Dream Jumper

Chapter 1

Jenson was staring down the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun, and the woman wielding it appeared to be deranged. She had wild, curly blond hair, cold, blue eyes, and slightly masculine features. He raised his hands defensively, unable to recall how he had arrived in this situation. He seemed to be in an abandoned warehouse.

"What are you?!" she demanded, shoving the barrel of the gun closer to his face.

"Jenson Thorne," he said hesitantly. He began to slowly step backward.

"Don't move!" she shouted, and Jenson froze. "I didn't ask who you were. I said what are you?!"

He didn't know how to respond. "Um, a 32-year-old artist?"

The strange woman scowled at him and reached for a flask at her hip, keeping the gun on him. She popped the top off with her thumb and suddenly splashed the contents onto Jenson's face.

"What the-?!" Jenson hurriedly wiped the liquid from his face. It was only water. He looked at the woman incredulously.

"Well, you pass the holy water test. Hold this for me, will you?" She lowered the gun and handed him a shiny, silver colored knife. As he slowly reached for it, she quickly sliced the blade across his palm, drawing an instant stream of blood.

"Ouch! Dammit, what the hell?!" he growled angrily as he pulled his wounded hand close to his chest.

"You're just a human?" she said, sounding surprised.

"What the hell else would I be?!" He was certain now that she was deranged.

"Well, you aren't the demon I'm after. Come with me." She turned and walked away from him, into a long, dark corridor.

"Wait a minute! What is going on here? Where am I? Who are you?" He hurried after her.

"I'm Kristine. You were possessed by a demon, but it's apparently moved on to somebody else. Just stay with me and you'll be fine." Kristine walked on with purpose, constantly monitoring her surroundings.

Jenson was about to speak when she suddenly stopped and halted him with a raised hand. Without warning, she dove into a room on her left. Jenson heard gunfire and shouts, both male and female. He quickly contemplated whether to run away or help, but, being the good Samaritan he was, he ran into the room. He found Kristine standing over a large man on the floor, who had several bloody bullet wounds in his chest.

"Who is he?" Jenson demanded.

"Not who. What." Kristine turned toward him and smirked. She wiped her brow with the back of her forearm, still clutching the shotgun, and walked past him, out of the room. He took one more look at the body on the floor, then went after Kristine.

"That was a demon?" he asked when he caught up to her.

"Well, unfortunately it was a person, but there was a demon inside of him. I had to kill him to stop the demon. That could've been you, you know."

As Jenson tried wrapping his brain around what had just happened, he heard a strange but familiar beeping sound. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Kristine asked, giving him a strange look.

Yeah, I'm the crazy one, he thought to himself in the seconds before he woke up.

Jenson reached over and shut off his bedside alarm clock. As he lay in bed, trying to regain his senses, he thought about how oddly realistic his dreams always seemed to be. Other than having an outlandish theme, it had seemed like he was having a real experience. He looked over at his girlfriend, Maggie, who was still asleep. She always looked so lovely when she was sleeping, with her long dark eyelashes resting peacefully upon her lower lids, hiding her big, deep blue eyes. Her short, blondish-brown hair was in a disheveled mess around her small, lightly freckled face, and her full pink lips were parted slightly. He wasn't sure why he loved the way she looked in the morning, but he had a feeling it was because he was the only one who ever got to see her in such a state of disarray. The moment she woke up, she always ran straight to the bathroom to shower and straighten her hair and cover her face with makeup. She never lounged in her pajamas, not even on weekends, and she refused to go camping or stay anywhere that she couldn't perform her morning ritual. She was high-class, and while he loved that about her when he had her on his arm at his art shows, he couldn't stand it at home. He loved her, but it didn't mean he had to love everything about her.