8

 

 

In my dream, I am no longer a cop. All of the cops have shadows for faces and they turn their backs on me, and I don’t mind.

I deserve it.

I am running. Great, leaping bounds, as if gravity were only able to get a tentative grasp on my body. My stomach flutters with each leap, and I expect to crash to the ground in a heap of splattered flesh. I’ve only seen a couple of jumpers in my life, not counting people that went off of bridges, and I know what happens when a body hits the ground. But that doesn’t happen to me. I merely spring forward again, and feel that sickening flutter, and worry again about crashing into the ground.

With each leap, gravity slowly takes hold, and soon, instead of leaps, I can only run. A fierce headwind pushes against me, slowing my progress. Even so, I can tell where I’m headed.

To that house.

In the real world, I’d never been back since that day. In my dreams, I go there all the time.

When I turn the corner, and run up to the gate of the chain link fence, I am suddenly exhausted. All of the effortless jumping and running to get me there crashes in on me. Sweat pours off my body, dripping to the dirty, cracked pavement below.

I reach for the metal gate, my hand wavering.

She’s upstairs! I shout to myself from somewhere outside the dream. Save her!

That makes me look up to the small, single pane window of the attic. It is blacked out, but is there a dim, shadowy outline behind it?

Of course there is.

I push open the gate and walk up the paved walkway. Weeds spring from the cracks, and as I approach, they grow. The movements are jerky, like time-lapse photography. At the same time the walkway extends before me, becoming ten yards longer.

I take two heavy steps forward, and the walkway moves ten more yards.

The weeds coil around my ankles.

I break free and take another step.

The walkway lengthens. The house is forty yards away now.

I pull another foot free, but the weeds immediately lash themselves around it again. I am stuck in place.

The world begins to melt.

A young girl screams.

And screams.

Her voice is like a bell, pealing and crying out. Not just in pain, but a pronouncement to the world.

Another scream, ringing out.

Another.