Free A Book of Dreams by Peter Reich

looked out of the window at the lab.
    I held the receiver down with one hand and cranked withthe other: two longs and a short, two longs and a short. Then I picked up the receiver. It shook, so I squeezed it harder. Daddy picked up in the observatory.
    ‘Ja. Pete?’
    ‘Daddy, they’re here. One is a US marshal and the two others are—’
    ‘Ja, I know. Now tell them—’
    Outside, the sun started to slip off the trunk of the black car. The car was rolling. It couldn’t be rolling uphill. Daddy’s voice squiggled and the sun dropped all the way off the car into swirls of dust and tears.
    ‘Daddy! They didn’t wait!’
    Tears tangled my words, making the receiver wet and shiny. The car disappeared around the side of the lab up the hill. ‘Daddy! They’re coming up! OH DADDY OH GOD THEY DIDN’T WAIT. THEY’RE COMING UP DADDY THEY’RE COMING UP !’
    The screen door slammed before the receiver hit the floor. Grass was already whipping my legs as I ran up the hill. The whole field was swimming and I cried uunnh each time I breathed out and it made it easier to run uphill.
    Everett Quimby said if you run with your hands open you could go faster so my hands were wide open, going back and forth like a train all the way up the hill, like a train running. Because if I ran fast enough, maybe I could beat them to the top of the hill and warn Daddy. What did they want? What did they want? Why did they always make us unhappy? If I just watched my palms running back and forth uunnh like a train, it would go faster than if I kept watching the top of the hill for the observatory to start coming out. The hands went faster and thenthey went slower with uunnhs . I walked for a minute almost at the top. Stopped. There was no sound of cars and you could always tell just where a car was on the hill by the noise it made, climbing and going around corners.
    Uunnh I started to run again and when I got to the top, all I heard was my breathing, salt at the corners of my mouth. I ran up the side of the porch and across the front. The black car was parked in the lot with the pickup and Bill’s car. Daddy’s car was in the garage. Up the last thin steps to the door I ran and then tried to stop the hard breathing and uunnhs to listen.
    There was no noise. If they had guns … With silencers I wouldn’t have heard any shots.
    Quietly on the red rug on the steps I went upstairs, listening at the first landing and then going all the way to the top, looking into the study. Daddy was sitting at his desk. The three men were standing in front of the desk with their backs to me. Tom and Bill were by the window. Daddy had on his red-and-black checked shirt and his pens were shiny in the pocket next to his heart.
    I hid behind the double doors right underneath the photograph of two hands and the energy field. You can feel Orgone if you hold your palms apart and make them go in and out. I sniffed and wiped my nose.
    Daddy looked in between the men and saw me. He nodded and motioned for me to come in. I ran across the carpet to Daddy.
    The men turned to look as I ran past them and stood next to Daddy behind the desk. The men’s ties were shiny and their mouths moved but it didn’t look like their mouths were saying the same words I heard.
    ‘That’s just what we were told to do, Doctor…. Uh, you sure you want the boy here?’
    My back stiffened and I bit my lower lip to stop it from moving.
    ‘Yes. That is all right. Go ahead,’ said Daddy. I put my hand on the back of his chair.
    The man talking was the marshal. His hair was short and close to his head. The corners of his jaw stuck out close to his ears. The other two men looked at him and then at Daddy, with their hands behind their backs.
    ‘Well, Doctor, the orders say that it is supposed to be done today, right here at Orgy-non. I’m sorry, Doctor.’
    ‘Well, don’t be sorry. We must all follow our orders, right?’
    The marshal tried to smile. ‘Yup, that’s right,