Rick McQuiston
Copyright © 2006
Neil hadn’t slept in three days. His eyes bulged, swollen and sore from the lack of rest and his joints ached as they never had before. His unkempt appearance was starting to frighten all who he encountered.
His girlfriend had already left him and what thin trace of a normal life that was left to him dangled on a fragile string; a string far too vulnerable to outside elements such as fear and depression.
His apartment reflected all the stereotypical signs of a downtrodden individual who was balancing on a tightrope above a chasm of despair. On the other end of the rope lay the future, full of promise and opportunity. Behind him lay the past, infested with episodes of loneliness and worry.
Most people invariably work their way towards the future. They plan for it, save for it, strive for it. They make attempts to restrain it by assigning numerous duties to it, by planning to fill it with activity and accomplishments. But not him. He had great difficulty looking at the future…partly because he did not see that he had one.
His dreams always held him back. They forced him to remain perched on the tightrope and occasionally shook the wire as if trying to knock him off into the abyss below.
His reason attempted to stave off the dreams, to filter them through a mesh of common sense and logic revealing only reality and peace of mind. But the nature of the dreams would usually rule out any chance at normalcy in his life. They would usually win the constant battle over his sanity.
He couldn’t really recall exactly when the dreams started. Trying to pin a precise time or even take a reasonable guess was like marking where a horizon began or ended. But he did realize with startling clarity one ominous fact about the dreams…they were all the same. Or at least they all began the same way.
The dream would start with him walking in some city minding his own business. Which city it was he could never be sure but the sidewalk that he was on always ran closely parallel to rows of huge buildings.
Some were dozens of stories high while others were no more than small retail shops. He never could read any of the signs which appeared as faded and blurred caricatures of names and addresses.
His fear of heights seemed to be magnified by the stone and glass structures which glared down at him like an adolescent boy gazing at a tadpole in a pond.
The scene as a whole had a bizarre feel to it, almost like he was in a Dali painting; twisted and deformed but in a somewhat relaxed way.
Doing his best to avoid looking up, he would continue on his way, shuffling along the ever increasing cracks and holes on the sidewalk and focusing his mind on other matters.
Up ahead, the street sign would come into view. He could never make out what it said due to the faded condition of the letters and the overall bad condition of the sign.
He would look up to see that the sun had just finished setting, leaving the streets vulnerable to the impending night. It would tighten its grip on the city rapidly, increasing the aura of fear which surrounded him and drained his desire to move on.
And then he would hear it. The same sound every time since he was a kid…the sound of a woman being attacked.
Her attractive voice was reduced to howls of pain and pleas for mercy. She was being assaulted down a dark alleyway on his left. Her cries were always accented by various noises of cans clanking and boxes being trampled.
He was sure there was only one man with the girl and this no doubt gave him the courage to investigate.
Even though his recollection of previous dreams warned him not to venture into the alley he nevertheless felt compelled to help the poor woman any way he could. His moral beliefs were too strong to ignore. His Mother had always imparted her strong religious faith to him which included her generous nature and her willingness to assist others in need no matter what the situation. He would feel responsible to some degree to intervene where he could.
He would call out to the girl in his deepest and most intimidating voice. It never worked but he always tried it nonetheless.
After a brief pause followed by feet shuffling, the attack on the girl would continue and he would be forced to move.
The alley would be dark, wet and stink of garbage. Various boxes, papers and discarded food containers would litter the ground, each a miniature breeding ground for filth. He would hesitate at the entrance, unsure of his ability to face the situation but nevertheless ready to confront the cause of it.
And then he would halt dead in his tracks as the silhouettes of the girl and her attacker would stop at that point…together.
They would look in his direction…together.
They would melt into each other, forming one grotesque abomination that would smoothly and effortlessly begin to flow towards him. He would still be able to hear the girl’s voice, although it would be distorted into a raspy drawl that seemed to be mocking him.
He would be frozen to the spot where he stood.
Why he would not be able to move, especially with such horror approaching, he was not sure. Perhaps because one cannot always control one’s actions in dreams. Or maybe because his subconscious was forcing him to face his face and overcome them. Or maybe he was just too scared to move. He usually conceded that it was a combination of all three, although the last reason was probably more responsible than the first two.
And then he would find himself in his bed or on the couch or at a friend’s house or wherever he happened to have fallen asleep. The recollections of the
dreams would be sharp and vivid, spurring disorientation in him about the difference between fantasy and reality.
He hadn’t slept in three days. The ever present hand of exhaustion loomed over him like a cold winter day.
He hadn’t slept in three days. But he knew that eventually, inevitably, fatigue would win and catapult him back into the realm of dreams whether he wanted it to or not.
But one thought gave him enough encouragement to continue to fight sleep…his memory of the last dream he’d had; it was three nights ago.
He shuddered when he thought of the disturbing fact that each subsequent dream he had, the thing in the alley had gotten closer to him before he would wake up. The last one he had, it was right in front of him. He knew the next time he dreamed, it would surely get to him.
He poured himself his eleventh cup of coffee and turned up the volume on the television as loud as it would go…and waited.
BACKGROUND
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Rick McQuiston is a 39 year-old father of two who loves to read,write and play drums. He has had 87 publications so far and is currently working on his second horror novella.
