The YMCA was located at the bottom of this long trench-like hill with a steep switchback driveway lined with a jungle of thick trees.  Up on the street the noise was very oppressive, but once I slipped down that driveway the foliage protected me from the intense sensory overload of afternoon traffic.

I was also sheltered from most of the daylight.  It was cool and breezy, and the sudden quiet was almost eerie.

I trudged down the drive and headed into the building.  Like the switchback jungle, their hallways were cold, dark, long and dreadfully quiet.  After what seemed like miles of walking, I made it to the receptionist’s desk and began asking her for the children’s fall sports schedule.  Cheerfully she answered my questions, but as she finished showing me how to sign up, another woman eased out of some back office door.  Instantly it felt a good twelve degrees cooler in the room, and the receptionist’s perkiness withered in the chill.

Just then I remembered I also wanted to ask about music programs, so I quickly did so–I admit, I did so quietly, with one eye on the snow lady.  The receptionist glanced over her shoulder at the woman and suggested I ask her instead.  Great, I thought.  So I approached snow lady and asked her.

Snow lady rounded on me, and with an expression born of pure hatred she chucked a book right at my face!  I dodged and caught it, looked down, and saw that she had lobbed the entire unabridged Webster’s Dictionary my way!  I looked back in astonishment and snow lady cried, “Why don’t you look it up!”

At this point, I knew it could only be one thing.  A conspiracy.

Little did snow lady know, she was only dealing with my mild mannered alter ego.  And the last thing she suspected was the fact that I was really… Batman!

I went home in a bad mood, and waited for the sun to put itself out–because everyone knows Batman only works at night.  Then I donned my disguise, gathered my utensils and my wits, and went to solve the case I had deemed The YMCA Conspiracy.

I sneaked back down the jungle switch back driveway and used my lock picking tools to get inside the facility, at which point there was a lot of skulking around, trying to maneuver locker room showers without getting wet, and getting roped into some maintenance work by the janitor.  I also met a group of orphan kids who were also dressed up as super heroes.  Turned out they just did this as a hobby.  I never did solve the YMCA conspiracy, but the orphan kids were nice.  They let me come up in the attic with them and hang out while they played Halo.

Oh, and by the way, I did make it through the locker room showers without getting wet.  That’s right.  I’m badass.

The Dream begins.

There was once a family. A large family. They lived a very simple life in the country. Now, this simple life was only simple in terms of their need to survive. They didn’t need things like we need them. Television was unheard of. To have a car was a luxury. The kids all shared one room, and the bathroom was a hole in the ground outside, surrounded by a pathetic little shed with a moon in the door. But to say their life was simple is far from accurate. There was much about their life that was complicated. The fact that they retrieved their water from a well multiple times a day, as needed (and a large family needs a lot of water!), or the fact that they had to be up before the sun to milk the cows (they had more than one, because a large family consumes a vast amount of milk). Anyway, you get the point.

So this family was building a new home for themselves. A bigger, better home, with separate bedrooms for the boys and girls, a spiral staircase, and best of all—electricity! But they had run into a hitch in the grand plan. Some strange men had been coming around giving the family a hard time. Turned out their land was pretty valuable. Or something like that. The family didn’t fully understand, and they cared even less—their land was their home and they weren’t budging.

Unfortunately, this made the strange men very unhappy.

One night, the large family had a visit from their closest neighbor (he lived 5 miles away). He came to warn them that the strange men were on their way, with guns. Determined to defend themselves, the family climbed up into the second story of their half-finished home and stationed themselves at the windows to look out. The youngest boy—only four or five—went to turn off the light so that the strange men wouldn’t see them inside. But as he reached the lightswitch, the strange men burst up the stairs in a strange vehicle—round and flat like a pancake, with a large dark window across the front. A hatch opened, arms thrust out and snatched the little boy, then they drove away, leaving the family in shock and grief. The parents were devastated. They never saw the strange men again, nor did they see their son.

Fast forward 18 years.

Five people were playing a poker game; four men, one woman. The woman was losing. Terribly. The four men suspected she might not make good on her bets based on her body language and a few strange comments she’d made. When she suggested making a quick trip out to her car for her “other wallet” their suspicions were confirmed. As she swept away from the table, one man looked to another and gave a nod. The other man got up and followed the woman outside.

The woman was nowhere to be seen, but within seconds the man felt her presence as she hit him over the head with a beer bottle She relieved him of his car keys and shoved him stumbling towards his car. She pushed him in through the passenger door, and followed him, forcing him into the driver’s seat, at which point she drew a gun, put the keys in the ignition, and told him get on the highway and drive. Fearing for his life, he obeyed, leaving his wallet, money, and poker buddies behind him.

After driving a few hours, they reached a secluded gas station. The car was running on empty, so the woman was forced to allow a refueling stop. Once the car was stopped she took up the keys again and they got out. The man claimed that he badly needed to use the facilities, and she reluctantly submitted to his request. As he was indisposed, she pumped gas and attempted to pay, but the clerk informed her that her credit card was invalid. They entered an argument over the issue, her claiming the card was good, while the clerk claimed he was unable to accept it and required another form of payment.

During the argument, the man exited the restoom. Seeing the argument taking place, he stole quietly out the door and began running as quickly as he could towards a dry, sunny forest of pine. He ran and ran, not looking back. After about three minutes of steady running, the man broke into a strange clearing—a sort of still, meandering hot spring enclosed by high crags, tan with dust. At the edge of the water was an abandoned vehicle—an old jeep wrangler. He approached the car. The vehicle had no doors, but no keys were the ignition or behind the visor. As he began the process of hot wiring the car, hoping that it was still functional, he heard another vehicle approach.

He looked over his shoulder to see his own car—a crappy, tan pimpmobile—driving up the same dirt road that the jeep had traversed. The woman was behind the wheel. She hung her head out the window and informed him that he was in the process of hot wiring her ex-boyfriend’s car. He shrugged and replied that he didn’t much care and that he just wanted to leave peacefully, and that she could even have his old car if she would just let him go. She shrugged, but made no response. Since he didn’t see a gun, and the woman seemed fairly calm, he deduced that most likely she did not plan on shooting him.

He finished hot wiring the car and climbed in. But when he tried to drive it, the car behaved strangely, lurching and jerking around as if he had forgotten how to drive altogether. The woman laughed. Turning off her car, she emerged and walked towards the man. She told him that the jeep had to be babied and driven in a very particular manner in order to function properly. The man grimaced in frustration, but the woman told him that if came with her, just a little further, she would teach him how to drive the car, and then when she was done with him he could leave with the jeep and she would take his car, just as he had originally suggested. He agreed.

The man slid into the passenger seat and the woman climbed behind the wheel. They began driving down the highway again, the woman instructing him on how the jeep was meant to be driven.

A few hours later the woman took an exit and they traversed a rural, two-lane road. Eventually they hit gravel, which they followed for about fifteen minutes, arriving at an old log cabin. To the side of the cabin stood a half-finished house, apparently abandoned. The woman told the man to get out of the car. He obeyed reluctantly. She followed him through the passenger side door, then led the man to the cabin and they stepped inside. The woman locked the door behind the man, then called out to someone who was supposedly present.

Another woman appeared, extremely pregnant. The first woman informed the pregnant woman that she had found him, and made a half-hearted gesture towards the man. The man arched an eyebrow at the pregnant woman and asked what this was all about. The pregnant woman grew angry and made a starcastic comment. The man said he was interested in talking, but he didn’t want his kidnapper present, since he trusted her very little. The pregnant woman said that was impossible. The man then demanded that they turn on a loud radio so that his kidnapper could not hear the conversation. He also insisted that he be allowed to stand between the pregnant woman and his captor so that she would be unable to read lips. The pregnant woman reluctantly agreed.

They entered a private conversation, which I, as the dream’s observer only, was unable to hear because of the radio. But the pregnant woman grew angry again, while the man grew frustrated. The discussion escalated further, and the agitation and stress that the pregnant woman was enduring induced labor. They hopped into the pregnant woman’s vehicle—a sleek silver sedan—and rushed to the nearest hospital. The woman gave birth to a boy. The man, observing the infant, began to have strange thoughts and memories flash into his mind, which deeply disturbed and confused him. (Apparently, as the observer I could also occasionally read minds.) He felt as though he’d forgotten something very important, and it nagged him. The mother began to ask him how he felt and if he understood what was going on. He shook his head and confessed that he didn’t. And then…

DUN dun duuuuuuuuuun!

I woke up. Maybe I should stop reading thrillers before bed…

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