The Halloween Project 2025 – Story 5: Dream Taker

Barry was only eight when the first dream came. It was lucid, clear, and alive as best an eight-year-old can recall. He wasn’t accustomed to nightmares, but this was definitely a humdinger. He never even called his mom or dad, even though he was terrified. He just couldn’t.

It was some kind of a creature. Not quite a person, not an animal. About the size of his dad. Barry thought the thing was actually in bed with him. Beneath the covers. Lying right alongside his body like his mom used to when he was little. Its breath was warm on Barry’s face and tightly closed eyes. It smelled of earth and berries and other things. More unpleasant things. It was the strangest dream Barry had ever experienced, and it seemed so, so real.

It whispered into Barry’s sleep, “I am the Dream Taker. I live in your dreams, and I eat your dreams. And finally, I will take you. When all your dreams are dust floating down a stream. I will be there to take your last breath, your last dream. And then I will take you.”

Barry tossed in his bed. This dream was too uncomfortable, too far outside the boundaries of what dreams should be. Somewhere inside his night he sensed malevolence emanating from darkness. He shook his head as if to throw off a threatening hornet. Back and forth, again and again, dissipating the Taker, trying to claim back his dream. But the Taker stayed and clung to him. Nothing roused Barry or brought him crying awake.

The next time, it was just a regular dream like a hundred others. He didn’t remember them in the morning. This one was about animals, just a field or maybe near a forest. Some deer and rabbits. Just a sliver of wakefulness reminded him that he had just watched Bambi.

The Taker said, “I like this one.” Barry’s eyes opened, there was nothing in his bed with him. “O.K.” Barry said and fell back asleep.

And so it went for 90 years. Not every night, not for weeks or even months, but eventually the Taker would appear. Cling to him, to his sleep. Only and forever in Barry’s dreams. It would lie next to him with almost a comforting embrace, despite a low, wafting smell of decay. It never grew angry or impatient. The voice always registered without decibels, caught somewhere between curse and magic. It was the Taker.

A nightmare might occasionally rise up in the darkest hours. A fearful cityscape with broken buildings, rotted plants, no people or signs of life. A sky darkened by slick, oily rain. And the Taker would crawl up out of the dark and claim his dream.

“O.K.” Barry would always agree.

And over the many decades, the dreams came and were taken. Dreams of his father from a long time ago, his children running and playing tag in the park, fellow students from elementary or high school who he had not passed a conscious remembrance of ever. Even stranger sleeping hallucinations, animals that had never existed nor ever would. Awkward mash-ups of people and places; the canals of Venice found in the Scottish Highlands, Disneyworld with no rides or attractions on the edge of the Grand Canyon, unknown people ten feet tall living with herds of mice, books flying and dancing and singing. If the Taker materialized, intrigued and intent, it might say, “Yes, this.” or “Again?” or even, “This is your dream?” And Barry always acquiesced.

“O.K.,” He would simply respond.

That night after the birthday celebration at the nursing home for his 98th trip around the sun, Barry stood at the bathroom mirror. Two glasses of wine had made him warm and funny. He actually told some stories to his gathered “friends” and caretakers. There was cake, ridiculous hats, and the wine. He looked at the face that returned to him, weathered, lined, and happy. He thought about the party, his long life, the journey that he had taken. Then he moved to the bedroom. Lying down he tucked the covers up around his neck and waited. Sleep and a dream came.

It was a dream about his wife, Delores. They had been married for 63 years when she passed 10 years ago. In the dream, she was making affogato, their wonderful shared dessert: vanilla ice cream, a pour of Amaretto di Saronna, and a shot of hot espresso over all.

The Taker came. It lay as always alongside Barry. The smell, just as profound, just as perverse.

”I like this one. Give it to me,” the Taker commanded. There was a protracted silence both in life and the dream. Barry, in his sleep, took a few deep breaths.

”No,” Barry countered.

The Taker recoiled and shrank. Its embrace cooled and seemed to wither. It attempted to speak in the low, inaudible voice it had used forever.

“Give it to me. I am very close now,” the Taker demanded.

”No,” Barry repeated firmly.

Shrinking to a size unknown to Barry, the Taker slowly diminished, its body, always as long as Barry, was now only a dissolute, dry husk, several inches away. It dried, desiccated, disappeared. Barry slid his eyes open.

”No. This dream I take with me,” Barry said softly and closed his eyes for the last time.