Wake the Dream - Book One Read online

her tongue.

  Giggling, he shoves aside everything on the lower half of the freezer and asks her a very simple question. “Do you trust me?” And holds out his hand as he steps into the freezer; snuggling into the spot he just cleared.

  She gives him a very simple answer. “NO.”

  The Freezer

  Night shrugs, not caring. As he grabs her hand, he clamps a palm over her eyes and yanks Lane inside. The freezer door slides shut with a bang and for a split second she is freezing cold, a second later, it’s as warm as a sunny day; she can feel the sun on her face as a hot breeze tickles the skin on her arms.

  Night removes his hand. Lane blinks twice and rubs her eyes. Giggling, he pokes Lane with a sharp talon, his talon where his very human looking finger used to be. Blinking his blue eye closed, he opens it again revealing a deep sea with a tiny ship adrift in it. The green eye just stays green. They are NO longer in the freezer.

  “Where are we?” Lane twirls around, looking.

  “In a memory,” Night whispers. “Someone in this store is dreaming about this place right now.” Running a clawed finger through his unruly orange-red locks, they stick out like a halo. He holds the ice cream container close.

  Without asking, he grabs her hand and pulls her along down a strange bright white hall with a single lamp sitting on a simple brown wooden table. A small teddy bear figurine is perched next to it, ready to plummet down to the squishy white foam floor. It’s like Jell-O.

  Lane takes another step. Her foot sinks down, sucked up by the foam as it liquefies into white lava, as thick as peanut butter. Night holds her hand tighter, his body halfway submerged up to his chest. They wade along towards the brown table that morphs, sprouts gnarled, twisted arms; shooting upward to the ceiling. The arms climb like vines on the white walls that change color, turning to a soft baby blue. White puff balls explode from above, dropping down; hanging over them like tiny clouds.

  One pops open, showering Lane and Night with fat yellow and pink droplets. They pelt Night’s hair turning it pink; his face yellow where a large drop exploded on his nose. A pink blob falls on Lane’s arm, coating it with goo; her hand gets splotched with yellow. Her shirt is like a techno colored blotch of pinks and yellows and she feels gross and slimy.

  The white liquid around them starts to harden again. Night holds on tight to the ice cream container. He refuses to let it go even when it gets slimmed with yellow.

  Night and Lane are stuck in the ground, wiggling around is impossible. Night shrugs, bends down and takes a bite out of the white, pink and yellow mess, chewing slowly before taking another huge chomp out of it.

  Giggling, he looks at Lane – his mouth so full it looks like a chipmunk – and nods to the ground. Snarling at him, she leans down and takes a taste. Sugar and chocolate covered peanuts and strawberries explode in her mouth. It’s like eating a gigantic cookie that’s been shoved in a blender and spun on high.

  Lane eats her arms free just enough to push up, popping out like a cork. Night is already sitting on the ground waiting, laughing his head off. She kicks him in the foot, frustrated.

  “No way is this a memory!” Lane watches as a strange pony with three horns and a mermaid tail sails by underneath, surrounded by a school of bright blue and purple fish with razor sharp teeth and human arms. One snarls, trying to nip on the tip of their boots. But it can’t break through the ground.

  “It is.” Night smirks, folding his arms tight around his torso. “This is a memory of a dream someone had. They’re reliving it, so we are too. It’s important not to let the dreamer see us trespassing; we’re not supposed to be here.”

  “Then why...?”

  He shakes his head no, covering up her mouth with his palm. “That’s not important right now.” He cradles the ice cream close. It’s still covered in gross blobs of yellow.

  The hallway isn’t a hallway anymore and there is no longer a table but she can still see the tiny teddy bear. Only it’s not small but gigantic and moving around, growling like a deranged tiger mixed with a rabid monkey.

  Night grabs Lane’s hand, dragging her quickly to a strange brown building with dark brown squares stuck to it. It smells like chocolate. Night closes the door made out of a lollipop and cowers behind a wall.

  He sniffs the wall, gives it a tentative lick; his face lighting up. Digging his fingernails into the mush, Night breaks a piece off, chopping it in half, giving Lane a piece. She watches him stuff the entire thing into his mouth. When he doesn’t choke or die a horrible death, she takes a tiny bite. It’s a brownie with chocolate chips.

  Something super furry and smelly grabs her from behind, shrieking, Lane grabs onto Night. The teddy bear beast pulls her out of the brownie house, dropping her into a vat of caramel swirled with peppermint. Night is not there.

  Screaming, Lane tries swimming through the thick goop but she can’t move, stuck in the gook. It’s like the gum she found under the table in the art room, sticky, gross and minty. Lane watches in horror as the monstrous teddy bear’s arm gets caught in a whirlpool of caramel and peppermint, its fur blending with the vat.

  Hairs fly off like icicles, freezing the smelly mess, gluing Lane in like superglue. This time she can’t eat her way out, it’s too cold and hard to chew. But she tries anyway, digging her teeth in deep, getting her mouth stuck wide open, mid bite. Even her mousy brown hair sticks to the ice.

  She watches as the teddy bear monster turns a chocolate brown as the sun comes out high above. The brown starts bubbling and dripping and pelting the ice, melting everything it lands on. Potholes form all around her like craters on the moon.

  One massive brown projectile hits her square in the face, sliming Lane with goo. It tastes like burnt raspberry cough syrup with crunchy, over baked raisins, the size of ants inside. There’s hiccupping and gurgling from one of the brown potholes.

  A fingernail peaks out, waving around in the air like a flag before settling down on the ice. Another one joins it, then three, then four, an entire hand creeping out of the crevice, clawing at the ground. The bright pink talons clack, sending monstrous vibrations through the cold surface.

  A hand with orange fingertips and green skin comes next, followed by a small Popsicle head with razor sharp fangs and curly forked tongue like a snake. Lapping at the air with its tongue, tasting it, the strange little creature pops out of the hole and wiggles its tail, flopping down on the ground in a tangled mess of legs. There are six legs to be exact.

  Wiggling its wide butt around to get comfortable, the monster rummages around in its pocket, pulling out a tiny bottle. Excited by the find, the Popsicle head beast, unscrews the cap; out pops a huge paint brush with a rainbow on the tip.

  Lane watches in awe as the creature daintily does its nails, one by one without any mistakes with the tip of the mammoth sized bristles. Giggling, it hops up and down, lengthening its toes. They grow as tall as a tree and twice as wide as the fattest tree Lane has ever seen.

  “Good!” Night whispers in Lane’s ear, bending down behind her, “It’s distracted!”

  Lugging a large piece of a rock hard leg of a gingerbread man over, Night sits down with the ice cream container in his lap. Pulling out a small pocket-sized knife, he blows on the pink blade. Instantly, it sprouts upwards, shooting off in five directions. Now it looks like five curved swords, razor sharp at the tip.

  Cradling the gingerbread leg, he takes a large bite off the bottom and spits it at the ice. It melts a tiny bit. Bubbles start rising up, bopping Lane in the nose; bursting in her face. Now she’s covered with bright purple clay.

  He takes another bite out of the gingerbread. This time Night eats it, chewing on it slowly as he uses the swords to slice through the cookie leg; making a fork. Tapping the sword with his clawed pinky, the metal falls off, leaving a small knife behind. Night puts it back in his pocket and shoves the fork in the ground right next
to Lane.

  With all of his might, Night pulls down on the top of the cookie leg, climbing it like a monkey when it doesn’t move. This could potentially be problematic.

  Hopping off, he surveys the area, looking around for something helpful. Nothing… Night is not a quitter. Taking out his knife again, he jams it in the ice and taps it three times. Legs crawl out of it under the ice, wiggling over to Lane.

  She has to muffle a scream by biting her bottom lip when the one with sharp talons pierces her ankle, the arm snaking around her leg. The other legs sprout heads and start chomping down on the ice. Big blobs travel down the throats to the knife where the ice is spat out of the back end of the hilt. The piles build up like lopsided snow cones.

  A minute later, Lane is pulled out of the hole upside down by the snake around her leg. Night taps the knife again. It returns to normal and he shoves it into his front jean pocket. The ice cream container is held close to his body.

  Night grabs Lane’s hand, tugging her over to the side of the bowl. Kicking the ceramic side, it dings like a bell and crumbles downward, making steps. They skip down, two at a time. Night hums a tune Lane’s never heard before; the song puts the savage beast on the ice to sleep. Nothing follows.

  “Shhhhh…” Night suddenly halts right behind a gigantic plastic fork that’s stabbing a