THE NIGHTMARE

TERRIFIED, MAX SUMNER FORCED HIMSELF TO WALK down the long corridor. Water dripped from the ceiling, as an eerie light flickered through tattered sheets of plastic strung across the end of the hallway.

Max didn’t notice the fallen bicycle until it was too late. He tripped, cutting his shin. But he couldn’t turn back. Not now. The front wheel spun as he walked toward the light. When he finally reached the ragged sheeting, Max pushed it aside and stepped through. The temperature plummeted and breath rose from his mouth like a ghostly serpent.

Crunch…

Max looked down at a rotted yellow bag half-filled with decaying newspapers and swallowed hard. Then he heard the faint whistle of drills, and Max was certain that the stench in his nostrils was blood.

He passed a discarded sneaker, then a baseball cap with the name JOHNNY GEIST written on the lining of the bill.

“Help me…” a small voice begged.

Max raced through the doorway ahead only to find an empty room. It was some sort of laboratory with rusty instruments and tools that lined tarnished trays. Glass jars filled with mysterious liquids crowded dilapidated shelves, and a faint red stain ran along the concrete floor toward a drain. A steel table with leather straps for hands and feet stood in the center of the room. Then Max felt a cold hand on his shoulder.

Max pulled away and turned to look into the eyes of a young boy. He was dressed in a striped shirt and jeans, with a lone sneaker on his left foot.

“Did you call me?” Max managed to ask. “Are you Johnny?”

The boy said nothing but continued to stare, unblinking. That’s when Max realized that instead of eyes, there were camera lenses in the boy’s sockets. And worse, the veins in the boy’s pale arms were pulsing with a silver-blue glow. No matter where Max’s eyes fell, he found machinery in place of humanity. There wasn’t much left of the boy, but the single tear running down his silicon cheek was real.

Max’s stomach lurched and he tried to look away, but the same cold hand forced him to look back. This time the boy was gone. Ernie Tweeny, one of Max’s best friends, was standing in his place.

“Help me…” Ernie moaned through blue lips. Max stumbled back and fell against a tray of rusty instruments, sending them clanging to the floor. As Ernie walked into the light, Max saw that part of his friend’s skull had been cut away, revealing a mechanized brain of whirling gears ticking like a clock.

Max cried out as strong hands took hold of him from behind, lifting him into the air. He struggled against the invisible grip as his arms and legs were strapped to the table. A convex mirror hung over the table, and strangely, it wasn’t his own face looking back at him. Somehow Ernie had taken his place. Max fought to break free from the straps as a man in a stained lab coat walked into view. He was tall, with neatly combed silver hair, and as he turned to face the table Max’s blood froze. He would never forget those eyes. They were intelligent, cold, and as sharp as the scalpel he held in his gloved hand.

The man raised the gleaming instrument.

Max screamed.Then he woke up.