Chapter 4

Guinness was asleep when I entered the basement, snoring loudly on his bed of lichen. He had a Breathe-Right strip across his bulbous nose; he may have been a gnome, but his nose was the size of a sixty-five-year-old obese man's. Obviously, from the boisterous snoring that somehow emitted from my miniature companion, the strip wasn't working. I picked him up, none too gently, and placed him behind one of the cardboard boxes.

After making sure Guinness was out of sight, I went to a long cabinet in the corner. In it were the staples for my job: the bottles of sleep medication that I had made my concoction from, a dream-catcher, a leather-bound, blank journal, and a considerably used hockey stick.

It wasn't just any hockey stick. It was Wayne Gretzky's hockey stick " the one he used to hit the 1,071^st goal; a world record. The stuff of dreams. A rich client of mine had owned it previously. He had gone bankrupt before he could pay me, and I threw such a big stink about it that he had traded the expensive keepsake to me. It was one of my most prized possessions.

It wasn't that I particularly liked hockey. In fact, I couldn't stand sports of any kind. There was just something about sweaty guys tackling or stealing balls from each other that wasn't very appealing, and at this point in time, I couldn't tell the difference when I switched the channel to woman's sports.

No, I didn't prize the hockey stick for the Wayne Gretzky name drop. I prized it because it was one of the few items that could cross-over with me. Another one, one that I snatched from the top shelf of the cabinet, was a dream-catcher I had purchased from an old Native American reserve - “the most authentic one I could ever find”, the clerk had assured me.

The dream catcher was as normal as you could get in this world; some cheapo piece of garbage that you'd find on some hippie bed post. But in the dream world, it was so much more. It could expand in that realm, expand so big that it was like a giant butterfly net, or even the size of a fish net should my mind want it so. That was how I caught Guinness- he had been wrapped in the net when the client had abruptly woken up, and when I had woken back up in my world, the bad-tempered gnome was lying on the ground and the dream-catcher was back to its boring old self.

I had wanted to test the theory that anything caught in the dream-catcher when I crossed over could remain on my realm, but I had admittedly gotten cold feet each time. To test my theory would mean having to deal with another Guinness, and there were even a few creatures I had dealt with that would have been worse. I didn't have the room or the money to handle another dream manifestation; my pocketbook was stretched thin for booze and kibble as it was.

Another thing that could crossover with me, the most important thing, was a dream journal. I had found it in my attic when I was sixteen, and occurred to me early in my career to try and crossover with it. Written on the first page of the journal were instructions on its use and with that came the privilege of turning my gift into a profit. With the book, you see, I could capture the nightmares. All one had to do was press a piece of something from the nightmare (nail, hair, fur, slime, whatever) into the pages and write the name of the nightmare in blood, and the nightmare was sucked into its pages like in Guinness' favorite movie, Ghostbusters. It was like some creepy, god-damned Wiccan ritual.

I tucked the journal safely in the back of my pants. I attached the dream-catcher to my belt and set the hockey stick next to one of the chairs before running up the stairs and beckoning Doogan, Chuck, and Ralph to follow me below.

Doogan and Chuck did so with care " I saw the same expression in their eyes as I had seen in so many before I worked my magic. Is this guy ripping me off? Will I wake up sitting in a grungy hotel bathroom with no kidney and a bump the size of Texas in the back of my head? Will I wake up in the park with my pants around my ankles and sore in places I don't even want to think of?

I sighed at the thought. No one trusted anyone anymore. Back in the 50's you could leave your door unlocked and not have to worry about intruders or murderers. Now, though... now if you didn't have at least 4 locks on the door, you were guaranteed a crack on the skull, all your belongings stolen, and a one way ticket to Rapesville.

I put on a prize-winning smile in hopes of assuring my patrons that I was not some slimeball swindler out for their kidneys or virginity. Unfortunately, I could tell by the subsequent glances I received back that I had done nothing but make my case worse.

“Mr. Clifton...”

“Just Noah.”

“Noah, Doogan will be able to sit here with me while it's happening, right?”

“Yeah, of course. That's why he's here.”

“Set up in the usual place, Noah?” Ralph-e's soft spoken voice asked. I had almost forgotten he was there. I nodded to him. I didn't expect Ralph-e to sit and stare at me the entire time I was doing a job, so he brought a laptop that he plugged in to a socket he had managed to find in the sea of moss-covered rocks and cardboard boxes. He had asked me about them once, but I had merely told him it was an experiment I was working on and he never questioned me further.

Guiness snored loudly from the corner.

“What was that?” Chuck asked tensely. He whirled around toward the sound.

“Er, just the neighbors,” I muttered. I had tried to pretend that I didn't hear anything with clients before, but then they had started to feel they were going a little crazy, which distracted them from being a good client and dreaming properly.

I beckoned Doogan toward a chair and then patted the mattress situated in the corner of the basement, watching in amusement as Chuck nervously laid down with his arms crossed over his chest like some god-damned cadaver. Maybe that's what he thought he was in this strange room with these strange people. He looked up at me with watery eyes, like a child waiting for his bedtime story.

“This won't hurt, will it, Mister Noah?”

“Just Noah. It won't hurt one bit. It'll end better this time, I promise. You just have to calm down and stay asleep.”

Chuck visibly relaxed.

“Alright. Ready when you are, then.”

I gave Chuck as reassuring smile as I could muster before giving him a pair of earplugs. I put my own in, squishing the bright orange foam until they'd fit and quickly stuffing my ear. I could hear the tapping of keys for just a moment before the tapping became muffled, and then nothing at all.

I made sure my hockey stick was in my hand at my side, while double-checking that the dream-catcher was secure under my belt.

The potion of sleeping pills and Nyquil was downed in an instant, and I gave a big thumbs up to Chuck.

“See you on the other side!”

Reviews

[ATG]

Another good chapter. This one seemed paced better. It was a slower pace, but didn't drag on to slow. It was just right pace wise. I believe you were better suited to combinining Chapter 3 and 4 together and ending it where Chapter 4. Some of this background information was better suited for an earlier chapter such as the cabinet where he stored the tools of his trade. There were minor things I think didn't make sense, but they are not too important. Overall, another good chapter.