Nightmares!

omnipotent_gimp

It took me awhile to choose one, because over the years I have had several doozies. Maybe if this thread goes on for awhile I will discuss a couple of others, or maybe in another nightmare thread. But I ended up choosing one that I had when I was a junior in high school (1985-86), because it was one of the most terrifying, and because it lends itself to your current endeavor.

My best friend at the time was killed in a horrible car accident. Basically, he was driving drunk after leaving a party with two other friends of mine. I realized they were leaving and went out to stop Rob from driving because I knew how drunk he was. But by the time I got out, they were all already in Rob's car (an old 1972 VW Beetle). I ran out and stood behind his car to keep him from backing out of the driveway, so he stopped and asked WTF. I told him he was too drunk and shouldn't be driving. I also said they should just get in my car and let me drive them into town for food because I had just arrived after being at work and was not drunk at all.

Well, one of the jackasses in the car with him (who was also drunk) was in the back seat yelling "Go ahead Rob, let's go man, just go." So with all the racket that drunken shithead was making, Rob wasn't even listening to me, he just said "It's cool man, I'm fine," and starts pulling out again. I yelled at him, but he couldn't hear me over the asshole's cacophony. Somehow I just KNEW something was wrong with letting him drive. That was the only time in my life I have ever tried so hard to convince someone they shouldn't drive.

So they shoulda been back in less than an hour. They weren't. I was edgy as hell because I knew something was wrong. So I got in my car and headed toward town. I was listening to Pink Floyd's The Final Cut. Just as I came around one fo the bad curves in the road to town, the song "One of the Few" started up. I saw the lights of the ambulance and police cars as I heard "When you're one of the few to land on your feet, what do you do to make ends meet?" And as I rolled slowly up to the accident site, I saw them loading Rob's corpse under a sheet into the back of the meatwagon, and the song finished "Make 'em laugh, make 'em cry, make 'em lay down and die..." (it's a very short song).

So I got out and talked to the cops and eventually they filled me in on the details. Rob had been driving too fast for the curves in his shitty little Beetle and had lost control. His car left the road at an oblique angle and slammed into a tree on the driver's side at about 50mph. His wheels were about 3 feet off the ground when he hit. The tree had folded the car nearly in half at the driver's door, and Rob was killed on impact. The other two guys who were with them only suffered minor injuries, including the loudmouth asshole who wouldn't shut up long enough to let me talk Rob out of driving.

Anyway, after I left the scene, I went back to the party and let everyone know what happened, then I went home. I was very upset, as you can imagine, and now the stage is set for the nightmare which I had that very night...

In the town where I'm from (just like in almost any other town), there is this old stone church which sits about a half mile off the main road, which was rumored to be a Satanists' church. You have to take a dirt road to get to it, and it is surrounded by alot of woods. Well, in this dream, a couple of friends and I are going to visit this girl we went to school with named Leslie Kennedy (another weird thing here is that Leslie died of cancer a couple of years after I had this dream, and no one knew she had it at the time...furthermore, I have no idea why she was in my dream, I barely knew her and had never dreamt of her before or after). I do not know why we are supposed to be going there, only that we are. In the dream (but not in reality), her house is located down that old dirt road about a half mile beyond the stone church. So we are driving down the dirt road, and the day is dark and grey. It is near twilight when lights are being turned on in houses and stuff. As we drive past the church one of my friends mentions how creepy it is and how it is supposed to be a satanist church and all. Well, it IS creepy. The grey light feels heavy and something feels wrong, but we keep going past.

We finally roll up at Leslie's house. We can see that her light is on, and though the screen door is closed, the main door is standing open. We walk up to the screen door and I knock. No answer. I half-shout "Leslie!"... Nothing. So I pull the screen door open and step inside. At this point, I do not realize it but my friends are no longer with me. The screen door slams shut behind me on its creaky spring as I examine the room before me.

The lights are on, but nobody's home. Or so it would seem. I walk over to her bed whcih is slightly mussed as if someone had been sitting on it a moment before, and there is a cigarette still burning in the ashtray. There, lying on the mussed bedspread is the telephone receiver, off the hook. I am very puzzled at this point and reach out to pick up the receiver. As I bring it to my ear, it feels like there is an electrical pulse going through it, and I hear wet, raspy, large breathing on the other end. Then I hear this voice. It is like the voice of Satan himself, thickly layered with a raspy chorus of primal hate and evil.

This voice seems to penetrate every fiber of my being as it growls "I GOT YOUR FRIEND, AND NOW I'M GOING TO TAKE YOU TOO!"

As the last word is still reverberating, I hear the screen door EXPLODING off its hinges behind me, and I can FEEL the hugeness of this presence even before I turn around. As my shocked eyes turn to face the door, I see this 8 foot tall werewolf-like creature bounding through it. It has long, shaggy, dingy hair, all matted and grey mixed with dirty white. Its jaws are stretching wide almost like the big bad wolf in the Bugs Bunny cartoon with LIttle Red Riding Hood. Its muzzle is teeming with flecks of maggoty spittle and its fangs are HUGE and dripping with what my horrified mind assumes is venom. But the gaping cuisinart of its mouth isn't what truly terrifies me. It's the eyes. Its eyes are feral, evil, and huge. They are a bright, sickly golden yellow color and they are shifting from green to gold while the pupils dilate back and forth between round and slitted.

At that point I awoke gasping for air beause I had just screamed my lungs empty. When I sit up in my bed, another song from Pink Floyd's The Final Cut was echoing in my brain. The last two lines of "The Gunner's Dream" just kept repeating in my head. Those lines are "We cannot just write off this final scene....Take heed of the dream, take heed..."

That's going to do it for this week's Goldmine. I'm going to go curl up in bed now and cry myself to sleep with all the lights on. Next week, rainbows and sunshine and bunny rabbits, I swear to God.

– Nick "Mayor Wilkins" Dunn