Ex-Purgatory by Peter Clines (best book club books TXT) 📕

dream, but I also remember teeth falling out means this is a stress dream. Is that true for other people in your dream? Why is my mind so clear on some things and so fuzzy on others?

I throw a punch and one of the monster-people flies back into the crowd as if I’ve smacked it with a baseball bat. The physics of the dream seem a bit off. I grab another monster by the wrist and pull. It flies into the air and swings around me in circles. I’m making it fly, like a father spins a small child by the hands. I’m doing it with one hand.

If this is a flying dream, does it mean it’s about sex?

The spinning monster strikes some of its companions and knocks them down. Then I let it fly free. It soars off into the crowd. Something moves near my feet and I stomp on it.

I hear a hiss of pistons and the whine of electronics. The dream isn’t silent, I realize. There’s been a sound here all along, a white noise I’ve grown used to and blocked out. And before I can think what the noise is, the ground shakes. Heavy thuds come from behind me.

I ignore the monsters and turn around.

A tan wall stretches out in either direction. Looming over me is a double archway and a pair of iron gates. It looks like a fortress. I’ve seen it before, but I can’t remember where.

Stepping through the gate on the right is a giant robot. Blue and red armored plates accent its silver body. It must stand close to ten feet tall. It’s shaped like a person. I’m sure it’s female, in that odd way you just know things in dreams.

The robot looks at me with huge white eyes like tennis balls. Its metal skull nods once and then it holds up its hands. Electricity arcs between the thick fingers. It brushes its sparking hands against the monster-people and they collapse to the ground.

One of the creatures sinks its teeth into my shoulder like a vampire with bad aim. I shrug it off and knock it away with another physics-defying punch. The monster slams into another of its kind and they both tumble away.

The robot turns back to the gate and bellows, “Bring it out!” It has a woman’s voice, like I suspected. It raises an arm and waves something forward.

A truck rolls through the gate. A big one, like the ones used by movers and film crews, but this one has been decorated with wide swipes of red spray paint. It crushes the monsters under its wheels. There are people in the back of the truck. They wave at me and poke at the creatures with long spears.

The monsters that look like people are all around me. For every one I push away, three more push forward. There is nothing to the world but pale, gaunt faces and grasping hands. They have my arms, my collar, my hair …

WITH REGRET, GEORGE admitted he was awake and squinted up at the ceiling.

It had been another rough night. It led to one of those mornings that felt like hell from the first moment of consciousness, and he tried to push coherent thought away one last time even as he buried himself back down into the pillow. The alarm had gone off early. He’d slapped the clock twice, and each time he hoped for another ten minutes of peaceful sleep. Just enough to make the day bearable.

The ceiling fan had other ideas.

The fan’s beaded chain had come with the apartment. It wasn’t the standard string of tiny silver balls. Someone, the rental company or a previous tenant or just a cheap repairman, had replaced it with a line of blue plastic crystals.

The crystals were just light enough to catch the subtle motion of the fan. The long strand built up momentum after a while and began to spin in an arc. The arc lifted the top two crystals high enough to scratch at the side of the fan. Again and again. The noise was loud in the quiet apartment. For a man trying to get back to sleep for a few precious minutes it was like Chinese water torture. He glared up and willed the beads to stop moving. They ignored him.

When George was happy with the fan, he liked to tell himself it was a line of Mardi Gras beads. At the moment, he thought about taking a kitchen knife to them and cutting the string in half. Stringisection. Stringicide. He was an easygoing guy, for the most part, but the string needed to be punished.

He turned his head and his hair rustled against the pillowcase. It was long enough that he could feel it bunch up around his ear. He needed to get a haircut.

George rolled over and stretched his legs out. At six feet he was just tall enough that his feet hung off the edge of the mattress. On the plus side, he was thin enough that the bed was spacious enough for two, even though he hadn’t shared it with anyone in a while.

The alarm went off again. His ten minutes were up. Sunlight was creeping in through the blinds. If he delayed any more, he’d be late for work.

He sighed and rolled out of bed.

George made it to his car right on time—parked a block over from his apartment because of street sweeping—but somehow he’d caught the edge of rush hour. Traffic was piled up all along Beverly and he hit every light between his apartment and campus. The crosswalks were packed with people strolling along and taking their time. There was always someone in the road when the lights turned green and it always delayed him just enough that he missed the next light.

It’s early morning, he thought to himself. Shouldn’t anyone out at this hour have somewhere to be? Somewhere they need to get to?

He couldn’t find any music or news