werewolf lifted his hand to brush her cheek softly. "I wont let anything happen to you, it's going to be okay." His features softened, and he was already leaning in with the intent to wrap his arms around her when a sudden scream pierced the silence like glass through skin.

Instinctively, Gavin was ushering Rosalyn aside, his hands fighting to find the door knob. "We have to help!" What if they weren't the only ones trapped here, what if that was them being killed, what if they knew something that could help them? What if, what if, what if? The door suddenly flew open with Gavin's hand wrapped around it, he lurched forward a few steps and froze when his eyes finally focused. What was actually happening was far worse than he could have anticipated. Frozen in horror, the werewolf could only stand, mouth open as he witnessed a tall gentleman in a suit watching the beautiful brunette sink to the floor.

Not just any brunette...

"Rosalyn?" Gavin's heart felt like it was slowing down in his chest, the dull thudding ache, making everything feel like it was in slow motion. She was there... Right there, trying to crawl and leaving a bloody pattern slithered along the floor. The werewolf's entire body jerked, and he made a few steps forward before hitting something invisible. That filled him with a new wave of panic, and he brought his hands up to push against the air. He couldn't get any closer, and in the back of his mind he knew it was already too late, because Rosalyn was already right here. That didn't stop him thumping his fists against the barrier until his wrists hurt from impact. The urge to scream was bubbling up inside his chest, and he had to force himself to turn his back to it. Even if it made no sense, it felt like some part of him inside broke.

Facing Rosalyn, Gavin swallowed the lump in his throat, a combination of fear, fury, and sick. Taking a deep breath, the werewolf let it out slowly. It felt like his tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth. Closing his eyes, he took three seconds before opening them and walking as calmly, and as quickly, towards the door without looking back.

Rosalyn was in the study, a step left of the doorway. The vampire's fingers were clenched in the folds of her skirt; they balled it up and wrung it like a wet rag, so that it hung wilted. She couldn't take her eyes off the body: hers. When young Rosalyn toppled off the desk, her skirt had flipped up and exposed her thighs and the black seam on her hosiery.

Mr. Hilliard crouched and dragged the body away from the fireplace. He held up his punctured hand, still bleeding from the pen she punched through it, extracted the barrel and pressed it over the brunette's mouth. All that the watching vampire cared about was the wound gaping open at her jugular. It still seeped red life in quiet, splattering droplets that plink-plinked on the hardwood.

"I wanted someone like you," she said of the werewolf, her knees rattling as she watched him try to save her, the way her husband hadn't. She had dreamed of a man who saw her as precious, who wouldn't let his wife out of sight with a stranger. Rose swallowed the explanation, because it was nothing but whining about a stagnant, wealthy life she'd chosen for herself, and a string of bad behavior that backfired on her. "I wish it was you that night."

The sire got up and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, wiped away the dark-haired wife of his new friend, who amounted to little more than a messy meal. He nudged her limp arm with his shoe. Then he looked at the door where Rose was, his face uglier than a vampire's, a ferocious, gold-eyed, leering mess of crooked, jutting fangs and monstrous brow. Pink saliva dripped off his chin. The vampire growled and began to mutate into a taller, lanky creature of green skin.

"Please get me out of here." Rose felt along the door and backed into the hall, which had grown silent without its singers. The floor was no longer marble but hard concrete. The dry, rustling sound was back again. Rose looked up and saw the decorative paper peeling away from the walls, removing the facade of Lawrence's house, turning it into another building altogether.

The foundation trembled and the air began to burn with that acrid stench again.

Stopping just a few steps out of the doorway, Gavin turned his head slightly as Rosalyn's quiet, whispered words almost sighed through the icy silence. It wasn't until he felt the piercing sting of sharp fingernails digging into his fleshy palm, that he realised he had been clenching his hands into fists. That familiar burning seared his fingers, and the werewolf knew he was starting to lose it, because he was fighting the start of the change. "I share that wish." His words were ghostly. When he blinked, he saw it again, a brief flash of that bastard watching Rosalyn die. How could no one have heard? What idiot let a vampire into their house? If he had been thinking straight, he would have realised that he had.

At her next words, Gavin reached past his side to clutch Rosalyn's hand, "My pleasure." His hazel eyes transfixed on the sudden, almost melting change of the house. Shaking his head to snap out of it, the werewolf suddenly took off down the hallway, taking Rosalyn with him. He hadn't shut the front door. Groaning in horror, Gavin skidded to a slippery stop just in time before he barrelled into the new brick wall, sabotaging his exit.

Slapping his hand roughly against the wall, the werewolf let out a short, rather loud roar. "Fuck!" In his head, a stream of pure profanity rampaged wildly, even as he automatically turned to the staircase. "Alright, we go up." Giving Rosalyn's hand a brief squeeze, he wrapped one hand around the banister, and took the stairs one at a time. At first, he thought his eyes were playing up from that stench again, but with each step he took the stairs began to get covered in grass. Some were even sprouting the beginnings of bushes. Now he was more confused than freaked out. "Do you believe this?" The palm of his free hand swept the space in front of him.

Taking the last two steps at a time, Gavin wasn't sure if he was shocked or relieved as the floor wove a pathway in between a thicket of trees. If there was ever a moment where he had been thankful to breathe, it was now, when he took a deep, burning lungful of fresh air. The scents pure, pine and earth, damp after rain. The further he walked, the more the sides of the room expanded until it stretched on like the middle of a small forest. His boots crunched against the mixture of thick grass and the remains of soft dirt.

Which was why Gavin was so unsettled to breathe in the faint scent of something else in the air. Sniffing to follow it, he began to take larger steps, with the internal wish that he hadn't. As the scent grew stronger it also became familiar, which triggered all kinds of memories, shooting around like miniature lightening bolts. Then the sick, twisting feeling in his gut kicked in, and he had to swallow it down. In the distance he could just make out the silhouettes of two people standing apart, their voices mere whispers, yet carrying far. "I was wrong, let's go back downstairs, it changed around, maybe something's different." There was something very strained about the way he said it.

"I'm sorry, Debbie..."

Gavin rubbed the back of his neck, his nails scratching helplessly as a few stray segments of conversation met his ears.

"You're sorry! How could you do this to me, I mean look at you!"

Even though she had flat-out run up the steps, Rosalyn was a couple of footfalls behind the werewolf. On her way up the stairs, the bushes and brambles of a thick forest floor had snagged on her dress and punctured tiny holes in her stockings. Had the black mary janes not been buckled around her ankles, they might've come off in a mud puddle that spanned a portion of what had been the landing.

The vampire was brought up short by Gavin's solid body. "Where are we?"

The illusion of woods was so real, it extended to the sky. Rose could see a canopy of tree boughs and stars blinking between the leaves. They flickered and sputtered like they were connected to faulty electrical wiring. The moon was a fat, yellow sphere that loomed above them, far too low in the sky, and exaggerated so that it threatened to pop like a water balloon. It swayed, a lunar pendulum in an imaginary breeze, and the trees scritched and scratched on the bottom of it.

Somehow, Rose knew the appearance of it was bad news. The werewolf's claws, which struggled to breach the surface, pinched her hand. "Baby?" Uncertainty was traded for silence when she heard voices. The vampire linked her arm around his bicep and pressed her mouth against Gavin's shoulder.

She could see them, a young woman and man, and although she didn't recognize the girl, Gavin's graveled voice and accent were as familiar to her ears as a favorite song. "Who's she?" While the woman's place in the wolf's past was lost on her, the reason why she was wailing and scolding him was obvious, with the moon so large. "She's your girl, isn't she?" A flood of emotion -- jealousy and sadness -- mingled with a fierce urge to lash out, to scratch Debbie's eyes out for having the gall to look at him and not see a beautiful beast. Rose's vampiric features burgeoned and then transformed her face, but she remained behind Gavin's shoulder.

The pieces started to fall together in his head, somehow. The song for Rosalyn, the wet floor and then the shark, the mention of her husband, which then sparked memories of his ex, and it seemed as if they were ricocheting back and forth between what was happening. While Gavin wanted to fit it together, his attention for it was lost with the questions being asked. "She hasn't been that for a long time." There was no heartache over the broken relationship, but witnessing it happen all over again was equally humiliating and painful.

What he longed to do was reach up and place his warm hand over Rosalyn's as she held onto his arm, but as the events unfolded before them, he decided against it. The werewolf could feel his heart thumping against his chest like a prisoner wanting out. Quietly he realised that the ground never did open up and swallow you when you wanted it too. Funny how it never stopped him hoping though.

The wind picked up, causing leaves and grass alike to sway and rustle like an ominous sigh of disapproval. Gavin's skin burned as his blood rushed through his veins, while his head dropped slightly. Chin now curiously close to resting on his upper chest, a forlorn feeling tangled around him like a cold serpent. Every inch of his body felt heavy, like someone had just happened to carve him straight out of rock. Through the haze of dark lashes, Gavin watched in abject horror as Debbie's hand struck the side of his face. The sound echoed through the trees, bouncing towards him tauntingly, like cruel laughter.

A small struggle ensued when he reached for the girl, Debbie's cry of, "Let go of me you freak!" stopped him cold in his tracks. The sandy blond used both palms to slap Gavin square in the chest, and he watched his younger self stumble backwards as Debbie took off. Running through the trees and back to the park, back to her family. It was with a sick fascination that Gavin continued to watch as he saw himself double over, clutching his stomach. On the ground, he fought with himself to pull his clothes off as his body twisted and his joints popped, as he screamed saliva pooled and dribbled from his lips. The last of his cry becoming a howl.

This was the first time Gavin had actually viewed himself as a werewolf. It felt surreal, as if his mind was suspended by fog. The werewolf lifted its head, sniffed the air loudly, and was about to head in the direction of Debbie, had a small animal, possibly a rabbit, not sprang from a nearby bush. The wolf cry had apparently startled it enough for it to want to flee. Though it didn't make it far as the werewolf lunged, grabbing the back of its neck with his teeth, proceeding to shake it viciously to death. As its paws held it against the floor and the first chunk was bitten out, Gavin finally spoke. "Can we leave now?" So far everywhere he lead them was terrible, and after that, he wasn't ready to face anything else yet. "You choose, this time I'll follow."

What they needed was to tear ass out of there. But how to escape a house that wasn't a house, and a nightmare that didn't come from sleep? Rosalyn closed her eyes and demonic features softened and gave way for a woman's. She heard the snapping of little bones and the shaking of foliage as the werewolf fed. They were trapped in twisted versions of terrible memories that had melded into a dream. But there were good dreams, too, weren't there?

"I never wake up from bad dreams when I want to," Rose said. "It's always the good ones that get interrupted. I'll think up something good, Vine, and when we open our eyes, we'll be there. Then maybe we'll wake up."

She reached up high and covered the werewolf's eyes with her fingers.

The wind shifted. There was a thin, sharp, metallic sound, like chimes clanging together. It was loud at first and strident to her ears, but it faded into the tinkle of crystal. A tiny, glass bottle of perfume being nudged into a drawer of others. A ruffling sound, too, like crinoline.

"So, what do you think? Do I look like Elizabeth Taylor?"

Rose lifted her eyes. The forest shimmered and melted, becoming paint that ran down a canvas. Underneath, there was a young woman's bedroom, which was situated on the front of a house that overlooked a quiet street. The room was a veritable mountain of white lace, with pink and red accents. Faded newsclippings of Hollywood stars were pinned to the wallpaper. A dark-haired girl sat at a vanity table, admiring her reflection and then fingering a cigarette card tucked in the side of the mirror. She collected those smiling faces the way boys collected baseball cards.

Behind her, another girl smoked and fluffed the tail of Rose King's ivory ball dress, careful not to drop ashes on the fabric. "If you ask me, you look like a wedding cake."

"Wedding cake?" Young Rose smacked her friend's knuckles with a hairbrush. "I hope that doesn't mean I look round."

"I've seen a few square ones. Ouch!" Annette wrung the sting out of her hand and leaned on the bedpost. "Don't worry, Rosie, nobody'll mistake you for a square."

The vampire's hand came away from Gavin's eyes.


[To be continued...]