Free The Devil's Dream: Waking Up by David Beers Page A

avoided it. He'd walked in on his father's heart attack. Not his mother. Not his brother. Him. He'd walked into the room and known from the first second he saw his dad that the man would never get up again. His eyes were wide open, so goddamn wide. They looked like tiny moons sitting in the caverns of his head, his constricting pupils resembling craters. The skin on his face wasn't his father's; it was the skin of a dead person. Like his body knew what came next and was already taking the necessary steps to ensure sure everything went as planned. His face was pale, his heart unable to push blood even that far. His face seemed to sink in, like maybe his skull disappeared and large blue veins tried to replace it. Those veins stuck up every which way, crisscrossing his face like cracks on a sidewalk. His hands grasped his chest and he wheezed out each breath in long, struggling gasps. Henry had stopped and stared, shocked at the sight, not even able to feel fear at that point—but then the seizure took hold. Fear set in plenty after that. The hands that clutched his father's chest suddenly started to twitch, and then his arms flattened against the floor and his whole body did the jitter-bug. His mouth snapped open and closed as a mixture of foam and blood spilled over his lips. His legs kicked, and his fingers twitched like he was the fastest piano player in the history of the world. Henry rushed across the room, dropping to his knees, and started trying to wipe away the foam spilling down his father's face. He couldn't get it all though; it sprang from some endless well inside his dad. He remembered thinking: which part of the body makes foam? Is this how they make foam at those parties? It was a crazy thought, something without any rational basis, but then again his father doing a full body tap dance at forty-five years old didn't either. Henry screamed out to the rest of the house, to the rest of the world, but no one heard him. He and his father were alone, and by the time an ambulance showed up, his father's body was already cooling.
    Henry didn't think about that anymore. He used to, a lot, when he was graduating high school and starting his undergraduate studies, but he had made himself stop. He couldn't think about it. He couldn't see his dad like that because all the panic and fear would come back, that and a sadness which didn't know he needed it to end.
    "Yeah, I'm fucking scared," Henry said as a tear slipped from his eye. His voice shook and inside his head he saw those blue-green veins eating up his father's smooth skin. "I'm taped down in a van next to the most wanted man in the world. Wouldn't you be scared?"
    "I suppose I would be, if I were you. I'm not though."
    "You're not taped to a goddamn seat, either." Henry couldn't reach up to wipe the tears away so he just let them fall, dripping down his neck and falling from his chin.
    "Vick, how am I supposed to determine you are who you say you are? I've done some checking, and your background is clear as water, but that would be easy for someone like Art to do. Your parents, they're the exact same. Social security numbers, driver's licenses, the whole bit. But that's not enough for me."
    "I don't care! How am I supposed to know what is enough for you? What are you expecting me to do when you figure out that I'm your son? Are you expecting me to wrap my arms around you and give you a hug? YOU JUST FUCKING KIDNAPPED ME!" Henry screamed at the front window; his own veins now raging against the flesh on his neck.
    "One thing at a time, Vick. We can't leap forward to next steps when we haven't even taken our first one."
    Henry listened as the blinker snapped on and then watched Brand pull the van over to the side of the road. He had no idea where they were, but the road was empty and the world dark.
    Brand took his seat belt off and then turned so that most of his body faced Henry.
    "Don't say anything," Brand whispered.

    * * *
    L ook at him , Brand said to Rally.
    He