Nightmares
of Nightmares
by
John
J. Dillon
Dan
jolted awake, breathing hard, shaking the bed. Cathy sat up in the dim light of
early dawn and saw him, half covered, yank his arms to his chest, as if protecting
himself from a violent attack. She put a hand on his knotted face, felt the
heat on his skin, the tension in his muscles. Again.
“Hon,”
she said. “You’re okay.”
Dan
kept his eyes averted from her. “Cath?” he said.
“It’s
me. Don’t worry. It was just another one of those nightmares. It can’t hurt
you.”
Gradually
he turned, saw it was her, then slumped back down, reassured. He grabbed her
hand. “Yes, a nightmare,” he rasped. “But a vision too. Crocodiles are everywhere.
I’m telling you, almost everyone’s a crocodile hiding beneath their human skin.
We’re surrounded by crocodiles.”
Cathy
felt the familiar dread surge through every cell in her bloodstream but managed
to stay calm. “Dan, no. There’re no crocodiles, lizards, whatever, hiding inside
anyone.” She attempted a patient, comforting smile. “You’re safe.”
“You’ve
got to believe me. They want to kill us and take over.” His hand clenched tighter.
“We don’t have much time. They’re fearless. We have to kill them first. All of
them—”
“Please,
stop. What you’re saying isn’t real. You’ve been working way too hard, under terrible
pressure at the firm. That’s what’s causing these nightmares. You know it’s true.”
“Oh,
they’re real, Cath,” he said quietly. “So keep your voice down too. You never
know where they’re lurking.”
Cathy
felt her chest become ice. “Honey, they’re not real. Just think for a minute. You
haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in years. You come home at dawn, sack out
for a few hours then drag yourself back to work. No one could take the endless
deadlines, the crazy clients, the shot nerves. We’ve got to change the cycle.”
“I’ve
seen what we’re up against, what’s hiding beneath the surface of everyday life.
We, the human race, have got to fight back before it’s too late.”
Cathy
shifted, drew close with a warm embrace. The clock on the night table read 6:47,
only two hours since Dan had crawled into bed. Fatigue felt like a rusty nail
through her skull. “I’m begging, let’s go
far away, to the Mediterranean or somewhere. We could recharge, get well. We’ve
never had a real vacation, you and me.”
“Vacation?”
Dan recoiled as if she’d plunged a knife in him. “We’re in mortal danger. No
vacation’s going to help us. Crocodiles will be there too. They’ll be watching,
plotting to kill us, then jump out and tear us apart, eat us. We’ve got to band
together. We can’t run away to some beach and drink wine all day.”
“...And
when we get back,” she said, doing her best to continue with an even voice, “you
can take a leave. My job at the college will carry us until you’re better.”
He
looked at her with an inhuman doubt distorting his face. “Better? You think I’m
crazy, don’t you? You want me to go back to seeing that crackpot shrink.”
“Dan,
no, you’re not crazy. It’s that damn stress factory that’s doing this.” She
pressed her face into his chest, lowered her voice to a whisper. “Let’s end
this starting today. It’s Saturday morning, you don’t have to drag yourself back
to that office. Call in sick later. Sleep all day if you want. Then we’ll talk,
plan together for a healthy life. I want to see the old Dan back, the
happy-go-lucky guy I married. We’ll get you there. Okay?”
Dan
gazed with brutal exhaustion. Eventually the pill he’d taken earlier reasserted
its narco-authority over him and his eyes dulled, trance-like, then closed. He seemed
a thousand planets away.
Taking
his hand, Cathy watched the morning sunlight grow stronger through the curtains,
knowing this couldn’t go on. They had to get away from the evil boiler room the
company had become. Soon, one, or both, of them would snap for good. She dozed off,
but after a while roused herself, too worried to sleep soundly. She dressed, slipped
downstairs into the kitchen. She sat at the table and watched the swaying trees,
the birds, the secluded neighborhood outside the windows, tried to lose herself
in the serene beauty. Should she call Dr. Ector? But what could he really do?
Dan despised him.
She
rested her head on the table in a daze of anxiety.
Around
noon the doorbell rang, jarring her from the fog.
She
trudged to the front door, checked through the security peek and saw a tall man
in khaki standing on the front porch holding a large package. For Dan? She
opened the door a crack.
Grinning,
the delivery man held the box out. “Smokey’s Wings.”
“I
didn’t order any wings. You have the wrong house.”
The
delivery man looked confused, began to fumble in his pocket for the receipt, balancing
the big box in one hand.
In
that moment, while the man was digging, Cathy caught the strong intoxicating fumes
of roasted chicken, barbeque sauce, and hot garlicky bread, felt how deeply hungry
she was, a craving from the abyss of her stomach like a chain saw from hell, chewing
a path up her esophagus to hit the back of her throat where her tongue seemed
to explode. She lunged out the door in a fury at the box, grabbed it in her
mouth and ground down through the cardboard, tasting the mash of rich food. The
man released the box, stumbled backward as Cathy hooked it with both hands and
tore with her teeth, ripped it open, splattering wings onto the porch concrete.
She dropped to her hands and knees, scooped the slopped food into her snapping
jaws.
She
looked up at the man standing away from her, staring. “What the hell are you
looking at, you moron,” she said. “Screw off. I said you’ve got the wrong
address.”
The
man fell to his belly, pushed forward with all fours, slithered toward her with
a powerful back and forth swaying lope, sucked up a stray wing from the
concrete. Cathy realized he was an impressive male. A large, impressive male.
“We’ll
work together,” he said. “Wings aren’t much of a meal. Is there more food in
the house?”
She
looked back at the open door, the hallway, the stairs beyond leading up,
considered new priorities. “Yeah, there is.”
“Excellent,”
he said, dragged himself forward a few feet then stopped abruptly. He turned an
odd queasy gaze to her. “Truthfully,” he said, “my nerves are in shreds. I’d
rather you go first. I’ve been having terrible nightmares about enraged hippos hiding
among us...”
