Ashton woke with a start, feeling slightly disoriented, heart pounding like she had just finished running a marathon. The fire had died down to glowing embers, and the room seemed to have taken on an unnatural chill. A shiver ran up Ashton’s back and made the hairs on her neck stand up. She tried to remember what she had been dreaming that had caused her to jolt upright. She couldn’t remember anything, no matter how hard she tried. Maybe it was just a feeling. Whatever it was, it was giving her the creeps.
She looked at the clock and saw that it was almost 11:30 p.m. The time was important, she knew it. Why? What was going on? Ashton pulled the blanket a little tighter around her shoulders and huddled deeper into the corner of the couch. She knew she should get up and poke the embers and add a log to the dying fire, but for some reason could not seem to move from the couch.
One moment she didn’t want to move and the next she couldn’t. The right side of her back was on fire! She had never felt such an all-consuming pain. It felt like she had been stabbed by a blade that was red hot and coated with malice. Where had that thought come from? Where ever, she knew it was a true and correct description of something that had happened. But to who, and why was she aware of it?
She sat on the couch a while longer feeling the pain leave her body until it was only a memory. When she was able to breathe again, she rose dragging the blanket with her. She walked through the house, stumbling over its trailing edges, looking in every nook and cranny, trying to find a clue as to what was going on. Finding nothing, she retuned to the couch and sat down on the edge, gnawing on her fingernails and frowning as she tried to get a handle on what was making her so jumpy.
She went to the kitchen, made herself a cup of hot tea, and sipped it as she paced the wooden floor around the table. She set down her cup, extending her arms, rolling her shoulders and arching her back, trying to determine whether the pain she’d felt had been hers or something imagined. So far so good she figured, finding no body part that was causing her any pain.
She picked up her tea and continued pacing the length of the house over and over, trying to keep her mind open in case something else wanted to come to her. But nothing did.
Dawn was just breaking when she finally gave in to exhaustion, and settled onto the couch, once again, hoping to catch a nap for a few hours. Her eyes had just begun to feel heavy when something on the T V caught her attention.
The newscaster for the world news was saying something about a murder. Intrigued, and once again wide-awake, Ashton reached for the remote and turned the volume up.
“It was reported that last night, at about 11:30 pm, oil magnet Jared James was fatally wounded in a night club in Las Vegas. The club, the Snake Pit, was hosting its grand opening and James was one of the major investors in the property,” the handsome reporter with his charcoal grey suit and red tie told the die-hard viewers still unlucky enough to be awake at this hour. “Eyewitnesses are saying that the large crowd had gotten out of control, rushing the podium where James had been giving a speech. When security and the police arrived on the scene, the crowd’s mood had been ugly. It had taken law enforcement half an hour to disperse the crowd, and empty the club.” He paused for effect, a brief frown crossing his handsome face before continuing, “When they reached the podium, police found James on the floor, originally thinking he had been trampled by the crush of people. Further investigations revealed that James had been stabbed and disemboweled, presumably some time during the “riot”. His face grew pale as he revealed this detail, then regained it’s impartiality as he continued to read the story from the prompter, “A spokesperson for the Police refused to comment on whether any suspects have been detained in relation to the apparent slaying. According to an employee of the club, there was a malfunction in the surveillance system, thus hampering the investigation and providing no visual evidence of the incident. Many of the clubs occupants had left the scene before the crime was discovered, so police are trying to get the names of the people on the guest list for the evening. If anyone has information that could aid in this investigation, they are urged to contact the Las Vegas Police Department,” the reporter finished and turned to the next story on the prompter.
There had been a picture of Jared James covering the full TV screen at the beginning of the news report, and then in the upper left hand corner, as the reporter gave the details of the apparent murder. Ashton did not know why this story seemed so important to her, but it was. She did not know Jared James personally, but she knew who he was. She listened to the report in its entirety, before lowering the volume on the set once again. It dawned on her that the time of her back pain and the time of the alleged murder, were one in the same. Was there a connection? Why should there be? She was in Colorado and he had been in Vegas. Not even close. But something was going on here and Ashton felt like she had just come in during the middle of a show and was trying to catch up.
Once again she was off the couch, the blanket dragging around her feet as she paced the chilly wood floor. She walked and considered the happenings of the evening for another hour, before she finally gave up, crawled up the stairs, and fell into the soft comfort of the bed that she had been anticipating all evening. The sun was well up and the day had started but Ashton was exhausted and needed to shut down for a while. She closed her eyes and fell into an uneasy sleep.