Time Of Dying

Charlee awoke screaming, yet another nightmare. She grabbed the old, worn, faded blue sweater that now had a permanent place next to her bed and wrapped herself up in it. She held the sweater close to her face and took a deep breath. It had belonged to her best friend, Damien, before he had shrunk it in the wash, and although it no longer smelled like him she found comfort in its new familiar smell.

Although the sweater could comfort her after a bad dream, it couldn’t keep them from coming. Nothing could. She had been having them nearly every night for a month. The content of each dream was different, but the ending was always the same: her death. Through these nightmares Charlee had become convinced that a freak accident would kill her by the time she turned twenty-one.

…

She hadn’t been able to fall back asleep, but this wasn’t a surprise because she never could. The lack of sleep was beginning to show on the young woman’s face. Dark circles had formed under her pale eyes, and a few wrinkles had begun to appear on her face.

“Damn Charlee, you look like a corpse!” Damien looked at his disheveled friend as she sat in a heap on her front step.

“Don’t say that…” She shivered at the thought. Nothing terrified her more than the idea of being a cold, dead body in a coffin.

“Sorry.” He helped her up to her feet and then started walking. Charlee followed him, all the time telling him of the gruesome details she dared to recall from her dream. Lately it was all she could talk about, and Damien was getting sick of it. He had promised to help her half to relieve her stress, and half to keep himself sane.

“Damien, where are we?” She looked around nervously at the seedy looking building. A faded window painting told her it was a psychic’s shop, but she was holding out hope that Damien had just taken a wrong turn.

“A guy at work told me about Katrina,” he grabbed Charlee’s wrist, “maybe she’ll be able to help you with your nightmares.” He pulled her into the old brick building.

“But its creepy in here!”

“If it helps, I’ll get a fortune with you.” He smiled encouragingly.

Charlee put on a brave face and nodded. The pair sat down at the psychic’s table and explained what they wanted.

Katrina nodded and asked them for personal items so she could read their fortunes accurately. Damien gave her his “lucky” Canadian quarter, a present for his last birthday from Charlee. Charlee reluctantly took of the old blue sweater and laid it on the table next to the quarter.

…

Charlee was shaken. She wasn’t sure what she had expected the psychic to say, but it wasn’t anything near what had come out of the woman’s bright red lips.

Damien would live to the ripe, old age of one-hundred and four. However, she could only assume that her future wasn’t so happy.

“I can’t see anything. It’s like your future hasn’t been determined yet.”

They stopped at a near-by fast food place and slipped quietly into one of the hard, plastic booths by the window while Damien unwrapped his cheeseburger.

“Well what does she know anyway? I’m sure you’ll be fine.” He reassured Charlee between large bites.

“Is it…any good?” Charlee scrunched her face up as she looked at his burger. She had intended to order something when they got there, but she was immediately struck with a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach when they entered the building. To her, there was something a bit off about the smell of the restaurant.

“Yeah,” he swallowed the last bite of burger, “You sure you didn’t want anything?”

She only nodded and got up.

…

Charlee sat on the couch in Damien’s old sweater, lethargically flipping through TV channels. Everything on TV seemed to be related to death. The phone rang and she slowly reached for it.

“Hello?”

“Honey, did you and Damien eat the same thing yesterday while you were out?” It was her mom.

“No…”

“Thank God! His mom called me a few minutes ago, they’ve been in the hospital all night. She thinks it was food poisoning.”

“He okay?”

“I’m not sure. His mom thinks so, but she can’t be for sure.”

“Poor Damien…”

Only minutes later a chain reaction was set off in Charlee’s mind. ”If I hadn’t gotten sick I could be in the hospital right now…and what if I died from food poisoning?! If not that, maybe electrocution?”

Every conceivable way of dying crossed her mind:
Choke, slip in the bathtub, drunk driver, trapped in a burning building, rats could eat her face.
Almost everything had turned against her by the end of the day.

Later that day, nearly supper time, Charlee’s mother called back.

“Mom?”

“Damien died. He got E Coli, his kidney failed, and he died. It took me half an hour to get his mom off the phone…nothing I said could console her.”

Charlee’s eyes widened and a few tears escaped them.

“Honey, I’m so sor-”

Charlee had hung up the phone before her mom could finish. Only one thing was on her mind: she was sure to die next.

She vowed to never leave her house again, she was sure to be safe in her house.

Eventually she stopped showering to avoid drowning. She started to smell, but didn’t care. She didn’t eat much food to avoid choking. She was nearly skeletal after a while, but she didn’t care. At least she was alive.

Years passed, everyone died. Her mother, her father, everyone she had grown to love eventually died. This only made her more paranoid about her life.

Despite the fact her house was empty she heard sounds like nails tapping on glass. She heard it everywhere in her house but her bedroom. Terrified of the sound she locked herself up in her room.

More years passed, and the house grew old with her. The yard was overgrown and every piece of shrubbery that was in it was an untamed mass of leaves covering the outside walls. Little children would always pass the house quickly in fear of the crazy old lady that supposedly lived in the house. As the children grew older they would dare each other to venture into the yard.

This continued on for the remainder of her life, and then she died. Charlee passed away at the age of one-hundred and four, she was completely alone.