The Devil's Dream: Waking Up by David Beers

he saw there were no scratches on the lock like there should have been. No keys had missed the hole when the owners didn't pay close enough attention; the metal looked perfect, like it just rolled off the assembly line. And inside the house? The smell of the place, it was...clean. That's all. People left no hint of living there, no smell of animals, no smell of smoke, no smell of cleaning materials. The entire place smelled like it was unused, uninhabited. Every house ended up taking on the smell of its owners, sweet or sour, it didn't matter. Humans left odor. And the parent's room? At the time he only wanted to close their door and move on, to find the room that housed his supposed son. He hadn't paid attention to how they slept. Both with their back to each other, but more, a clear line in the middle of the bed. Their legs weren't venturing out, weren't trying to take up more space as most married couples did throughout the night. It was like their subconscious knew their bodies weren't supposed to cross one another, weren't supposed to touch. And more than anything else, why would that be? Matthew had lain with Rally for years and never once did he remember waking up without at least some part of her touching him. The subconscious might even have pushed her to him at night, pushed him to her as well, wanting their bodies to touch even while they slept. But these two, it didn't even look like divorce or some other marital problem troubled them—it looked like they didn't know each other.
    "What college did your father go to?" Matthew asked. He knew the answer. He knew every publicly available piece of information about the parents. It wasn't a hard question either; the boy should know it.
    Matthew watched as Vick's pupil's widened minutely.
    "What?" Victor asked, except Matthew knew that Victor no longer existed. Matthew knew that whoever sat in the seat across from him wasn't his son, wasn't any relation to him at all, or the other people sleeping in the bed back at that house, either.
    Matthew turned back and looked out the windshield.
    "I cannot really explain how big of a mistake you and Art just made."
    He put his keys in the ignition and pulled the car back onto the road.

    * * *
    G reg sat in the coffee shop, his sociology book open in front of him, a highlighter in his hand, but not reading a single word. His phone sat to the left of the book, the screen black. He had put it down five minutes before, having replayed his brother's message. He listened to it five times over the past day, and with each listen came a stronger urge to call Henry. He wanted to say sorry, to tell his brother that he wanted him to make it home safe, and that he was an asshole for the way he acted. He wanted to hear his brother's voice again, because...
    Because you're starting to think that voicemail might be the last time you do. Because he might be gone now, and if he's gone, he might not come back.
    So why hadn't he called? Why had he ignored his brother's own calls?
    Because you're an asshole.
    He didn't want to cry in this coffee shop, but he thought he might. He was an asshole, but it was more than that. He didn't agree with Henry, he was angry with him—angry for his choice, angry for the way their mother had just given him the go-ahead, angry at the whole situation. His brother was supposed to be at home, right down the hall from him if need be. Maybe not forever, Greg wouldn't think that, but for right now? Yeah, without a doubt. They were roommates and neither had a girlfriend or kids or anything else that should make them move out, so Henry should be home when Greg got home. But he wouldn't be. Henry was gone and that meant he had left Greg here, alone. Left their mother alone.
    So he ignored the call out of sheer anger. Anger at his brother for...what? For choosing to help the world over staying with him and their family. And now, a day later, Greg wondered if he would ever hear Henry's voice again outside of the digital