The Dream Virgin: A Ventures Nest Thriller Read online

“That you, Sheriff Harry? What’s all the big fuss?”

  “On your knees! Now!” the bullhorn replied.

  Reimer’s light-shielding hand suddenly snapped back, grabbing Chip by the arm while the other hand grabbed the machete from its sleeve.

  The big blade got about halfway out before a bullet ripped through Reimer’s left leg, bringing him to his knees with a howl.

  “Jesus God!”

  He rolled on his back in dramatic pain.

  “Try to hand you my blade, and you shoot me for shielding the kid from harm!”

  Reimer held up his left arm with the blood-stained dish towel around it.

  “See! That’s what saved him from the fucking wolf! My arm!”

  Spotlights pinned Reimer to the ground as several police officers followed the fast-moving sheriff, guns pointed.

  The sheriff ordered his men to cuff and cage him, but before he finished the order, Reimer grabbed his ax.

  Sheriff Harry Riverbottom was quick, sidestepped the swing and stomped on Reimer’s bandaged arm.

  Reimer dropped the ax and screamed. Then the Sheriff stomped on Reimer’s wounded thigh.

  When Reimer stopped screaming, grabbing some breath, he said, “You redskin motherfucker, I’m—”

  Harry Riverbottom jammed two fingers up into Reimer’s nostrils, yanking the charred face close, and spoke slowly so as not to be misunderstood.

  “I connect you with Raedeane Nelson’s death today from that meth you been cooking in her RV. Kidnapping her son?”

  Reimer tried to interject, but it came out garbled when Harry jerked him even closer, causing Reimer’s dentures to pop out.

  “That proves true, you’ll be going to OSP. Hard-timers there hate child abusers.”

  “Almost as much as me.”

  Harry slipped his fingers from Reimer’s nostrils and smashed his nose with the palm of his hand.

  Wiping his bloody fingers on Reimer’s shirt, the Sheriff stood, pointed to the dentures, and said to one of his men, “Use gloves and bag them.”

  Harry walked over to the burly deputy who was guarding Chip a good distance away from where Reimer was, with Chip’s back to what Harry did to him.

  “Figured you’d want to, so I didn’t question the boy, Harry, except to let him know he was safe,” the deputy said.

  Harry nodded and the deputy joined the others who threw Reimer into the back of a patrol car.

  Kneeling in front of Chip, Harry eased the blood-soaked backpack off the boy’s shoulders.

  “Like Deputy Todd said, Chip, everything’s gonna be okay now.”

  The Sheriff looked inside the backpack with his flashlight, long jet-black hair framing a strong Native American face that had practice hiding emotion. Seeing the headless pup took some effort.

  Setting the backpack aside, Harry took Chip’s hands, studied his cone-cut mouth. “Son, did that man hurt you anywhere else?”

  Chip stared into nowhere. Didn’t say a word.

  CHAPTER 1

  When the bus used to haul kids to school it was yellow, but now it had a faded coat of dark blue paint, a backdrop for a scattering of stars, and the words “DREAMLAND EXPRESS” that ran along the sides of the converted coach.

  Between the two words rode a hand-illustrated girl in fanciful pajamas and slippers, her gold and silver hair windswept, her eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses with crescent moons.

  The wondrous girl and DREAMLAND EXPRESS were long overdue for a touch-up.

  Near the rear of the coach that rested in the library parking lot surrounded by balloons and banners, a foot-stamping child was having a temper tantrum.

  “I hate her guts!” the little girl said, then bit her lip as her mother lifted her up off the asphalt, shading her with a hat from the hot Texas sun.

  “No, Nina,” her mother said, “you love Chloe. The Dream Zoo class will be over any minute now and Slumber will sign your comic.”

  But Nina wasn’t listening.

  She was staring at the man with the big greying mustache and curled-brim cowboy hat standing by the Express, behind a table covered with different Dream Zoo things to buy. He was touching his tongue to his nose, trying to bite it before it slipped back into his mouth; making upset faces at his failed attempts.

  A middle-aged lady appeared from a group of adults, stepping between Nina and the man.

  “Sorry, but it’s time, Mister Fleming.”

  The lady was nice and attractive, and matter-of-fact.

  Will Fleming stood and waved to Nina as her mother whisked her away. Then he reached across the table and said, “Doris, my darling, you are a timely treasure.”

  Will eyed the woman’s robust figure with delight.

  He knew she was Doris because the badge pinned above her ample left bosom said Doris Huntz—Head Librarian. And because he had whispered in her ear, “You’re a delicious morsel, Doris,” having spent the night with her on several occasions.

  Kissing her fingers, Will reached behind him and yanked a rainbow-colored rope that ran to the bus top where a speaker system issued a musical alert of bells, horns, and whistles. This gave Will time to return Doris her hand, walk to the rear of the bus, up a padded ramp, flick off an air-condenser, open the rear doors, latch them, and then get back to his table to man the Dream Zoo t-shirts, diaries, comic books, and dream dots.

  Will moved fast and efficiently in his well-polished boots, didn’t break a sweat or lose his smile.

  From the entrance of the library and from parked cars, parents headed toward the troop of kids easing out of the bus and down the ramp into the parking lot, which was playing host to the Hewitt Library Saturday Summer Slumber Party as advertised on one of the many outdoor banners. Others read Welcome Dreamland Express; Free Dream Zoo Classes with Slumber; and Join the Dream Awake Club.

  The youngsters were holding colorful drawings and lively conversations, many vying for attention from the teenager in the fanciful PJs and gold-silver hair who herded them down into the humid afternoon. The young woman looked like an older version of the windswept girl on the sides of the bus.

  With Nina in one arm, mom was ready as she reached out and grabbed her older daughter’s hand. “Is that your dream drawing, Chloe?” hiding concern as Chloe held up a colorful rendering of a unicorn in a field of wildflowers, a snake impaled on its horn.

  Chloe looked at her little sister with a smile. “Look what happened to the snake, Nina.”

  The snake got brushed aside as Nina slid from her mom’s arm and ran up the ramp screaming, “Slumber! Slumber! Take me to the Dream Zoo with you, Slumber!”

  The child’s plea grabbed Slumber’s attention about the same time Nina did, clinging to her comic book idol’s pajama leg for dear life.

  Mom started to rescue the situation, but before she got halfway up the ramp, Slumber swept Nina up on her shoulders to rising laughs and cheers from the crowd.

  The bells, horns, and whistles from the bus-top speakers faded into a drawn-out “Shhh . . .” that captured the crowd’s attention.

  After a pause, a few iconic notes on the piano were heard and John Lennon started singing.

  Imagine drifted down and Slumber began singing along with John, followed by the kids and their parents, most of them holding hands.

  From her elevated status, Nina waved to the crowd, thrilled that everyone was singing such a nice dream song to her.

  Doris wasn’t part of the clean-up committee.

  Her associates and a handful of friends were taking the party banners down, picking up streamers, paper cups, and plates. Mostly chatting.

  Doris watched Will set the safety catch on the bus ramp. When he was finished, she walked over to him.

  “You need to get on the road straightaway?”

  Will nodded as Doris brushed a smudge off the shoulder of h
is shirt.

  “Pretty much. Take us maybe twenty hours to Boise, then a while on up to the Lake Meadows town where Ventures Nest is.”

  Doris lowered her tote bag, took out a few books. “Likely gone all summer?”

  “Elfri’s call. She had a decent chat with the woman in charge. Elfri likes the lay of the land, we’ll be there through Labor Day. She don’t, we could be back on the road next week.”

  “Don’t say that. Elfri winning the Ventures Nest contest is a super opportunity; you need to make sure she knows they don’t grow on trees.”

  Will flipped the tail of the ramp, pulling a lever that raised and drew it into a space underneath the bus. “More will be revealed,” he said, closing the rear doors, making sure they were secure. “That’s the Ventures Nest motto, more will be revealed. Has a sense of mystery.”

  Doris held out some paperbacks.

  “Here’s a few romances to keep you company; one you might relate to, called Smooth Talking Stranger.”

  Will brushed his hands on the back of his pants, took the books and gave Doris a provocative squint.

  “You implying I’m a stranger?”

  “Don’t be. Library life can be rough on a gal without a little smooth talk now and again.” Doris gave Will a quick but familiar kiss, then turned to the front of the bus as Elfrida Fleming exited from the side door, tucking her ponytail under a baseball cap.

  It took a moment to realize that Elfri was Slumber. Only instead of fanciful PJs and slippers and gold-silver hair, Elfri wore a plain white Tee, frayed-at-the-cuff jeans, boots, and a wristwatch with a bullhorn band.

  Elfri’s eyes were visible without sunglasses. The left was light blue and the right one dark green. They were centered on Will as Elfri walked up to him.

  “The air con acted up again. The kids got distracted, which made it much harder to teach. So I was wondering, do you have a timeframe for fixing it or do we just wait for a meltdown during the middle of a fucking class?”

  Will tapped back his hat with a slip of paper in hand. “Here’s how it is, boss. New condensers run around three-fifty, used ones are harder to come by than patience, so we try to make the best out of tight circumstances, stay on our limited budget.”

  Elfri yanked the slip of paper from Will and studied it.

  Will winked at Doris and said to Elfri, “We sold out of diaries and dream dots, and the accounting that you rudely snatched out of my hand adds up to a tidy sum. Will tapped the slip. “New condenser might be just down the trail.”

  Elfri checked the slip, nodded. “Or maybe a pizza down around the corner.”

  Doris hooked her arm around Will’s. “Drink’s are on me.”

  Will bumped hips and softly said to Doris that, time permitting, drinks might not be the only thing.

  Elfri pretended she didn’t hear him, but wondered how long her grandfather was going to keep up his horndog routine. Both were getting real old.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Why I bother. Maybe in Wichita, but no one in these parts reads any of that Buddhist bunk, praise God for the Good Book.”

  Head librarian Lois Arnez had been nursing a black eye from a dusty copy of The Tibetan Book of the Dead falling off a top shelf she was sorting through and cleaning in the religion section. The edge of the volume hit her high and hard on the left cheekbone.

  Elfri was listening to her lamentations.

  “Been using frozen peas which they say helps heal it faster, but last night while I’m tucking in, my twenty-three year old step-son, Huey, he snatches the last bag to make soup while he watches old TV westerns. Wholesome stories with morals like Wagon Train and The Virginian.”

  Feeling she’d listened long enough, Elfri excused herself to wait outside in front of the Salina library for Arnez to finish applying the cold compress to her shiner before checking out the Express. To see with her good eye if she had any interest in being the fifth library in Kansas to host a Dream Awake Club.

  Elfri was leaning on the Dreamland Express parked across from the library, waiting for Arnez to fix her face, thinking about the growing number of her new DZ adult comics and how much longer she could keep them hidden when the Ventures Nest call came in mid-March.

  The call was a happy surprise with lousy timing.

  Elfri was listening to the Ventures Nest Director, Nicole Winslow, congratulate her on winning the Mine the Mind contest with project backing for Dream Zoo until she spotted Arnez making her way out of the library for a tour of the Express. Elfri thanked Miss Winslow with a quick explanation and apology, hanging up in time to greet Arnez aboard the bus with a comic book welcome.

  “DZ Edition #23, “Slumber Tames A Troubled Nightmare.” It’s a good story to start the Dream Awake Club with Miss Arnez. The bus converts to a classroom for thirty-two children, ages 5–12; each lucidity session runs an hour, and we can do up to four classes on Saturday when we co-promote a fundraiser with a DZ Slumber Party.”

  Elfri helped Arnez into the bus.

  “Watch your step.”

  Will appeared from the rear, which he had converted to the classroom format for the librarian to check out.

  Ignoring her shiner, sighting in on her name badge, he extended his hand. “I’m Elfri’s grandfather, Will Fleming. Welcome aboard the Dreamland Express, Miss Arnez.” Will smiled, taking Arnez’s hand.

  “Elfri told me you were a great librarian, but left me your loveliness to discover like a fresh Barcelona pastry.”

  Elfri gave Arnez a forgive-the-crazy-old-man look, but the librarian was already highjacked by Will’s courtly manner.

  “Come right on in, Lois, let me show you around and share with you how your support and involvement will enrich Salina’s youth, enhance their wildest dreams.”

  Elfri figured Will would close Lois in ten minutes. Plenty of time for Elfri to feel bad about being abrupt with Nicole Winslow’s winning call.

  Elfri had entered the contest the year before in early October. A few months later she’d pretty much forgot about it, having had it brought to her attention by a longtime Dream Zoo member from Tulsa named Rachael Klemp, an online game fanatic who’d won grills and guitars and a bunch of stuff playing spin-to-win.

  Her dad was a professor of Economics at Oklahoma State, so Rachael knew a bit about business and liked to come on as Elfri’s advisor.

  “Not another premium text scam, no free vacation or home makeover hype from sites hustling traffic.” Rachael went on how Mine the Mind was different from any online contest she’d come across. “It’s sponsored by this startup incubator called Ventures Nest. If you win the contest you get financial support with a summer program where they help you develop a pilot project for a startup bash held at the end of summer.”

  “Startup bash?” Elfri wasn’t big on crowds.

  “Yeah. The Crazy Ideas Bash. For inventors and visionaries of knitted beard hats, Sleep-At-Work Stickers that you paste over your eyelids, flask ties with hidden straws. Seriously crazy shit. They get a big turnout with risk money looking for the next Slinky or Spanx. You win the Mine The Mind contest, you get a top spot for free and they pay for making Dream Zoo look kill for investors to size up.”

  Rachael told Elfri that the contest application made you jump through a few hoops, had you explain in detail why your enterprise should be worthy of investment, what your target market is, existing sales and projections, margins and scalability, and how the venture is relevant in some way to improving people’s knowledge of the world and each other.

  “Dream Zoo’s a natural, Elfri. They want to know how much money you figure you’d need to have DZ reach a bigger audience and they want references, which you got tons of.”

  Elfri listened with one ear, but Rachael was her insistent self and went on and on until Elfri agreed to enter the contest, intrigued with the thought of winning some money to promote Dream Zoo and
get the bus fixed, but mainly to get Rachael off her back.

  Not have to hear for the millionth time she needed to trade her flipopotamus in for something with a higher IQ. Staying up to date digitally was not a thing Elfri cared a great deal about. Especially when what she had worked just fine. Plus the smarter the phone, the more radiation they leaked, and the Motorola Razr Will got her on her eighth birthday did everything she needed it to do, which was talk when she had to.

  Elfri was not big on small talk. But she loved browsing and the Dell XPS15 Notebook that was given to her by Sid Lumet, who Will and Elfri worked for when Elfri was eleven was fast for finding stuff and let her tend the Dream Zoo Facebook page that Rachael helped her put together to stay in touch with the several thousand kids she taught and thousands more that went to www.thedreamzoo.com.

  In the past few years, Elfri had several calls and letters from comic book publishers expressing interest in Dream Zoo. But Will suggested she wait; see if she might want to take a break and go to college.

  Elfri agreed to wait, not that she wanted to go to college, but because she didn’t feel comfortable going into business with some company. Not yet at least. Didn’t like the idea of anyone telling her what to do. Especially someone she didn’t know.

  The application wound up taking a lot more time than Elfri planned on, and when she finally finished submitting copies of comic books, samples of products, copyrights, costs, plans and projections, entering Dream Zoo into the contest was something Elfri regretted letting Rachael talk her into.

  Until she got the winning call.

  CHAPTER 3

  Elfri took her shift at the Stop-N-Go in Ogden for fuel and Milk Duds. Will roused her from a nap around midnight, the moon half-full.

  While Will slept, Elfri drove the Express from Idaho into Oregon on the I-82, then ditched the big-rig interstate and continued up northeast on the less-traveled Enterprise-Lewiston highway.

  The grey dawn arrived near a turnoff called Snake Canyon where the road sign said twenty-seven more miles up to Lake Meadows and something about the Wallowa mountain range being the Alps of Oregon.