Dreams Come True - Book One of the Connor True Series Read online

Dreams Come True

  By Andy Morris

  Copyright 2014 Andy Morris

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  ISBN 9781311021113

  Table of Contents

  Dreams Come True

  About Andy Morris

  Discover Other Titles by Andy Morris

  Connect with Me

  Calling All Writers

  Dreams Come True

  Dreams do sometimes come true and that was the fear that had chased Connor True these last two weeks. As a child Connor had experienced the most horrific nightmares. His terrifying dreams felt so real he could feel them clawing at him as he awoke night after night, screaming in his bed.

  His grandmother was convinced the nightmares were a result of Connor being different from other boys. He possessed something special, a psychic doorway in his mind. Although at the time he couldn’t begin to understand its full potential. His grandmother, a boisterous Nigerian matriarch knew all about it and had branded it a curse. According to Grandmother Nnedinma and her gaggle of superstitious friends, this talent was as dangerous as it was magnificent and Connor should be cleansed of it. She had gone on to explain while Connor’s unguarded mind slept the door would occasionally creak open; allowing evil spirits to flood in and torment him. His mother had been desperate to free her son from his nocturnal torment and she had agreed for his grandmother to perform an ancient healing ritual to seal the door shut.

  Whatever she had done had worked and he had been freed from his awful psychic affliction. His nightmares stopped and his sleep became empty and uneventful, void of even the most insignificant to dreams. An unexpected side-effect to the ritual was that Connor had lost the ability to dream of anything at all.

  Now, twenty years later his dreams had returned in a dreadful whirlwind of horror, much more real and immediate than he had every experienced as a child.

  He’d had no choice but to open the doorway again. His friend’s eleven year old son, Naresh, had gone missing and Connor had immediately decided to help find him. Connor could have joined in a search or talked to the kids at the youth club to see if they knew anything but there seemed little point in that when he had a more accurate way of finding the child and he could do it within a matter of seconds. The dangers of using his forbidden talent hardly registered as his friend’s pain and anguish radiated from his tortured soul. Connor had always been spontaneous and with his mind hastily made up, he wasted no time in getting to work. Overlooking his grandmother’s warnings he broke the mental lock that kept the psychic doorway sealed. Then he’d pushed open the door and in less than a second he had invoked his awesome talent. Just a short while later Connor had found Naresh safe and well.

  Opening the doorway to find Naresh had been the right thing to do. Of that, Connor had no doubt, despite the huge price he now had to pay for dabbling in the paranormal. For Naresh, unfortunately, wasn’t the only thing Connor had found on the other side of the metaphysical divide.

  While the doorway was open, something monstrous had noticed him. Connor caught a glimpse of it leering back at him with hungry malicious intent. The freezing horror of what he saw was still wrapped around his mind, never far from his conscious thoughts. What he’d seen had been a warning, a premonition of things to come. Connor had immediately withdrawn and shut the door but now that the seal was broken it could not be locked and the thing would come back for him.

  Connor didn’t know how long he had left before the demon, identified as Abiku by Grandmother Nnedinma, caught up with him. Abiku had hunted male members of Connor’s family down the generations his grandmother had explained and now Connor felt helpless in a tightening grip of destiny. He was drifting ever closer to an uncertain future, a grim future where he knew his life would be cut short in a halo of bloody violence. Disturbing thoughts accompanied him like a black dog wherever he went now. It was like the sky over his world had darkened and angry clouds rumbled with the promise of thunder. Connor had no shelter in which to hide from the approaching storm. He couldn’t outrun the horror that was coming for him but perhaps Grandmother Nnedinma could prevent it.

  Grandmother Nnedinma would do anything for her grandchildren. She would lavish them with love and affection when they were good and deliver painful beatings when they were wicked. Connor didn’t see much of his grandmother these days because she was getting old didn’t like to come to England - It was a long journey, the weather was too cold and there were too many white people there for her liking, even though Connor’s father was a white man and he and his family would bend over backwards to accommodate her.

  As soon as he told his grandmother what he had done she had started organising her trip to the UK as quickly as she could. She lived in an isolated village and it had taken her nearly two weeks to make the journey but she should be arriving at his mother’s house any minute now and after Connor finished his work at the youth club he was going round to see her to get things fixed. With any luck, she’d be able to put it right tonight and he could carry on with his life, despite the knowledge in his head. This cursed gift had revealed to him the awful truth about humanity and what is waiting for us all in the grim darkness of our futures.

  “Connor? Connor?” the shrill voices of the two girls brought Connor back from his worrying reverie and he was plunged back into the maelstrom of the football game he was supposed to be playing in. He was too easily distracted these days. Impassioned shouts and yells echoed off the walls and washed over him like a tidal wave bringing with it a barrage of sights and sound as well as the familiar, yet eternally unpleasant odour of stale teenager.

  Connor turned to the two girls as they came skipping across the room towards him. Maddie and Gemma were two inseparable ten year olds who never left each other’s sides. They momentarily cringed away from the fuzzy yellow football that rebounded off the wall followed by a swarm of bodies hoping to boot it into opposite goal.

  “Hold up guys” Connor shouted over the noise. “I’m gonna take five, carry on without me”. His trainers squeaked over the polished wooden floor as he led the girls to the safety of the corridor where the air was thankfully fresher.

  Connor ran his hand through his dreadlocks. He had a lot of time for Gemma and Maddie, he had a lot of time for most people. He guessed it probably had something to do with his traumatic past: Knowing what he knew and after seeing what he’d seen with his gift, he wanted everyone to make the most of their lives, while they had the chance. Connor was a strong believer that everyone had a talent or passion that could be cultivated into something significant and he made a point of trying to find that seed of genius in all his young people. That’s why he volunteered as a youth leader, to help the kids find their flair and encourage them to develop it. Gemma, for example, loved drawing and she had produced some amazing pictures. Her bright lively paintings or detailed pencil sketches seemed to burst into life on the page, matching her personality that was very loud and expressive. She had been thrilled when Connor had blown some of her pictures up into posters and hung them around the youth centre.

  Her friend Maddie was the quieter of the two. She liked to hide behind her long dark hair and only peer out when she thought no one was looking. Connor found it interesting that her hobby was photography. Even with something she was good at she was still hiding, only this time it was behind her dad’s camera
and not her hair. Connor felt privileged to know them both.

  “Hey girls, what’s up?”

  “That van is outside again” Gemma panted.

  “In the car park” Maddie clarified helpfully, just in case Connor had been in any doubt where it might be. The news troubled Connor and he wasn’t quite able to hide his now all-too-familiar anxiety quickly enough. Gemma must have seen grave look crossing his face and she looked away, uncomfortably as if she’d done something wrong. He didn’t want to worry the kids and he tried to cover his unease by thanking the girls for letting him know. It seemed to work because they grinned at each other before skipping round the corner, whispering secrets into one another’s ears.

  The van outside meant he had come back again. Connor didn’t know how Dale Tanner knew where he worked nor even how he found out that Connor was the one had had found Naresh - but that wasn’t important right now.

  Tanner was a mean nasty low-life who courted a blistering reputation for violence. To say he had a short fuse was an understatement and the local thug evidently held Connor responsible for his friends being arrested on kidnapping charges.

  Connor had told the