Dark Dream-Nightmare (a short story)
Ocean tended to stay up late at night-working on the computer, reading, or watching television. There were a number of shows she enjoyed. She stayed up late because insomnia had plagued her for years, and her focus was sharper at night anyway. When she did sleep, dreams were a rare occurrence, and had been so for the last 7 years. The few that occurred she struggled to remember, unless they were impactful.
On this night she stayed up working as usual. The clock ticked steadily past midnight, then one. Around 2:30, she went to sleep-though it did not last long. This is what she dreamed.
Ocean was at home. The house was a two story beach house with the bottom closed in to form the first floor. It was painted white with a blue metal roof. The front door faced west, and the back door faced the pond to the east. The property was heavily wooded, with a chicken coop on the northwest side of the house, a garage to the west, a deck, and several cats, chickens, and two outdoor dogs. There was a closed in porch-called the sunroom-downstairs in which most of the cats stayed. The property immediately around the house was a two acre area covered in crab grass. A few ribbon flower and rose bushes were planted near the front door. The driveway winds out of site in the woods.
All the family members seem to be napping, which is strange considering it is mid-afternoon. Ocean is downstairs when a jeep pulls up. The dogs normally bark when visitors arrive, but they are silent. She wonders about that. There is some shouting and commotion-which Ocean goes to assess. She cracks open the steel storm door, to see three people-all platinum blond, all bloody, all appearing to be in their 20’s.
The first young male is sitting in the jeep with his hands and feet crossed as if tied-yet they are not tied-pleading for help. Blood is streaking his hair, coating his face, dripping from his cheeks and chin. His light blue eyes shine from underneath the bright red coating; blood soaking his white shirt from the chest to the waist and darkening his tan crew pants and tennis shoes.
The second person, a female, is similarly dressed, with shoulder length hair, the same blood pattern, but positioned standing freely halfway between the jeep and the house-staring silently; her piercing blue eyes cutting to the bone.
The third person, another male, stands with his back facing the house-at the corner of the house near the chicken coop-angled slightly towards and facing the jeep-seemingly frozen in place. The same blood pattern stained his skin and clothes, though slightly less. He stared with the same piercing ice-blue eyes at the man in the jeep.
Ocean steps briefly outside with her back pressed hard against the door, assessing the situation. He in the jeep continues to plead, and she decides that they are not a threat to each other, but may be a threat to her and her family. She slips back inside and bolts the steel door. She notices that no animals are in sight, and it is deathly silent. Outside of the pleading, the yard is undisturbed. Ocean calls the police as she climbs the stairs, reporting what she has seen, and that although she does not feel they are a threat to each other, she feels threatened-her family is threatened. As soon as she hangs up there is an ear-piercing scream, some shouting, an unsettling thud, and scrabbling at the door. Somehow, she knows the young woman is dead. Ocean runs down the stairs to block the door, but the man from the jeep easily starts unbolting the door from the outside. She struggles with the bolt, trying to keep the door shut and seal the bolt. She knew if he got inside, her whole family, and the cats in the sunroom, would be ruthlessly killed. Ocean is somehow aware all the cats are shut inside, even though she doesn’t actually see them. This is strange. Normally the cats are free to roam the yard until sundown.
As Ocean struggles with the door, her mother suddenly appears, a calming presence in the violent turmoil. “Get the shotgun.” Ocean instructs, which her mother does. The consequences of firing the shot gun inside the house are considered.
Although the door kept being scrabbled and banged against from the outside and repeatedly partly opened, he couldn’t seem to get it open enough to get inside. Ocean called the police once again, and told them she would kill the man if he got inside, and perhaps before then.
She killed and shot him several times in the dream-all in different ways-but he kept coming back to life; to scrabble and bang at the door. Not knowing whether the other man was alive or dead, a deep paranoia started to set in about where he was, and whether he was putting the rest of the family in danger. Ocean is a protective one, but has always had the inner struggle at the idea of killing people. She wasn’t sure how to deal with that, and if she would be able to handle that. However, in the dream-for the first time-she had no remorse of the killing the man. She wanted to kill him-to protect her family. That was another aspect to the gripping emotions that came with the dream. As the dream started to fade, several ending scenarios started playing themselves out in the backdrop of her imagination. She felt paralyzed where she lay, and tears started from her eyes as she awoke. It was now 4:30 a.m. Such fear was foreign to her, yet it was so real she felt the people were outside where she had seen them. Her skin was hot and damp, yet she felt icy cold. Mom had left the curtains open, as she usually did. When Ocean was finally able to move, she crept as quietly as possible around closing the curtains; her mind working in a frenzy at how to defend and prepare the house for such invaders. The cats bumped some object downtairs, which made her spine tingle. A car drove past, and she cried a little. She was completely wired for the next few hours-sleep terrified her, lest the dream should replay. However, exhaustion eventually got the best of her, and she slept soundly for a few hours. After she awoke, nervousness still engaged her thoughts, but the reality of a bad, lucid dream was being rationalized away.
