Dreaming of a Nightmare

I woke up, still laying in the grass. I didn't have any dreams about him. I wanted to see him, I wanted him to comfort me. My night was blank. I had slept through the entire night and I felt well rested. It was kind of a scary thing. I hadn't been able to sleep an entire night since my mother died.

My mother died in a car accident when my father was driving her. I don't even know where they were going, but I know that my father drove into the middle of an intersection during a red light and the other drivers couldn't stop in time. My mother was the only one who died right on the scene. A few people were taken to the hospital in critical condition, but my father managed to walk away without a scratch. He caused it all and he was the only one who wasn't hurt. If there was really a God then my father would have died the most unpleasant and painful death. My grandmother used to tell me that life just wasn’t fair and that you had to focus on the good things in life, rather than the bad. I was only nine, and I had no mother and an alcoholic father. My grandmother is dead now too. I have no one. There is no good part of my life to focus on, and now I'd been raped? What the hell was I supposed to do?

I itched my chin and felt something crusty. I picked some off and looked at the brownish-red substance.

"Blood." I remembered. I stood up and my body started to ache. My legs were getting weak, like they couldn't hold me up, so I sat back down. I lost control and began to bawl my eyes out. My body shook and I tried to make myself still. I closed my eyes and mouth, but weeps kept tearing out. Tears flowed down my face. I was sort of glad that no one was there to see me break down. Some one had seen me before and they had a bad reaction. And by bad reaction, I mean they told me to shut the fuck up.

I looked up at the sky. The sun was high in the sky, so I guessed it was somewhere around noon. I laid in the grass on my back and just stared at the sky, watching the clouds go by. I didn't know what I was going to do, I didn't know how I was going to get home and I wasn't sure if I should go home to face my father, the kids at school or anyone. If I just kept going away from town, maybe I'd never have to see anyone of them again. But I knew that I had to go home. I was too weak to survive outside of my home.
I sat up and looked down the road. I could see a few houses in the direction of town. I heard something coming down the road and looked behind me. A trance port truck was slowly coming down the road. As the truck got closer I could see that a woman in her forties was driving it.

I can either sit here until I can walk, or I can hitchhike. She's going into town anyways, I thought. I got to my feet, waved my right arm above my head and stuck my left thumb out.

The woman began to slow down even more and she pulled over infront of me. I painfully walked to the driver's window and looked at her. She had red hair and a few strands of gray, her teeth were bleach white, and she smiled at me. She looked cleaner and less like a hill-billy than I imagined when I thought of truck drivers.

"Can I help ya?" she asked.

"Um, yes. If you wouldn't mind, I could use a ride into town. My legs hurt and I can barely walk."

"Okay, well, get in." She gestured to the passenger seat and unlocked the door. I walked around the front and got into the seat beside her. She started the truck again and drove back on the road. "Ya know, it's not safe to hitchhike, Hon. What's ya name?"

"Um..." I tensed up when she said that. "I'm Sam."

"That's a nice name. My name is Loraine. So, Sam, why on earth were ya out here by yaself?"

"Uh, I took a long walk, and didn't notice where I was going," I lied.

"Okay, don't tell me," she said, detecting my fib. "I suppose that ya live in town, right?"

"Uh, yea."

"Okay, where do ya live?"

"Why?" I said.

"Well, don't you want me to drop you off at your house?"

"Uh, no. I can walk from the Superstore."

"Nonsense. You said you couldn't walk."

"Fine. I live at 153 Walnut Road."

"Okay."

The rest of the ride was silent. I looked out the window as we passed pedestrians and other cars. I was thinking about what I would say to my father if he was home. Would he even be home? I thought. He probably wont even care if he is. I sighed and closed my eyes, hoping to forget everything in my life. Wishing that things were different.

Several minutes passed and Loraine pulled over and made the truck come to a stop. I looked out the window, at the lonely brick house that I had cried so many nights away in. The bricks had lost their colour in my eyes and they were nothing but grey.

"Hon, are ya okay?" Loraine said and put her gentle hand on my shoulder.

I looked back at her. Her concerned hazel eyes staring back at me. Could I tell her? I thought. Her eyes urged me to tell her the truth, but I didn't want to bore her with my whining. "Um.. yes. I'm just glad to finally be home." I said, trying to form a smile.

"Oh, well then I suppose I'd better deliver this load. Goodbye, Sam." She said turning back to the steering wheel.

I opened the door and stepped onto the side walk. "Bye." I said as I turned back to close the door. I watched as she drove back onto the road,
followed the other cars and disappeared. I sighed and turned back to my house. My father's car wasn't in the garage and the porch light that I had left on was still burning bright.

I walked up the four steps to the porch and stepped in front of the front door. I sighed as I took the key from under the mat and stuck it in the key hole. Before I turned the key the door pushed open. "Unlocked?" I mumbled to myself. I left the key in the hole and stepped past the door and into the entrance room. Mud was smeared across the tile floor, and foot prints were left behind. I looked ahead, past the doorframe that lead to the living room. Mud tracks continued into the living room and onto the carpet. I tip-toed into the living room. It was completely trashed. Muddy handprints were all along the walls, mud was staining the carpet, and chairs and tables had been toppled over. I walked slowly to where all the furniture had been placed. Chairs, the couch and tables were all aligned in a circle. I looked over the couch to see someone laying on the floor, sleeping in a ball, covered in mud. I stepped away quietly, trying not to wake him or her, and walked into the kitchen.

The kitchen was an even bigger mess. The kitchen table and chairs had been thrown across the room, everything that had been on the counters was on the floor, plates and cups had been smashed on the muddy floor, the fridge was open and the contents had been spilled onto the floor in front of it. I stepped closer to the phone, that was also laying in a puddle of mud and picked up the receiver. I quickly dialled 911, trying to ignore the loud beeps that the phone made when I pressed each number. I held the receiver to my ear and listened to someone picking up the phone. I told the man on the other line about the person in my house and told him where I lived.

"Someone will be right there," he said. I hung up the phone and heard a crack. My muscles tensed up and I looked around the room. I turned around and saw her in the doorway staring at me. She was wearing a ripped nightgown and she looked like she had been rolling in mud. Along with the mud in her hair, she had a patch of red, that looked like blood in her hair as well. I noticed that she was holding onto something in her left hand. She was holding a rusty switch-blade.

I stood completely still, frozen by fear and stared back at her dead eyes. She took a step towards me and held her knife to her chest. I flinched as she brought up the blade and stepped back into the counters. She jumped back when I moved and let out a high pitched screech that went on for several seconds. When the shrieking ended the woman inched closer to me, taking very small steps, still staring with her dead grey eyes at me.
I kneeled down slowly and slid my hand along the floor, trying to keep eye contact with the woman. My hand touched an apple, I put my palm over it and grasped it tightly.

The woman took a few more steps and she was about three feet from me. I prepared to run and threw the apple. It hit her eye and she cried out in pain.
I took off and ran towards the doorway. Just as I was passing the woman, I slipped in the mud on the floor and fell on my back.

I looked up at the woman standing over me. She kneeled over my body and raised her blade. I felt the cold metal penetrate my skin and screamed in pain. I screamed as I laid helplessly, while she continued to violently stabbed the blade into my stomach over and over again. My blood spilled out of my wounds and onto the floor, covering us both in my blood.

Leaving the blade my stomach, the woman stood up and looked around. I began to loose consciousness, but in the distance I could hear faint police sirens.