Bentley Fuller dreamt every night. Since the age of seven, he recorded his dreams in thick leather books that were secured with a silver padlock. The key to the books, he kept around his neck; the books he kept under his bed.
There were thousands of recorded dreams in his books. They started out as crude pictures— stick figures standing inside houses with square windows and large chimneys; the houses stood on flat lines. The trees were bushy; the skies were cerulean blue; the sun was a yellow ball that radiated straight lines onto smiling people. These drawings were things you’d expect a child to draw—nothing special. Bentley’s dreams started as happy ones. By the time he was 12, they evolved into long stories with heroes, villains, and plots; they were written, not drawn. And they were never happy.
They were nightmares.
On his 13th birthday, Bentley began having the same, recurring nightmare. After a few weeks of having this same nightmare, he didn’t know what to write and so he returned to drawing. Bentley was better with pictures than with words.
This is what his nightmare looked like: The entire page was drawn with a charcoal stick that turned his hands sooty black. Charcoal—that burnt, messy substance—was Bentley’s favorite medium. Charcoal made things eerie and surreal; it was appropriate for a nightmare. He drew his house—big and dark with many empty rooms and long hallways. On the second floor, far away from him, he drew his two sleeping parents. Bentley was the only child of two, incredibly wealthy, incredibly selfish parents who had an incredibly dysfunctional marriage. Bentley’s house wasn’t really empty; it was fully furnished with lots of expensive things. But it felt empty—especially at night; especially when HE came.
On the first floor, Bentley drew himself in his football pajamas with his key around his neck lying alone in bed. Bentley drew enormous open ovals as his eyes. The boy in the picture looked as if he heard something; his mouth was drawn open, his eyebrows arched like upside down parentheses. Bentley drew his pupils in the far corners of his eyes—off looking at something in another room. To his right, Bentley drew the kitchen.
Bentley concentrated especially hard when he drew the kitchen; it was an important place for the Fuller family and played a vital role in his nightmare. As he sketched, his tongue came out of his mouth—guiding him along, helping him concentrate. At first, he drew the kitchen using the lightest pencil in his box: a 5H-grade pencil. Then he took his piece of charcoal in his hand and darkened the picture. The scene look realistic; it was top-notch quality for a 13-year-old boy. Were it shown to Bentley’s middle school art teacher, the mustachioed, ever-friendly Mr. Henderson, were it not shoved under the bed and secured with the silver padlock, Bentley’s picture of the kitchen scene would have gone on display in a glass case. Bentley would have received all sorts of recognition for it—funny little ribbons, hard backslaps from proud adults, and black and white pictures on the front page of his town’s community paper.
When it came time for Bentley to draw HIM into the scene, he felt compelled to stop and really take his time. He spent many days (undergoing many nightmares seeing HIM) deciding how to draw HIM. Bentley practiced in the margins of his dream journal and on other scraps of paper. It took him a long time to learn how to draw the man.
When he first dreamed of HIM, Bentley couldn’t see HIM clearly. HE was, at first, nothing but a bright light—not that bright, Godlike light that surrounds a saint in religious iconography. It may have looked the same as that kind of light, but this light preceded no holy miracles or divine interventions; there was no halo; there was only coldness, violent struggle, and eventual death: a death that repeated every single night.
This aura came from a flashlight. Its spherical cone extended to the edge of Bentley’s room. In his nightmares, Bentley was woken by this sudden light piercing his room’s darkness. HE was quiet, but HE wasn’t completely careful.
HE was a man; a towering man—a man nearly as tall as the ceiling. HE wore his hair long; it curled at the ends where it touched his broad shoulders. HIS eyes were sunken; his lower jaw jutted out. HE wore blue jeans and a flannel shirt that looked as if it belonged in the basement of a thrift store. A long leather scabbard hung down from his right side.
Every night, this stranger broke into Bentley’s house; every night this is what he dreamed: Bentley stirs. He pokes his head out of his sheets and listens. The flannel-shirted man with the flashlight and knife hears the boy in the next room. And then the man trips on something in the kitchen. The man lets out a grunt and the boy jumps out of bed; the cone of light flickers back and forth; it makes Bentley’s frightened pupils grow as big as marbles.
Bentley tries to call for his parents, but they are too far away to hear him; he is on his own. The man hears the boy and darkens the hallway; the light comes closer. The boy shuts his door and tries to lock it, but the man is faster; he wedges his hand into the door. A knife appears from out of the doorway like a shark’s fin.
Bentley sees the man’s knife glinting in the moonlight. (Bentley draws the moon as big, as circular, and as radiant as he used to draw the sun.) The boy tries to keep the man out of his room; there’s a short struggle—little hands holding back the weight of a crazed murderer. Bentley can smell the man’s animal-like musk. The man grunts and throws open the door; he shines his flashlight on Bentley—spotlighting his pupils like a deer. Bentley falls to his knees and turns. The intruder is in the boy’s room. He raises his knife and laughs; the boy screams, turns, feels the long blade enter his body between his shoulders. He awakes.
Before anything, before running to use the bathroom or getting a glass of water, he flicks on his light and draws this scene. He locks the leather-bound dream journal back up and shoves it far under his bed. He goes about his tortured day; every passing hour is one hour closer to darkness. He fears it: the disappearance of the sun; the sound of crickets in the tall grass outside his window; the swaying of the trees in his backyard.
He dreads the gloaming—the lengthening of shadows; the appearance of the first evening star. All these things he associates with death. And so Bentley learns to dread the passing of that round sun over that flat horizon. Night is terror. Night is death and cold blackness.
Halfway through his 13th year, tormented and nearing complete exhaustion from worry, Bentley summoned up the courage to tell his father about the nightmare. He didn’t talk to his father much. (The man was so busy.) His father left little time for anything other than the pursuit of increasing dollar signs on his bank statements.
“I used to have nightmares son,” Bentley’s father’s said. “They are just part of adolescence.”
Bentley told him that it was the same nightmare; they happened every night.
“I used to have this same nightmare when I was 13,” his father said. “What a coincidence. Are you sure we’re related?”
Bentley told his father that his nightmare seemed real.
“Are you having nocturnal emissions, too?”
“No,” Bentley said.
His father, who had been typing on his computer in his big den while he spoke to Bentley, stopped typing; he sighed and said: “All nightmares seem real and are scary Bentley: that’s why they are called nightmares. I used to have a repeating nightmare about falling out of a tree.”
“Dad, this is worse.”
Bentley’s father liked to compete; he was once a college quarterback and once salvaged a 4th-and-25 situation by throwing a Hail Mary pass 98 yards to win the game with ten seconds left on the clock. The game ball sat on his desk inside a glass trophy case. His father loved it only slightly less than he loved his stocks and bonds. Bentley’s father didn’t like Bentley telling him that his nightmares were scarier than his. “You can’t prove that,” he said angrily.
Bentley contemplated showing his father the dream book.
Bentley’s father returned to his work–clacking away at his computer.
“Dad, can I sleep in the upstairs guest room tonight?” Bentley asked.
“Afraid are you?”
Bentley said he was.
“Son, you have to confront your fears sometimes. This is a perfect time to, because it’s a Goddamn nightmare—it isn’t real!”
“I already am confronting it, dad.”
“The hell you are; you are in here complaining to me about it,” his father said, slamming his fist down on the table and letting out a sigh.
Bentley cringed.
“Be a man, Bentley.”
“Dad—“
His father mumbled to himself–something about option strike point and debt-to-equity ratio. Apparently this conversation was distracting him to the point where he was losing real money. He ushered Bentley out of the room by making like he was holding a broom and slammed the door with the tip of his shoe.
Twenty-one nightmares later, Bentley summoned the courage to talk to his mother about them. He knew that the best chances to find his mom sober were two hours before sunset. His mother wasn’t sober when Bentley approached her, though; she had been drinking gin on the rocks and was sitting at a barstool in the house’s kitchen—the place where HE enters the house. She was reading a magazine. Bentley suspected she was drunk because she held her head at that strange angle she always did after she’d been rummaging in the liquor cabinet.
“Mom, can we talk?” Bentley asked gently.
Bentley’s mom turned the page of her magazine and hummed one of Liza Minnelli’s famous show tunes. .
“Mom, I need to talk,”
“Is this THE talk you want to have–the talk about the man and the woman coming together to form a union of the flesh? If it is, then you should probably scurry off and go find your father up there in his money cave. He seems to know the most about that subject since he doesn’t like to include me in it anymore.”
Bentley assured her it wasn’t about sex: that it was instead about nightmares. His mom said that she’d once read in a parenting magazine that boys’ nightmares were harbingers for wet dreams. Bentley told his mother that they were the same nightmares every night and that he hadn’t had any nocturnal emissions yet.
“The same nightmares mean that you are destined to be monogamous,” his mother said, shaking the ice in her tumbler. “The magazine said that too. That’s funny because your father isn’t. He must have had different nightmares.”
Bentley hesitated; he was going to tell his mother about his father’s recurring tree nightmare, but he figured she didn’t care. “They are scary mom—really scary,” Bentley said. He thought about showing her his dream book to prove his point.
“Scary and monotonous dreams are supposed to mean that you are a heterosexual,” Bentley’s mother said. “You should be happy for that.”
“Can I sleep upstairs in the guest bedroom, mom?”
“Why certainly not! I don’t want the guest bed soiled.” Bentley’s mom said. She closed her magazine and looked up at Bentley for the first time and pointed her bony finger at him. “In fact, THIS conversation reminds me to tell you that I want you to start sleeping in that special pair of pajamas that I bought for you last year.”
The pajamas that Bentley’s mom referred to were specially lined with removable (washable) cotton pads in the groin; they were made in Switzerland and were designed to give comfort (and hygiene) to pubescent boys during their long period of nocturnal emissions. Bentley never wore them.
Bentley gave up. As he turned to leave, he noticed that his mother’s magazine was called Kitchens and Crawl Spaces. Bentley wondered if a change to the kitchen could mean the end to his dream. “Are you and dad going to remodel the kitchen?” he asked.
Bentley’s mother finally heard something she wanted to hear; she beckoned him back and excitedly pointed out the marble counter top that she was going to buy; she then pointed out the chrome appliances and the tiled flooring. She hiccupped with excitement.
Bentley asked if they were going to tear down any walls—anything major.
They were not; the kitchen was just getting new flooring, appliances, and fixtures.
“When was the work scheduled to start?” Bentley asked.
His mother guzzled the contents of her drink and rolled her eyes—not soon enough. She mumbled something about having to find her father’s hidden credit card first. “Always locked up with him in his Goddamn cave,” she said.
Bentley looked at his watch and then at his mother. He thought about kissing her goodnight, but decided it was best to leave her to her gin and her kitchen remodeling plans. Darkness was coming and had had things he needed to do to prepare for his nightmare. He walked back to his room and closed the door.
Bentley prepared for his nightmare the same way: He started by locking his door and tugging on it to ensure it was really locked. He then dragged over a heavy metal box that was filled to the top with the heaviest of his old toys and leaned it against the door. After he was satisfied that the door was secure, he’d jump up on his bed and lay out various homemade weapons that he’d made. His favorite weapon was a large stick—a branch from the sycamore tree that grew in his front yard. He had whittled it into a spear that could puncture nearly anything. He practiced throwing it outside at various things: old sofa cushions, watermelons–even sheet metal. His second-favorite weapon was a mace that was fashioned from his mom’s old broom handle. Bentley had pounded fifty nails into it. He had smashed many things into a pulp using it, imagining he was pounding the intruder’s face. These two weapons he kept within arm’s reach of the bed, on the floor. The others—the rubber band gun, the strips of tacks, the baseball bat, the crossbow, the blowgun—he kept piled in the corner next to the metal box and the door.
Bentley’s next nighttime ritual was preparing his bunker—his fallback position. Using old milk crates, Bentley had erected a room within his room. On the wall of his milk carton room he hung a picture of Saint Michael the Archangel. There, in that final, desperate place, he kept a stack of M-80 firecrackers that he’d wrapped with bbs and medical tape. A lighter was beside the M-80s; a can of mace was beside the lighter; and beside the lighter was his final, most deadly weapon: a six-inch butterfly knife. His parents—supposed pacifists—had let him buy the dangerous knife last summer at a flea market. His father told him never to hurt anyone with it; his mother told Bentley’s father to hurry up and pay the man who was selling it. Bentley worked open the butterfly knife as the final part of his ritual. He could open it in two seconds and was trying to get it down to one. The milk carton room was where he’d make his last stand. He figured once the man with the knife knocked down the door, he’d light the M-80s and flip open the butterfly knife. With one hand he’d spray the can of mace and with the other he’d stab blindly. It was the best possible defense a 13-year-old had against the bogeyman.
Confident that he was ready, Bentley sat back on his bed and watched the sky outside turn from yellow to orange to black. The time was coming to have it again; Bentley said a prayer to Saint Michael and closed his eyes.
That night, however, things were different. Usually his mother stumbled upstairs to bed. Usually he never heard his parents until the next morning, when they were busy preparing their own breakfasts and reading their own newspapers. But that night–just as Bentley was preparing himself for his nightmare–he heard them. His father was yelling at his mother.
“You’re drunk again aren’t you?” his father barked from the top of the stairs.
“Go to hell! I hate you!” his mother screamed.
“You have a drinking problem.”
“And you have a mistress!”
Bentley heard the breaking of glass: his mother’s gin tumbler, presumably. He heard his mother run into the kitchen. She was crying and sniffing. She was mumbling to herself about men, apes, and infidelity. Bentley heard her rummaging through her purse. He got out of bed and moved back his metal box, opening the door. The light from the kitchen pierced his room.
“I’m leaving!” his mother screamed.
Bentley crawled on his hands and knees down the hall. His mother didn’t see him. She held an unlit cigarette in her mouth and a set of car keys in her hand.
“You aren’t driving in YOUR condition. No.” Bentley’s father ordered, coming down the stairs. He wore his blue terry cloth bathrobe; his hair was a mess.
“Just you stop me!”
“Give me those Goddamn keys, Ellen!”
Bentley crawled into the kitchen and hid under the barstool. From his vantage point, he saw his father swipe at his mother’s hand; she withdrew it. His father stepped closer, pawing wildly at her; his mother slapped him across the face. “Cheater!” she screamed.
Many men—men in movies, mostly—withdraw and let a woman’s blow stand unreturned, but not his father. He cocked back—back like he was throwing that old Hail Mary 4th-and-25-pass—and struck Bentley’s mother with a closed fist, sending her flying into the front door. Bentley’s mother should have called the police; she should have called for Bentley. But she lay there in a huddled ball on the floor. Bentley’s father stood over her with his fist balled—ready to strike her again.
Bentley stood and tried to run back to his room. But his bare foot got caught under the chrome barstool rail and held him in place. He tumbled; the barstool toppled over and landed on the floor next to him with a loud crash. Neither of his parents heard the commotion. His mother held her bloodied nose and sobbed.
Bentley picked himself up off the kitchen floor and ran into his room. He jumped into bed and pulled the covers over his head. He listened for voices and screams, but heard nothing.
The intruder didn’t come that night. Bentley slept peacefully. For the first time in nearly a year, Bentley didn’t write or draw in his dream book. There was no nightmare. That next morning, he just sat up, rolled over, and walked into the sunlit kitchen.
The tipped-over barstool had been righted; there was no broken glass—no sign of a fight; no sign of anything out of the ordinary. His mother sat at the counter; she sipped her coffee and stared off into space. A large, purplish bruise crept up her face; her nose was swollen. “Your father’s an ass,” she said.
Bentley knew it was best to not say anything. He helped himself to a bowl of cereal and sat at the far end of the counter—as far away from his mother as possible.
“I caught him,” his mother said.
Bentley slurped his cereal and began reading the comics.
“He won’t do that again.”
Bentley finished the cereal and put the bowl in the sink—ensuring that it was rinsed.
His mother rose and sauntered over to the liquor cabinet; she bent down and found a new tumbler. She filled it with gin and dropped three ice cubes in it; they crackled.
“Are you guys still going to remodel the kitchen?” Bentley asked.
“You’re damn right I am: I’ll be doing whatever I want now that I’ve finally caught him. I’ll order that expensive marble that he said I couldn’t have. I’ll get that extra fancy tile and those French cabinets,” his mother said. She tipped the tumbler back; a wave of gin washed into her mouth.
“That’s good,” Bentley said. He returned to his room and retrieved his dream journal from under his bed. On a fresh page, he wrote:
“April 21: No nightmare last night. Kitchen remodeling underway. This is good. Hope returns. The sun shines again.” Then he reached into his box of markers and drew a yellowish sun—an orb-like sun with straight lines—the kind of sun he used to draw when he was seven.
A few more days passed with no nightmare. Bentley prayed hard and slept happily. His dream book was now full of suns; he even began drawing trees. When a full week went by with no nightmare, he started drawing birds and even butterflies. He threw the charcoal pencil away. Black markers sunk to the bottom of his box; pastels rose to the top.
His parents didn’t speak to each other, however. He knew things were bad between them, because his father began sleeping in the upstairs guest room. The family used to eat together, but now his father ate in his study in front of his flat-panel, stock market ticker-projecting computer screen and his mother drank her gin and shoveled her microwave dinners while seated at the same place: on the barstool in front of the kitchen counter.
And then one day, the kitchen project began.
His mother had arranged it all; she had drawn up the plans, compared the bids, awarded the time and materials contracts, and personally consulted the designers and the contractors. She picked the most expensive things and relished in it all. She sat behind the counter all day, cigarette in one hand, gin glass in the other—phone cradled between her shoulders and her small head.
When the workmen—Mexican immigrants—arrived, they carried with them large tool boxes, drills, and saws. They began taking up the kitchen floor using sledgehammers. The house was messy and filled with noise.
Bentley’s mom stayed perched on her barstool; Bentley’s dad wasn’t around much. Apparently, he stayed upstairs in his den—still trading his stocks and making his other big financial moves.
Bentley went a second week without the nightmare. And then a third; he was beginning to forget certain details about it. He was beginning to have other, happier dreams. He stopped locking his door; he stopped barring it with the metal toy box; he no longer inventoried his weapons or practiced twirling open his butterfly knife in two seconds. The sycamore spear was no longer sharpened; the mace’s nails dulled.
One night—very late—Bentley awoke to the sound of his parents fighting again. It started similar to their first fight: his mother got drunk, said she was leaving, grabbed her keys, and made for the door. His father came downstairs in his blue terry cloth bathrobe, his hair still a mess; he stopped her by cocking his quarterback arm back and hitting her in the face. She cowered in the corner by the front door; he wrenched the keys out of her hand.
But the fight took a different turn that night.
“I’ll kill you!” Bentley’s mother screamed after she’d been struck.
“Go to your room and sober up,” Bentley’s father said, rubbing his hand.
“We’re done!”
“Fine.”
“I’ll kill her too, you know!”
“I’ve got a lawyer now; so you should watch what you say.”
“I do too; do you see my face? I should call the police on you, you two-timing bastard”
“Don’t—you’ll regret it.”
“I hate you!”
“I’ll see you in court.”
Bentley put his head against his door and listened for sounds of more violence, but there were none. He retreated to his bed and turned off the lights.
After a few hours of fitful sleep, Bentley was awoken by a sound. He opened his eyes and looked around his dimly lit room. The moon was nearly full; the room was bluish gray. A figure tiptoed into his room.
Bentley sat bolt upright. He expected to see the glint of the intruder’s knife; he expected to smell his musk; he expected to turn to run and receive the thrust between his shoulder blades. Bentley jumped down out of his bed and grabbed his sycamore spear.
The light came on.
It was his father. A sleeping bag was tucked under his arm. “Whoa—what’s with the stick weapon? It’s just me buddy,” he said. (When his father used the word “buddy” with Bentley, he needed something.) “Mom and I aren’t getting along, you know.”
Bentley put the spear down. “I heard,” he said.
“We need to talk about it—about everything in the morning.”
“I’m sure we will.”
“I’m sleeping in here with you. Ok, buddy?”
“Ok dad.”
“Goodnight Bentley,” his dad said.
“Dad, remember the nightmare I was having?”
“Buddy, can we talk about this in the morning? I’ve had a big fight with your mom and I got a lot on my mind. I need to sleep.”
“I just wanted to tell you-—“
“I said it was normal; I said it was part of growing up, remember? I had them too,” Bentley’s dad said, letting out a sigh.
“Dad—“_
“No nocturnal emissions, right?”
“It’s gone, dad. The dream is gone.”
“Good; it must mean that you’re one step closer to becoming a man.”
His tall father unrolled his sleeping bag and turned out the light. He stretched out on Bentley’s soft carpet and was asleep in a few minutes. He snored half the night; the other half he mumbled vague, stock trading terms in his sleep.
That next morning, Bentley’s parents told him that they were getting a divorce. The conversation took place inside their half-gutted kitchen. It wasn’t much of a discussion; hardly the way it is supposed to happen. His mother was drunker than usual; she had two bruises on either side of her face. His father was impatient and looked at his watch. He feared he was going to miss the stock market’s opening bell. “More details will come later,” his father repeated several times.
“But there’s one detail that IS coming now,” his mother said correcting his father. “Your father is sleeping downstairs until we officially separate. He’s a menace; he’s a Goddamn threat to my life.”
“Does that mean I get to move upstairs to the guest room?” Bentley asked.
“Do you have your special pajamas?” his mother asked, pointing at his little groin.
“Yes.”
Bentley’s mother nodded approvingly. “You may sleep there then, young MAN.”
A week passed. Bentley didn’t dream while he slept in the guest bedroom. He rarely saw his parents. When he saw his mother, she was on the phone—acting secretive and skittish. She had canceled the kitchen project. Bentley assumed she was handling all the details—the particulars of canceling the contract clauses; the undoing of all that established organization. The kitchen was a mess; the previously tiled floor had an enormous hole in it that exposed the joists. With the exception of where Bentley’s mother sat and drank her gin, the countertop was torn up; pieces of slate formed a pyramid that nearly reached the ceiling. Dust was everywhere. Florescent lights with their exposed electrical guts dangled down from the ceiling. Bent nails peppered the floor. Orange colored extension chords crisscrossed the floor like snakes. Whenever Bentley’s mother saw him, she’d tell him to scram. During the day, she’d order him to wash his sheets and his special Swiss pajamas and after sunset, she’d send him to his room.
Bentley only saw his father once; it was a few hours after sunset on a crisp fall day. Bentley had brushed his teeth and was on his way to bed. He ran into him in the hallway; his face was several days unshaven; he looked as if he’d aged twenty years. “Buddy, can I borrow your pillow tonight?” his father said, gently touching Bentley’s shoulder. “The one I got from the closet hurts my head; it’s too damn stiff.”
Bentley gave his father his soft pillow.
“Thanks buddy,” his father said.
The moon was full that night; it rose above the guest room at an angle that made it as bright as the sun. Bentley tossed at turned. He got up and tried to close the blinds, but they were broken and refused to shut. After thinking about nice things and saying a few prayers to Saint Michael, he fell asleep.
The dream he had that night was a wonderful one—the best he’d ever had! He was on a large, empty white-sand beach that was lined with palms. A light breeze blew; water lapped at his toes. As he walked along the beach, he felt the urge to swim. He waded into the ocean and then dove in. The water was warm and refreshing. Beautiful fish swam with him. One fish, a distinct-looking one with black stripes swam up to his face; it looked at him and then darted off into the blue void. Bentley swam after it. It dropped down into the coral–swimming fast between the white nooks. Bentley struggled to keep up with the fish; it seemed to be leading him somewhere, he thought. As he swam deeper, he saw something wedged into the coral: a large sunken trunk. Bentley opened it and peered inside. Jewels and gold coins spilled out. Bentley shoved his hands into the trunk and lifted up the treasure. Strings of pearl necklaces floated in front of him; the whole sea seemed to shimmer. Out of breath, he surfaced.
And then he woke up.
It was very late. The moon had risen over his house and descended on its other side—making the guest room pitch black. Bentley didn’t want to forget this wonderful dream. Instinctively, he reached down under his bed for his journal. But it wasn’t there; it was in his room downstairs.
Bentley knew that his father was a heavy sleeper and that he wouldn’t disturb the old quarterback if he walked downstairs to get it. He tiptoed through the large house and entered his room. His father wasn’t there; the bed was still made. Bentley crawled under his bed and retrieved his thick, leather-bound book. Reaching eagerly for his box of markers he began coloring a picture of that placid beach and that wonderful box of treasure. Above the picture, he wrote: “October 1st, best dream I’ve ever had!” Then he turned off the light and slid the book back under his bed.
Bentley lay back on his bed—his head cradled under his small hands. He smiled and took a few deep breaths that helped him relax. He said his prayer to the Patron Saint of soldiers; his eyelids drooped; a few muscles twitched and then he was asleep again.
What happened next wasn’t a dream; it really happened.
Bentley was awakened suddenly. A light—a long beam—darted back and forth, as if someone was searching for something. The light entered Bentley’s room through the cracked, unbarred door. Someone was in the kitchen with a flashlight. Bentley froze with fear. He didn’t know why his nightmare had returned. He regretted not barring his door. His weapons were not within reach; he was hardly prepared for the final test.
There was a large crash; the flashlight darted faster. A voice—a foreign-sounding voice cursed in the kitchen. The intruder had tripped on something.
Bentley dropped down out of his bed and ran towards the door. HE was here.
The time had come.
Bentley smelled him. HE reached his hands into the door and pried it open. Bentley screamed. The door bent at its hinges. The man—the monster; the leviathan—stuck his head between the door and its frame. Bentley finally saw him: His hair was long and curly; his teeth mangled; his eyes were dark pits. HE was real this time.
Bentley was only 13—and incredibly weak for his age. Bentley’s arms were stick-like; he could barely lift a gallon of milk on his own. Despite the fear-induced adrenaline surging through his wiry body, he lost the struggle.
The man burst into Bentley’s room; the door flew open. Just like the nightmare, Bentley turned. Just like the nightmare, Bentley’s last feeling was the cold blade into his warm back.
But Bentley never woke up.
The two gumshoes assigned to the Fuller boy’s murder case—Detectives Frank Fletcher and Arthur Shane—were, supposedly, California’s best crime fighters. They’d solved over a dozen high-profile murders and appeared regularly on nighttime crime fighting shows as paid consultants. They were brought on to solve the murder of Bentley Fuller, because his parents were suspects. It also helped that the Fullers were white and had a lot of money—something that tends to attract the cameras and the celebrity cops.
It didn’t take them long.
When they had Mrs. Fuller in for questioning, they looked at her purplish face.
“Mrs. Fuller, did your husband beat you?” they asked.
“Yes he did.” Mrs. Fuller answered.
“Do you hate your husband?” they asked.
Mrs. Fuller broke down. The detectives got her two boxes of tissues. After a long time watching her cry, they asked her about Bentley.
“He wasn’t supposed to be there!” Mrs. Fuller screamed.
Detective Fletcher looked at Detective Shane; they knew they were a few questions away from solving this murder. It was easier than they thought.
“So your husband was supposed to be in the boy’s room that night?” Detective Fletcher asked.
“Yes,” Mrs. Fuller moaned. “That bastard should have been in Bentley’s room!”
Who did you hire to kill your husband Mrs. Fuller?”
“He was supposed to sleep in Bentley’s room that night!”
Detective Fletcher whispered into Detective Shane’s ear. Detective Shane nodded and opened up the Bentley Fuller case file—removing a stapled stack of papers. He slid Mrs. Fuller’s cell phone records across the table. A man, an ex-con named Ricardo Reyes’ phone number was circled 45 times. He then slid a piece of paper across the table. It was a list of employees of the Bender Construction Company: the company that Mrs. Fuller had hired to remodel the kitchen. Ricardo Reyes’ name was on list.
Mrs. Fuller looked at the evidence and hung her head. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” she said.
“Should we show her the book?” Detective Shane asked, rhetorically.
“Yes—let her see what her son went through; let her look at the pictures,” Detective Fletcher said, cracking his knuckles.
Detective Shane removed the thick leather book from the case file. Bentley’s golden key was fastened to the padlock. Detective Shane unlocked the book, melodramatically, causing the padlock to spring open with a snap.
“What is that?” Mrs. Fuller asked.
Detective Shane thumbed through the journal until he got to the pictures he wanted to show her. He placed the book on the table in front of Mrs. Fuller and slid it across the table. Mrs. Fuller stared at a series of charcoal drawings: the house; the kitchen; the door; the knife; the intruder; the boy; the stabbing.
“Turn the page Mrs. Fuller,” Detective Shane said.
Mrs. Fuller turned the page; it had another picture of the same horrible thing. Bentley had carefully written the dates in the corner. “It’s the same picture,” Mrs. Fuller said.
“Turn the page Mrs. Fuller.”
When she turned the page, bits of charcoal on the page made her fingers black. Again, she saw the same picture.
“This is your son’s dream journal,” Detective Shane said.
Detective Fletcher snapped his gum.
Mrs. Fuller jumped. “Dream journal? My son had a dream journal?” Detective Fletcher walked around the table and stood by her side. With one hand he grabbed the book from her hands. With the other, he snapped one end of the handcuff around her wrist, and the other to the metal table. He handed the book to Detective Shane.
“I guess you can call it that Mrs. Fuller: But I wouldn’t,” Detective Fletcher said. “I’d call it a nightmare journal.”
“I’d call it an omen,” Detective Shane said, snapping the journal’s padlock lock shut.
While Detective Fletcher started reading Mrs. Fuller her Miranda rights, Detective Shane walked into the next room and called the television executive—the man who was single handedly responsible for the success of the true-crime show, Real Detectives
“Book us for prime time tonight, Larry,” Detective Shane said, looking at Bentley’s dream journal. “Fletcher and I got something that will send your ratings through the roof.”