“Nice!” he thought to himself with irony, “but I’ve seen worse.” His eyes quickly scanned the room, taking in the small dresser with the polished steel mirror, a white Formica wardrobe, a table with two chairs over in one corner and a bedside table that held an alarm clock, telephone and many cigarette burns. At the rear of the room he saw another door which he assumed lead to the bathroom. As with most motels, there was no back door. He found what he had been searching for. Just above the bedside table, he read the small handwritten piece of paper that had been taped to the wall, ‘Air-Conditioning’. He stepped forward and flicked the switch below the notice, praying to the god of ice popsicles that it would work. A rattle from the main unit above the front window told him it was still alive, but was it in good health he wondered? He made the three steps it took to get below the air vents and waited. The rattle turned into a rasping hum as the unit’s motor sped up, Ed thought it sounded like a swarm of crickets but he was glad to feel the first blast of cold air hit his upturned face.
The bright light that had overcome Ed in the car flashed again inside his head. He stumbled backwards, falling onto the bed, banging his head on the side of his aviator’s bag. The noise from the air-conditioner grew louder, filling the whole room, filling Ed’s head with the sound of swarming insects. Louder still, the noise became painful; Ed held his head and cried out against the pain. And then silence.
Somewhere close to his head, a single cricket broke the peace as it rubbed its back legs together. Ed opened his eyes and saw the soft moss that stroked his cheek spread towards the stump of a tree like a green carpet. The cricket was just a few feet away from his head, staring directly at him. It chirped once more and leapt away in the opposite direction from the salesman. Tentatively, Ed turned. No aches, no white light, but no motel room either, just the faint buzz of midges and the odd chirp of a cricket mixed with the heady smell of a forest; the smell of moss, the fresh scent of pine trees and something else, something not so pleasant, mould? Decay? Um, not sure.
Still lying on his back, he looked up at the deep blue sky through the canopy of the tall pines. He guessed it was very late afternoon. Ed felt the soft ground pull at the tenseness in his body. Gingerly, he sat up, feeling for any broken bones. Could you get broken bones in a dream he wondered, and then thought that anything was possible? This all felt too real though, too clear, his senses were wide-awake to everything. He looked around, taking in the small clearing made by Pines and a few Buckeye trees that had fallen amongst the dense woodland, creating almost a perfect square of maybe forty foot across. He heard the distant rumble of a truck somewhere to his left and guessed at a freeway, some miles away. Much closer, to his right, he heard the faint trickle of running water, a tiny stream perhaps? Ed started to stand but just as he pushed himself up to a crouch a branch snapped with a loud crack less than fifty feet away from him. Instinctively, he ducked back down and headed for the cover of one of the fallen trees. Scooting behind it, he found the cause of the odd smell. Underfoot was boggy, stagnant water and crushed debris from the Buckeyes, all of which gave off a pungent odour. As quietly as possible, he squelched to a position that he could see in the direction that he had heard the noise but could not be seen himself. Why was he hiding? He didn’t know, but he felt sure that the noise hadn’t come from a friendly source. Another fallen branch snapped, much closer this time. He crouched down further. Through the trees he caught a flash of red, then, just as quickly, it disappeared, only to reappear a moment later as whoever it was came closer. A red and black checked shirt came into view, a man, carrying something heavy over his shoulder, a sack? He wasn’t sure. The man entered the clearing on the other side from Ed’s position of concealment, some twenty feet away. Because the sack was over his right shoulder he couldn’t see the man’s face, just a swath of black hair, but he looked tall, over 6 foot and with an athletic build. The old shirt was tucked into dirty jeans, the shiny new black leather belt that held them up looked out of place. The man turned away from Ed and let the sack on his shoulder fall to the floor with a thud. He lent over it, opened the top and pulled out a large spade. As he stood back up with the tool, a small limp brown arm poked from the sack. “Oh my god!” The salesman hadn’t meant to speak aloud but the other man’s body stiffened and Ed knew he had been heard. The red-checked torso of the stranger started to turn towards Ed’s position, the spade starting to rise like a baseball bat. The assailant took five long strides towards the fallen tree trunk that Ed crouched behind, all the while raising the spade with both hands, higher and higher, the thick, muscular arms obscuring the man’s face. He was now just two foot away from Ed’s position and an angry growl started to erupt from the tool-wielding man as the spade started to descend.
Ed woke with a start, his right arm raised defensively above his head. He was breathing deeply; sweat still pouring from him, even though the motel room was now noticeably cooler. Dazed, he stumbled to the bathroom and shakily turned the faucet, splashing cold water over his face and neck. “Jesus H Christ!” was all he could manage. As the trembling subsided, he turned off the water and walked back into the bedroom, wiping his face with a towel. He looked up suspiciously at the air-con unit, heat or not it made him uncomfortable sitting below the hum of the motor so he switched it off. Sitting heavily on the side of the bed he bent and held his head in his hands. After a few minutes, he looked up and around the silent room, at the moist shoe-prints on the carpet, then back down towards his wet shoes. His mind tried to fight it, but he knew that he could still smell the moss and the stagnant water in the room. ‘I need some fresh air!’ he thought.
SIX
Ed made a quick change of his soggy clothing. He peeled off his saturated socks and shoes, unzipped his pants and threw them on top of his wet shirt. Stripped down to his boxers, he put on another pair of tan chinos, his favourite choice of pants when he wasn’t with a client, and a plain white polo shirt. He unzipped a side compartment on his case to withdraw a pair of chocolate-coloured suede desert boots. As he laced up the boots he glanced at the black plastic digital alarm clock. The orange lights said it was 5.30pm. He wondered if the drug store he had seen earlier would still be open so that he could pick up some pain killers, just in case the pain returned. He had no pain now, none what-so-ever, but man did it hurt when it was happening. He opened his room door and found that the heat was now just about bearable so he decided not to drive. He turned, locked up his motel room and started walking back along the sidewalk towards the centre of town. With the pain gone his mind started to reflect on what he had seen. Were they dreams, real, flashbacks? He didn’t know, but his curiosity was aroused. He had no meetings at all today so he started heading back in the direction of the main intersection then turned left. Ed crossed the deserted main street passed a fresh rectangle of recently laid blacktop and headed for the town square and office of the local newspaper, The Marion County Tribune that he had passed on his way into town. Unlike the rest of the town, the main square and Memorial Park seemed to be well looked after and hadn’t changed much from his first dream. The grass was still lush and green and well-groomed, the area free of litter but the empty plinth in the centre now held the main war memorial, a smaller version of the famous flag raising on Iwo Jima, standing proud at the centre, dominating the scene. Names of the town’s fallen were on a brass plaque at the front. Sitting diagonally across from the white-columned town hall and other municipal offices in the corner of the main square, the newspaper office looked empty and securely locked up, but he wandered over to it regardless. The bottom half of the large window and door were painted in a brown-gold finish, with the name of the newspaper in large black italic letters over that. The unpainted top half was crammed with small ads for lost kittens, old wedding photos and wanted ads for newspaper delivery kids. Ed looked through the cluttered window into the darkened office but saw nothing that would be of help except a sign saying ‘CLOSED’ and opening times. The office would reopen at 9am and close again at 5pm. Lunch was taken at midday for an hour. It was nearly 6pm now so what did he expect, he asked himself? Vowing to return in the morning, Ed started to walk back to the motel when he noticed the lights were still blazing in the town’s library just across the street.