DOCTOR STRANGE: NIGHTMARE "Chapter One"

Here's the long OOP Doctor Strange prose novel by William Rotsler...

...featuring Wong, Clea, Dr Strange's origin, and the villain known as Nightmare in a multiversal adventure!
Chapter One

He flew through the clouds, through wisps of white vapor backlit by the brilliant sun. He did not seem to know how he got there; the reasons and means were vague, but he was there. He felt the wind, the cold of the air in the high reaches, heard the flap of his pajamas, and the music.

He blinked, but the clouds seemed endless. There was no stopping and no ending. He flew through the fringes of cloud after cloud and always new vistas opened up—rose-tinted clouds, steel gray, fluffy white, on and on.

The music grew louder, from a faintly heard whisper to resounding, driving thunder. The clouds parted, the sun’s radiance shone forth, and—no!

It was not the sun, but something else! An all-pervading shining, a demanding, hypnotic glow . . .

There was something beyond the brilliance . . .

Something—someone—demanding his attention, demanding his will. He could not refuse. Who could refuse God?

It had to be God. Only God could be brighter than the sun.

“Yes, Lord?” asked the Reverend Billie Joe Jacks.

“Billie, wake up!”

“I heard you, Lord. I’m coming!”

“Billie, wake up! You’re having a nightmare!”

The clouds darkened and closed in. The brilliance was gone, smothered in the purple, the steel gray, the black.

“What . . . what?”

“Billie, you’ve had a bad dream,” his wife said.

He was sweating and hugged the blankets to him. “It’s all right, I’m all right,” he said quickly, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’ll go right back to sleep.”

He tossed and turned for awhile, and his wife Alicia watched with nervous eyes. The nightmares had been getting worse, just the last few nights. He had awakened once shouting quotations from the book of Revelation, and another time he had muttered, over and over, “Yes, Lord, yes, Lord.”

She had to do something—and soon.

Joe Peerson was the second rated light-heavyweight contender, a powerfully muscled black man with a notoriously bad temper. He’d killed one man in a prize fight in Atlanta, but he never dreamed about that; nor the mugger he’d punched to death in an alley near the Benjamin Franklin Inn in Philly. What he dreamt about were soft-skinned foxes with slinky shapes, smilers with bright teeth and red lips, the kind who never said no and knew all the tricks. He dreamed about round beds with fur covers, dressed-up Mark IVs with gold trim, a wallet bulging with money in big denominations, and everyone looking at him when he came in.

The punchy fighter he’d cold-cocked had been a setup anyway, not that he’d needed one. He was a fast riser with an iron gut and the ability to keep on punching when he was all but out on his feet. He was going to the top. He never dreamed about the fighter he’d put away.

That is, not until this night.

Bernie Hoberg came into the ring looking twice as big as Joe remembered him—same gray trunks with the double black stripe, same little scar over the left eye, same lopsided grin; only bigger; bigger than Ali, bigger than Foreman. Joe hardly had time to get out of his robe before the ref was calling them forward. The words slid by, often unheard, always ignored. It was Bernie’s dead eyes that fixed him.

Dead eyes.

He didn’t look quite the same, either—more . . . more diabolic . . . Skin lighter, too, and bigger, always bigger. A lot bigger.

The bell rang and dead Bernie came at him fast, chin tucked in, left out—wham!

The right came out of nowhere, plowing right through Joe’s defenses, sending splinters of light into his mind; but he didn’t fall. He punched back. Every blow hit—a beautiful left-right-left combo.

Nothing.

Bernie ignored the blows as if they were a hooker’s praise. His big right fist shot out again, thundering through the smoke and light, to destroy Joe’s face. Joe tasted the blood, but he didn’t fall. He couldn’t fall.

Bernie looked odd, very odd. His face was longer, less round, and he seemed to have a mustache. His hair was different, too, with streaks of white along the temples.

Can’t be. Cannot be. He didn’t look like dead Bernie Hoberg at all. His clothes were all wrong—red and purple, black and . . .

Clothes?

The fists hit him, hurt him, drove him back, but he couldn’t fall. Hands were clutching at him, pulling at him. Hey, no fair holding me while I get punched out. We did that when we were kids—laying out the Warriors or the Silver Knights—but not in the ring. Maybe they’ll stop the fight if someone is interfering.

Please stop the fight, he thought. I can’t take much more of this! The big dude with the wicked grin is tearing away my face!

“Joe!”

“Huh? Whut?”

“Joe, hey, come out of it! Stop that!”

He blinked. He was sitting up in bed with the two sisters on either side, holding his arms. “Hey, baby, come to momma,” Doreen said, hugging him.

“Bad dream, huh?” Noreen asked.

“Never mind,” he grunted. He didn’t want to answer any questions. He took Doreen in his arms and felt Noreen against his back, caressing him. But before his mind’s eye was the image of the fighter, the guy with the silver at his temples and the piercing eyes—mocking eyes—that made Big Joe Peerson feel small. Joe Peerson didn’t like feeling small.

“Joe, honey, you’re hurting me!” Doreen gasped.

“And you like it,” he snarled.

Gray people roamed the gray streets. He walked among them, stark naked, trying to look unconcerned. The gray faces stared at him. They all knew him, every one, even when he had forgotten their faces. Tom Jaybrook, the trouble-making executive, he was there, looking, his dead mouth slack. Dave Wray, the other side’s best hit man, he was there, only someone had put his head back on. Scott Ridgeway, Mister Big himself—only there had been someone else who wanted that title, someone who had sent $25,000 in the mail . . . Clair Gerber, who had been too greedy in Chicago, and McQuade, who had skimmed off the top in Vegas . . .

Dead faces.

Dead faces looking, following, coming at him . . . He bumped into them. Christy Kerri, the headline stripper who had seen too much . . . The biker, Don Foster, who’d gone down hard and needed an extra slug . . . the don himself, Rico Curson, with his faint smile and cold heart . . . The don had sent him after Sakai and Strobl and Phillips . . . The bomb in the car, the poison in the pasta, the van over the cliff. They were all dead.

But they walked the streets, gray and staring. They followed him, said nothing, only stared. The buildings, gray and black, stared down with blank, black rectangular eyes. There was only one spot of color, only one thing that moved faster.

Red, purple, a white face, black hair . . . a red cape . . .

A cape? What the blazes was this?

Fear held an unreasoning grip on his mind. It was him—the nameless him that he knew would someday come.

Retribution. Revenge. Death.

It was death coming, sent by someone else, some nameless figure of distant power, pulling at the fragile strings of his life.

Death.

Death with a mustache, death with a red cape, death with piercing black eyes, death reaching out—

“Uh!” He sat up, choking, feeling the cold white fingers around his throat. His hands tore at the ghostly fingers, found nothing and tore at the bedclothes. He staggered out, tipping over an expensive, flat leather case. He lurched to the curtains and yanked them open. Staring out he saw the Holiday Inn sign, lurid and Las Vegasy, and the parked cars with the Virginia licenses sprinkled among all the others from everywhere. The cars went by on the street. A gas station sign revolved farther down. Someone honked. A truck rumbled by, dotted with running lights.

He turned back into the room. What a hell of a dream! He reached down and picked up the flat leather case and sat on the bed with it across his knees. His trembling fingers took two tries before he could unlatch the case. He tilted the lid open and checked the contents carefully.

The rifle was broken down. The powerful scope was fastened permanently to the main housing and had been sighted in at one hundred yards. The stock and barrel were lying in their own padded niches in the custom case. The handmade .270 cartridges were in a special plastic ammunition box in its own niche. They were all hollow-point slugs. There were twenty of them, but Phil Zuber didn’t think he’d need more than one—two at the outside.

He lifted out a small, special plastic box from a niche. It only held eight rounds, but they were extra-special rounds. Dipped in cyanide, with explosive heads, they were his specials. If he ever saw the guy in the cape in real life, he’d use one of these—and he’d do it for free. It would be the first time he would kill for nothing. But it would be worth it—to kill death. He had to laugh, but the laugh didn’t last very long.

Bel Air is the Beverly Hills of Hollywood. It spreads over thickly wooded hills and valleys north of the University of California at Los Angeles. Here a million-dollar home is something of an embarrassment. A million five, two point three, and even higher are common enough prices. Although best known for the residences of the superstars of motion pictures and television, there are many estates of more normal multimillionaires who gained their loot in more conventional businesses. Lately, record stars, even record producers, even—God forbid—superstar agents, have sought addresses in these sacrosanct acres. There, too, Michele Hartley, had her home.

From one window of one of the maid’s rooms, over the four-car garage, you could just get a glimpse of Pickfair, the legendary home of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. and Mary Pickford. To Hollywood society Pickfair is something like Windsor Castle to English nobility.

But Michele Hartley didn’t like views. If she could see out, other people could see in. For nine years Michele Hartley had not been able to go anywhere without people staring, without them coming up and bothering her, without eager fans coming over the walls, into the house, appearing, crowding in, smothering her.

Trees surrounded her estate completely, and outside the small forest was an eight-foot wall topped with broken glass. The house had originally been built for a silent-movie latin lover and it was said most of the bottles that supplied the glass atop the walls had been supplied by W.C. Fields. Douglas Fairbanks was supposed to have rescued a kitten from the apex of the steep roof. Ben Hecht was supposed to have written a story in the dining room. John Barrymore had got drunk there, and caught cold lying on the lawn under the stars, reciting Shakespeare. Errol Flynn had seduced all three maids employed at the time, legend said. Bogart had broken the front window having a fight with his first wife, Mayo. Erich von Stroheim had shaved his head in the second-floor bathroom. Vilma Banky, Theda Bara and Barbra Streisand had all danced there. Gloria Swanson had planted a small garden of spices there for the original owner. Tom Mix had ridden Tony onto the lawn with Christmas gifts for the daughter of the owner. A couple of stars had been shot up there; another had died in bed there—the wrong bed—and been taken away in the middle of the night. It was that kind of house.

Michele had made over the “Colleen Moore” bedroom into the “Michele Hartley” bedroom, and it became the main story in two national magazines. She promptly started plans for redecoration; the original job had served its purpose.

She lay in the pink-satin and fourteen-karat-gold-fixtured bedroom, afraid to go to sleep. It was nothing new. She’d always been afraid. That was why the bedside table had a drawer full of sleeping pills from four doctors.

Sleep brought either nothingness—or terror.

Memories surfaced all too easily in her dreams. In dreams, she was not the magnificently built sex goddess of the silver screen, but Rayette Milkenberg, the skinny kid with pimples and an impossible dream. Asleep she was vulnerable. Instead of the ninth most bankable female star, she was broke, hungry, scared, just as it had been when she’d run away at fourteen. At night, even in her plush home, guarded by the Bel Air patrol and two on-duty security guards, she was running.

Michele Hartley hated to sleep. “Let’s stay up until dawn!” was what she always said, even at bad parties. Sleeping in the day wasn’t quite as bad, somehow—or sleeping outside by the pool, in the bright and expensive Bel Air sun. But the studio didn’t like her too tanned—not her style, they said—which is perhaps why the former Rayette Milkenberg sought out handsome young actors to sleep with, as often as possible. They wanted something, of course, and she knew it, but that was all right. Everyone wanted something. They wanted her flesh, the expertness of her renowned techniques, but they also wanted access. If they were good—very, very good—she’d take them to parties. “Oh, L.J., this is Craig Patton; he’d be just marvelous in that new whatsis series you’re doing.” Or, “Luana, darling, what you are eating up with your eyes is Rod Masters, who is much too good to play opposite you, but he does like kinky stuff, so he might do quite well.”

Opportunity—she provided opportunity. Meanwhile, the young studs gave her a good time, gave her a good workout. You slept so much better when you were tired, she often said. Sometimes you didn’t dream at all.

But tonight there was no one. A beautiful new male starlet with tremendous shoulders and probably other assets, had gotten an attack of flu. Even a hint of disease sent Michele scurrying away, so she was alone. Too late to go through the little black book—too proud as well . . . She waited for a phone call, but the only calls she got were from Andre in Paris, Ron in Palm Springs, and Ramon in Puerto Vallarta—plus her agent, who still wanted her for Pirates of Tortuga. “There’s going to be a pirate trend, mark my words. This science-fiction thing can’t last forever, not as long as they shoot westerns in space. You can’t trade a six-gun for a ray gun and a horse for a spaceship and expect to have people dig it for science fiction, no sir. You do this and maybe we’ll start a trend. Universal will go for the package if you’re the star, baby.”

She’d promised to think about it. The script still lay unread by the bed, along with seven others. A remake of Beau Geste set in Vietnam. A rip-off of Star Wars called Spaceship 2000. A combination of The Perils of Pauline and The Iron Horse, with just a touch of Taxi Driver. The life story of Sigmund Freud told from the point of view of his wife. A remake of Rio Lobo with her playing the John Wayne part as a lady sheriff. A sexy one, Hellfire Club, to be shot in England, with Sean Connery as Sir Francis Dashwood. (“Sean’s reading it, baby, he loves it. He’ll give us an answer next week sure.”) A Felliniesque version of Hollywood by a “brilliant new filmmaker” who was twenty-four.

Western Costume had two entire racks with her name on them, filled with sexy blouses, low-cut gowns, belly-dancer bras, guerrilla-girl shirts and look-good-when-wet T-shirts. The sexy parts paid well, got her publicity, a block of high-rent property in Dallas, another in Inglewood, an office building in Chicago, two thousand sheep in Wyoming, a condominium in Santa Monica, a safe-deposit box full of blue-chip stocks, and two Jaguars. But she wondered just how long that famous sexy look would last. Maybe she should go back to Evanier—he’d write a great comedy for her; or Thomas—he had plans for a very good drama. Change the image. Plan for the future.

What future? she thought.

Like so many other beautiful women, Michele Hartley thought she would die young. Like the others she did not want to face that day when the beauty would fade—or worse, crumble . . . not even shade gracefully into genteel middle age. She wouldn’t let that happen. She’d go the way of Marilyn and the others who seemed to be on top of the world and who took the dark door out.

That’s why there were always a lot of sleeping pills in the drawer. At least the corpse would look good. Pistols and high jumps were so messy—just drift away.

Into a dream?

Michele tried to stay awake, but she knew she’d fail. All her props were gone. She’d left her vibrator running and the batteries were dead. She didn’t have a good book. Johnny Carson was on reruns and guest hosts. The Late, Late Show was one of hers and she hated it. She remembered how she had gotten the job.

She flopped her arms down helplessly on the covers. The bed squeaked. It was Lon Chaney’s bed, they said—senior, not junior. The Man with a Thousand Faces they called him in silent-movie days. They’d called her The Woman who Launched a Thousand Press Releases once. What imaginations the PR people had. They could make something out of nothing.

Michele sighed. She was something out of nothing. It wasn’t that she believed her press notices, it was that she thought they were the reality and she nothing.

Sleep came slowly, like a long George Stevens dissolve.

Dolly in. Michele Hartley asleep. Fade out.

Fade in.

Exterior; day; enormous parking lot. Cars parked so close together you couldn’t get in. As far as the eye could see—dusty car tops in every color. She wandered through the narrow passages between. Where was her car? She couldn’t find it. She had to find it. She had to get away. Her legs felt weak, but she went on.

She stopped to lean on a hood. It was cold; the hood was cold. Her hand left no mark in the dust. She staggered on, her knees still weaker. Within a few steps she could not walk. She fell, clutching her purse. The sun glinted off hundreds of bumpers and windshields. Nothing moved. She tried to cry for help but no sound came. She began to fall forward, into the dust, and she closed her eyes.

She fell.

And fell.

Her eyes popped open. She was still falling, only it was space. Long lumpy arms of rock arched this way and that, with stars and blackness beyond. On some of the arms of thick lumpy rock were little estates—mansions with gardens, fountains, columns, and carefully shaped shrubbery. There was a Greek temple. Below was a Roman villa. Over there was something that looked like Cher’s house. There was a castle above her, flying strange flags. Uh-oh. A hut over there, made of reeds and mud; log cabin; a yurt.

She fell.

The falling didn’t bother her. It was a dream; she knew it was a dream. Falling in dreams was nice. It meant something, like everything in a dream is supposed to mean something, but she didn’t care—not then, anyway.

She came down, light as a feather, on the lawn of a huge English estate. They set the dogs on her. She shrugged and shoved off the six-hundred-year-old lawn and floated up. She could see people down in the Roman villa. They sent a Rolls for her.

The Rolls turned gracefully in the sky and came at her with only a faint purring. The guy who drove Banacek around was driving. She got in and they drove down to the Roman villa where she got out, still clutching her purse. She seemed to have lost all her clothes somewhere, but the hosts pretended not to see.

Her hosts were David Niven and Deborah Kerr, at least at first, but somehow they became Myrna Loy and William Powell, who set Asta on her. She ran across the lawn, with the yapping dog in hot pursuit, until she came to the green hedge that bordered everything. She couldn’t find an opening, so she plunged through, scratching herself, and—

—fell into space.

There was no comforting maze of thick rock arms. That was all above her now. She was going to fall and fall until there was no more of her.

“My purse!” she cried. It had disappeared, too. Everything important was in the purse. She could not have lost her purse, not the purse.

Naked, she fell. She screamed, but there was no sound.

Dissolve.

“Hello, I’m your friend.”

It was a wood-paneled den. Brass lamps with green shades on a sturdy, boxy desk. Paintings guaranteed not to create trouble. Waxed wood. Books in leather bindings, ten and twelve in a set. On the desk a small bronze cannon, a pen set, a bottle of blood, a paperweight. The windows were masses of little diamonds set in thick wood. Very English, very reassuring, except that beyond the windows the view changed every time she looked.

New York skyline, country barn, Devil’s Tower with an oil refinery landing on it, trees and grass, 1920s street . . .

The man in the padded leather chair smiled at her. He was tall, handsome, conservatively dressed, a little silver at the temples, honor fraternity key on his watch chain, inch of crisp linen showing at the cuff—a young Walter Pidgeon, a contemporary Stewart Grainger, a future Roger Moore.

“Hello? You all right?”

“Uh, yes. Where am I?”

He smiled. White teeth, even tan, merry glint, nice lighting. “In your dream, of course.”

“I . . . uh . . . my dream?”

He smiled and nodded, templing his fingertips before his face and looking kindly at her.

“It seems, uh, so real.”

She didn’t look at the windows. No one commented on her being nude.

“Of course, that is because it is real. Here.” He smiled apologetically. “I hope you don’t mind if I intrude. You and I have some business to transact, you see.”

“See my manager.”

“No, I’m afraid you don’t understand, Miss Milkenberg.”

“Ms. Hartley,” she said, frowning.

He smiled. “I’m sorry, you never actually made it legal, you know. Sorry about that, but I’ll compromise, Ms. Milkenberg.” He touched some sheets of paper and shoved them across the polished top of the desk. “We don’t have much time, actually. You normally awaken around dawn, I believe—no doubt due to all those years of early calls.” He smiled again. “Such a fantastic career. Well, we’ve got to get on with this. Please read these and sign.”

“My agent and my manager are the ones who—”

“Ms. Milkenberg!” His voice cracked sharply and his smile disappeared. “I don’t have much time! I’m offering you a straightforward participation contract. Neither your agent nor your business manager can enter into this—nor can your stock broker, security guards, maids, press agent, or hairdresser. Now I do not want to be nasty, but I really do have to run along.”

Outside one window there was a huge face, enormous and hairy. She blinked. It was the South Seas, with waving palms.

“Mister, uh . . .”

“My name is not important. Sign.”

“I do not sign without my—”

“Sign!”

“No!” She glared back. The windows flickered with lightning, then rain; then she saw cliffs and a dark, surging sea.

He sat back, templing his fingers again. “Very well.” He shrugged. “I had hoped we could do this in a businesslike manner, Ms. Milkenberg.” He made a gesture of helplessness, then pressed a button.

A paneled door opened and in came a handsome man in a blue tunic and tights, wearing a red cape. He, too, had silver at his temples, but wore a small handsome mustache. His eyes were hypnotic and she found she could not move. He came to her, his eyes roving over her nudity; then he reached for her.

They did things in the dream, terrible things, and the view from the windows changed—volcanoes . . . rearing horses . . . flames . . . racing clouds.

Somewhere in the middle of it she realized she was getting no pleasure from it, that she would never again find pleasure in it, not until she signed. The creature behind the desk smiled and handed her the papers. She signed them on her hands and knees, then fell forward.

And fell . . .

And fell.

To Be Continued...Right Now
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