I USED TO KNOW HIM

CHAPTER NINE

     Nick! Nick, darling!"

He awoke, his face drenched with sweat and his stomach a tight knot of

fear. He reached out, in his fright, and grabbed the woman at his side,

pulling her into his arms to hold her tightly. She stroked his hair,

kissed his face and whispered soothing words into his ear.

"What is it, Nick?"

     He relaxed his grip and laid his head back on the pillow. In the bright

light of the moon, he looked at her and returned to himself. Those

monsters! So vivid!

"Nightmare," he croaked hoarsely.

     She smiled, her lips glistening in the moonlight, and kissed him gently.

"The apple pie," she suggested. "Nightmares are usually caused by eating

before bed."

    "It was so real," he muttered. "So real. I ... I was on another planet

... I wore a blue uniform with yellow stripes on the legs and my name

was Lors, or Lars. The natives, horrible monsters, were in a state of

revolution ... they killed my driver. I was alone and they were all

around me..."

     "Science fiction," she cooed and stroked his hair. "I think it's a good

sign. All you ever read, for relaxation, was science fiction. Your dream

was probably a story you once read and your mind put you in the hero's

place."

He sat up and looked at her. "Did I cry out?"

"You were mumbling. I couldn't hear what you said. Then you began

sobbing and thrashing about."

     Nick ran his fingers through his hair and over the back of his neck, the

reality of the dream almost too much for him. It wasn't an ordinary

nightmare where he would be running, with a huge monster panting in

pursuit. This was frightening. Like a memory. Like some damned fantastic

memory.

     He stood up and patted her shoulder. "Go back to sleep, Margret," he told

her gently. "I'm going downstairs."

"Shall I turn on a light?"

"No. It might cause the neighbors to wonder." He walked to the door of

the bedroom. "The moon is bright enough."

     He walked into the hall, feeling his way in the dark places, and down

the stairs into the living room. As he sat in the chair near the window,

he thought about the dream. It bothered him, because it was unlike a

dream; it had the weird consistency and logic of a memory, yet seemed

almost supernatural ... Hell, what kind of thing had huge, yellow eyes

and stood nine feet tall? What sort of a world had a violet sky and

grey-green rocks? The whole damned thing had the scent of a WaltDisney

movie, the colors vivid and sharp, the landscape seemingly done by a

watercolour brush.

_Thista._

     Apparently, it was some kind of planet and he hoped that Margret was right.

Would it be possible for a man to get so confused via a crack on the

head that he believed he had lived through the literature he'd once

read? What would he dream about next? _Macbeth? _ _TreasureIsland? _

Christ, what a world!

     If he could get to a doctor, a headshrinker, it might all be ironed out.

They would get things squared away in a short while, but hell...

suppose I'm Public Enemy Number One, or something. Thirteen months! In

thirteen months kings have been broken, dynasties crushed ... What had

happened to him in the thirteen months that he had been out of touch?

One thing he was sure of; he hadn't been laying around. In a stretch of

time like that, he had worked, eaten, slept, loved ... Maybe he had

married again! An almost comical thought, compared to the possibility

that he could be a killer, a bank robber, there were a million things

he could have done.

     A psychologist? Nope. That was out of the question, until he knew more

about Nicholas Danson. And learning more about himself would be a real

problem. The cabin that Margret had spoken of would probably show him

nothing. After a period of a year, there would be damned little trail

left to hunt along. There would be almost nothing. Whatever had been

there, would have probably been sifted through by the guy, the

detective, Callum Brice. Brice! Of all the friends for him to have, he

had to be saddled to Brice! He'd have to be real careful where that

character was concerned because the slightest slip would set the cop on

his trail like a bloodhound.

     The crack-up? Now there was something. He would always be stuck with the

question of how he had managed to get out of that mangled mass of metal

with merely cuts and bruises. But he could chalk that up to dumb luck,

or something. The thing that worried him was had he left a clue that

could trace him here? He had burned the flying suit ... he had tried to

cover it up to Andrew ... A lot of things about the smashed aircraft

bothered him. Things like the flying suit; it had been made of strange

material; but hell, he'd burned that thing. There would be no problem

with that.

     Almost without realizing it, he found himself staring at the car that

was parked on the other side of the street. The streetlight gleamed on

the black paint of the Chevrolet sedan and he thought of what Andrew had

told him earlier about the men who had been interested in finding him.

Looking at the car much closer, he could see the two men sitting in it.

The knot of fear returned to his stomach when he saw the light shining

on the driver's blond hair.