With the creature in hot pursuit, Erin raced along the gloomy corridor. She passed an antique bureau cluttered with porcelain clown ornaments, vaulted over a fallen bag of golf clubs and reached a four way intersection.
The soft thud of eight advancing feet urged her onward. Blindly turning left, she shot down the passage. On her right, glassy-eyed clowns stared up at her from an aged bureau. As she approached a golf bag which lay across her path, she recognised that she was running along the same passageway and finally realised she was dreaming.
With that revelation came a calmness in her mind. She turned to watch her pursuer come into view. Behind its black head, its huge body barely fit in the corridor, the eight legs struggling to find room to propel itself forward.
Creating a door beside her, Erin opened it and stepped into a large, tiled area. She left the doorway open to allow the giant spider to follow her. She dashed around the room, placing the sole object inside the room between her and the opening.
The spider came into view, it’s mandibles crashing together with thunderous calamity. Light glinted in the creature’s multifaceted eyes, lending it an air of malevolence.
Free of the constraints of the corridor, the spider shot forward and fell into the pit that separated it from Erin. It reached up, placing two front legs on the smooth wall of the depression and tried to haul itself upward.
Erin laughed as it failed to gain purchase and slipped to the bottom.
‘Doesn’t matter how big you things get,’ she said, ‘you all have the same nemesis.’
And with that, she turned away from the sunken, oversized bath and left the room.
The corridor was brighter now she had some control of the dream, the space wider. The bag of golf clubs had vanished but the bureau remained to her right. She felt a presence to her left, sensed something watching her but her attention was drawn by a clinking sound from the bureau.
The porcelain clowns were jostling around. They moved in stuttering motions, seemingly unaware of their brethren. When they stumbled into one another, instead of colliding and cracking they merged and formed a single larger figure. Too big for the bureau top, some of them tumbled to the floor, bouncing together and joining as one.
Soon enough only one clown remained, a gargantuan nearly seven feet in height. Turning to Erin, the clown staggered forward in its jerking fashion. Blood red lips parted to reveal blackened teeth. It raised its hands out to Erin as it approached.
Unperturbed, Erin stepped forward and lifted her own hands, palms facing the grim jester. As it came closer she shot her hands into the clown’s, pulled back, clapped, thrust her right hand forward. The clown followed the pattern and together they sang, ‘Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold.’
For the next line, the tempo increased.
‘Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old.’
Erin’s arms moved faster, forcing the clown to speed up also.
‘Some like it hot, some like it cold.’
Their limbs were a blur of motion, the clap-slapping sound almost drowning out their voices.
‘Some like it in the pot-’
Unable to keep up with Erin, the clown faltered, clapping when it should have slapped.
‘You lose,’ Erin told it. ‘Now you can go away.’
The painted smile drooped and the clown’s shoulders sagged. A frown wrinkled in its forehead and it began to fall apart, reverting to its individual constituent figurines. Now she was facing only inanimate objects, Erin was able to return her focus to the watcher behind her.
As Erin turned around, a woman shorter than her approaches.
‘You’re different,’ the woman says.
‘What do you mean?’ Erin asked.
‘Lucid,’ she replies. ‘You have agency over this dream.’
‘I learned a long time ago,’ Erin explained, ‘that playing games with my nightmares removes the terror they hold.’ She looked at the stranger, taking in her red bob and pale blue eyes. Despite her small stature the woman exudes a comfortable confidence. ‘But you’re not here to bring me terror,’ Erin concluded.
‘No,’ the woman confirms. Though her words convey peace, her tone holds darker undertones. ‘I am not a dream of yours,’ she adds.
‘But you’re here,’ Erin said. ‘In my dream.’
‘I sensed your control,’ the woman says and waves an arm to indicate the quietened clown ornaments. ‘You have a talent, and you can help me.’
In his youth, Teddy Finch had learned to play chess and had taken a shine to Battle Chess as a teenager. In his dream, Mae B. Naughty was standing in the middle of a life-size chess board.
Protected between a bishop and a pawn, Mae – the queen, of course – contemplated her next move. The black king had been castled, leaving it prone to checkmate by careful positioning of her knight and queen. But in order to move the knight into its defending position, she would first have to sacrifice one of her rooks.
She mentally committed to the move and watched the beauty of Battle Chess unfold.
The rook, a four-foot representation of a medieval tower, trembled, made a quarter-turn, then shook violently. The ramparts collapsed and the battlements tumbled. The white stones reformed, coalescing into the shape of a squat ogre. With thunderous foot falls, the beast advanced three spaces, raised a wicked-looking club and brought it crashing down onto a pawn. The smaller piece squealed comically as it was squashed flat, blinked from visibility several times then reappeared, whole once more, at the side of the board beside the other pieces that had already been defeated. Finishing the move, the ogre marched onto the captured square and reversed its transformation back into a castle.
Mae looked expectantly to the black queen. Thus far in the game, the queen had been the embodiment of her opponent, Audrey Hepburn. Mae was disappointed to see the film icon was gone, the beautiful funny face now replaced by something more hideous. No longer the deep black of its brethren pieces, the queen’s grey head was a writhing mass of tentacles. Some drooped to the ground, some arced into the air, others splayed to the side undulating as though caught in an unfelt current.
Beneath the nightmare head, the figure lifted a clawed hand and reached out to touch one of its bishops. The bishop paled, the murky grey colour leaching into it from the queen. Leaning on its staff for aid, the bishop stalked toward the sacrificial rook.
Mae felt her stomach churn as she watched the rancid chess piece move. Though she knew she had to lose the castle to win the game, she was unable to allow her ally to be taken by this corrupted bishop. This was no longer a game of wits, a cerebral battle. Mae sensed the malevolence which emanated from the grey figures, squid-headed queen and jerking bishop, and knew her rook was in grim danger.
The bishop limped closer. Beneath the mitre, a taut face grinned with cruel determination. One square from the rook, the bishop brought its crosier up and hefted it behind its shoulders. It swung, striking the castle with the resounding clang of steel hitting rock.
The white piece quivered, small chunks of masonry cascading from its sides. The ogre inside the castle screamed, a deep roar that bit into Mae’s stomach and heart alike. The bishop pulled back its weapon, prepared for another attack.
Mae could not watch. The Battle Chess of Finch’s youth had been brutal in the way of cartoon violence, cheeky and playful. This was real, the castle’s pain acute and actual. She had to stop it.
Springing forward, Mae dashed to her rook as the grey bishop brought the crosier round again. Mae’s hands pressed against the ramparts as the bishop’s blow landed. The castle vanished in an instant.
Using the staff as a crutch once more, the bishop hobbled forward and took its place on the vanquished square. Mae limped back to her own square, glancing to the side of the board where the defeated pieces were gathered. Though she waited several minutes, the rook failed to appear.
As Teddy Finch was restlessly dreaming of Mae B. Naughty, the sun was approaching its zenith over Hervey Bay on the coast of western Australia.
Susan Hedley pulled off Nissen Street, turning into the veterinary surgery’s car park. Only two of the eleven parking spaces were occupied, giving Susan the opportunity to park close to the building.
‘Who’s gonna be a brave boy?’ she asked her feline passenger as she eased into the empty spot.
Three feet shy of parking up, the car stopped with a heavy crunch and Susan was thrust against her seatbelt. In the pet carrier on the seat beside her, the cat yelped angrily. After assuring herself that he was unharmed, Susan leapt out of the car to see what had caused it to come to a sudden halt.
The front bumper was wrapped around a short white structure, an object which Susan was certain had not been there when she entered the carpark. Besides, who would place such a solid obstacle in the middle of a parking space?
As she watched, the object tremored and began to crumble. Pieces of white stone collapsed then, seeming to defy the law of gravity, climbed back upon themselves. What had been a miniature square tower now resembled an ugly humanoid figure.
Startling her, the creature issued a cry which hurt Susan’s ears and hobbled away into a nearby field.
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