Without a Sound

I watched her sleep for a few minutes. I was full of envy for the peaceful way she breathed in and out, how still she was and how long I knew she would sleep. Felling dejected, I trudged to my room, stripped to my boxers, and got into my own bed.

That all-too-familiar emptiness immersed me like arctic water, and there was nothing I could do about it. I waited for it to settle in grimly. Then, of course, came the longing for someone to be next to me. I needed something to cork the bleeding hole in my heart, or at least patch it up. Finally, I slipped into a form of sleep.

I was back in the alley, but this time I was all alone. No, there was something else there, but it wasn’t exactly a person. Just a presence. Fog started to settle in all around me, and I couldn’t see, but I knew someone was watching me.

When the fog cleared, I saw it: the dead woman’s body. She was lying just how she had been before, except that now her eyes were open. They were stretched open as far as possible, and her blank stare was directed right at me. I shivered involuntarily.

Then her arm moved. I watched in horror as she started to drag herself towards me. Her dead eyes never left mine. I tried to get away, but I couldn’t move. She continued to get closer, leaving a trail of blood in her wake. “Mikey,” she growled in an unforgiving voice.

Suddenly she changed. Her face, eyes, hair, and body altered, and she was no longer caked in blood. She was now Ivy. I reached out to her, but she was clutching her neck and convulsing in pain. “Mikey!” she cried in surprise and panic, sounding exactly the same as the day I killed her.

Once again, she morphed into another woman. Strangely, the woman she became was no less beautiful than Ivy, although they didn’t look anything alike. This woman was smaller and had blonde hair.

She crawled up to my side. “Mikey,” she whispered tenderly in my ear. I recognized Charlotte’s voice. She leaned in closer and left a lingering kiss on my lips, leaving me wanting more. It had been too long since I had felt that.

Too soon, she threw herself away from me. A wound on her neck was spewing blood, and she collapsed, screaming in pain. I tried desperately to help her, but I couldn’t move.

“Mikey!” Charlotte’s voice woke me violently from my fast-paced, confusing, and somewhat disturbing nightmare. It took me a minute or two to figure out where I was. Everything had been a dream. I was still in my bed, but now I was covered in sweat.

At least I wasn’t crying this time. I guess my nightmare had been too terrifying to allow me time to start crying. I still remembered it vividly, so I focused on Charlotte’s face to try to erase the memory.

She was completely horrified. “Are you alright?” she asked, concern written all over her face. She still had one of her frail hands on my shoulder as if it could protect me from myself.

I sat up slowly, wiping sweat off my face. “Now I am,” I said in a gravely voice. “Sorry I woke you up.”

“It’s okay,” she assured me. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t getting killed in here. You were screaming, and then you stopped, so I got scared… but then you started again.”

I frowned. I didn’t often scream in my sleep. I always thought I took my nightly torture quietly, but I guess it was impossible to tell on my own. “Nope, just nightmares. I’ll try not to let them wake you up again.”

She was scowling, looking extremely frustrated. “Isn’t there a way to stop having nightmares?” she asked.

I sighed. “If there was, don’t you think I would’ve found it by now?” More gently, I added, “Go back to sleep. You’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

She nodded reluctantly, but she didn’t leave right away. First she squeezed my hand and said forcefully, “Sweet dreams.”

I smiled at her as she left, knowing her saying that wasn’t going to help anything. At least her small gesture reminded me of the part of my dream that was the best – or perhaps the worse, depending on how I looked at it. That was when she’d kissed me. I’d liked it. A lot. Not only that, but I had wanted her to kiss me more.

As I pondered why on earth I would dream about that, I gradually drifted into sleep again.

When I woke up, I knew I’d still had more nightmares, but I couldn’t specifically remember them. It was a little past midnight, so I still had a lot of time before I had to wake up Charlotte.

I spent that time cleaning the first floor of the house. I despised cleaning, but I’d already put if off for too long. Then I showered. After that, I made pancakes, which were starting to look and taste better the more I made them.

Finally I could wake Charlotte up. “Charlotte,” I said, stroking her hair. She got up much more quickly than she had the last time I’d tried to wake her up.

“Good morning,” she replied sleepily after looking out the window to see that time of day it was.

“Good morning,” I returned.

“Did you sleep well… after?” she asked, yawning.

I did my best to smile. “Not that badly,” I lied bravely. Even though I think she knew I was lying, she didn’t confront me about it.

After she took a shower and got ready to go, we ate the pancakes. The closer it got to the time Celia was going to pick her up, the more anxious I got. We hadn’t been far from each other since I made her leave, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.

When Celia finally did arrive, she observed me and Charlotte very carefully. I felt like she was looking for something. “Take good care of her,” I told Celia, handing her my credit card.

Celia grinned. “Of course. You know me!”

I raided my eyebrows at her.

She rolled her eyes. “Relax, okay? Charlotte will be fine.”

She better be, I thought, but I held my tongue. Celia was not the person to nag.

I caught Charlotte’s eye just before Celia dragged her out the door. She was scared, excited, and concerned about me all at the same time. I smiled at her encouragingly.

Then I was all alone, and the house was hollow, lonely, and darker without her. I set to the task of cleaning the second floor – the whole second floor.