62. The Dream Is Never the Same

I can see her in the distance.

She’s not coming to me like she used to before I told her once and for all to leave me and my dreams alone.

Yet I can still see Jocelyn sitting on the deck behind her house. Lounging in the sun. She’s wearing sunglasses, so I don’t know if she sees me, but I can see her.

I look up and see dark skies above and wonder how she’s getting sun, but then I realize that she’s miles away. I look down and see the ground drop, as if I’m standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon. But this is deeper and wider.

I call out to her, but she doesn’t hear me. I keep trying, but she doesn’t even know I’m here.

“Chris?” a voice calls from behind.

I look behind me and see an old cabin. It looks like a haunted house, worse than the abandoned place Marsh used as his secret hiding place. At one of the windows is a face that I first recognize as Lily. But I look again and see that it’s not Lily but some monster with snakes on her head and holes for her eyes.

“Time for din-din, my love,” she says, opening her mouth and letting out a snake that was lodged back down there.

I’m feeling a bit woozy now.

“This is what you always wanted, what you always dreamed about. Come back in so we can make some babies.”

Then she starts to scream, and that’s when I wake up.

I might have spent the next few moments thinking about how big of a loser I am to be dreaming weird and wacky dreams like that one, but I hear a sound that makes me get out of bed.

It’s the sound of an engine running.

I go downstairs and see that it’s around two in the morning. No Mom is to be found.

Well, not until I look outside and see her car running, lights still on.

I go outside and feel the cool breeze against my bare legs and arms. When I get to the driveway, I don’t see anybody in the car.

Then I open the door, and Mom spills out of it. I mean literally spills out onto the driveway.

I wonder what’s happening until I see a big wad of something white sticking out of the tailpipe.

“Mom!”

As I reach down to lift her up, I really honestly believe that my mom is dead.