In the dream, I’m floating through a tunnel that’s straight and narrow and round. It’s dark, with only the occasional electric light bulb illuminating the shaft. The sensation of being carried is just that. A sensation. Because when I manage to focus in on my feet, I can see that they’re actually dragging along a floor that’s not really a floor. Rather, the packed gravel bottom of a tunnel that’s been dug out by hand.
Of course, it comes to me, finally, that I’m not really dreaming. That I am actually moving through this tunnel, although not of my own power. Without having to see him, I know that The Skinner has got a hold of me. He’s discarded Sam’s face onto the basement floor, and now he has his arms wrapped under mine at the shoulders. He is the one doing the moving, my deadweight no
