Page 4 of Dreamscape Therapies

A fucking Sandman.

I almost laugh as I sit down at the kitchen table. I turn the card over between my fingers. I don’t know what scares me more, calling him or going to sleep again.

My thumb hovers over the number, then I’m dialing. The ringing sounds impossibly loud in the quiet kitchen. After the third ring, I almost hang up.

“Hello?” a man’s voice answers, sounding groggy.

I clear my throat and start speaking. “My name is Vincent,” I say as clearly as I can. I glance at the card again. “I think I need your help.”

Chapter One

I’m standing in the middle of a massive warehouse, surrounded by towering shelves stacked high with yarn skeins of every color imaginable.

A three-foot-tall gnome is trying to knit me into a cocoon. She’s absolutely fucking frantic as she circles me with a pair of knitting needles nearly as long as her arms.

“Hold still!” she squeaks when I try to move.

The yarn keeps slipping off of my shoulders, sliding down my arms and pooling around my feet. Every time she manages to wrap it around me, it immediately unravels.

She huffs impatiently, becoming more and more angry with each passing second.

“Your shoulders are impossible,” she growls, throwing her tiny hands into the air.

“Sorry,” I mutter. Why the fuck am I apologizing to her?

“You should be!”

She’s muttering about tension and structural integrity while furiously fighting the yarn around my waist. I barely react, stunned stupid by the tiny woman. At this point, being murdered by yarn is probably preferable to trying to sleep.

Finally, she steps back and admires her work.

“There.”

I glance down and see that yarn is now encasing my entire body.

“I think you got it,” I tell her, almost proud.

“I know I got it,” she smiles.

Then she pulls one final strand, and the cocoon tightens.

I have just enough time to think, Oh, shit, before the yarn surges upward, swallowing my chest, my neck, and my face, making everything go dark.

Chapter Two

Vincent

The chill in the air tells me winter has finally settled into Nevada, though out here in the desert, that just means I need a light jacket instead of wanting to die from heatstroke.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I mutter to myself as I turn onto the private driveway.

Calling a driveway is generous. It’s more of a dirt trail that someone decided to put a mailbox beside. The gravel is a minefield of potholes, rattling my silver Honda Civic like a paint mixer. Every jolt sends another spike of pain through my skull, and by the time I finally reach the small parking area beside the two-story building, I’m digging through my center console for painkillers.

I shake two pills into my palm and swallow them dry, grimacing at the bitter taste.

The visor mirror gives me exactly the reflection I expect.

A man who looks like he’s been hit by a truck, reversed over, and hit again for good measure.