The Vesuvians

This is a short story I wrote, based on a lucid dream I had almost two years ago.

Today Mom and Dad and I cleaned out the garage. Well, it’s not so much a garage as it is an atrium between the garage and the house, but this is where we stored all the shit from the attic for whatever reason. Mom has her ways. Facing north, or towards the back end of the house, there were bricks to the left and right with some greenish-colored window panes overhead. The house is on the left hand side and the garage on the right. The place looks like an antique shop, with clothes towards the back and a workbench that ran the length of the garage on the east side of the atrium.

Stacks of cowboy hats. I don’t know why mom collected them, but she had a thing for cowboy hats. Stacks and stacks of straw cowboy hats. Un freaking believable. She would buy them in stacks of twelve and just keep them to give away, though she never did. I sorted through the cowboy hats, most of them crushed, and found one big enough to fit my head. Mom never let her kids sleep on their backs for fear that it would make the back of our heads flat, like Dad’s was. In so doing she banished her sons to a lifetime of never finding a hat big enough to fit. If we did find hats we liked, they always had to have to be connected on the last two plastic connectors in the back, which made the backs of our heads look like they were smashed by a frying pan. Go figure.

This cowboy hat was nice. Most of the straw ones were stiff and felt like a tinpot on your head. They echoed. This was that nice crushable raffia straw or whatever it was called. You could run a steam roller over them and they’d retain their shape.

I was supposed to be cleaning, but I was doing more rummaging than tidying up because the place reminded me of a store. It was already quite tidy, save for a bit of dirt on the floor, along with the cracks in the concrete pad. I can’t remember if there was grass growing out of one of the cracks. Seems like it could have, due to the windows and all.

I had a dream the other night. It was the kind of dream where, in your dream, you go to sleep and dream. A two-stage dream. Maybe it’s just your subconscious recalling old dreams. Either way, sometimes you remember dreams only when you are dreaming.

In the dream I was reminded of the relic. It was a granite plaque, shaped like a boomerang with cutouts for inserting something metallic. One was in the shape of a flying wing whereas the other was in the shape of a flying bird. In my dream I dreamt that I had seen one for 55 dollars on ebay.

While I was dreaming in my dream, I recalled the Mason’s hall. It might not’ve been an actual Freemason’s Hall, but it sure looked like it. It was at the end of a cul-de-sac in the old part of town that looked very european, with cobblestone sidewalks. I was driving an antique motorcycle with a trailer behind it instead of a sidecar and somehow pulled in ahead of a small black taxi cab. Like in London. Yes, this was London.

At the end of the cul-de-sac there were several people. No, make that seven. Three were laying on the wet cobblestone like a trinity of Vesuvius men while four men stood above them, cloaked in black with large hats.

As I pulled into the end of the cul-de-sac in my motorcycle, I sensed it. The Masons had appeared to me in a dream prior and had told me to come here. This is why I am here. To take the three Vesuvians somewhere. Before I had come to a complete stop, the three Vesuvians shot up from their positions on the pavement as though they did not want me to see what was going on. Shit, I’m early. It’s okay, though, because I already know what they are doing. They are laying their heads along the Ley lines. The energy lines that run through London.

The Vesuvians hop into the little trailer and the four men take off in their taxis. I could sense their power. These were the movers and shakers of London. They who ran the City. Templars. Masons. Whoever they were, these were powerful men. One looked at me and I knew that if I didn’t do as told, I too would be sacrificed like the Vesuvians. I had to drop them off somewhere, but I don’t know where yet.

The old motorcycle struggles under the load of three young men. Shit. These were kids. Seventeen maybe. Baby-faced and terrified of what was to transpire. They could have easily outpowered me and escaped, but they sat in the little carriage behind my motorcycle as if in a trance. As if they had seen something worse than Death. They did not speak.

As I drove the motorcycle began to lose power until it eventually stopped. I coasted the motorcycle along with my entranced cargo into a gravelled parking lot. Deja Vu. I was instantly sent into another dream state. I had done this before, but can’t remember when.

I thought that the old bitch was out of gasoline and I opened the tank. For some reason the top of the gas tank was flat, like an upside-down tin bucket or canned ham, with a soldered lip around the edge. The gas cap had been dented downwards and as I opened the cap I realized that it was underneath almost an inch of water, which had now drained into the tank. Sonofabitch.

One kick of the start pedal and the bike sputtered for about five seconds before dying completely. After fiddling around with the gas line a bit I snapped out of my concentration to realize something: The Vesuvians were gone.

Then I woke up.