Chapter 1

          Micah gazed down at the soft blue light of the digital clock. How many miles had it been since he’d crossed the Washington border? Against the skyline, the glow of lights indicated civilization wasn’t too far ahead. Didn’t look big enough to be a respectable city, but all he needed was a stretch of relatively flat ground to park on. He hated feeling like he was rolling out of bed all night. Blinking back the sleep slowly tugging his eyelids down, he looked out as far as the RV’s headlights would allow, searching for a suitable place to stay for the night. A flat spot, a quiet spot, where the sound of semis roaring by wouldn’t wake him. 

          A flash of tan in the corner of his eye sent a burst of adrenaline shooting through his bloodstream and he stomped on the brake peddle, sending the back end of the motor home into the opposite lane of traffic. The frightened doe slid on the pavement, her hooves unable to gain her footing. She stumbled away from the on-coming vehicle, jumping high and bucking before skittering off into the tree-line and out of sight.

            The gas-guzzling monstrosity squealed to a stop and Micah sat, his arms braced against the steering wheel in an unyielding, elbow-locked grasp. His heart pounded against his ribcage, and the sound of blood rushing through his veins echoed in his ears. Legs, weak and jittery, barely held his feet down against the break pedal and his breath came in sharp gasps. Being scared shitless and too tired to drive had almost caused a wreck. Micah rubbed his eyes. In the crooked view of the headlights, a narrow road jutted off the highway toward the trees. He maneuvered the motor home in the direction it had wanted to drift and found an empty clearing at the end of the dirt road. As good a place as any to stay the night.

#

            “Jax, look, a palm reader!” Libby exclaimed, sounding a bit like an excited fourteen year-old girl. “Let’s go!”

            The carnival buzzed with anxious energy. Clear round light bulbs illuminated booths and Carnies leaned over counters shouting at the passers-by, enticing them to spend their money on obviously rigged games. Popcorn littered the ground with the paper cones that had once been wound with swirls of sticky pink cotton candy. Wrappers and discarded red tickets lay strewn along the way, like rose petals leading to a wedding altar. Children squealed with delight on high, spinning swings and Tilt-a-Whirls that looked too old to be safe. And at the far end of the fair grounds, an outdated band played outdated songs for a diminishing audience.

            Jacquelyn put on a show, rolling her eyes and letting out an exasperated sigh, pretending to allow herself to be steered toward the turquoise and purple tent. Libby didn’t need to know how she really felt about things like palm reading, tarot cards and magic. Jacquelyn wanted her friend to continue to live in ignorant bliss.

            A sharp, piercing wail rent the night air, the sound clearly audible over the din of carnival-goers, music and games. Jacquelyn jumped, eliciting a string of giggles from Libby. “Oh, my God!” she shouted reflexively, rubbing her suddenly clammy hands against her jeans.

            “Ambiance, Jax.” Libby laughed as she pulled aside the heavy canvas tent flap. “Relax.”

            Ambiance my ass, Jacquelyn thought, recognizing the cry of the Banshee calling out to the chosen. A life would be claimed tonight, and a chill shook Jacquelyn from head to toe. She knew she should be home, preparing for what could be a very busy night. But running away like Bruce Wayne when the Bat Signal flashes wouldn’t keep Libby ignorant, so Jacquelyn prepared herself for the gut-wrenching task of staying put.

#

            Micah sat up in bed, sweat trickling down his cheek. He clutched at his bare chest before bringing up his knee to rest his arm upon. The keening sound bounced around in his memory, along with the vision of the woman’s face, frozen in terror.

            “God damned dreams,” he muttered, shaking his head as if to banish the residual effects of the dream, still too real in his mind. He sucked in a lungful of air and held it for a brief moment before letting it all rush out between his puckered lips.

            If he had it his way, he’d never dream again.

            Who was she? Sometimes a dream was just that, but this time he knew it wasn’t so simple. “A gift,” his mother called it, but he knew it for what it really was: a curse.

            Rolling, he slung his legs over the edge of the bed to sit up. He stretched his neck from side to side and ran his hands through the thick locks of his hair. His knee knocked against the night stand, and he flipped a switch. A small bed-side light spread its twenty-watt glow in the confines of the motor home. Micah pulled open the cheap chipboard drawer of the built-in dresser and retrieved a yellow legal pad and a pencil. He sat for a moment, the tip of the pencil hovering above the first line, and then began to recount every detail of the dream still intact in his memory.

            The woman was outfitted, not the damsel-in-distress sort. Decked out in military-style fatigues, with a shoulder harness and gun accenting her dark blue T-shirt. Holding a dagger, its jewel encrusted hilt pressed into the flesh of one hand, her other had been raised defensively in front of her. A small gash at the top of her cheek bone oozed blood trickling in a fine line down her olive skin. A deep purple bruise marred her opposite jaw line. She’d looked pretty pissed off.

            What didn’t make sense about this dream wasn’t necessarily the woman or her predicament. He’d seen enough visions of terror to seem commonplace. No, her antagonist wasn’t common at all. A child or, at least, she looked like one. Fair-haired with cherubic cheeks and a pouty, yet angelic mouth, only the evil and menace in her smile alluded to the fact that she wasn’t what she appeared to be.

            He tried to recall what the dream woman had said. Foreign words sounding ancient; words that weren’t spoken anymore, though he couldn’t be sure. The little girl had laughed in response and pointed a chubby finger at the woman’s face.

            “You’re not strong enough,” she’d said in a lilting, sing-song way. “And next time, you’ll die.”

            The pencil fell limp in Micah’s grasp. That’s when he’d woken and he still couldn’t banish the look of terror on the woman’s face at those words.

            Micah stared at the dream journal, one of many he’d kept since the age of fifteen. He had at least that many year’s worth of notebooks boxed away in a storage unit back home. Pages and pages of useless shit, a destiny he’d been running from since before his teenage years.

            Now, pushing thirty-one, he was still running. He’d quit his job, sold his house—hadn’t even told his parents—bought the motor home and left town. His mom would find the note he’d left in her mailbox. Sure, she’d worry. But he was an adult, and he didn’t want to listen to her urgings any more.

            The psychotherapy hadn’t helped. Alcohol had a tendency to enhance the visions. And his mother only made matters worse. The only thing that made a difference was the pills.

            “Why you take those drugs?” Her thick Romanian voice rang clear in his imagination as if she were standing right beside him. “You’re not crazy. You have the sight.”

            Micah massaged his temples, erasing the sound of his mother’s voice. He’d lived with her superstitious gypsy crap all his life. He left the bed and shuffled down the narrow hall separating the bedroom from the rest of the RV, peering out the window above the kitchen sink. A nearly full moon rose above the stand of trees in the distance. He should have known. The visions were always clearer when the moon reached its zenith.

            He took a step to his left and opened the small refrigerator door. The light bathed his body in a golden halo as he rifled through the narrow shelves for water. Pulling out the cold plastic bottle, he held it to his throbbing forehead for a moment before cracking the seal and taking a sip. A second glance out the window revealed a darkened landscape made more eerie as moonlight filtered down through the trees. The bushes looked more like goblins ready to pounce than simple foliage. And the trees, giant sentinels, holding their arms aloft to the moon. He brought the bottle back to his lips and drank deeply before turning his back on the window, and the cursed moon that brought him nothing but misery. A distant cry reverberated through the trees and a familiar chill swept over him. Bringing the bottle again to his lips, he drained it in a couple of gulps, and tossed it in the sink, allowing the hollow thud to overcome the faint cry.

            “Probably coyotes,” he muttered.

            Micah returned to the hard foam mattress but sleep wouldn’t come. The woman’s face loomed in his thoughts. He flung the constricting covers from his body and turned on every light in the RV. Checked the clock on his cell phone, two o’clock in the morning.

            He turned on the TV and said a silent thank you for satellite television. But channel surfing only added to his frustration and it didn’t take long before he abandoned his search. A sketch pad and pencils were tucked in a cubby above the dining table and he brought the notebook down, flipping it open to a blank page. He picked a few of the pencils from a bundle bound with a rubber band and began to feather out the shape of the dream-woman’s face. Within minutes he’d sketched her perfectly from her large dark eyes to her equally dark, curling hair. He even managed to capture the look of fear and darker area on her chin where the bruise had been. The dream woman stared back at him from the paper, her expression no less haunting.

            “Who are you?” he asked the drawing.

            Micah waited, as if the black and white sketch would answer back. He traced a finger along the delicate lines of her face, pausing at the cut he’d drawn on her cheekbone. “Fucking dreams,” he said, tearing the page from the spiral and crumpling the paper into a tight ball. He tossed the paper somewhere toward the driver’s seat and stalked back to the bed, pausing at the dresser. A prescription bottle peered up at him from the paper-lined drawer, and his hand hovered over it for a moment. He swore and snatched the brown plastic bottle from its resting place, popped the top and shook two white pills into his hand. He’d told himself he was done with the drugs. But if he’d really been done, he wouldn’t have brought them along, would he? “Fuck it,” he said, placing the quick dissolving pills under his tongue. He flopped back on the pillows and threw the covers over his head.

            “Gift my ass,” he muttered.

            Great thing about the quick-melts, they worked fast. Utterly relaxed, his body took the lead and his mind followed, drifting into a state of non-awareness. He floated for a brief and wonderful moment. The anxiety was gone, the worry—gone. Peace held him in a warm embrace and he let out a sigh that turned into a soft and pleasant groan. The transition from wakefulness to sleep felt like slipping into a warm, deep pool of water. If he had a single dream the rest of the night, it wouldn’t matter, because thanks to the Ativan, he wouldn’t remember.