Read Online The Waking Dreamer by J. E. Alexander - Free Book Online Page B

creature’s jagged teeth and unnatural speed flashed in his mind. Silence passed between them as Emmett suppressed a shudder that was accompanied by a dull throb of discomfort along his neck.
    No wonder I always preferred the George Romero lumbering dead type.
    “What about the robed dudes with the face-melting?”
    “Revenants. Their human worshippers. They practice what we call runic magicks, invoking ancient words of power to harm others. Ancient cults, secret societies, tyrants and sadists—Underdwellers have ruled entire kingdoms by proxy through their human Revenant cabals. Civil wars, human trafficking, slavery … it’s all their lot.”
    “So, soylent green really is people?”
    Keiran raised an eyebrow in confusion.
    “How’d you kill it?” Emmett asked. Fewer movie references, snob.
    “Iron stave through its heart.”
    “Was kinda hoping for a more inventive trope there.”
    “Underdwellers avoid pure running water, and fortunately for us, they have lived underground for so long that their skin can’t tolerate direct light. They only rise in full darkness when the moon is at its lowest apogee.”
    “You mean they don’t rise under a full moon?” Emmett quipped.
    “Silly superstitions,” Keiran remarked more to himself than to Emmett. “The moon reflects the sun’s light. The gift of light in the darkest hours of the night is associated with nonsense superstition. And the brightest reflection of light, a full moon, is viewed as an ill omen. You must appreciate the irony.”
    “Superstition makes for good storytelling. Can’t have a horror movie without it.”
    Smiling, Keiran began clearing the countertop and rinsing the dishes. “Superstition is often a convenience for avoiding uncomfortable truths. A woman dares to live unmarried on the outskirts of town in the frontier, and rather than being a resourceful, capable woman who records weather patterns and uses medicinal herbs for various maladies—”
    “She’s a witch, and firewood is being handed out to the town’s children as party favors,” Emmett added as he saw Keiran already nodding.
    “It’s an unfortunate reality we contend with: this need to wrap the truth in fanciful stories, when the truth is so plainly evident,” Keiran said.
    “You say that like this wouldn’t be all-new information to most people.”
    “If you know what you’re looking for, it shouldn’t be.” Keiran set the knife down and sipped from his tea, his eyes dancing over the cup’s rim. “You just don’t know it.”
    Emmett shook his head dismissively. “Nah, I’m as tin-foil-hat as anyone else, but even I know you couldn’t keep this off the Interwebs.”
    Keiran chuckled as if Emmett had just insisted that babies came from storks. “Do you watch the news? Even if you remove your everyday murders, kidnappings, and rapes—some of which are Revenant in origin, mind you—there are still other things.”
    “Such as?”
    “Cattle killings, their sexual organs removed with surgical precision and all bodily fluids drained. Bodies left in unnatural positions with unknown odors and markings in the area. And normal scavengers refuse to approach the corpses?”
    “Aliens, bro. Always always always aliens,” Emmett snarked.
    “Human combustion? People inexplicably incinerated from within with no evidence of chemicals or a source of ignition and their surroundings undamaged?”
    “Not so much, no.”
    “You’ve never seen anything that you couldn’t explain? Never experienced something that you wouldn’t admit to others for fear they wouldn’t believe you?”
    “Any six-year-old with a phone and free app can turn you into a werewolf.”
    “Then look to stories and art. Human history is riddled with stories of Underdwellers, but—and this is critical, of course—you must know what it is you are looking for. Most fairy tales are based on some historical truth that people have otherwise forgotten.”
    “Straight-to-DVD films,” Emmett