The Dreammaker

The Dreammaker
By
Raman Jalota

   Elaine sensed the movement in her bedroom. She held her breath and listened – there it was. Or was it? There was a sound of faint footsteps on the stairs. Her awareness heightened, her eyes wide-open in terror, she clutched her comforter hard against her throat. She could hear it. Someone or something was walking right outside the bedroom. And then she could hear it distinctly, something crawled into the bedroom. She awoke shivering with fright. Amos was trying to get in bed with her. She let him in. He purred, thanking her.
   She tried to close her eyes and stay away from the dream. She didn’t want to be chased by the dark, menacing, murdering Rajiv Ratan. He had already killed several people. She didn’t want to dream about him.
   Wait a second. How do I know he’s the one? Maybe I am threatened by my encounters with him. Maybe he’s completely innocent.
   Slowly she drifted back into sleep, fighting hard to not dream of dark alleys and shadowy figures with something in their hands … What is in his hands?
He saw her close the office door behind her and quickly hid his hands behind his back. “How are you Elaine?”   He smiled. His too bright teeth looked sparkling white against his dark skin and jet black hair.
    “Are you coming in to your office at this time, Rajiv?”
    “Yes. I have an assignment to finish tonight and decided to come back after dinner. Are you all done for the day?”
    “Yeah. Don’t work too hard.” She moved quickly to her car and locked the doors soon as she got in.    He moved through the doors and she saw his shadow climbing the stairs to the second floor where his office was. Too bad we share the same building. Maybe someday I’ll leave this real estate business and do something else.
    She put her portfolio on the backseat and checked her makeup. As she turned the car around and made a left to the back of the office and toward the street, the back door opened and a dark man moved rapidly towards the lone woman smoking and walking aimlessly in the back. Must be someone who works in my building.
    “Watch out! That bastard is coming towards you. Run!” Elaine screamed.
    The dark figure moved swiftly behind the smoker. The woman walked away from the building and stopped. She puffed at her cigarette and looking up at the sky and blew smoke lazily out of her mouth. The dark figure had silently followed her and as she was about to turn back, it raised it’s hands and put what seemed to be a rope or a cord around her neck and started pulling it tightly, choking her.
The woman struggled against the dark figure, throwing very weak punches at it’s face and body. Her body slowly collapsed and the dark figure dragged it by the neck further away from the building.
Elaine pressed the power control but the window refused to budge. She screamed again as the woman, her arms limp besides her body was dumped on the ground. The dark figure unwrapped the cord and ran towards the back door.
    “Help! He has just murdered someone…” She accelerated hard. I must get to a …a … gas station … must find a phone … She awoke shaking. Her body was covered with sweat. She sat in her bed holding Amos and rocking him gently.

…..

    Rajiv snarled and jumped at the tennis ball, hitting it with all his might, swinging wildly but placing the ball in the far right corner, away from Jim.
    “Wow, great shot, man!”
    He smiled, called the score and served a hard serve to Elaine’s forehand. She barely put her racket on it. The ball rose up and before it could land he swung very hard with his arm moving in an arc around his waist, from right to left and won his serve.
    “You are playing well.” Jim patted him on the shoulder.
    “Well, as long as I can put them in. I can win the points. I hate it when I miss one, my whole game goes south when that happens.”
    “We can’t all be Pete Sampras.”
    Rajiv wiped his lips on his shirt and whistled softly as he walked over to the other side.
    “What are you whistling?” His partner asked.
    “It’s a slow marching tune. An Indian tune.”
    “What?”
    “Yeah, it goes – Raja hun main swarag ka, Inder mera naam hai.” He sang the strange words rhythmically clapping his hands to show slow marching feet.
    “What the…”
    “It means, I am the king of heaven, my name is Inder.” He took position to receive Jim’s serve.

…..

    Elaine turned in front of the Sears entrance and found a parking space in the dimly lit parking lot. I hope I can get my earrings repaired while I wait. Maybe I’ll go to Gart’s and look for some tennis shorts.
    The Aurora mall was crowded as usual. The evening hours brought in the customers who stopped in to pick up a few things on their way home. Most people stayed out of each other’s way and stayed uninvolved but friendly.
    It took two hours for her earrings to be ready. Clutching her shopping bags she hurried to her car opened the trunk with her remote and bent over to place the shopping bags in the trunk. A familiar tune brought her head up. A man whistling the slow marching tune, walked two rows ahead of her. Realizing what may be happening, her heart started to race. He had the same build as Rajiv and was carrying a baseball bat. Shaken but mesmerized she sat in her car, gripping the steering wheel, watching.
    He moved to the right and she could barely make out the figures as he raised his baseball bat and struck down hard in a familiar swinging arc from his right to left. He repeated the swinging motion then ran further right, out of her field of vision.
    Elaine fumbled with her car phone and waited till Jim’s voice was on.
    “I am at the Aurora mall and I just saw another murder. This guy … he.. he looked just like …”
    “Get a hold of yourself Elaine. Drive out of there. Get out of there first. I’ll call the cops for you. Hurry home.”
    She heaved a sigh of relief. At last Jim understands what’s happening. Everything should be fine from now on. She started the car and felt a familiar softness against her foot. She awoke with Jim humming in the bathroom and Amos at her feet.
    “I had another one of those dreams, Jim.”
    “You mean you saw another murder in your dreams?”
    “Yeah. This one was in the Aurora mall. I am quite sure it was Rajiv again. The way he used his baseball bat to kill someone was the same way he hits those hard shots when we play tennis.”
    “You must have had too much wine, Elaine. You need to quit thinking about the murders. It’s interfering with your thoughts and making you see things that may not be happening.”
    “How can you say that. They did find that poor housekeeper dead behind our building. And she was strangulated, just like I had seen her being killed in my dream. That was what happened. Rajiv sneaked out the backdoor and strangled her.”
    “You know the cops are looking for the killer. Why must you think about all this nonsense? You are not helping yourself.”

…..

   “Look Jim, listen …. “
   He stopped reading the newspaper and looked up at the TV. He swallowed slowly and walked into the living room and put his hands on her shoulders.
   “Jesus, is that what you saw?”
   “Yeah, I saw Rajiv swinging a baseball bat killing someone a couple of rows ahead of where I was parked.”
   “There … at the Aurora mall?”
   “Yes.”
   “Did you know, it was a .. another woman.”
   “No, I didn’t see her. She was hidden from my view.”
   “Elaine, how will you ever explain your dreams and the coincidences with real killings and who will believe you?”
   “But I have to tell someone. The cops?”
   “No, even I have a hard time believing what you tell me of your dreams. No one’s going to believe you. You could end up in big trouble. Maybe you should talk to a lawyer or someone like that. What … two people killed in two weeks and you saw pretty much how they were killed. This could be dangerous. You don’t want to name someone who you saw as the killer in your dreams … he may not be the killer.”
   “But then, why do I keep seeing him at these places … doing what he is doing? I think I have ESP or something. I can see these things extremely clearly even though I am not really there.”

…..

   Elaine glared back at the cop.
   “I saw him as clearly as I can see you standing in front of me.”
   “But you say this was in a dream. Ma’am, do you want us to charge someone with homicide on the basis of a dream?”
   “Well he does work in the same building as I. And that’s where that woman was killed three weeks ago.”
   Officer Ianacito looked helplessly at his fellow officers and was relieved when one of them motioned him to come out of the investigation room.
   “We checked on this Rajiv guy. He works in the same building and was actually inside the building working late that night when that housekeeper was strangled.”
   “Should we get a search warrant for his office and home?”

…..

   Something was not quite right. It had darkened early and a slow drizzle had made the night even gloomier. She walked hurriedly to the car and looked around. No, no one was around. She was safe.
   Where am I going? And why? She had an overpowering need to drive, to just drive aimlessly. Her instincts knew where she was going. She got on to the freeway and drove south for several minutes, got off the highway and into a wooded residential area. As if it was her routine, she stopped the car immediately after turning into Telluride street, three doors downhill from the house she intended to visit.
   She pulled a pair of thin leather gloves from her car and pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her head, she pulled in her shoulder length hair and tied the hood, hiding both her hair and face. She cautiously walked up to the third house from the street and cut across the lawn to the left. She just knew that the right side was fenced off but the left side was open. She walked all the way to the back and climbed the two steps of the back porch.
   There was a faint light coming through the French doors and she could hear the sound of the TV in the living room. She moved closer.
   “What the hell do you mean … you won’t allow it,” the woman sitting on the sofa yelled.
   The fridge door slammed and an overweight man in dirty sweats and a fresh beer in his hand moved into the living room.   He walked up to the woman and slapped her across the face with the back of his right hand while holding his beer with his left hand. The woman went sprawling over the sofa and screamed. He calmly took a big swig from his beer and reached for the remote.
   “No, not this time … oh no, you don’t … not ever … never again.” The woman screamed and ran out of the room.
   Elaine peered through the dirty glass uneasily. Why am I here? What am I supposed to do? Why did I come here?
   The screaming woman came back into the living room and grabbed a fire poker from the stand by the fireplace. Swinging it menacingly, with rage in her eyes, “You bastard,” she screamed and swung at him.
She missed him completely. He reached over and grabbing the poker in the middle, pulled her towards him. He easily took the poker out of her hand and raised it over his head, as if to scare her. Something possessed him momentarily and the poker came swinging down with more force than he had ever intended. The woman’s skull busted open spilling blood, skin and hair all over the room.
    Elaine screamed and ran towards her car. Where are my keys? She searched desperately for her keys in her pockets, found them and jumped into her car. Before she was fully seated, she had the car screeching madly in reverse out of the cul-de-sac and onto the side street. She burned rubber as she found her way to the freeway and tried to calm herself. Breathe deep and slow. Deep and slow … Deep and slow …
    She found her car zooming across the freeway, through the mountains, going up and down and curving around. She felt relaxed. The trees looked comforting … the clouds were oh so friendly … the cool breeze felt wonderful on her face.
    The sound of the fan woke her up. No! Not another dream. This was too real … and too frightening. I can’t take this madness. This can’t go on. She grabbed her hair and started pulling uncontrollably.

…..

   Rajiv sat in his lazyboy, with his feet up and a margarita on the side table. He was whistling his favorite song. A blonde doll with shoulder length hair lay in his hands. He tangled her hair in her hands and started pulling her hands down, smiling, with his too white teeth.
The end    (2304 words)

Copyright © 2004 Raman Jalota. All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the author.

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