The Sleepwalker

SLEEPWALKER

Quite often, sleepwalkers will rise out of bed in the dead of night and perform routine activities, like cooking or cleaning or even driving to work. On that particular night she took her husbands truck and drove down to the home of her in-laws, entered their kitchen and began cooking breakfast at one in the morning.

Her mother-in-law, awakened by the noise, burst into the kitchen and, upon seeing it was only her daughter and not an intruder, began to question her on what she was doing and why she was there. In reply she only muttered something unintelligible and returned to the task of dicing an onion with a carving knife

It is never a good idea to attempt to wake a sleepwalker, but this is what her mother took upon herself to do. First she shook her, with no effect, then she slapped her hard. In her dream state, it seemed to her that some dark, horrible force had emerged from the darkness to devour her alive. Screaming in terror, and still holding the knife, she lashed out at the creature.

The knife came down again and again, until the kitchen ran red with blood. Then satisfied she had driven the monster away, she turned away from her mother’s corpse and resumed making omelettes.