Killer Yarns

Waking Up

Jessica awoke in her own bed thinking her head was going to explode.  She rolled onto her back and cracked her eyes open.  Bright light was shining through the window and flooding through the cracks causing the pain in her head to intensify. What happened? God I feel like Hell.   She rolled away from the window hoping to relieve some of the pain.  She slowly opened her eyes, checking the pain level every bit of the way.  The room was spinning causing her to be nauseous.  She closed her eyes again.

She heard the bedroom door open and close again.  Then came light, sliding steps across the carpet coming toward her.  He started speaking and the bottom fell out of her stomach.    

“Hey sleepy head, how are you feeling?  I was really starting to get worried.”  Oh he sounded so sincere, but she knew better.  She remembered the last thing she saw was his hideous mouth; his teeth and eyes.  She shuddered.  “Come on Jess open your eyes. You know the way you were screaming in your sleep I thought someone was killing you.  Then I couldn’t wake you up no matter what I did.  That must have been one Hell of a nightmare.”

She must have fallen back to sleep, her head didn’t hurt nearly as much as it had.  She slowly opened her eyes again, finding the pain tolerable.  Based on the light in the room she guessed it was late afternoon.  He sat down on the bed next to her.  She rolled away, hoping he wouldn’t stop her.  He didn’t.  She sat up on the other side of the bed and stood, as quickly as her head would let her, and faced him. 

He looked perfectly normal.   No yellow changing eyes, no fangs and no yellow goo dripping from his mouth.  How can that be?  I saw it I know I did.  It wasn’t a dream; no dream could be that real.

“Are you okay?  You know you’re pretty pale.  How are you feeling?  Honestly?” Mike seemed so normal, so concerned.  Jessica just stood looking at him, incapable of gathering her thoughts. God! What is happening to me?  Why can’t I make sense of it all?  Last night you couldn’t move and today you can’t think. Get a hold of yourself girl! 

“You said I was screaming in my sleep?”  The only thing she could think to say. 

“Yes.  You weren’t moving around or anything, just screaming. I kept trying to wake you up but you were stubborn.  It took almost a half hour to get you to stop but even then you didn’t wake up”.

He really did sound convincing, he looked it too.  And it did sort of go along with all of the times she told herself to run but couldn’t get her body to work. Sort of.  But it didn’t feel like a dream. He looked so normal.

“Yeah, it was pretty bad.  Sorry that I scared you. I’m just going to go take an aspirin.” She said all of this on her way to the bathroom.  She had decided she should just take it one step at a time until she could figure out what had actually happened.  She walked into the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind her.  If he heard the lock I can just blame it on the “nightmare”.  She turned and looked at her reflection.  Staring back at her was a woman who looked like she had been sick.  She had dark circles under her eyes and she was very pale.  She turned her head to the side and took in a sharp breath.  There on her neck was the bruise where his thumb had dug into it when he tried to hurt her.  On the outside of one of the circles around her eyes she could see that part of it was a bruise where he had hit her.  It wasn’t a dream.  No, it wasn’t a dream at all.

“Are you okay Jess?”  She nearly jumped out of her skin.  I need to get away! I don’t know exactly what is happening but it is really bad. “Jessica?  Why aren’t you answering?  Are you okay?”

“Uh, yes; yes I’m fine.” She didn’t know exactly how she was going to get out of the house but it seemed like a good idea to just play along for now. “Sorry about the pause I was taking that aspirin”. That sounded normal, didn’t it?

She washed her face and brushed her hair, trying to make as much noise as possible so he would leave her alone.  “Jess, honey I have to go to work for a little while.  Can I get a goodbye kiss?”  She remembered the dripping goo and those fangs.  Kissing him was the last thing she wanted to do.  On the other hand, the sooner he left, the sooner she could leave.

She opened the door very slowly, knowing he was right on the other side.   She held her breath as the door passed her eyes……….

……To Be Continued

Join me next Friday morning for the next installment of Deadly Medicine.

Dawnda Schaefer

http://www.killeryarns.com/