A Walk in the Dark

I'm just clocking out at the end of a work shift. It's after dark. I've stayed later than I was supposed to, because someone didn't do things that are supposed to be done on first shift, and I had to catch up so that it all didn't fall on the 3rd shifter. Instead of 8 hours, I've been there for 9. It's almost midnight.

I worked on "fast forward" all night, and I'm feeling it. My legs hurt. My back hurts. My ribs hurt, and I don't even know why. I just want to go home, take more than the recommended dosage of ibuprofen, and crawl into bed with three or four blankets over me.

The last heavy thing I did tonight was change one of the big BIBs. (BIB = Bag In Box. It's the syrup for one of the colas in the soda fountain.) Those things weigh 50 pounds, and I'm the only girl at work who can really handle them. The co-worker on shift with me can't even lift the darned things. She pointed out that it was empty, watched me lift it, flip it, and shove it into place, then finished attaching it while I went out to run the nozzle to get the air out of the hose so it wouldn't spit on our customers.

Now, I'm thinking that maybe I shouldn't have flipped it to turn it over. That was a bit much. The way my shoulders feel, I may have been overdoing it there... but it was fun to watch my co-worker's eyes widen when I did it. I made it look like less effort than it was. I guess it's my one weakness of ego - If I can't be cuter, I at least like being bigger and stronger than the other girls.

Once the time clock lets me out (and it takes about 5 times for it to read my print) I leave the back office, say goodbye to the night shifter, admonish him to greet everyone at the door with a smile (a robber is less likely to hit your store if he knows you're alert and you got a good look at his face as he walked in) and then head out to my van.

That's when I remember - I had to walk tonight. My van wouldn't start. It wouldn't even turn over. My husband was all ready at work, so there was nothing I could do. I walked here, and now I'm going to have to walk home.

It's only three blocks, but the way I feel, it might as well be three miles. Better start walking now, or it's only going to get worse.

I step out into the chilly air, zip up and put up my hood, and set out down the street back to my place. Every step is a battle. My body just doesn't want to move. Except when I have to cross the street, I am almost entirely focused on just putting one foot in front of the other without falling on my face. It seems like an eternity.

One block down, two more to go. I step up onto the curb, and continue trudging forward. The windows in the houses beside me are all darkened. Everyone else is all ready in bed. Even the yards are unlit. No one's porch lights are on. Shadows are starting to look creepy. I'm starting to think about all of the robberies we've had at neighborhood businesses this season. There haven't been muggings, but still... shadows are starting to look creepy.

I force my legs to work a little harder. The sooner I get home, the sooner I can rest. My thighs protest, and my hips sound off in agreement. I sound just like the crispy rice cereal I had for breakfast.

I still have 2 1/2 blocks to go. This sucks.

I'm so focused on my own movement, I barely notice and at first don't even register the movement beside a tall tree off to my right. I've passed it when I realize what I've ignored. I hear footsteps on the sidewalk behind me.

Crap. If I look back, I'm going to look paranoid. If I don't, I won't know who is behind me. I could change course, but there's no other route to my place. I'd end up walking a lot more, then having to loop around, and I don't think my legs can take that. Besides, this is the best lit part of the area. It's on a main street, not a side street.

The other walker seems to be matching my pace, right down to my uneven step. Until I started paying attention to the sound of those footsteps, I didn't even realize I was limping. Damn, I must look so vulnerable! Why didn't I call someone? I have friends who would have given me a ride.

Well, because it's rude to call people late at night, isn't it? I wasn't expecting this, so I didn't bother anyone.

I'm such a dumbass.

I feel like I'm being mocked. My stalker knows that I can hear those footsteps. When I pick up the pace, so does he. It's on. I might as well stop pretending to not know.

I turn and look, and am surprised to see that he's much further behind me than expected. I'm almost at the end of the second block, and he's still clear back by that tree. Maybe he's not following me after all. Maybe the weather is just affecting the acoustics, or something like that.

As the though goes through my head, my stalker lengthens his stride and begins to catch up. In the darkness, I can't see his face, or any other details, except that he's a big, tall guy with a coat that goes below the hips and has a hood, which he's wearing, casting a shadow over his face. On his feet are some kind of heavy soled boots. He's now advancing on me with a purpose. What is he going to do when he finds out I don't have any money?

Adrenalin shoots through my chest like fire. I turn and force my aching muscles to move. Each step is torture. I feel like I'm literally tearing my hips to shreds, but I'm running anyway. I try to scream, but I can't breathe. Behind me, I hear him catching up, but my body won't move any faster. I feel a sense of impending doom. I know this is going to hurt, but not how badly. My mind is racing, trying to figure a way out of it. I realize I'm going to have to fight.

As the thought hits me, so does he. One huge hand slams into my back, and I fall on my face, my hands, chin, my nose slamming into the pavement with a loud smacking sound. I roll over and try to kick him, but he's not there. Looking around wildly, I see him standing beyond my head. I still can't see his face. I scramble to get up, but he grabs the back of my coat and shoves me back down, face first into the sidewalk again. I'm no shortie - I'm 5' 9", but this guy makes me feel small. He's at least 7' tall, and has a good 40 pounds on me. I'm reduced to kicking and flailing uselessly, like a little kid. I feel my feet gain purchase on the sidewalk, and try to push away, but instead I feel the weight of my attacker on my back. He pushes me down, grabs my arms, and pins my hands to the ground beside my face.

I can feel his breath moving my hair. In my ear, a deep, but decidedly feminine voice says, "Do we have to do this every time?" And I realize that the chest pressed against my back is awfully soft for being a man's chest.

Oh, God. I'm being mugged by a 7 foot tall woman. I try to turn to get a look at her, but I can't move. I try to ask what she wants, but I can't breathe. My hands are pinned, and so are my legs, but the position she's in doesn't lend itself to any kind of action, unless she intends to start biting me, which she'd have done by now if that was the intention. My heart is pounding, and my whole body hurts. I figure she's waiting for me to signal surrender by not struggling any more.

I'm about to force myself to relax when I hear another voice from behind us. "You idiot. You're not going to get anything out of her that way. Cut it out." That one is male. I recognize it, but I can't remember from where. The sound of it scares the crap out of me, sending shivers through my entire body.

The shock of hearing that second voice, when I didn't even know he was there, woke me. It was dark, and my husband was in the room. He'd gotten up and gotten ready for work, and was about to leave. I was awake long enough for him to kiss me goodbye. I thought I'd get up, but it was only about four hours after I'd gotten to sleep. My head was heavy, and my body just didn't want to move. Even though the dream really freaked me out, I was so tired that I slipped back to sleep anyway. I drifted in and out for another two hours, until the light made sleep impossible. If it were dark, I could go back to sleep again right now.

I have really been feeling helpless lately, dealing with the crap I'm going through at work. This dream could be my mind's way of picking at that scab, but that doesn't explain the male voice and why it scared me so bad. I'm not sure what to think about that.

On a side note, this would never happen. My husband wouldn't let me walk home. If he came home from work and the van was still there, he'd come pick me up when my shift was over, not leave me to walk home in the dark. 

Mugged

It's been about two days since I had this one. I think it's weird enough for here, but I wanted to see how my "story" from it would go on Reddit's /r/nosleep forum first. I wrote it from the point of view of one of the dream characters. I like the way it turned out. As for the dream, I was kind of a watcher in this one. I saw it from the perspective of about 15 to 20 feet above the ground, behind the male character. I couldn't do anything to affect the actions taking place before me, no matter how badly I wanted to.


She's walking on the left side of the street. There are a lot of buildings. It looks like it used to be the good downtown area, but is now the poor, crime-ridden section of this city. Everything looks like it was once fancy, but now it's run-down, falling apart - buildings losing paint (or even bricks), cracks in the windows, holes boarded up, and so on. The sidewalk isn't in great shape, either, and the lighting is kind of iffy.

She really looks out of place here, and very vulnerable. She can't be more than twenty years old, and she doesn't look very tough. She's actually kind of small, and thin.

She's not dressed for this neighborhood, either. Her hair is too nicely styled, and her clothes are just plainly too nice. Her thin silky blouse hangs just right, and clings just right. Her skirt, though a bit short, looks like it belongs on someone in an office instead of someone walking on this street. Even her boots are inappropriate, pointy-toed little suede numbers with high heels, definitely not made to handle broken up concrete.

He steps out of the shadows about fifteen feet behind her, after she walks past the place where he was hiding. I didn't even see him until this moment. Watching her like a cat stalking a mouse, he glides forward and quietly matches her pace. He tails her for a few yards, then speeds up a bit to get closer. Quiet as he is, she seems to notice. She doesn't turn to look, just picks up her pace and holds her purse a little closer. I can feel that she is nervous, but she doesn't want to broadcast that. It occurs to me that she should forget about that concern, and just get the heck out of here.

I want to fix this. I know the guy is going to do some dastardly thing to her, definitely mug her, probably worse. He looks nasty, dirty, and mean.

I focus on getting down there to defend her, but it doesn't happen. I'm still floating.

I try to make fire come out of my hands and shoot at the stalker, but I can't. My hands won't even move.

I imagine the police pulling up.

They don't.

I mentally picture her turning around and beating the crap out of the guy with her purse.

She doesn't.

Instead, she speeds up again. He gets closer. I know she can hear him behind her.

Finally, she panics and runs. Her boots don't handle that at all, and she stumbles and trips down the street, really not moving any faster than before. The mugger tackles her, one hand over her mouth, and drags her into an alley. She fights back, kicking and squealing, but he's bigger and stronger. As soon as they're off of the street, he slams her to the ground and pins her with his body.

He asks what a spoiled little bitch like her "is even doing around here."

Instead of answering him, she suddenly and rapidly opens her mouth impossibly wide to reveal huge barracuda teeth, which she immediately sinks into the mugger's throat as her eyes turn deep red. I can hear the sound of the bite from my vantage point, almost like someone biting into a really juicy apple. It's so quick, I almost don't register what just happened. When I do, it's such a surprise that I jump.

That startled me awake. It was just a little after midnight. At first, I felt kind of vindicated... like the mugger got exactly what he deserved, given his intentions. Then, my mind worked on it a little, thinking what if that girl was a predator, and that was the plan the whole time? Maybe she used her appearance as bate to lure out a lowlife that no one would miss, then ate him. 
Since I couldn't sleep, I got up and wrote this post on /r/nosleep. I wasn't expecting anyone to notice or like it, because it was short. I was surprised to get some upvotes and responses. Anyway, maybe I'll try making fiction out of some of my other dreams. I kind of like that idea.

Burglar

When I was really little, my Aunt and Uncle took in a foster kid. He was much older than me. He was severely abused - so badly his growth was stunted - and he was very disturbed. Despite the abuse at home, when he turned 18, he made the choice to go back to his biological family.
One night, I had a bad dream that he broke into our house and was trying to kill my family. I was the only one awake, and had to chase him out of the house. It's been almost thirty years, but I still remember a couple of parts of the dream. There's a big hole in the middle, though.


I find him coming up the stairs to our bedrooms, and I know he means to kill us all in our sleep. He is surprised to see me awake.
I see him running up the stairs, and I grab my brother's baseball bat.

* * * * *

We are in the kitchen. My brother and my Mom are there, too. They are off to the side, watching. The foster kid has a gun. He shoots at me, but instead of a bullet hitting me, I am hit in the cheek by a bunch of little rubber pellets. I turn and scream at him to get out, and he looks scared. I scream it again, and he looks really spooked. I start stomping toward him, and he backs out the open door. He changes his mind when he gets outside, though, and grabs it. I slam it shut on his thumb, and lean on it to force it shut, even though he still outweighs me a little. I hear the bone in his thumb break, and he goes from trying to get in to trying to pull his thumb out of the door.

That is when I woke, but not the end of the story.
That morning, I heard my brother tell Mom he had "bad dreams" the night before. He thought that someone had tried to break into the house. I said I'd dreamed the same thing, and told them who. Mom shivered and looked at me wide-eyed when I said it, and asked if us both if we'd been up in the night. We nagged her until she admitted that she had been up, because after a nightmare about a burglar breaking in, she had gone downstairs and found the door open.

Even that is not the end, though.
On the floor in the kitchen, I found rubber pellets like the ones that hit me in the dream. On the door frame, just above the latch, I found what looked like dried blood. My Dad insisted that it was rust, but it was right where his thumb had been. Then, we discovered the soda bottles we'd been saving to recycle were gone. Someone had taken them. After checking, we found a few more small items taken from the garage.

A couple of weeks later, Dad caught the foster kid stealing more items from our garage. Apparently, he had to prove his loyalty to his "real" family by showing them that he'd stolen stuff from his foster family, and since my Uncle and Aunt lived across town, he hit our house instead. I was sent out of the room for the rest of that discussion.

After that, we never saw the foster kid again.

How aware are we of our loved ones' thoughts and feelings? Did my family share a common dream because we picked up on the presence of a familiar person in the house, or was it just one of us, and then the others picked up on that person? It could be that. Before he left, I was close to the foster kid. Though he was chronologically much older than me, mentally we were the same age.
Was my dream really a dream? Maybe he really saw me in the kitchen. Maybe I scared him away.
Or... maybe it was all just coincidence. Did three of the four people in the house all have similar dreams on a night when the thing we dreamed about really happened... all just by chance?