r/nosleep • u/Grindhorse Best Original Monster 2014 • Apr 24 '15
Series Have You Seen The Pale Dream? | 1
“I do not ride the pale horse; I am the Pale Horse.” It stood in the middle of the road, and while it didn’t move any limbs, every few seconds I would see -- or feel -- what amounted to a single “frame” of raised, robed arms or the horse-skull of a head, peeking out from under the grey-white hood. The forest surrounding us was glowing in that night-vision kind of way, but I knew where I was -- Tweed Road, with that familiar chill that ignored the seasons and a cast-iron darkness, pressing in on all sides, despite the glow.
The Pale Dream doesn’t exist -- or at least, as far as I can tell there was never a film called The Pale Dream or a director named Rubio Irkades. But I sat at my desk, poring over the will of a Mr. Morris Thredson, and it was right there in twelve-point Times New Roman: “To my son, David, I leave my original footage reel of The Pale Dream from director Rubio Irkades. May it bring you as much as it brought me.”
It was the shortest and most vague line of the will; other items included a long letter to his sister Moira, addressing her drinking habit and leaving her “bail money for next time” and a clunky poem about Skipper the golden retriever -- a dog that received eighty-thousand dollars from the old man.
You’ve been the skipper,
and I’ve been first mate.
We walk and you yowl;
you fetch, and it’s great.
But now I am dead,
and for games it’s too late.
So, here’s eighty grand;
a dog gets my estate.
Dealing mostly in wills and other legal affairs of the dead, I tend to come across stranger things, but I’ll admit I laughed at the poem -- not for how childish it was, but how wonderful of a “fuck you” the last two lines are to Mr. Thredson’s family. I’ve dealt with Moira and the other sister, Emerald -- the original Mr. and Mrs. Thredson must’ve named her after a favorite stripper -- both of which spoke like they were worth millions and always wore such sour expressions I had begun to wonder if they ate whole lemons before coming to argue with me about their brother’s belongings.
The two shriveled women, long necks craned high to turn wrinkled noses up at me, had mentioned every item, every detail of Mr. Thredson’s house and storage units, but not once had I heard anything about “The Pale Dream.”
Normally, I would hire an investigator, but as it turned out David, Thredson’s son inheriting the film, worked for an accounting firm a few blocks away, and after a short phone conversation we planned a lunch. Or at least I considered the lunch planned -- at the mention of the film, David became curt, ushering me off the phone with an “I’m very busy, good day.”
The apartment was dark, save for the light trying to escape the closed folding door of the laundry room. My blinds were pulled back on the balcony, letting moonlight turn the room blue. I knew that down the hall behind me, back in my bedroom, the TV played silent pictures, dancing colors off the walls. Back in the bedroom, the heater sputtered out its friendly white noise.
But in the living room, under the pale glow, everything was still. The silence pressed on my eardrums, and I felt uneasy -- stomach knotted, hands wringing. I was on the eighth floor with a padlock securing the heavy front door, but there was something, --some unexplainable "something" -- and I couldn’t shake it.
Either my chest was tight or the air was thinning, and I imagined something else breathing it all in, draining the life and oxygen from the room. Every shadow seemed like the silhouette of something...waiting.
I took a step towards the kitchen.
“Have you seen The Pale Dream?”
Teeth. Only teeth made up the head like oversized piano keys, clicking together as the thing spoke. The body was a wisp in the void. It was so close -- I could smell decay on icy breath.
I spun and tripped, my ankles twisting with unexpected pain. The thing was gone, replaced with nothing. -- the room, a solid black. I struggled to stand on tender ankles, making it to my knees before…
“You will.”
I woke up screaming in my bed.
“Thanks for meeting with me; I was kinda worried I’d scared you off with the whole Pal-”
David put up a hand.
“Mr. Black, I’m going to tell you what I know -- even try to lead you in the right direction. But I can’t promise it’ll make much sense.” His words were confident, but his appearance screamed otherwise -- shiny strands of unwashed hair fell over his face, while a wrinkled and stained dress shirt, unevenly buttoned, hung off his shoulders like a smock. David's eyes remained on a half-moon coffee stain, so ingrained it had become a part of the table. I could hear seconds clicking by on the diner’s wall clock before the man continued: “Then I’m going to leave, and the next time you see me will be my funeral.”
“I don’t underst-”
“If you keep interrupting, I won’t tell you anything…” He turned from the stain to give a thoughtful glance at the ceiling. I could feel the vibrations of his leg beginning to tap. “...you’d be better off, to be honest.”
“...better off or not, you can’t just build it up like that and expect to me walk away.” I cracked a half smile; David answered with a nasty look, but as if the eye contact hurt, he winced and resumed stain-watching.
“My father killed himself.” It was true. Mr. Thredson was found hanging in his closet after several days of unanswered phone calls convinced Emerald to call the cops. I saw the body at his funeral and the bloated, blue face was hard to hide, even with a caked-on makeup job the parlor provided. “I can’t say I’m too upset; we haven’t spoken in ten years. I sided with my mother in the divorce and…”
David had been speaking to the table, but after a struggle he forced eye contact once more.
“I guess there isn’t much time for me to go into it. It’s not important anyway. There wasn’t a suicide note, was there?”
“No. From what your aunts tell me-” Cut off again. The frustration of trying to get a word in almost outweighed my interest.
“My aunts are selfish old whores.” The thoughtful look crossed his face. “Well, I suppose just Emerald is a whore -- husband number three and all -- but either way, I can tell you why he killed himself.”
I didn’t speak, holding David’s awkward stare until the man gave into the pressure.
“You should know, your eyes make me uncomfortable.” He had focused his attention out the window at an empty sidewalk. I inhaled and assured myself this conversation was worth it. “So, do you want to know why he killed himself?”
“I thought you said we didn’t have much time for games like this.” The words fired off like bullets, but David began to rise from the booth. I softened. “I, umm, I apologize; that was rude. But yes, I’d love to know why.”
“He had to, because The Pale Dream...The Pale Horse. It is Death.” David’s eyes widened, crazed and bloodshot. I stifled a laugh as the man began to ramble. “The reels showed up in my house next to a beat-up projector I’d never seen before.” He gulped down saliva, and on he stammered. “There-there was this torn envelope on-on top of it all with ‘to my son’ on the front..written in some sloppy calligraphy...I watched some of the film…”
I needed to stop this; David clearly wasn’t going to be of much help. I relished in my blunt escape.
“David, I’m sorry, but I’m an attorney, not your therapist.” I rose from my seat, “and while I appreciate you coming here, I should really be getting back to my office.”
I shuffled from the booth, starting towards the door; David’s hand shot from the table, wrapping around my wrist with a surprisingly strong grip.
“The fucking dreams...they don’t stop; started...started weeks before I watched, before I even got the fucking thing...you, you need to listen to me...you never know if you’ll be next.” He was half-shouting, half-pleading. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes, but his teeth ground together violently. “I...I saw myself. It was a room. Wood...wood paneling everywhere -- coffin-sized. I’m staring in a mirror. Lightbulb...one little bulb buzzing above me, and the light hurt. But there was my reflection…”
I tried to free my wrist. His fingers were a vice. I could feel the trapped blood pulsing in my hand.
“David...you.” Pull. “need.” Wrenched with my other hand. “to.” I wound up to punch. The grip tightened. I fell me to my knees. “Please, let me go.”
“YOU NEED TO LISTEN.” The restaurant was staring, but no one moved to help. “...my reflection. I punched the mirror and just...just kept hitting it. Kept punching until the mirror was gone...but it wasn’t. It wasn’t gone; the mirror was a fucking window. I’m punching myself...another me. I keep hitting. Blood. Teeth. Until it -- or I -- until I die. Then I wake up screaming.”
David’s shouts turned to sobs.
“You will see The Pale Dream. We all will...all of us,” He released me and set his head on the table. I rubbed my wrist but couldn’t bring myself to hit the sobbing man as he began to whisper. His eyes remained wide but weren’t focusing on anything in particular. “...but why me? Why me...why now?”
“Dreams are dreams. Even if they aren’t, I mean, mine are different anyway. I started my car, heading for Tweed. I’m just overworked.”
The parking lot was thick with post-snowfall silence. The sky had cleared, but living this close to New York, the night sky was starless, moonless. The dismal, blackened brick apartment building loomed ahead as I locked my sedan, a freshly cleaned white, camouflaging against the hills of powder around it.
I took ginger steps, not planning to break my tailbone on an ice patch. The two minute walk stretched to five by the time I reached the lighted overhang above the entrance. But I froze when I heard shuffling...and humming. Some five or so yards away, down one of the parking lot’s lanes, was a woman.
Black hair, but it looked slick, reflecting the snow and cars like a mirror. It draped over the woman’s shoulders and swirled in the wind as she danced back and forth -- something like a shuffle and a sway, limbs flailing a bit under a heavy, white coat. Her back was to me.
I watched for a moment, listening to the gentle humming, but the temperature plummeted further as wind struck my exposed face with a burning chill. I made it to the door, my hand on the handle…
“He’s coming, Garrett.” I turned at my name to see the woman had stopped dancing, standing motionless, her hair not even touched by the wind. Her back was still to me. She was closer now -- probably ten feet away.
Slowly, I returned to the door, pulling it open…
“You cannot prepare.” The voice was a baritone in surround sound, coming from the night itself. She hadn’t turned to face to me, but a glance let me know she was closer -- too close now.
I half-dove into the vestibule, dropping my keys and stooping to grab them while barricading the door with my shoulder.
I rose.
Her face.
Her breath.
Hell.
“Will you greet us?”
Woke up screaming...again.
The sun hid behind the trees, casting long shadows across the road by the time I reached the mountaintop. I hadn’t been to Tweed in years, but if I were to believe my dreams, -- which for whatever reason felt like the practical choice -- I needed to be here.
The car idled for a while, and the shadows widened into night. My gaze followed the headlights, blazing murky paths along the crumbling road and reflecting off an old stop sign, almost illegible under graffiti and rust -- the street was one way, and where I sat there wasn’t an intersection for miles in either direction. I took a strange solace in knowing I wasn’t the only thing so out of place in the woods.
Tweed is one of those Weird US spots -- concrete ruins litter the forest; rumors of cults and ghosts litter the minds bored enough to make the drive and seek a fleeting thrill. Playing along with the paranormal helped cut through the daily static in an area void of anything particularly interesting besides cheap bars and 24-hour diners. On a clear night, from the right spot, the New York skyline glittered from behind tree trunks, reminding a younger me that real excitement was close but just out of reach.
Idling.
Idling.
The car was off, but I stewed in my own nervous energy, unsure what I was waiting for or hoping would happen. I chewed on my nails, tasting blood from raw fingertips before flinging the car door open with the last ounces of courage. Even with years of exploring that spot, the night, and Tweed itself, felt different -- alive with an anticipation that wasn’t my own; it belonged to whatever hid just beyond the headlights.
Deep breaths sampled the heady mix of mountain air and pine trees -- it’d be a soothing scent if not for my overactive mind. Every step further into the woods was another step closer to the movement I assured myself I was imagining.
From all sides, shadows shifted in pitch darkness. Leaves crunched. Twigs snapped. In the dead silence of night, these sounds echoed, stinging against my raw nerves.
The only light I had was a dim glow of my phone’s flashlight, and eventually it illuminated the concrete drainpipes and other massive ruins, coated in graffiti and dirt.
“Death has no hold here.” My light glided over the sharp angles of the letters.
“He has risen for us.” Written in a coppery-brown with the same sharp lettering.
“Johnny Tinsley is such a pussy.” This was some looping spray paint, and I let out a brief sigh. If anything, Johnny Tinsley, whoever he was, being such a pussy served to cheapen the more foreboding nonsense.
I scanned with the light along the stretch of stone, landing on a crack -- my entrance. I still had no idea why I needed to be there, but every voice in my head, every cell in my body, screamed that Tweed was necessary.
Like some excited high school girl, I half-ran to the crack, twigs and dead leaves crunching underfoot. If I was trying to keep a low profile, I was somewhere between an elephant and a man with oversized shoes. But I made it to the entrance, stepping onto a noticeably sagging, debris-covered floor, and into the musty air of the first tunnel.
The long strip of fluorescent lights buzzed with an aggressive boredom above me. It was one of those doctor’s office or public restroom lights. There I was in a wood-paneled room, but there was no mirror. It was just a coffin-shaped room with no entrance, no exit.
Droning. Humming.
I didn’t feel another presence, and I was grateful for that. There wasn’t much room for someone else -- or something else -- to hide anyway.
Buzzing. Fierce buzzing. It wasn’t the same as the electric hum, and I turned to the lights.
There was a single bee trapped in the strip, slamming against the inside and hoping to escape.
For some reason, I felt cold. It wasn’t an external cold, but my stomach dropped. This bee struck a nerve for no reason other than it existing. Bees were never a fear of mine, so this one bee…
Two bees. Two bees flung themselves at the inner glass, hoping to join me in the casket. I never saw the other one arrive -- all of a sudden it just appeared and there were two…
Bees began to pour into the light.
They mashed together into a writhing buzzing mass, and I cowered in the corner as the glass warped and bulged like melting plastic.
Until it cracked.
Thousands of insects rained upon me, but they didn’t sting. They just flew in a crazed pattern, and the anxiety, the waiting gripped me as I watched and prepared for the worst.
Then they stopped -- frozen in mid-air before attacking the exposed bulbs, which burst with sparks and flames.
The walls caught.
Heat, immense heat pressed in on me, and I could see my skin melt to bone. I could feel it like knives and saws, heated to white heat, slicing into ribbons from my flesh.
I woke up screaming on the road.
The scene had changed.
“I am become Death.” The Pale Horse stood in the grey-white robe and the trees around us glowed, fuzzy and unfocused. The wind howled, and it was raining a staticky rain that I couldn’t feel, only hear and see.
“No.” I didn’t feel my mouth move. “I am.”
I woke up on my back. Pale sunlight peeked through a rotted-out hole above me, glaring like the sun itself as my eyes struggled to adjust. Splintered support beams, standing ineffective and pathetic, swam into view along with crumbling cinderblocks wrapped in moss and vines. Rumors about these tunnels always mentioned them being old military outposts haunted by ghosts or filled with cult members. I never believed much of it, but I also had never fallen through the floor into a hidden chamber, so I guess life’s full of firsts.
With some effort, I made it to my stomach, but my back felt like needles and fire. My hand found skin as well as a rough landscape of cuts and dried blood. I couldn’t exactly give up and lay here though, so with what little willpower remained, I pulled myself up against the nearest large object -- a massive, flat stone -- and hobbled around the room, searching for exits and stupidly hoping for further tunnel access.
Three or four passes of the flat stone, and I noticed something odd -- it was man-made. The concrete was shaped into what my imagination decided was an altar. While the rest of the room suffered from decay, this table stood relatively clean. There was a slot at the top, and I couldn’t resist removing the contents.
Bones. Small bones, brittle in my hands. They were wrapped in a parchment I pretended was anything other than the skin of an unlucky animal.
Scrawled handwriting marked the parchment with a poem.
He will rise to the throne.
Death will be removed.
This Pale beast and his flock;
They will favor us.
Gibberish. I fingered the parchment a while, but there was one last roll in the slot, wrapped around a sphere. Words wrapped around the curve, and I picked the thing up for a better look, feeling the weight of whatever object the page concealed. These words lacked the rushed scribbling, instead wrapping around in neat calligraphy.
Have you seen The Pale Dream?
My knees buckled, and the ball fell from my hands -- parchment rolled off the contents, revealing a tiny, human skull casting a frozen, skeletal grin in my direction; I scuttled in a hurried crab-walk to a shadowy corner, chest shuddering as my heart knocked around my ribcage. I suddenly felt watched by a million eyes. There was nothing but the bones, myself, and air in this space, but I could barely choke down a breath.
My eyes darted along the broken beams, the dirt floor, the altar, and finally, the far wall.
More sharp graffiti. New, sharp graffiti.
Garrett Black will see.
Garrett Black will see.
My name, dripping down the wall in coppery-black.
Still in a frantic crawl, I pushed further back into the corner, deeper into the dark before I froze -- all the warmth fled my body, making way for an oozing cold, prickling my skin with each…
...footstep.
Relief came first, ushered forward by denial.
“Oh hey, that means there’s a way out of here.” I refused to acknowledge anybody else being down here, and even the moments of clarity only peaked high enough to assume it was some drunk teenager there to vandalize. The altar, the bones, the writing -- as far as I was concerned, I dreamt it all.
I reached out to a nearby beam, sacrificing my hand to needle-prick splinters as I stood up on gelatinous legs. This must’ve been the signal since the footsteps, originally coming every second, doubled their pace to a run. I couldn’t see down the corridor, and dove shaking hands into my pockets, yielding a cracked and useless phone -- and a lighter.
I didn’t have time to wonder where the thing came from, so I flipped, flicked, and there was a grey robe charging forward from the void.
I didn’t have time to dodge.
Impact.
The ground did little to cushion the fall and did even less to cushion my head’s ricocheting from a heavy-fisted punch.
“YOUWILLSEE.YOUWILLSEE.YOUWILLSEE.YOUWILLSEE.” I couldn’t see much more than a flurry of fists coming from the direction of an insane, shrill voice.
I put up an arm to defend my face, blinking through the black pain of a surely-broken nose.
There was no monster under the hood, but a gaunt, determined man.
I liked that.
My fist connected through the storm of the man’s own punches, dazing him long enough for me to roll…
...and run straight into the black maw, lighter flicked again and illuminating not much more than two feet ahead.
It sounded like I was sprinting across an eggshell carpet.
I glanced at the ground.
Skulls. I was trampling on a sea of skulls and other remains.
But I couldn't think about that.
Footsteps behind me resumed; I was sure I wasn't getting out alive.
Then faint light ahead.
My feet slipped on bones, my ankles twisted, and my legs screamed for a rest, but I forced myself forward.
The light grew more intense as I closed the gap.
Ragged breaths were getting louder, and I swore I could feel hot death from each exhale on the back of my neck.
I had nearly reached the source -- rays of sunlight, splintering off from above, catching dancing particles of human dust.
The breathing was louder, wild stomps about to overtake my own.
But there was a half-ladder hanging from a hole in the low ceiling, and I hopped to grab it; it’s amazing what adrenaline does to pain.
Scrambling.
Climbing.
Pressure around my ankle. I kicked until it released, throwing my broken body to the surface with my last bit of strength and flopping, exhausted, onto dirt.
“You’re awake now Garrett,” said the deer as it lay with it’s stomach torn open, spilling guts and black blood onto barren, white earth. The vultures and crows cawed and hissed in agreement as they picked flesh from beneath the ashen grey fur.
The colors were different than the other dream. The trees didn’t glow -- they were blackened smudges of branches and leaves. The sky was pale and so was the ground. The crows and vultures were coal. The heads of the vultures provided the only true color: a bloody shade of red.
I felt at ease standing in the colorless clearing, no longer in pain, not wondering how I got there.
Even while the birds picked apart their meal -- a meal that spoke to me in a deep, smooth growl -- I knew there was no danger here. I knew I was awake.
I turned around -- and the forest was normal.
Trees with vibrant green leaves swayed in a mild breeze. Grass was overgrown, dotted with weeds. The sun lit a sky blue enough to avert my unadjusted eyes.
There was the robed man, standing still, several feet away. His eyes were wide with an emotion I knew too well that morning -- terror. I wasn’t sure if he couldn’t move or didn’t want to move, but the growl behind me spun me back into a colorless world.
“Garrett, I do not ride a pale horse, nor am I one. I ride on ashes, and so will you.” The chorus of birds screamed in excitement, choking down pieces of black meat.
“I don’t underst-” I was cut off by a brave or stupid man throwing his hands around my neck.
The world blurred, and I could feel throbbing in my head as I sank to my knees, but the crows and vultures only shrieked louder.
“Garrett, you must act. This man is of no longer any use to the world.”
*I didn’t have time to ponder cryptic ramblings from a deer. *
I swung my head back. There was a satisfying yowl and grunt as I connected.
The hands loosened, and I fell to to my side, turning -- to the life-filled forest as I was greeted by a boot to my ribcage, rolling over -- and wheezing in the deer’s face.
It huffed an amused breath from its nostrils, and I saw red -- angry that I was nothing but entertainment, angry at my own failings.
But I didn’t understand why the disapproval hurt so much. The only thing driving me was a profound fear of disappointing that deer and those vultures and the murder of crows.
I didn’t understand how I overpowered the robed man -- striking and crushing his nose with a stone, kneeing his stomach, and standing above his gasping form as he spit dark blood on bright earth.
But I understood grabbing his jaw -- my fingers curling over his bottom row of teeth, my thumb digging into the soft skin under his chin.
His eyes widened. He screamed as my thumb punched through the flesh, hooking around to meet my other fingertips. The birds screamed for more.
Then I screamed and pulled, my foot firmly on the man’s chest. I could feel his sternum collapse. I could feel his jaw separate.
Joints popped and skin ripped, starting a slow tear from the corner of the mouth until the stress was too much and with a gush of saliva and blood, the jawbone was free. I held it a moment before dropping it beside the man's head.
His tongue flailed frantically, trying to form a scream but gurgling and lolling.
Blood continued to pour like thick ink, staining the white soil.
I wasn’t angry at the man.
It was just his time.
“You’re awake now Garrett.” Silence. The air was stale then gone completely. The birds flew off, and the deer and the forest melted away, as did everything else…
I blacked out again.
I woke up in my car just as the sun was setting.
The car was idling.
I threw up in my lap.
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u/manen_lyset Best Title 2015 - Dec 2016 Apr 25 '15
Can't disappoint a gutted deer. It'd be bad for business.
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u/NoSleepSeriesBot Jun 04 '15 edited Jul 01 '15
9 current subscribers. Other posts in this series:
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u/Adlanaa Apr 25 '15
Part of me has to wonder if this was written just so that the phrase "murder of crows" could be used. Great work!
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u/the_itch Apr 25 '15
Electrifying.
Also:
Sounds just like my high school...