Nightmare

I was in the middle of a very deep and peaceful sleep, and I didn’t want to come out just yet. I tried to ignore the strings of consciousness interrupting me, but to no avail. The cold and the hard ground, and that annoying shifting light, were all too much for my mind not to process. So little by little, I reluctantly began to register my surroundings.

With a twitch of my fingers, I instantly recognized smooth blades of grass, so I definitely was outside somewhere on the ground. But where? I wasn’t about to open my comfortably sealed eyes yet to find out. The slight, chilly breeze brought with it the heavy smell of lawn and the mineral odor of cement to my nostrils. I’m outside the estate, I realized. If I wasn’t enjoying the numbness of the newly awake, I would have been horrified. Finally, and now with great caution, I opened my eyes.

The first thing I saw was a swarm of floating balls of light. They formed a sort of barrier around me on all sides, and above me. These balls gave off a bright white glow, but they provided no warmth, or even protection from the chill moving through the air. Like living things, they pulsated side to side, backward, and forward; as if they were restless and couldn’t hold still, or they all wanted to see me from every angle.

A dream, I thought, but it’s so vivid. I reached out my right hand to touch an orb, and they all suddenly retreated upward into the sky.

They left me alone, lying straight on my back. I looked around me and saw that I was on a large expanse of lawn. There was a swing set and playground in the distance to my left and small houses clustered to my right. I was in the park! I slowly raised myself to my feet and glanced up at the sky; it was still full of orbs, and they were starting to scare me.

“Maybe this isn’t a dream,” I said aloud, trying to cut into the silence. I shivered. “Whatever it is, I’m going home.” I made myself smile as I took the first steps toward my home, the Bohman Estate at the other end of the road. As I glanced up once again, the orbs were moving through the sky in the same direction as me. They were following me!

I wanted to start running, but that might make the orbs realize I was trying to escape, so I forced my legs with painful effort to move in a quick, but casual pace. I was trying to steady my breath and ignore the tension in my legs, so I didn’t notice how strange it was when, as I was approaching the houses, the light from a lamppost left its place and joined the other orbs in the sky. I still felt numb, so I let this dream do its own thing. That is, until I realized lights from all over town were floating into the sky. So many orbs were joining the cluster that they were drowning out the darkness of the night.

The legion of orbs frightened me, but it was nothing next what I was walking into. With a flurry of motion, animals started streaming into the street from between the houses. Before I knew it, they had me surrounded. I looked into the feral faces of cats, and dogs, and rats – and exotic creatures, like large snakes, a tiger, and a few monkeys. Their combined smell was almost enough to make me gag, the animals that had fur wore it in ragged clumps, and all bore sharp, yellow teeth. They encircled me, at least five deep in every direction, and stared at me with their hate-filled, frenzied eyes. I probably wouldn’t have noticed if my own legs weren’t so tense to run, but every creature’s muscles twitched in preparation to attack.

I held as still as my now adrenaline pumped body would let me, hoping with all intensity the creatures would leave me alone; that they might, for some fluke reason, turn around and leave. I tried not to stare straight into their eyes, knowing they would take that as a challenge, but I noticed, little by little, as they glanced up into the sky toward the orbs of light. Their muscles relaxed slightly as intense interest replaced their ferocity. I moved my head slowly upward, and turned my own gaze in the same direction.

The orbs had filled the entire sky, except for a space directly above us, around which they seemed to be swarming. I almost dismissed this phenomenon in favor of my fear the feral creatures were going to rip me to shreds, but just as I was about to look away, something caught my eye. The dark patch of sky was moving around, sprouting limbs and a head. Haltingly, sickeningly, the form of a man emerged in the darkness. He was both man and lizard, standing upright, surveying his surroundings with a human’s eyes, and smirking with a human’s mouth, but also crouched slightly forward, balancing the weight of the enormous tail behind him. His head came to a ridge at the top, rather than hands at the end of his arms, he had claws. I couldn’t tell, because darkness and light composed him, but I was sure he had scales in place of skin. Most horrifying of all was what he held clutched in his many-jointed claws: a strange sort of doll.

Even though it was so high above me, I could somehow see the doll with perfect clarity; I could even smell the thick scent of wax wafting down from it. It looked like a clump of wax with a potato stuck to the top, for a head, and sticks stuck in for the arms and legs. It was wearing a raggedy sort of shirt that I instantly recognized as a piece of a shirt I used to own! The shirt had been dark blue with swirls of light blue and a bearded turtle on the front. The doll’s portion showed only one-half of the turtle’s face. The doll’s hair, made of yellow rags, hung over its ears in imitation of my own hairdo. My blue eyes were painted onto its face, along with the likeness of my stubby nose. The mouth was frowning.

Finally, the lizard/man met my gaze, as if he’d just noticed me. His eyes bored into me, searching my soul for signs of weakness. The cruel eyes made me feel small, and I looked back down toward the animals surrounding me. I felt silent laughter all around me. These animals and the lizard/man had cornered their prey; it was weak, and they were pleased to find it so. The animals, the orbs of light, the monster in the sky, they were all working together to destroy me. The animals became more tense again, excitement shining in their eyes, as they noticed my body sag with discouragement.

Then, I saw an exact replica of the lizard/man’s doll in one of the monkeys’ hands; exact, except it was translucent, misty looking. The monkey was watching me with particular interest. Its eyes gleamed with intelligence along with excitement. When it realized I was looking straight at it, it seemed to falter. Something in its eyes seemed to apologize.

It was in this moment I started to register this just couldn’t be a dream. I had taken it all in with an observer’s mindset, but my heart started pounding and my breath started coming with difficulty as I realized I was part of this; it was happening to me. A spark of defiance rose up from somewhere within. I was not some game for them to hunt! These apparitions were mistaken if they thought they had already won! I screamed savagely and ran at the monkey. Before my rage took me over completely, I noticed, with an extreme sense of satisfaction, the monkey’s expression changed from pity to terror. It turned and ran, as did all the other animals. They fled before my wrath, and I chased them back in the direction of the park.

I felt empowered, justified, as the animals stampeded away from me. The orbs of light and the terrible lizard/man were gone now; in a small flash of uncontrolled action, I had turned the tables, taken control of the entire situation. Now I was the hunter!

I was so blind in my emotion that I didn’t see the lone brick sitting in the road. I was reaching out, almost touching a dog’s tail, ready to grab it, and do battle with it, when the heavy brick knocked my foot out of control. I fell with a sharp, scraping pain to a heap against the rough pavement, snarling with frustration.

I lay still for a moment, looking at the blood oozing from my right leg and arm. Then I realized the animals would smell the blood and attack me. With great effort, I forced myself to stand up and face them. They had all stopped in a gaggle ahead of me, but they weren’t turning around. When I stood up, they started running away again, only this time much more slowly.

In a sudden wave of exhaustion, I realized I didn’t want to chase them down. My brain took back the helm and I realized it would be stupid anyway. Aside from it being dangerous to fight creatures like tigers and large snakes, there was also something odd about their behavior. I could swear they actually wanted me to chase them. That was the only way to explain not attacking me when I was down, and running slower once I had an injury.

I turned around and started running toward home. It was like a painting crumbling around me. The darkness disintegrated from the sky, replaced once again by the orbs of light. I felt suddenly thrust back into the clutches of my nightmare, and I had to stop short as the darkness in front of me solidified into the seven-foot tall shape of the lizard man. As I had guessed, dark green scales covered his skin. He gave off the sharp odor of decay, which was so overpowering it stopped my thoughts, making everything foggy and unclear.

I hadn’t spoken through the entire ordeal, but I just couldn’t take it anymore. “What do you want with me?” I screamed.

He bore his dagger-like teeth in a grin, clearly enjoying the power he wielded over me. “I only live to fulfill my purpose. I don’t want anything with you, Ben.” His voice was not a voice per say, it was a collection of sounds, low and groaning, that resembled something of the purr of a cat.

I tried to force my muddled mind to process the meaning of his words. I knew he was saying something significant, but the odor kept distraction my thoughts. I felt hot tears come to my eyes, threatening to expose my weakness and frustration.

The animals returned, circling slowly around me once again. Just as I was about to give up, I noticed a look of worry in the doll-bearing monkey’s eyes. In a glance, I saw that all the animals seemed unsure. A last fragment of resistance swelled up within me, and I looked directly into the lizard/man’s eyes.

“I don’t care what’s going on,” I proclaimed. “I want to go home.”

He laughed, an ugly, scraping sound. “You can go home,” he said derisively, “when we’re done with you.” With a sweeping gesture toward the animals, he started to grow. The animals started running around in circles, braying, hissing, and barking. They ran so fast that they created dizzying blurs of motion behind them. The lizard/man rose from their midst, huge and threatening, spittle flying from his fangs as he laughed.

The sensation they created is hard to describe. It was as if these apparitions lifted a part of my energy away from me, leaving me slightly empty, and suddenly very weak. It hit me that I couldn’t win; I couldn’t escape this power. I fell under the violent noise the lizard/man was emitting. I closed my eyes against the nauseating movement of the animals, but through my eyelids I still saw the course they charted. However, through my eyelids, they weren’t animals. Their movement seemed to slow, and as their forms took on more definite shapes, they were the shapes of humans. I opened my eyes in surprise, but the blurred animals remained as they had been. I waited for them to close in and kill me – or whatever they planned to do – but they just kept running around. Fleetingly I wondered if their entire purpose was to feed on my fear; the lizard/man certainly seemed satiated by watching me grovel on the ground.

Then I realized the lizard/man had stopped laughing. He was staring at the doll in his hands; the rag hair and the twig limbs had fallen off and there was a deep gash in the shirt and wax body. I felt a thrill of excitement course through me; he was having a problem!

Something like a whisper called to me in my mind. “Ben, you are safe. These creatures cannot harm you.”

I looked beyond the lizard/man in the direction the whisper seemed to be coming from. It was a deer, a creamy brown-colored doe with the tight flesh and ruffled fur of animal age. She was surrounded by faint tear-shaped lights, like small candles, which trailed behind her and beyond my range of sight. They threw soft shadows across the doe, making her look somehow insubstantial and effervescent at the same time. She was so like the other animals, but looking at her recalled memories; she was different. My nose recalled the smell of fried fish and crisp herbs; my ears recalled the lazy call of the wind. Peace, and that missing part of my energy, returned, enfolding me with warmth. The other animals stopped their running, watching me cautiously. For the first time the lizard/man looked on me with hate in his eyes; he was defeated.

In a daze, I stood up and stumbled toward the deer. The animals backed away, and the lizard/man faded into the darkness. When I reached the glow of the candle-like lights, I glanced back toward my attackers. The street was empty.

The deer turned around and we started following the candle trail, in the direction of my house. I looked on my neighborhood with a new perspective. Never had the houses seemed so menacing; I was certain now dark things were going on in those dingy little homes. My neighbors’ faces loomed in my mind, taking on ominous characteristics I’d never noticed before.

I leaned closer to the doe, trying to take comfort in her safe presence. She carried a familiarity I couldn’t define; something like a memory hovered at the edge of my mind, something incredibly integral to my life, but that I couldn’t recall. She was powerful and calm; a guardian for me to rely on.

When we reached the end of the candle trail at the spiked stone wall and heavy metal gate that marked my family’s property, the doe walked me to the gate and waited for me to pull out my key and unlock it. I slipped through and re-locked it. From the other side, she raised her head and looked directly in my eyes. I felt an overwhelming need to remember, but at my struggle the doe conveyed a different emotion; one last, powerful dose of peace and she faded away.

I turned and started my trek up the path to the house. Never had the dark, overgrown foliage that lined this walk seemed so welcoming. Never had the looming monstrosity of a mansion, with its many sinister wings, its gray brick, and forever-dark windows, seemed more like home.

As I approached the porch, the front door burst open and Aunt Teresa emerged, wearing a furry pink bathrobe, her long dark hair in a matted wild lump on her head. She glared as she assessed the bloody gashes on my arm and leg. “What happened, Ben?” she demanded. She rushed forward to support me on my way inside.

I leaned into her matronly form and almost collapsed. I was so tired. “There was a lizard man, and lights, and rats…” I babbled. I sensed that somewhere deep down I was frustrated with my own incoherence, but I was too tired to care.

Aunt Teresa led me through the entrance hall and into the lounge. She glanced around at all couches scattered across the room, and decided to lead me to one near a fireplace. She got me situated on the couch and started a fire. “Do you need another pillow?” she asked.

I shook my head, but she walked off to another couch and brought back a plush pink pillow anyway. “Your mom’s going to want to hear about his,” she warned, tucking the pillow under my head. “What were you thinking going outside the estate without permission?”

I was almost unconscious, but I managed one last explanation before I fell asleep: “it was the lizard man.”