What Dreams May Come

By David Hadley

Dreams are dangerous things. 
After a mental collapse forces him to sell his software company, entrepreneur Stephen Parker retreats to the quiet coastal village of Stoneyhaven, hoping to rebuild his life. 
Soon Parker discovers how dangerous dreams can be, as the world of his nightmares threatens to break out into his waking life and destroy the new happiness he finds in Stoneyhaven. 
To save the lives of those he loves, and perhaps even the world itself, Parker must enter the Dreamlands to rescue the ghostly woman haunting his dreams and solve the mystery of the Manor House before it is too late.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Hadley
• Release date: May 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393276999

David Hadley

A bloke who writes stuff. Fiction across and between genres.David Hadley was born in 1959. He is married with three children and lives in the Black Country, UK. He worked in the building trade and the electric supply industry. He has been a rock musician, mature student, house-husband and stay-at-home dad. 

Book preview

1

After an hour or two of unpacking boxes, arranging and rearranging furniture, and wondering if he’d ever feel at home again, Stephen Parker decided he’d had enough for now.

Through the dust-streaked window of his new cottage, he saw it was a pleasant, bright, summer day outside. He dropped the screwdriver he was using to re-assemble his dining room table, shrugged on his jacket and stepped through his front door.

Parker decided, on no more than a whim, to take a stroll up the road heading up the hill towards the cliffs rising from the far side of Stoneyhaven village. He thought the fresh breezy sea air high above the village would blow the cobwebs from his head as well as ease the aches and pains from his back and shoulders. From there, as well, he’d be able to see the whole area around the village spread out below him.

After all, he thought, it was about time he learnt more about the area around his new home.

Perhaps, he mused as he walked, it would even give his tired mind something new to dream about. It was time for some new dreams to go along with his new house and his new life. He was tired of the same dreams invading his sleep night after night ever since the mental exhaustion that had forced him into this new life.

The dreams always began with him walking down a narrow twisting country lane. Trees arched overhead, their dense leaves obscuring the sky.

He stopped, standing in the middle of the narrow lane, looking around him.

It was not possible.

It was the lane from his dream, including the gate with the broken bar. He recognised the very trees, the same hedgerows and a ramshackle wooden gate, with one broken bar in its middle, leading to a field where a handful of black and white cows grazed.

In the dreams, he turned a bend in the lane and there was the gate to the house.

He hesitated, peering up towards the bend in the road. The bend was in exactly the same place as in his dreams.

That house in his dreams always perturbed him. He felt the building contained something vital he needed to get to, but could not reach. Then, only moments later, a deep shadow would slip down over him in his dream, leaving him falling and falling, until usually he woke with a jolt, feeling uneasy.

But nowhere as uneasy as he felt now.

He knew, despite his overwhelming desire to turn and walk away, that he must discover what was around the bend up ahead. There was no way he could know the house was there, but he knew - in his now-thumping heart - it would be.

It was impossible.

There, right in front of him, were the high black iron gates from his dreams. Behind them, he could see the brooding old Manor House, also from his dreams, standing there almost as if it was waiting for his arrival.

Peering through the locked gates, Parker could see only a corner of the house. It was a large three-story manor house from some much earlier century. He knew he had never seen it before this moment, at least not outside his dreams.

Nor had he known about this narrow, quiet, lane before he had strolled along it for the first time only minutes ago. He had not explored this part of the village when he came to view the cottage before buying it.

There was no way his dream could be a memory.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again.

There was no mistake. He’d had the dream often enough to know he now stood in front of the house he’d dreamt of for months. He turned to look around. He shivered, despite the warm day.

He pulled at the gates, but they were locked tight. The gates were set in a high brick wall, about ten feet high, which disappeared into the trees and undergrowth on each side of the lane.

He looked to the right and the left, then back to the house. From where he stood, he could see most of one of the upstairs windows of the house. He sighed and shook his head.

As he turned away, he thought he saw movement behind that window. The motion pulled his gaze back towards the window, but when he looked again, there was nothing there.

There was often another dream too: a woman reaching out for him, calling him. But Parker found it hard to recall any details about that dream beyond the vaguest of memories. All he knew was that the woman belonged to the Manor House in some way.

He turned back to the lane, away from the locked gates, not knowing what else he could do.

Even as he walked away, down the lane back to his new home, he kept glancing back until the gates to the strange old house were lost from view.

These odd dreams had been reoccurring with increasing frequency, for several months. Then, as he’d prepared to move into his new cottage, he’d had the same dreams every night now for a week or so.

He’d assumed his moving home was the cause of the dreams. Moving house was supposed to be one of the most stressful periods in people’s lives. So, after the hassles with estate agents, solicitors and so forth, Parker had thought he understood why his dreaming mind was obsessed with houses and new places when left to its own devices while he slept.

But now, he no longer knew what to think.

2

The house stood at the end of the lane, waiting, as some thought, some feeling, of a shadow passing by him made him stumble, then he was falling.

He fell over an edge into something dark… something final… something endless.

Parker’s eyes snapped open. He looked around. He’d fallen asleep in his chair after lunch again. The unpacking, that morning’s walk and his startling discovery of the house from his dreams must have worn him out far more than he’d realised.

The book he’d been reading, before he dozed off, had fallen to the floor. It lay splayed open, wings spread out like some creature of the air brought down in mid-flight.

He wanted to stretch, but his body felt heavy; a dead weight. He presumed the clock on the mantelpiece striking the hour had awoken him, rescuing him from his dream of falling down and down and down forever.

He tried getting up from the chair, but his body felt unwilling, heavy. Then, with what he sensed as some kind of breaking free from his indolence, he stood up.

Now, he stretched, yawned, ready to get on with his unpacking again.

He turned.

He stopped, halfway around.

There, behind him in his chair, still looking fast asleep was his body.

‘But I’m not dead.’ Parker felt the absurdity of his words as soon as he uttered them. Strangely, his sitting body snorted, giving a jerking twitch, as his words broke the silence in the still room.

Was he in another dream? This didn’t feel like any other dream he could recall. Certainly not that dream of the lane and the strange house. He couldn’t remember having such a literal seeming out of body experience like this before either.

He edged closer to his sleeping body, hesitant about reaching for it. He reached, but stopped short of touching it, just in case it all felt too real, in case it was no dream. What if he was actually dead and was now some sort of ghost haunting his old life?

He sensed a shadow passing over him. He glanced up at the doorway into his kitchen. It felt as if someone had dashed past the open door on the kitchen side, a shadow gliding across his field of vision. He shrugged. It was probably only a cloud passing in front of the sun or some trick of the light. He knew he was alone in the house.

‘But this is another dream,’ he reminded himself. ‘It must be.’

Steeling himself to act, he tried to touch his sleeping body on the bare arm, just above the wrist. His fingers passed through the solidity of the… of his arm.

Intrigued, Parker poked at his somnolent arm, fascinated by his finger passing into the… his arm like a sharp knife into something soft and yielding like warm butter, or melting ice-cream. He could feel something, not resistance exactly, but some force, some very slight opposition, to the pressure of his finger.

Again, he felt something change in the light and he glanced up. Had he seen something: a shadow, or something more substantial, pass across the kitchen doorway again?

Leaving his body sleeping in its chair, he crept up towards the kitchen doorway. He felt absurd again, as though he was stalking someone in his own house, trying to catch a burglar or some other intruder.

The kitchen was empty, of course.

He turned back into the main room and stood in front of himself, wondering what to do.

How did he get back into his body? How could he wake up? What if it wasn’t a dream and this was some other world, some other reality, some parallel dimension, or something weirder? What if he was trapped here, unable to return to his normal life?

Parker felt a sudden lurch as though he had fallen down an unnoticed and unexpected step whilst walking. There was a moment of dark emptiness before his eyes opened and he found himself back in his body, back in his chair.

It had been a dream after all.

His body felt unfamiliar, heavy; as though he’d been away from it for far longer than the few minutes he thought he had slept.

A few moments later, sighing, he got to his feet and ambled into the empty kitchen. He would make a cup of coffee before he got back to easing his life and belongings into his new home. Maybe the odd dreams would stop once he settled in, he told himself, as he waited for the kettle to boil.

3

That night the mysterious woman was back in his dreams again.

She came to him as she had done every night since he’d bought the old cottage. He wished he knew her name, or if she actually existed somewhere out in the real world. Perhaps she was someone he’d glimpsed in Stoneyhaven village itself, or the nearby town of Wedneston. Maybe she was someone from his past he’d forgotten meeting.

Then Parker woke suddenly, convinced that something was wrong. He felt as though he was not alone.

He was right. Someone was there, standing at the foot of his bed.

‘What the fu…? Who are you?’ He wondered how she’d managed to get into his house.

‘Come,’ she said.

He knew it was the woman from his dreams. He caught a glimpse of the bedside clock: 00:00, the bland digits glowing bright green in the darkness.

‘What the hell?’ He stared at the woman. She was young, but somehow seemed ancient. The look in her eyes suggested she had seen so much.

‘Come,’ she repeated, reaching out her hand towards him.

‘What?’ He fumbled for the bedclothes, suddenly very conscious of his nudity with this stranger in his bedroom.

‘Come.’

He got out of the bed as though her words and her reaching hand had him under her spell, as though he had no volition of his own. He stumbled around the bed towards her. He realised he had an erection. She did not glance at it or acknowledge it.

He decided he must still be dreaming.

Looking back towards the bed, he saw his sleeping form still there in the bed. It slept on as he left it behind, much like earlier that afternoon in the chair downstairs.

‘Come.’ She turned, leading him out of the bedroom. He thought about ignoring her and going back to bed. But, even as he did, his feet were moving, following her. Her footsteps left a ghostly wisp of mist behind them on the floor as she walked away.

She stood at the top of the stairs, waiting for him to catch up with her.

‘Come,’ she repeated, this time glancing over her shoulder as she walked straight through the wall.

‘Bu….’ He said, even as he felt the solidity of the wall opening around him. He felt as though he was dipping his whole body in a dense liquid, something that looked solid but was, in fact, permeable. It was similar to his experience when he’d tried to touch his own body that afternoon, where his hand had passed through something usually so solid, so real.

Then he was through the wall and outside the cottage. He stood in mid-air, still naked. He was standing on nothing. The woman too was standing in mid-air, a few feet in front of him.

This is some dream, Parker thought.

She turned to look straight at him once again. ‘This is no dream,’ she said. ‘Come.’ She reached out her hand towards him and he took it.

Waking immediately as their hands touched, it took Parker a moment to realise he was back in his bed in the dark bedroom.

Did the mystery woman only exist in his dreams? He thought it would be a shame if she did not exist somewhere in the real world, somewhere he could meet her and get to know her.

Then, he mused, as he hovered in that state between dream and wakefulness; if I dream of her often enough, could she become real? Will she then begin to exist? Will she ever tell me her name?

He glanced at the bedside clock showing several hours yet before it was time to get up.

He lay back down and closed his eyes, opening them only briefly as he thought he felt a shadow pass over him in the empty room.

There was nothing there, of course.

He settled down in the warm, comfortable bed and closed his eyes once more.

Later that night he dreamt of the Manor House again. This time, though, the gate opened for him when he pushed it. He could see a light in one of the downstairs rooms of the house, but before he could take a single step onto the drive, he woke up.

She was there again, standing at the foot of his bed.

‘Come,’ she said, holding out her hand for him.

‘No.’ Even as he spoke, Parker could feel himself rising from the bed, almost as if he was peeling away from his sleeping body.

4

As soon as it was light the next morning, Parker was awake and dressed. He made himself sit to eat some toast and drink a cup of coffee, but then he could wait no longer. He left his cottage, heading back up the lane to the house that haunted his dreams and filled his waking thoughts.

Back at the locked gates, he peered through them, trying to see as much of the house as he could. The garden looked overgrown, long untended. The lawn was uncut; the grass was tall and going to seed. The flowerbeds were full of weeds. He couldn’t see enough of the house to decide whether it was empty and abandoned, or just neglected.

The wall around the house was about ten feet tall. It was too high to climb for him to look over it. The wall disappeared off into the woods on either side of the gate.

Parker wondered if the wall was as badly neglected as the house and garden. He mentally tossed a coin and turned off to his left, walking along a path running parallel to the garden wall.

The path veered off away from the wall, but still ran in approximately the same direction. The wall still looked solid enough, what he could see of it, half-hidden amongst the undergrowth and trees.

Keeping one eye on where the wall should be, when he could glimpse it through the trees, his walk along the path took on aspects of a dream itself. One of those dreams of running forever without ever getting anywhere.

Then, when he looked again, the wall was gone.

Parker peered back along the path, realising that the house must have quite extensive grounds. It was too far away to see where the path began, back at the side of the gate. He took a few steps back along the path. Then a few more steps back as he stared through the undergrowth. Somehow, while he’d thought he was keeping it in sight, the wall had turned a corner away from him.

There was a point where he could see the wall and another where he couldn’t. There was no path in the direction of the wall’s turn, so he parted the brambles with a stick. He eased his way across the few yards that separated the path from the wall. The undergrowth was thick and tangled, but eventually he managed to force his way through. Then, he stood within an arm’s reach of the corner of the wall.

He squinted down the length of the wall looking for…. Well, he was no longer sure what he was doing, just that he wanted, needed to find out why he kept dreaming about the house. He also needed to understand why the mystery woman had some connection to the house and just what that connection was.

He worked his way through the tangled brambles near the bottom of the wall. Looking up, he could see a place slightly further on which seemed brighter in the sunlight. Maybe it was some sort of clearing in the otherwise dense woods.

He stumbled on, through the jumbled, ensnaring undergrowth, almost falling into the clearing as he tripped over a tangled bramble. He threw out his hands to stop his fall. The grass under his palms felt warm, soft.

Parker let himself down onto the grass, rolling over to look up at the sky. It was not that warm a day, but he was hot and sweaty. He reached up to wipe his brow and saw he had cut his hand somewhere. A long scratch across his palm oozed bright red blood.

He wiped his hand on the grass and lay there, looking up at the clear blue sky. He felt as though he’d emerged from something. He felt as though he was waking from an odd dream that teetered on the edge of nightmare, as if he’d escaped some dark fate.

Eventually, he lifted his head and looked back at the dense woodland. It had a look of malevolence about it. It looked like the sort of forest that stole humans away in fairy stories and folktales. It looked like the kind of place where only the foolish step off the path, only to fall into the grasp of savage claws hidden in the lurking shadows.

The wall looked just as high and unclimbable as it did at the front of the grounds. He wondered if it was worth carrying on. The grounds of the house were apparently large and the wall high all around it. He peered into the woods on the other side of the small clearing, at the dark shadows and the tree that grew alongside the wall. He looked up and saw a large branch of the tree had grown up and over the wall, twisting in the middle where it must once have met the wall.

He smiled at a sudden memory of his boyhood self, his mother nagging him about how he couldn’t see a tree without wanting to climb it.

That had been a long time ago, though.

Parker sat up, realising what he was thinking. The branch was high, above the wall, but the tree itself was relatively young: a silver birch with some low branches. An oak, or a similar old tree, would not have such low branches. The branch that crossed the wall could be too thin to bear his weight. But, at least – if he could still get up there - maybe he would be able to see what lay beyond the wall.

Then he could see if there was a gap or gate somewhere along it. He could – perhaps - even see more of the mysterious house itself. Maybe he could even catch a glimpse of the enigmatic woman too.

5

It was a long time since Parker had climbed a tree, but he could more or less remember how to do it. He felt the rough bark under his hands and smelt the earthy, woody smell of the tree as he brushed against it. It took him back to those young days when he loved nothing better than climbing as high as possible. Sometimes, he’d climb to the point where the tree would bend and creak under his weight as he looked out over a landscape spread out below him. Often hearing his mother’s worried voice far below, almost lost amongst the wind rustled leaves, begging him to be careful.

These days, though, he would never dare go so high. Even the branch that enabled him to see over the wall felt impossibly high to him.

Eventually, while tightly gripping the rough bark of the tree branch, he was able to look up and over the wall. The grounds of the house may once have been well-kept, but were now growing a little wild, especially close to the wall beneath the tree. The large long lawns that encircled the house had been mowed, but not recently. The house itself looked quiet, dead.

As his eyes roamed over the outside of the house, he thought he caught movement at one of the windows. When he looked again, though, there was nothing there.

There was movement off to his left. He saw a squirrel jump down from a tree and scamper across the grounds. The squirrel paused in the centre of the lawn and rose up on its hind legs, sniffing.

It froze, sensing something; it darted back towards the wall. Three speeding Dobermans skirted the side of the house, running right for the squirrel. A few seconds later, a couple of security guards jogged along after the dogs. Parker huddled closer to the tree trunk, merging into its shadow. His eyes widened when he saw the security guards were all armed. Each guard carried a holstered pistol on their hip.

Parker tried to make himself invisible, a part of the tree. For the first time, he noticed security cameras, lights and more security apparatus on the walls of the house. He wondered why he hadn’t seen them before that moment.

‘Just another bloody squirrel,’ he heard one of the security guards say to the other. They called the dogs back.

Parker waited, unable to move, willing himself not to breathe too deeply or make any other movement as the guards and the dogs made their way back into the house.

Once he was sure they were all gone, and that none of the cameras were watching him, he slipped back to the ground. He decided there was no point continuing to look for a way into the grounds as he was bound to set off an alarm as soon as he stepped inside the security cordon.

However, now he wondered what they were guarding so assiduously. Also, he wanted to know what it had to do with his dreams and the woman who wanted him to follow her deep inside the dream version of the Manor House.

Parker decided he might as well head back home. He noticed that climbing the tree had made his cut hand bleed some more. He wiped the blood and dirt on his trousers and then turned back towards the path.

As he got to the path, he wondered where it led beyond the Manor House. One day he would see if it led anywhere interesting. The area around his new house appeared to be taking on aspects of his dreams – and, in the case of the over-the-top security at the Manor House, more of the realm of nightmares.

He wondered if this path would end up leading nowhere, as so many woodland paths in dreams often did.

6

As Parker made his way back down the path towards the gate, he decided that he must have been to Stoneyhaven before. Sometime in the past, maybe back in his childhood, he must have come to this area, perhaps on a day trip or holiday with his parents. They often used to go for drives in the country, or to the seaside, at weekends. Often dragging the unwilling young Parker around all manner of places for no reason they could ever explain to him.

That must be why he’d sensed it was the right place for him to live when he’d chosen his new house, he concluded. Perhaps there was some forgotten memory from his childhood lurking lost in the shadows of his mind. The dreams could be an attempt by his mind to link his present with that memory and bring it to the surface.

He paused to take a deep breath before stepping back onto the narrow lane by the gate. Although, he admitted to himself, it doesn’t explain the woman. But he’d been dreaming about women most of his life since adolescence, so maybe that was not so unusual.

He could hear a car engine purring, further along the road. Something made him step back into the shadows as he heard the car change down a gear before turning into the bend in the lane.

A long back car - a Mercedes, he noticed - drove up to the gate. It slowed as the gates automatically swung open. As the car picked up speed once the gates were open wide enough, the passenger in the back seat turned to stare at Parker.

Parker took a step forward out of the shadows, feeling his jaw drop open as he stared back into the eyes of the woman from his dreams.

As the car drove away, he could see her mouthing something at him and, in his mind, he heard her pleading cry, ‘Help me!’

7

Parker didn’t know how long he stood there after the gates closed, trying to make sense of what he’d just seen, let alone felt in his mind. Her voice had been there, inside his head, as she mouthed the words to him through the closed car window.

He decided he needed a drink. He needed company too, real living human beings. He set off down the road towards the village and the welcoming sign of the pub.

The pub was quiet when he walked in. There was an old man sitting in the corner with an old collie asleep at his feet. Both looked up when Parker stepped through the door. The pub itself was curiously relaxing. Parker had expected one of those village pubs where the regulars all fall silent when the outsider enters and regard strangers with suspicion. But the old man smiled as he lifted his glass and said ‘Good morning.’

Parker smiled back and replied with his own greeting. He strolled up to the bar. As he stood there, he saw the wide choice of unusual beers available as well as the tempting-looking meals on the blackboard menu. It all suggested the pub relied on outsiders coming to the village, as visitors and tourists, for a lot of its trade. Maybe much as Parker’s own parents used to do when they visited such pubs on their days out. But back then, the best you could hope for was a soggy Ploughman’s Lunch with a pint of undistinguished beer. In those days, his parents usually consigned the young Parker to wait back in the car with a bottle of pop and a packet of crisps. Or, if he was lucky, to sit in a pub garden which contained - usually - a couple of weather-beaten tables and a broken swing.

The landlord appeared, smiling broadly at Parker. ‘You’ll be the one who’s bought Weaver’s Cottage, if I’m not mistaken. Welcome to Stoneyhaven.’

‘Yes, I’m Stephen Parker, pleased to meet you.’

‘I’m Alan Clarkson and that old coot in the corner is Sam Merryweather and that heap of fur snoring next to him is Bessie.’

Parker turned and nodded to the old man who raised his pint.

‘So, come to the village to retire, have you?’ the landlord said. ‘You must have made a fair packet when you sold that business of