The Dream...or Was it?

The Dream…or Was it?
         “The dream last night had seemed so real, but it was just a dream right?” Susan Sanders thought to herself as she was sitting at her kitchen table reminiscing about the past night and contemplating about whether or not she should go to school for the day. Then, as thoughts began to rush through her head, she realized, “Wow, that really was a freaky dream I had last night, could that really happen?”After sitting there dazed for several minutes thinking about her unusual dream, she finally decided to forget about it and grab a glass of orange juice. Being a senior in high school, Susan had skipped school several days already and it didn’t bother her to skip another day of, what seemed to her as, the never-ending school year. After all, she didn’t care for school much anymore and she felt fairly tired from staying out late with her friends the previous night.
“Ehh, screw it.” Susan said to herself after sipping the last drip of orange juice from her  cup.
         As she stood up to put her cup in the sink and scramble back to her bedroom for the rest of the day, she noticed something strange about her Siamese cat Sadie. Sadie was always a happy cat, purring and rubbing against people’s legs in hopes that they would bend down and give her a nice scratch on her pudgy belly. It wasn’t like that this time, however. Sadie was lying in the corner on her side, motionless, when normally she had always given Susan a warm greeting and hopped onto her lap while she was eating breakfast every morning before school. Susan, now a bit concerned about Sadie’s strange behavior, walked over to her, while a sense of curiosity filled her young, freckled face.
“Sadie…Sadie….what’s wrong?” Susan said to the cat in a quiet whisper as if she would respond back.
Sadie didn’t move.
“Sadie!” Susan yelled in a louder voice, giving the cat a slight nudge on her soft, white paw.
Sadie still didn’t move and by now Susan began to get a bit worried because Sadie meant the world to her. Susan could tell, by the movement coming from Sadie’s stomach area, that she was in fact breathing, but she didn’t understand why Sadie wouldn’t wake up.
         Susan began to think to herself for a moment, “This was totally what happened in my dream last night. Sadie went into a coma and I had to take her to the vet. Then…no, it’s not possible, how could Sadie go into a coma? She has to be caught up in a deep sleep.” She said, shaking her head as if what happened in her dream, was something that she didn’t want to think about.
Susan carefully clenched Sadie in her arms and placed her in her portable cage, while Sadie still did not show any signs of life other than a calm breathing pattern. Susan grabbed her coat and quickly put Sadie in the car, as she became more eager about determining why Sadie wouldn’t wake up. She hopped into the front seat of her old beater car and turned the key, but the car didn’t turn on. She tried again and still, nothing happened.
“Are you kidding me?!” Susan yelled in total frustration as she gave the steering wheel a hard punch with her fist.
Then, after trying several times, the car finally turned on with a loud rumble and a ticking noise that displayed its old age. She pulled out of her driveway and began to make her way to the veterinary clinic only a couple minutes from her house. As she came to a stop at a red light not far from the clinic, she noticed this large brown station wagon, with rust spots covering the entire front hood, pull up behind her. She looked into her mirror and, noticing a husky middle-aged man with long black hair, she quickly looked away. “This light better turn green fast.” She thought to herself after realizing how scary the man in the car looked. After making a few more turns, she was now very close to the veterinary clinic. In fact, she could see the sign from the road on which she was on. Susan took a quick glance into her rear view mirror and noticed that the same station wagon was still behind her, following closely.
“Oh my gosh, is he following me?!” She exclaimed with a fear-filled tone.
         She quickly turned into the clinic and pulled into a parking spot, hoping that the man would not pull into the sample place as her. She looked into her rear view mirror and didn’t see the man behind her anymore.
“Whew, thank gosh.” She said as the man appeared to be out of sight.
         Then, she looked to her right and practically flew through the roof of her car from the sight that made her jump in fear.
         “Get away  from me you creep!” She yelled as she saw the man staring intently at her.
At this point, Susan didn’t know what to do. If she got out of her car he might do something to her, but she really needed to get Sadie some help fast. Concerned about the safety of her and Sadie, she decided to pull away quickly in hopes that the man would eventually stop following her. “What would he want from me?” Susan thought to herself as she began to panic. She squealed out of the driveway leaving dark tire marks on the recently poured pavement and couldn’t help but notice the man do the same thing behind her. What was she going to do? How was she going to get away from this annoying creeper who she had never even saw before.
After making several turns and speeding through the narrow streets of the city trying to lose the man, she  couldn’t see him behind her anymore.
“Whew, I think I’ve lost him.” Susan said with a relieved tone.
Then she realized that maybe she should check on Sadie, who she had almost completely forgotten about after encountering such a frightening experience. Pulling to the side of the road, she turned off her car and unbuckled her seat belt to open Sadie’s cage in the seat next to her. As she reached over to grab the lever on the cage, she heard a knock on her driver door that startled her. She looked over and saw what she had dreaded. Peering into her car, it was the man who had been following her all this time, looking at her with an evil smile. Terrified and without saying a word, Susan grasped the ignition key to start the car, but nothing happened. She tried to turn it again, but still the car wouldn’t make any effort to turn on.
“Oh no.” Susan said as tears began to stream down her cheek.
She looked over at Sadie, who was still lying there, motionless.
(to be continued…)