Dead Before I Wake

By Malachi Stone

Attorney Bosco Hoël suffers from a weird sleep disturbance, brutally murdering women in his nightmares. Trouble is, those murders from Bosco’s subconscious have a nasty way of coming true.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Malachi Stone
• Release date: Jan 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215999929

Malachi Stone

Marlon Brando on Larry King Live quoted an unknown Louisiana woman who said, "Anybody who shows his face in public is an ass." (1) Mindful of those wise words, I created the pseudonym Malachi Stone to author my novels and short stories because, as a practicing attorney in a conservative community, my natural inclination was and still is to avoid notoriety and controversy wherever and whenever possible. That being said, my secret identity affords me a perverse Zorro-like gratification. I've been writing for more than twenty years. For a three-year period I was represented by a fine literary agent (2) in Manhattan, who tried valiantly but without success to place my novels in traditional publishing. Allegedly, objections were raised to negative protagonists and explicit sex. While I am convinced those objections are groundless, I am weary of arguing the point. I'll simply let you, the readers, decide for yourselves. I have garnered many good reviews over the years. See, for example, Elizabeth White (3). Interviews of me may be found on the web, for instance, Steve Weddle, Fiona "McDroll" Johnson, Paul D. Brazill and Ian Ayres (4-7). Please feel free to post reviews of my work, good, bad, or indifferent. Only be sure to remember that most of my books, especially the later ones, are self-published without the dubious benefit of copyediting, content editing or censorship of any kind. So if you post reviews carping about bad language or finding flaws in punctuation, paragraphing or font, I frankly don't care. I'm putting these books out there for the sole reason I wrote them in the first place - to be enjoyed by readers. As my law practice has become more active recently, I have taken a sabbatical from writing but hope to resume soon. My personal and private email is: [e-mail]. I'd be delighted to hear from you!1. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0308/02/lklw.00.html2. http://variety.com/exec/stacia-decker/3. http://www.elizabethawhite.com/tag/malachi-stone/4. http://www.spinetinglermag.com/2011/04/20/conversations-with-the-bookless-malachi-stone/5. http://imeanttoreadthat.blogspot.com/2012/01/american-banshee-by-malachi-stone.html#!/2012/01/american-banshee-by-malachi-stone.html6. https://pauldbrazill.com/2012/01/19/short-sharp-interview-malachi-stone/7. http://nigelpbird.blogspot.com/2010/09/dancing-with-myself-malachi-stone.html

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DEAD BEFORE I WAKE

A novella by Malachi Stone

©2023 by Malachi Stone

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 as amended, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the author constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.

Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

All the characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental. All the characters in this book are over eighteen years of age.

If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contact with the author of this work at: [e-mail].

Dedicated to my darling wife Maria, who oft knits up my ravelled sleave of care.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dead Before I Wake

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Dead Before I Wake

The date of my sleep doctor’s appointment turned out to be the first day Brenda had the saddle splint off her nose. Both her eyes were still black like a raccoon’s but the bruises under her eyes and across her cheeks had faded to the colors of autumn. We both were weary of explaining their presence to every client of ours who’d wandered into the office over the past two weeks. I’m sure at least half of them, as well as most of the attorneys, clerks and judges Brenda and I dealt with every day at the courthouse, suspected me of being a wife-beater. The truth was more difficult to explain, but hardly less shameful.

The nurse weighed me before ushering us into a sterile white examining room with a single print hanging on the wall. After a moment some long-ago vestige of my college art apprece course kicked in and I recognized it as William Blake. I pointed it out to Brenda.

Michael Binding Satan, she acknowledged, slurring her pronunciation of Satan. She still hadn’t had the repair surgery and her speech was affected in a subtle way. Has kind of a yin yang thing going on, don’t you think? Appropriate for a sleep disorders clinic I suppose.

Why’s that?

Isn’t it obvious? The one having the nightmare is Satan. He represents the chaos of the subconscious mind. Check out the rictus of terror on his face, the reptilian tail flailing around like Leviathan. And see the Archangel Michael putting a sleeper hold on Old Scratch, getting ready to pin him to the mat? Michael represents man’s consciousness fully awakened, putting the sleep disorder devil under his feet once and for all. Don’t you find it encouraging?

I could have used you in first year art apprece class.

You’ve used me often enough since then, darling. And don’t you love it how the pronunciation of college course titles reverts to a pidgin Italian? Art apprece. Or soce for sociology, as in, ‘I sold back my soce book and only got a lousy buck for it.’ Guess I’m more sensitive to pronunciation issues these days.

"Non lo parlo molto bene," I singsonged, trying for the Italianate pronunciation.

"You’re the only person I ever met who took Italian in college. Why, Bosco? Perchè?"

I needed a language.

We all need a language, dear heart. We’re a communicative species. But why Italian? I don’t think I ever asked you that before. It must have been over a cute girl. It was over a cute girl, wasn’t it?

Brenda was my second wife, Betsy had been my first, a big mistake but soon corrected. Even though I was still working my way through the B’s I knew enough not to rise to that bait. I wanted to read Dante in the original language, I told her. Mercifully, the doctor chose that moment to appear.

Addressing Brenda the doctor said, Looks like you were in a knockout.

Thank you for noticing, Doctor, but I’m afraid the man sitting next to me is the patient.

Still focused on Brenda, who despite her injuries was and is a remarkably attractive woman, the doctor asked her, So how are you doing?

I’m still prone to mouth breathing and am occasionally mistaken for Boris Karloff on the telephone, but other than that I’m hanging in there, Doctor.

Nonsense. No one with ears could ever mistake your lovely voice for Boris Karloff’s.

You’re very kind. I was referring to my lisp. A temporary condition caused by my deviated nasal septum.

I know a good man for that.

So do I, Doctor. Or, more precisely, a good woman. The problem is finding a good time for going under the good woman’s knife.

Yes, I see from the patient questionnaire that you two are husband and wife attorneys. That must make for a busy and challenging life.

Mine’s challenging, I broke in. Hers is busy.

The doctor took a history. From Brenda second-hand, a fact I found rather disquieting. He asked her whether I ever walked in my sleep, talked gibberish in my sleep, slept with my eyes open, or in general behaved like a zombie after bedtime. Brenda answered every question in the affirmative, a fact I found even more disquieting.

Does your husband ever rise stiffly in bed?

I beg your pardon, Doctor? Brenda replied.

You mistake my meaning. What I meant was, does he sit up in bed stiff as a corpse from time to time?

She told him yes.

And does he often awaken disoriented or confused, or with a blank look on his face?

Yes, Doctor. He stays that way all day long, too. Just look at him.

I don’t know whether you’re approaching this matter with the appropriate degree of gravity, Ms. Hoël.

Gravity? You want gravity, Doc? Try going ten rounds with this one some night. It’s like walking blindfolded into a pitching machine.

I only meant—

Brenda asked, So what’s the bad news, Doc? Give it to us; we can take it.

In my time I’ve encountered enough wives and girlfriends with cracked ribs, dislocated jaws and deviated nasal septa to recognize a case of night terrors when I see one, the doctor said. He looked to be about thirty and had the air of a driving instructor about him. A driving instructor who spent more time pumping iron in the weight room at Gold’s Gym than he did poring over the medical literature. A face that belonged on a box of Wheaties. And even though we were in the examining room I couldn’t help noticing his eyes wandering over my wife’s gracefully crossed legs. I pictured him pumping her instead of iron.

Night terrors, I said. I’ve heard of those. Isn’t that where you see little green men coming to take you away?

Not necessarily. Sometimes they’re more of a teal. He studied Brenda’s face for any reaction, and then lowered his gaze to her right foot bouncing with nervous impatience. Yes, night terrors, with a generous side order of adult-onset somnambulism. I’m fairly well convinced of my diagnosis, but to confirm it I’m ordering a sleep study. How’s this evening sound? Eat your regular evening meal but don’t take any prescription or non-prescription sleep aids or imbibe anything of an alcoholic nature. We’ll plan on checking you in at the center around eightish.

Sounds like a preposterously early bedtime to me, I said. What about elevenish? Or even stroke-of-midnightish?

The doctor didn’t smile. His stare had crept up to Brenda’s thighs and nestled there. She tugged at the hem of her skirt.

Brenda dropped me off around seven-forty-five at the emergency room entrance. She leaned over to kiss me good-bye.

Do you realize this will be only the second time we haven’t slept together since we were married?

Since three months before that, actually.

I hope my brief absence and your aching needs won’t drive you to Sapphitic practices.

She looked at me quizzically. Sapphic perhaps but never Sapphitic. I refuse to engage in any perversion so arcane it doesn’t appear in Webster’s, so don’t lose any sleep over it.

That’s a relief.

I’ve been over that phase of my life since college. The stories I could tell.

Could, and I hope, will tell me, assuming I ever get out of here in one piece.

Don’t forget your overnight bag, Bosco. I’ve packed your toothbrush, razor and that cute set of PJ’s you never wear.

Aren’t you coming in with me?

The stricken look on your face reminds me of Lanny on his first day of kindergarten. Lanny was Brenda’s adult son from her disastrous first marriage. She and I shared the bond of survivorship from disastrous first marriages. We often licked each others’ wounds, both literally and figuratively. No, darling, your doctor thinks my presence might impede your ability to drift away and enter Morpheus’s sweet embrace.

We always refer to him as ‘my doctor.’ Never by name. By the way, what is his name again, in case anybody asks?

You remember. We laughed about it. His name is Doctor Constantine. Doctor Alcander ‘Call Me Al’ Constantine.

That’s right. How could I forget?

You have been forgetting things lately, Bosco, not to mention beating me up every night while you’re asleep. Hence your one-night banishment from our marital bed for the polysomnogram and my return home cold and lonely. I hope this sleep study will help Call Me Al get to the bottom of things. It’s costing our poor health insurance company a young fortune it can ill afford in these troubled times.

We both jumped when the ambulance driver behind us tapped the siren. Neither one of us had noticed him there, even with the red lights going. With a lawyer’s sense of entitlement I let the ambulance sit and wait a few moments longer while I gave Brenda my best effort at a tongue-swirling head-spinning goodnight kiss before leaping out of the van, sliding the side door open and retrieving my overnight case. Actually Brenda’s overnight case, a pink Louis Vuitton job she’d lent me by way of a joke.

The admitting nurse fixed me up with a wristband, handed me a hospital gown and led me through a pair of double doors and down a dimly-lit corridor. Three cell-like rooms on either side, each with its own separate computer keyboard and monitor, were equipped with observation windows. No technicians appeared to be in attendance although I could tell at a glance that five of the beds in the darkened sleep rooms were occupied by other patients.

I was ushered into the last room on the left. The room was small and sparely furnished, containing only a hospital bed and some monitoring equipment. The walls were Pepto-Bismol pink.

A technician wearing a white lab coat popped his head in long enough to say, Mr. Hoël? I’m Jason, your PSG tech. Full house tonight but don’t worry. I’m going to be your guardian angel watching over you to see that nothing happens to you while you sleep.

That’s a funny way to put it.

I’m a funny guy. ‘Patients check in, but they don’t check out.’ That’s another one I use to break the ice whenever I sense that a patient is the least bit uptight. He had the kind of haircut they give you right before they execute you. But seriously, folks, why don’t you change into that hospital gown you’re carrying and climb into bed for me?

I can’t think of a single reason why not.

We’ve left the sides down for you. Hey, that sounds kinda like that motel ad, doesn’t it? The one where they say, ‘we’ll leave the light on for you.’ Only this is a hospital, not a motel, so it’s ‘we’ll leave the sides down for you.’

I’ll bet you’re going to use that one in your next set.

No bet. That’s a sure thing. His laugh had no voice to it, like a dog panting. Now you go ahead and get changed and when you’re all finished, just lie back and relax. I’ll be back in a few to hook you up. You might say I’ve got the hookup.

I might?

You know something, Mr. Hoël? One funny guy to another? I have a sixth sense about patients and I can tell that you’re a funny guy too. It takes one to know one. But you’re about to see a side of yourself you never knew existed. Wait ‘til you scope out that sleep video of yourself I’ll be shooting tonight. You’ll freak. They all freak when I show them the video.

Why don’t you show me one of those other videos so I can freak right now and get the hell out of here?

No can do, Mr. Hoël. You owe it to yourself. It’s a side of you you never knew existed. Your zombie self, I like to call it. Waking life is only the tip of the iceberg. The mystery is what goes on inside our heads when we’re asleep. Do you fall asleep with the TV on or off?

On, if you don’t mind.

I don’t mind a bit. He reached for the remote and switched on a local channel playing one of those autopsy dramas they run for the old people.

I changed into the hospital gown and lay down to wait. The next thing I remember was the admitting nurse towering over my bed glaring at me. She held up her left hand with index and pinky pointed toward me like horns, middle and ring fingers folded against her palm. Time to wrestle with Satan, she snarled. She seized my left hand in both of hers and started forcing my fingers like modeling clay.

What are you doing?

This here’s the bird finger, see? It’s the one you give the bird with. She bent my middle finger straight up. Then she started in on my ring finger. And this here one we like to call the ‘werewolf finger.’ She interrupted her labors and held up her left hand. See mine? she said. "The fourth finger left hand is longer than the middle finger. It’s