Infected Dreams

By Christine Doornbos

She suddenly felt caught between two worlds, a heinous existence in what she knew as reality and a dire situation in what seemed to be a dream about the end of the world. The troubling part was that she didn't know which was better
Eighteen-year-old Kali, a poor girl residing in a garbage-filled, decrepit trailer with her mentally ill mother, while being repeatedly abused physically and sexually by her alcoholic father, finds escape from the brutality of her everyday life only in her dreams, where she imagines a picture perfect home and a family who loves her.
During an exceptionally viscous attack Kali is beaten into unconsciousness and wakes up in a warehouse with a strange man named Ryatt. Ryatt seems to know Kali, but Kali has no recollection of him or their surroundings. Kali soon learns that she has been dropped into a new fantasy, a viral apocalypse.
Sliding back and forth between worlds, Kali tries to figure out what divides these two places, there are no doors or roads to follow to the other side. It isnt long before her grasp on reality and nightmare begins to falter. Which is better, her inhumane life or a world where everyone she knows is gone and the only people left walking are dead?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 26, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496935113

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

The incessant buzz of flies and the burning stench of the filth being warmed by the morning sun woke Kali that day. She didn’t yet have the energy to move her 18-year-old body, aged and worn by the life she was dropped into.

Kali tried her best to stretch her legs out amid the debris that formed in what she came to call her bed, already she could hear her mother wandering around in her usual dazed state, rustling in the front area of the trailer, probably looking for something. Her mother was always looking for something, sometimes Kali would joke with herself that it was her mother’s sanity that had been lost in the mess. Kali joked with herself; mostly because there was no one else to joke with.

Kali lived in a small rundown trailer with her mother Vicki, who had over the past few years begun to drown in her mental illness, which manifested itself into a hoarding disorder. Consequently, this caused everyone else in her family to also drown in the endless garbage that Vicki could not bear to throw out. In Vicki’s mind, everything that came into their trailer had value and could one day be useful. There wasn’t a person in their right mind who would find any use for these things.

It was the rats, flies and, of course, the cockroaches who made a kingdom out of the walls and tunnels of molding food, empty containers and human feces. Kali only saw it as a prison. Her mother went out most days to the local dump and scavenged for things she thought they needed. She would drag bags full of other people’s discards home. Kali often watched her unpack these ‘treasures’. Most of the time, she picked pillows and blankets which were moldy, stained and browned from being exposed to weather. The clothes she found were in the same condition that she swore could be washed and mended. She was not above bringing home what she considered ‘perfectly good food’, except that she didn’t cook anymore. There was nowhere to cook because the kitchen that had once been there now was buried in the things that were brought home by Vicki from the junkyard. In fact, the entire trailer was a series of tunnels and trails through trash. Being just over 5 feet, Kali wasn’t a tall girl. Yet, in some places, she had to duck so as not to hit her head on the ceiling.

Kali rolled her body over that morning, trying to gain her balance on the heaps of garbage next to where she slept and made her way down the narrow way to where her mother was. At the end of the hall was the small living room. This is where her father Clyde, her brother Jessie and her Uncle Lonnie slept. Jessie and Lonnie shared a sofa that had been there for as long as Kali could remember. It was a brown and orange floral pattern; the cushions no longer had any shape left and held visible dents where the large male bodies huddled during the night. The fabric was worn thin, wrinkled and pulled. The sofa sat in what used to be the centre of the living room. You had to climb up a large mountain of compacted trash and lower yourself down onto it. Her father Clyde slept in an old armchair by the window. It was in the same ragged condition as the sofa and buried almost as deep. They each had a mound of stiff, moldy blankets, and a flat pillow with yellowish hue to it.

She was relieved to see they were out of the trailer already that morning. All three were violent, angry men that everyone tried to avoid. This was evident driving into their part of the trailer park. No one in the neighbourhood would associate with her family. It was a combination of things that gave them this status: the horrid smell coming from their trailer, the overrun yard of junk, makeshift buildings and dogs may have been all a person needed to come to the conclusion that their family was low class. The neighbours knew all too well what a mean man her Daddy was. The men glared and the women told their children stories in hopes to keep them far away.

The police were called to their trailer on a weekly basis. The officers always explained after their visit to the many staring bystanders that there was nothing that they could do. They could not force Kali’s family to leave the park, nor could they press charges on the violent men that lived there without the permission of her mother. Her mother refused to allow the law to step in. She taught Kali from an early age how to hide her bruises and to take the beatings as quietly as she could.

Kali was a lonely person. She knew the reason she had never had friends was because of her upbringing. Throughout elementary school, she was always made to sit at the back of the room, away from the other children. The teachers often held their breath while talking to her because the smell of her was so offensive. In grade six, her homeroom teacher had finally had enough and used office dividers to make a small cubicle in the far corner for Kali to sit in.

It was that year that she decided she could no longer go to school. She was isolated in every way in her life. When she was at school, she was forced to be hidden and tucked away in a small space, and when she went home, she was trapped in the mounds of garbage overrunning an entirely too small trailer. She never told her parents that she was planning to drop out of school; she just stopped going and no one noticed.

If they had noticed, no one said a word about it. Though this wasn’t unusual, there wasn’t much to be had for conversation in her family. There were grunts, snorts and glares; all of which got the point across and if it didn’t, a quick backhand to the face never missed the point. She couldn’t recall, for as long as she lived, ever seeing anyone in her family really smile or really have a happy moment. There was no love there, only anger and deep hatred.

At night she would close her eyes and pretend that she didn’t live in this mess. She would think of different scenarios that someone might live in and pretend to feel what they felt. Behind her closed eyes, she would see white houses with blue shutters, manicured lawns with a swing set, a welcome mat at the door, which was always opened by a smiling woman in an apron. She was the ideal Mother in Kali’s mind. She had a little flour on her nose and the prettiest blond hair tied in a ribbon to match her yellow dress.

As soon as the door swung wide, the smell of fresh bread would invade her senses. In her visions, she could see her foot step forward, beyond the welcome mat. As it passed the threshold, she too would be wearing a darling yellow dress, with her feet adorned in black Mary Jane shoes and white knee high socks. Above the coatrack on her right there would be a wooden sign that had lovingly been carved to say ‘Home is where the heart is’. The floors glistened, the walls were pristine. The stairway had a dark wooden banister, the wood warmed beneath her fingers as she made her way up the stairs.

At the top of the stairs was an oval mirror. Kali stopped to glance at herself. Her hair was clean, and curled in perfect ringlets. The top was pulled away from her face and tied neatly in a perfect ribbon matching her dress. Her cheeks were pink, and she was always smiling. Down the hallway was a small door; inside was the linen closet. To most people, this wouldn’t be a detail you would stop to imagine. It wouldn’t be something in your dreams. For Kali, it was.

She opened the small door and stopped to inhale the fresh scent. The sheets and blankets were folded so neatly. They felt soft as she rubbed the material between her fingers. Closing the closet, she turned to the door at the end of the hall. She already knew it was her bedroom; she had been here so many nights.

The sun shone through the partially open door, a beacon of light calling her to come closer. Pressing her fingers to the door and gently pushing it open, Kali closed her eyes and stood in the entranceway. She let the sun streaming through the window warm her face. She allowed herself to really feel this moment. It was nothing she had ever truly experienced. She imagined that this is what home felt like.

Padding across the plush pink carpeting, every step feeling right, she stood in front of a solid wood dresser. It was older, but well cared for and smelled of lemon furniture polish. On top of the dresser were an antique silver brush and mirror set. She picked up the mirror and held it. It was heavy and cold in her hand; she turned it around and around, caressing the smoothness, before putting it down and turning towards the bed.

It was a larger four-post bed, made from the same polished wood as the dresser. The bed had pink frilly shams on the pillows that matched the pink quilt that had been carefully laid across the bed and pulled tight and neat. It was something from a magazine. The mattress made a soft creak as she sat on the edge of it; she bounced a little before throwing her body backwards, her curls cascading around her face. She tilted her head to see the large window, which had a valance to match her bed.

Beyond the un-smudged glass was a large tree. The leaves on it were a dark green, they had crisp edges: the kind of leaves that caterpillars loved to chew. The kind of leaves that cocoons hung from till butterflies emerged and beat their fresh wings. The kind of leaves that hid your treehouse just enough that you could pretend you were in an enchanted forest. The kind of leaves you couldn’t wait to watch turn colour in the fall months. They would be beautiful: oranges, yellow, red and brown, the hues matching the setting sun behind them. They would fall in glorious silence to the autumn floor and wait excitedly to be piled, played with and to make their melodious crunching sounds. These were the things dreams were made of.

CHAPTER TWO

Kali’s stomach growled. Edible food was hard to come by at her house. She stepped from the trailer into the yard to look in the rusted beer fridge for something to eat. Outside the trailer door, two of her Father’s dogs were lying curled up, tangled in the short ropes they had tied to their necks. Next to where they slept was the mini fridge, where anything the family might have for groceries was kept. When she opened it, the smell of rancid food was almost enough to quell her appetite that morning. She stooped down to look at what might be available.

A few corner store burritos lay in a reddish coloured juice. It didn’t appear as though the juice had gotten through the plastic to ruin the food yet, so they could be an option. She reached for them to read the expiry date but they were glued to the bottom of the fridge in the sticky red mess. Whatever it was that they were lying in was old and syrupy. On another shelf were a few apples, most of them were spoiled, brown and wrinkled and the skin was very droopy; they reminded her of old people’s knees. A bottle of mustard, Italian dressing and a tipped can of cream soda were the only other things in the fridge. The can of soda solved the mystery of the stuck on burritos.

Kali closed the fridge and turned to look in a few of the cardboard boxes that were on the ground next to the fridge. There was a box of saltine crackers, a dented can of tomato soup, a jar of pasta sauce and an opened bag of cookies. She didn’t dare think about where this food came from. She reached into the bag of cookies and took two. They were chocolate chip, and felt a little stale. An ant crawled across the cookies in her hand; she shook the cookies to knock the ant to the dirt. It wasn’t the worst thing to find in your food and she could deal with a few bugs.

Breakfast in hand, she decided to take a walk around the park, hoping to avoid having to see her family. She slipped her feet into her worn through running shoes; they had holes in the toes and the soles flapped as she walked. Shuffling was the best option in the shoes so as not to listen to the annoying clapping sound of the plastic smacking as she stepped. The shoes were a size too small and her big toe stuck through the hole in the front; the laces had been missing when her mom brought them home for her, so she had to use baling twine she found at the dump.

Kali couldn’t be positive but she was pretty sure that these shoes were the culprit of the itchy rash she had all over her feet. She couldn’t remember her feet feeling this way before she’d had the shoes, nor did she recall her skin peeling the way it was. It wasn’t a big deal; she often had rashes, small sores and bites from the bugs in her bed. A little itch and some peeling skin was nothing to complain about.

She did wish for new shoes. Something beautiful and shiny like the ones she imagined in her visions. She wondered what a brand new pair of shoes felt like. She thought about it as she walked into town. With each step, she imagined what the stiff patent leather would feel like holding on tightly to her feet, what sound the sole would make as it met the pavement. There was nothing better than the clicking sound of a woman’s high heeled shoe hurrying past her on the sidewalk.

Kali could see the town approaching and began to walk a little faster. She could smell the fried chicken and deep fryers of the local restaurant; it made her stomach growl. The cookies were stale and didn’t have much taste to them anymore, so she closed her eyes and with each bite of the cookie she imagined what a different food from the chicken place would taste like. She’d never had food from a restaurant before, but could envision how delicious it was. Along the street, people were sitting on the benches enjoying their personal sized boxes of fried chicken and French fries. The food looked smothered in gravy and dripped a little as they tried to push it past their greasy lips.

There wasn’t much to do in town; there were only a few stores and Kali never had any money. Walking along the main street, she stopped at the front of the general store to glance in the window. She liked to browse and think about things she would buy if she had as much money as she wanted. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror and tried brushing her matted hair behind her ears with her fingers. Two women walking by stepped a little further away and looked past her to avoid eye contact. She would never get used to being looked at like a disease; even though she didn’t don’t know any different, it tore at her heart a little each time it happened.

She moved along down the sidewalk to the town’s bulletin board. Their town didn’t have a local newspaper; this was where everyone posted their important announcements and news. There was a poster for the annual family dance coming up at the town hall; a few years ago she had asked her parents if they could go. Her face had taken months to heal after that conversation and she never brought the topic up again. Bake sale, Kittens for free, Hay for sale: these were all typical newsworthy topics on the board. Today, there was something new on there. Someone posted a help wanted poster:

‘Help wanted. Need a young woman to do our laundry, cleaning and cooking. Wage is fair. Please apply in person to the Anderson farm’.

This was the solution to her problems. This would buy her all the things she saw in the general store window, this was a box of greasy chicken to eat, this was time away from her repulsive trailer, and this was freedom. Ripping the ad from the corkboard, she made her way down the paved street to where the gravel road met and led to the Anderson Farm.

Along the ditches, the grass was tall and untouched, with sporadic wild flowers growing amongst it. Kali stopped to pick a little of each as she passed them; she found a few daisies, some bluebells, some clover and some buttercups, and a few strands of long leaves to finish off the bouquet. This would be a nice thing to bring to the farm as a gift, in hopes it would help her win their approval for the job.

The driveway to the farmhouse had a large white mailbox with ‘Anderson’ carefully stencilled on it in black; there was a red flag attached to the side that was pointing upwards, indicating that the mail had already been delivered that morning. She opened the box and took out the small bundle of envelopes to bring with her to the door. Each tree along the driveway reached across as if to hold hands with its partner, creating an archway. Beyond the arc of foliage was a sunshine-yellow house. The front door was white, with an etched window and the start of a new deck. She could smell the freshly cut lumber and hear the pound of someone’s hammer. She looked around to find the person using it.

There was a young man nailing boards to the deck floor; he was bent over in his plaid shirt and dark denim jeans. He didn’t seem to notice her. She came up behind him and cleared her throat loudly so as not to startle him. He turned around to look at her and stood to greet her. He removed his Joe Deere ball cap and wiped the perspiration from his head. ‘Good morning, Miss.’

‘G’morning. I am here about the wanted ad posted in town,’ she muttered quietly.

He took the paper from her hand and read it over. ‘You’re looking for my Mother, she is the one hiring someone to help around the house.’

Kali smiled at him but could not make direct eye contact. She looked down at her tattered shoes and thanked him, before moving quickly to the door. She paused momentarily to decide if she should ring the bell or just knock, unsure which would be the most polite way. Shifting the mail and creased paper under her arm, she decided to knock softly. She waited for a few moments before the door opened.

Kali had to blink her eyes hard to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. This was the woman in her fantasies. She was sure of it. She was more beautiful in person than Kali had ever imagined in her mind. Kali stood and stared in disbelief for what seemed like days before she realized the woman was talking to her.

Kali quickly became painfully aware of her appearance and felt her face flush with shame. ‘I’m here about the want ad you posted, Ma’am,’ she managed to say, in what was barely above a whisper.

The woman smiled brightly and stepped aside, inviting her in. Her teeth sparkled and she smelled of baby powder. ‘Why don’t we go to the kitchen and have a cup of tea and talk about what kind of things I will need you to do?’ she suggested.

Kali remembered the flowers and mail and closed her eyes, pushing out her hands with the gifts she brought. ‘Thank you, I would like some tea’ she said, with her eyes still closed, then wondered what tea would be like. She had never had any before but often imagined the taste while she drank the murky well water from her coffee-stained mug at home.

CHAPTER THREE

The woman’s name was Sarah. Kali couldn’t help but stare at her as she quickly but gracefully moved around the kitchen preparing a plate of goodies and two hot cups of Red Rose tea. The tea cups were fine thin china; they felt delicate and light, like the petal of a flower.

Kali added a heaping spoon of sugar to her tea and sipped it. It was hot; she burnt her tongue a little but continued to sip. The warm tea bathed her mouth and she could feel the path it made down her throat, warming her insides completely. On a plate in the centre of the table was an assortment of homemade treats. The plate matched her teacup, with tiny roses and vines framing the white edges. There were oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, rice crispy squares and a cake with a crumbly topping. Kali reached for an oatmeal cookie. It was moist and chewy. It tasted nothing like the ones she’d had that morning for breakfast.

‘We may as well get started discussing what I am hoping to have you do around the house,’ started Sarah. ‘I just don’t have time to keep up with things around here on my own lately and now that I am expecting again, I could really use some help. Can you cook?’

Kali thought about this for a few minutes. She wasn’t sure she had ever really had a home-cooked meal, much less made one. ‘Well, I haven’t ever tried, but I am a fast learner’ she said confidently.

‘I also need someone to do laundry, and the light house cleaning: windows, floors and dishes,’ Sarah said. ‘You know, the regular daily chores.’

The thing was, Kali didn’t really know anything about these chores, as they were not daily routines in her house. Daily chores in her family consisted of rummaging through the trash, collecting, sorting, and staying out of her Dad’s way.

‘I really haven’t done much cleaning either. I know this doesn’t look good, but you see, I really need this job and I promise I will work hard for you. If you will just teach me, I can do it all.’ Kali pleaded.

Sarah sat contemplating. Kali noticed that Sarah hadn’t really paid much attention to her tattered clothing. Sarah smiled at Kali then said, ‘Okay, why don’t we give it a try? I am sure you will do a fine job. When can you start?’

‘I can start as soon as you would like. I am free today,’ Kali replied quickly.

‘Alright. Well, first things first. I know it sounds silly, but I would like to give you something else to wear. That is, if you don’t mind. I just would rather not worry about you ruining your own things by getting bleach or cleaning liquid on them.’ Sarah smiled.

Kali didn’t mind at all. In fact, she was still surprised that Sarah hadn’t been put off by her bad hygiene and dirty clothes.

Kali followed Sarah down a hallway towards an airy bedroom that was painted a light blue. ‘This is the guest bedroom,’ Sarah explained. ‘You won’t have much to do in here, unless of course we have someone stay the night. Just a little dusting and the windows is all.’ She closed the door.

Down the hall was the bathroom. It smelled slightly of ammonia and lemons. The toilet bowl sparkled. There was a padded seat on it. Kali didn’t know such a thing existed.

‘In here are the regular bathroom duties: scrubbing the toilet, the bathtub, the sink and washing the mirrors. The toilet brush is here beside the toilet and the liquids are stored underneath the sink,’ Sarah explained.

The master bedroom was the next place they went. Sarah opened the closet and pulled out a beautiful yellow dress, similar to the one Sarah was already wearing. ‘I