(Narrated by Kevin Coffey)

Hey everyone. Hope all is well.

This, I consider to be fun chapter. (Pretty obvious as I based the logo on this particular illustration as well.) For those of you scoring at home, this is the literal “call to action” found in all portal fantasies. Any guesses what the portal might be?

In case you need to catch up before reading:

* You can always find up to date drops of this story as it progresses in order under the new KINGDOM OF DREAMS tab on my home page.

Enjoy! -KC

Ding. Ding. Ding. Somewhere in the back of Jimmy’s brain, a bell rang.

The bell’s ring wasn’t strong, yet it made up for its lack of volume with its persistence. The bell’s little jingle meant something good linked to something he liked. But sleep had Jimmy pinned on the mat, its immense weight pressed down on his entire body like a grounded ship.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

His slumber disturbed, Jimmy felt his grumpy mood return per usual, as his first thought of the day was to habitually replay his beyond humiliating public exposure in front of his peers on a loop in his mind like a cruel, self-imposed form of torture. Once again, he was confronted with a reality he didn’t want to accept: the unthinkable incident did happen and couldn’t be wiped away for any reason.

But this time, there was something else there, too: fragments of what he considered to be a doozy of a chilling nightmare, something about Bucky and Clayton blending with some of Jimmy’s worst nightmares he wished upon them.

If only that were true.

For some silly reason, the notion made Jimmy feel guilty even though he was fuzzy about the details. In fact, guilt seemed literally wrapped around his body, something damp he couldn’t identify clung to him like a second skin.

DING! DING! DING! Against his will, Jimmy cracked open an eye and spotted Francis, his black pet cat and best friend in the world, kneading his chest, rubbing the top of his inky head against his chin so that the dangling collar bell rang in his ear as if chanting: breakfast time, breakfast time, breakfast time! The guilt turned out to be nothing more than sweat-soaked sheets that Jimmy had somehow wrapped around his body like an amateur mummy.

Irritated, Jimmy sprang up, and Francis leapt clear for his life.

Jimmy touched something soft and smooth on his neck. A Band-Aid? It was sore beneath as well. What the heck was that doing there? And why?

Jimmy shook off his wake-up haze and raced to his older sister's room to get her more than willing opinion of what went down that caused him to get injured.

Leah Emily—which nobody dared to call her—a.k.a., Lem was Jimmy’s big sister. At just over a year older than Jimmy, along with being his sister and female, she was siloed in the eighth-grade wing at school, so she might as well have been an alien species.

Lem's door was wide open and revealed the remains of a battle for any kind of tidiness long ago lost. His sister was a prodigy when it came to swimming. Not yet in high school, she’d already been promoted to the varsity team and lettered. Talks of qualifying for the Olympics were in the works.

Swim caps, goggles, and a ton of once-piece bathing suits and towels—loads of them still damp—were draped over or dangling from dozens of trophies with cheap sculptures of golden swimmers frozen in obnoxious poses of glory on top.

Jimmy’s eyes locked on Lem’s empty, perpetually unmade bed. Odd for her to be up before noon on a weekend.

Jimmy stepped out of the room into the hallway. “Mom?” Jimmy tried. “Dad?”

He perked his ears, listening to all sections of the house, but got crickets for a response. A buzz of uneasiness strummed through his stomach—Jimmy had never been comfortable being left all alone in the house. Jimmy froze, paralyzed with fear: voices rose, coming from downstairs!

Jimmy tiptoed down the stairs on high-alert, fearing they might have an intruder. Silently peeling off the bottom step, Jimmy flattened himself against the back wall and peeked into the living room where the voices were coming from. He let out a sigh of relief. Just stupid reporters yapping from the television on the far wall that had been left on. Jimmy took in a deep breath to clear his energy and went into the kitchen adjacent to the open living room and started preparing a bowl of cat-food for a purring Francis.

Lem’s dog, an obese Border Collie mix named Charley, rushed up to Jimmy and wiggled his body in a friendly greeting. Charley’s favorite pastime was stalking the kitchen, lying in wait to persuasively beg the moment anyone fixed food of any sort.

Jimmy happened to look up at the television again just in time to observe a picture of Clayton Stones pop up that caused him to drop the plastic bowl with a clatter and splatter wet cat food all over himself and the cabinets.

Francis dodged his intended meal of chunks of tuna and high-tailed it behind the kitchen island.

Charley surged forward, happily lapping up the spilled cat food shrapnel off the cabinets and Jimmy’s feet and legs.

“—Breaking news and shocking news at that: Another teen has gone missing from the area. Clayton Stones, an eighth-grade boy who attends Oakwood Middle, has not been seen by his parents in almost two days.” Jimmy almost fell over. It happened again! Just like Bucky’s disappearance right after Jimmy cursed him.

A vivid blip popped into Jimmy’s mind of a strange rundown theater full of nightmares. Bucky and Clayton were dumped from a mysterious bag, then transformed into something truly wicked. He almost keeled over.

“So the Curse does work. My dreams are real?” Jimmy said out loud with the uncertainty of a crazy person. The thought brought on an overwhelming surrealness and sense of heavy dread that made him want to crawl back into bed.

“Local Police and Federal Authorities are seeking help from the community to help locate Clayton and get him home safely. Please call the following number with any leads or email—”

“I’d love to hear more about this so-called Curse,” said a suspicious-sounding voice behind him.

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Jimmy cried out, wheeling around in surprise to find Lem.

“After you think about what you’ve done,” Lem scoffed with a disapproving-looking frown, leering down at him.

“What do you—”

Lem crammed his mouth with her palm. “This is what you get for me having to deal with the rumors at school all this week about you taking out Bucky.” She pointed to the television, “And evidently that caveman Clayton, too. Not to mention Mom said the police are coming here again today—they’ll probably take you in for questioning this time!”

As Jimmy absorbed the avalanche of his sister’s shocking news, Lem put her claw on Jimmy’s shoulder and squeezed. Pain shot through his being. “Everyone thinks you have something to do with those missing boys,” she said. “Including you. Now they think I'm a weirdo because I'm related to you. Do you have any idea what life is like because of you? Not to mention my damaged rep with my friends.”

“You have friends?” Jimmy mumbled.

“That’s it. Time to put you in your… Place.”

Jimmy stiffened like rigor mortis had set in. He shook his head like crazy, trying to talk her out of it, pleading with his eyes. Not The Place!

Lem drug him down the hall, and he resisted, frenzying like a cat about to be bathed. They stopped in front of a hall closet with a narrow door.

The closet door slammed behind Jimmy as Lem shoved him inside, drenching him in darkness. Jimmy pawed and scraped at the door until he located the knob. Too late.

Something slammed into the door and gave a violent scrape on the other side; when he tried to turn the knob, it wouldn’t budge. She had most likely put something there to jam the knob and barricade him inside.

“Since our worthless mother won’t punish you, I will. Enjoy, freak,” Lem spoke through the bottom crack of the door like an otherworldly voice. “By the way. You made Dad yell at me because of your little sleepwalking act. He left the house last night because of you.” Lem’s voice broke up, possibly overcome with sadness.

For a second, Jimmy was so stunned his sister might be crying, he ignored the disappointment that he might have caused his father to leave. “Lem” he put his ear against the door, listening hard. “You… okay?”

“Shut up,” Lem softly sniffled. A thud rocked the other side of the door, and to Jimmy’s further shock, he gathered it was his sister, leaning heavily against the door for support. She probably looked vulnerable—even defeated. Jimmy had trouble picturing it—he certainly had never gotten to see her with her guard all the way down. It instantly wiped away his frustration with her. For a split second, they were doing the thing they never did in this house, comfort one another.

Then, of course, he ruined it by talking. “Lem, I’m sorry for whatever I—”

“I said shut up!” Lem yelled. She pounded and kicked the door, followed by a flapping of flip-flops on the hardwood floor running off.

“No!” Jimmy wailed, pounding against the reinforced closet door with both fists. “Don’t leave me alone in here. Lem! I need you. You need me, too!” This time it was Jimmy’s voice that cracked. The chance to connect with his sister. Done. She had left him to rot.

Jimmy paused, daring to hope for a rescue, but he conceded he missed his saving throw—nobody would be helping him out of this jam. He considered Lem’s accusation: sleepwalking? was it true? Lem seemed convinced, and she was too blunt to do anything but blurt out what she witnessed. But man, the thought of him ambling around like a deranged zombie with no awareness or memory of doing so shook him to his core.

Jimmy soaked in his situation, and the sheer darkness began to work on him. He sat stock still, afraid to move, afraid to breathe. The Place.

Jimmy remembered something about the darkest corners and crevices in any building became the doorstep for your worst nightmares to enter, no sleep required. How did he know that?

Jimmy’s worst fear got outed one night when Lem lured him into false confidence during a silly game of What Scares You Most? Her biggest fear was to lose a race and cost her team a swim meet—so lame.

But Jimmy felt like there was the slightest connection between them—perhaps no more than static electricity—but he would accept any kind of breakthrough to getting closer to his sister. So he chimed in and blabbed about The Place, and the horrifying things he sensed lived deep within before realizing what an idiot he’d been.

Now? She either threatened him with the closet or threw him in there any chance she got. She was all too aware he wouldn’t say anything or plot revenge on her. Jimmy sighed. It just wasn’t in his nature—yet. So naturally, Lem took advantage.

Jimmy pondered the knight’s code he believed in so thoroughly. It was his sworn duty to defend his family, all of them. But now? He was unsure about things. Especially with Lem.

A splinter of sunlight leaked in beneath the door, and now, having a hint of sight, Jimmy scouted the walk-in storage closet’s cluttered landscape. Piles of boxes draped with cobwebs made monstrous shapes. Pipes ran like giant, exposed veins threatening to burst.

Jimmy began to shake uncontrollably. The fear squeezed him, unrelenting. He covered his mouth, not willing to give Lem the satisfaction of hearing him shriek. Tears rolled down his face, coating his fingers; he wiped a snotty nose on his sleeve.

And then, with Jimmy’s frustration at an all-time high, he decided to try reaching out to the new voice, the strange Night Terror from the other night: “I’m not sure what or who you are, Dromon I think might be your name? I … sense you in here, and … like the other night, I could use your help right about now.” Despite being peeved, Jimmy wasn’t sure he believed his words. He was also upset and scared about what he might have done to the bullies.

Jimmy scratched his face in deep thought and continued speaking to the sinister darkness. “You can help me, right?”

Was that a deformed head turning his way in the shadows? Were those eyes? THE eyes from his recent encounters? Jimmy considered in horror.

Out of the void, a whispering voice assaulted him inside of his head.

Seems to me your sister is your problem. She locked you in The Place—AGAIN. She makes life miserable at home—especially for Mom. She did nothing about protecting you at school. If anything, she piled on.

Jimmy nodded and shared his own thoughts. He felt a fire rising from his belly. “She acted like she didn’t know me,” he said. Jimmy wiped his nose on his sleeve again, now defiled and caked with a serious snot trail.

A pretty convincing case study, Jim, Dromon said. You know the word, what are you waiting for?

Jimmy drummed on his legs with his fingers. Why not? “Mish—”

“DON’T… say… it!” a small voice struggled to interrupt.

Jimmy froze. Burks, his inner voice, spoke to him. Out loud!

An upright, long-retired vacuum cleaner standing at attention wobbled and pivoted on its base and approached Jimmy from the depths of the shadows.

Jimmy was sure he was hearing AND seeing things. Has to be a hallucination, he pleaded to himself. He’d rather be crazy than talking to a household appliance. Despite his disbelief, something that had no business living or breathing came to life.

An antique vacuum clumsily plodded toward Jimmy. The apparent animated vacuum was easily the freakiest sight of his short life, (and kind of cool despite his epic levels of fear).

The vacuum approached Jimmy in choppy, awkward, but determined movements, screeching across the wood floor. An ancient bag began to inflate and deflate, breathing like some crazed poltergeist had taken it over.

The vacuum parked right in front of Jimmy, and for a moment, remained still, like they were about to engage in an old-fashioned western duel. The ancient machine’s dull, dusty light resembled the eye of dead cyclops.

A sickly stench of years’ worth of accumulated burnt dust filled the air as its light heated up and churned on—nuking years of built-up dirt and grime. The frightening closet wasn’t so frightening to Jimmy anymore… in a fantastical way. He was potentially more frightened by the shocking heaps of dangerous, sharp-angled, protruding junk precariously stacked and lying around. This place was a hoarder’s paradise.

Jimmy exhaled and coughed the choking fumes of the revving vacuum away and covered his face with his shirt.

Despite its unplugged power cord lying useless beside it, the vacuum's ancient light shone on, blasting through veils of cobwebs and blinding his eyes. Worse. The light blinked like an eye would!

Jimmy shrieked and tried to claw his way through the closet door before being vaporized or worse.

The vacuum dimmed its light so that it was no longer melting his eyes. “Can you…?” the vacuum struggled to say.

“Can I what?” Jimmy said. Against his better judgment, he scooted up closer to the vacuum.

“Can… you… understand… me?”

“Yes, but I don’t—”

“Not really... a vacuum speaking…,” interrupted the vacuum. “Just making it speak; won't hurt you...” It gulped and exhaled like a person suffering a panic attack about to go full-blown hyperventilation. “Doing my best… to make this thing talk.”

Jimmy nodded. With great care, Jimmy dared to place his unsteady hand on the vacuum. “Burks, is that you?”

The vacuum’s hose attachment detached on its own.

Jimmy withdrew his hand like the hose was a viper.

“YOU BET IT’S ME!” Speaking through the attachment amplified the mysterious voice and gave it a much deeper tone. Jimmy cringed at the loud voice.

“Sorry,” Burks apologized. “Didn’t mean to be… rock concert… loud,” Burks’ voice was similar to Jimmy’s voice, but a little floatier, like a cinematic ghost attempting to speak.

“Burks! You possessed that vacuum? You can do that?”

“Of course! Child’s play… how about what I did with the swings.”

“That was you?” Jimmy said with amazement. “Why are you—”

“Need to talk fast… talking through vacuum makes me crazy tired….” The vacuum gulped, then exhaled, its bag inflating and deflating right in time with Burks’ speech. “Please stop cursing bullies, making them disappear…. Rumor is they’re in my realm as… something else….”

“What realm? You don’t mean my sketchpad of made-up dreams, do you?”

The vacuum light burned brighter for a moment, and its motor revved up to full suction before powering down. The light blinked on and off with a strobe effect; Burks laughed hysterically in his vacuum form, nearly tipping over. “Oh man… You crack me up... Realm called the Kingdom of Dreams.”

Kingdom of Dreams, Jimmy sized up the name. A nostalgic vibe flowed through him, but no deeper meaning resonated beyond that.

The vacuum light brightened a bit, becoming focused again. “If you’ve been dealing with who I think you have, things could get really, really bad.”

“But I didn't think that my curses actually worked! I just liked to imagine that they did,” Jimmy said.

“Well... they did. But… not like you wanted… Bullies won’t survive… Curses from nightmares never end—they just keep getting… worse.”

Jimmy shuddered. How might a curse get worse?

“Hey, cheer up ... We’ll deal with it together and make things right, like we always do. Right?” Burks said with a pumped up, yet, concerned sounding tone. “Right?”

Some of the terrible guilt about the bullies returned, but Jimmy nodded his head and managed a weak smile. He’d always appreciated Burks’ can-do attitude. “Right. Thank you, Burks.”

The possessed vacuum patted Jimmy’s back with a cleaner extension brush tangled in ancient cobwebs like a real friend would. Everything Burks usually said was hopeful, and his tone optimistic.

“What do I need to do?” Jimmy asks Burks.

“What? Oh yeah—I almost forgot!” Burks lowered the slender attachment like he was about to draw up some plays on the dusty floorboards. “Sorry… tend to daydream quite a bit… Use the Portal... Save yourself... Save us all….”

Jimmy pointed to himself. “Who? You mean me?”

“Well… certainly not the pile of mouse poop behind you. Yes, you.”

“But how do I find this… Portal?”

“Oops… Forgot to lead with that... Easy-peasey… Just—”

But Jimmy didn’t get to hear the answer as the closet door swung open as if it had been kicked. Blinding sunlight flooded in, silhouetting the blurry shape of someone breathing fast in an apparent panic, stooping and panting in the doorway.

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