Nightmares and Daydreams

The night was hot and wet and alive around him. It had already swallowed him up, Alex was sure of it somehow, as he traveled down the dark, lonely street of its gullet. But the wet and dark did little to mitigate the Floridian summer heat, and less to ease his mounting anxiety. Every jolt along the way echoed painfully in his head, and every glimpse of light made the space behind his eyes vibrate with a deep throb. He could almost feel loose parts rolling around inside his skull like nails in a tin can, rattling with the shock of each hidden pot hole they hit along the way. 

Water pooled on either side of the road, where inky storm drains swelled beside the slick, pebbled asphalt that varied from dark to darker. It curved this way and that like the scaled hide of a cottonmouth in the shallows, bouncing in and out of the gleam headlights. The empty street yawned ahead of them, alien as it was serpentine, and the night streaked past them in blurry flecks of color. Skidding occasionally, the car's balding tires would slip across the oily black water and Alex would jerk the wheel to correct, shattering puddles into veils of mist in the car's wake. 

Wet roads had always made Alex nervous, especially at night, and especially after the accident. But tonight, everything seemed to trigger thoughts of that stormy night so long ago. Up ahead, the clouds sagged heavy and purple across a roiling sky, cracking with distant flashes of light and threatening to burst into a deluge at the slightest provocation. Trees and buildings conspired, casting grotesque silhouettes that seemed to follow with every flash in the electric evening air, haunting him with their stalking forms. Still, he tried his best to keep his mind busy, his eyes on the road, and his hands on the wheel.

Ten and two, he thought, half-expecting one of the shadows to cross his path and prove less than intangible. The humidity seemed to give the darkness a certain volume – a spectral depth – hugging the curves of the burgundy sedan like the sea on the shore, and allowing nothing between them like a jealous lover. As it went, the beat-up Ford Taurus left a trail of mist behind it, its dim yellow headlights cutting knifelike along the road before them, through the belly of the night. But the darkness almost seemed to bend around the daggers of light, as if displaced, and made willow wisps of the car's tired, jaundiced eyes through the spray. 

Like beacons to the shadows, the thought occurred to him. Shadows need the light. But there was something more – something sinister in the night… In the way it crept in through vents of the defunct A/C of his car and settled around him like a sentient smoke… How it hung over his head like a hood, and coiled itself around his throat. It seemed to watch him. From where, he could not tell. What he did know was that he could feel beads of sweat forming along his ash blonde hair, and the darkness clinging to his face... It really feels like a hood, came the thought, unbidden. And a noose.

Panic surged and throbbed singularly in the center of his blankness so suddenly that the space behind his eyes began to ache. He could almost feel the itch of wet wool against his furrowed brow. His breaths became more and more shallow as the dark fabric sucked taut around his mouth. The noose tightened on his throat as he struggled for air. A painful tendril of numbness crawled up his right arm and wrapped itself around him.

You're okay. You’re… Okay… You... Are... Okay, his inner voice urged, cracking unconvincingly. Just... Don't panic. Don't panic. Don't. Panic, the mantra echoed to no avail. It just sounded more mangled in his head with each repetition like a cassette gutting itself to shreds in the tape deck of his mind until “don’t” vanished all together. The last word was a screw rattling madly in his tin skull… panic… Panic… PANIC. The word got louder as the shaking grew faster until he could hear nothing else over it.

The hand that wasn’t numb groped shakily for a button on the door, and the front two windows lowered. Some fresh air, he thought, as he let the night pour in. No sooner than the first gust of air wash over his face did the light change, painting the slick road ahead a blush red and bringing both the car and the breeze to a stop. He ran the palm of this left hand over his face and through the crest of his hair, and flexed his right hand on the gear shift to confirm he still had control of it. It was all he could do to slough off the spectral hood and noose like a snakeskin.

Then all at once, he was adrift from himself, watching his body from the backseat of his own car. The light cast a sickening blood red glow against the strange mask of shadow that hung on his face. Slowly, the body he was in turned its gaze up to the rearview mirror, and he locked eyes with… him. He looked back at the shadow with a gaze not his own, at a man with no face, long limbs, and taloned fingers. He couldn’t possibly be human… It was a monstrous, faceless shadow. Then a terrible thought struck him: he was the monstrous, faceless shadow. 

But… it has no eyes, he thought with an eerie, dreamlike objectivity. So how do I know it's staring at me? How do I know what it wants? Which me am I..? Then the word came again like a siren, assaulting his senses: …panic… Panic… PANIC!

“You okay?” asked a voice that was not his own. But the sounds didn’t register as words. He could hear them, but the shape of them was lost in a soup of sounds, both real and perceived, like listening to music echoing and warbling underwater. “Earth to Alex..! Green means go-ooo,” a voice beside him sang, reminding him of what he was doing. Suddenly, he was thrown back into himself, and everything was bathed in a sickly green light. His eyes went instinctively back to the rearview mirror, but all he saw was an empty backseat. 

The Taurus jerked back into motion before he could finish composing himself. “S-Sorry,” he mumbled, remembering how to form words. He could still feel those watching eyes, burning, gouging through him in the glow of the red light. But it could still see him. And he could almost see it, he thought, like a shadow in the corner of his eye. Almost. He couldn’t make out what it was, really. Just a darkened shape. But he could sense its intent: it wanted to feed. 

If Mia was aware of her boyfriend's building anxiety before this point, she didn't let on. She was far too preoccupied, blinking absently at her game of Words With Friends in the front passenger seat, as cool as the mask of soft blue light that her phone reflected. That seemed to calm him, somehow. From where he sat, it looked like the last light in the world she was holding. “You okay over there? You seem… distracted,” she asked, beginning to take notice. She looked up from her phone and gave him a suspicious sidelong glance. “Yanno, if you wanna pull over, I can driiive...” she offered half-heartedly, smacking her gum with every other word.

What is it she said? Distracted. She was always so distracting to him, even when she wasn't doing anything at all. How had he felt so alone just a moment ago? Was she really there the whole time? Now he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. And then the rearview again, his worries turning to her, what she would think, if she was safe. Every so often he thought he’d caught a flash of that monstrous shadow, but still he found nothing but an empty seat. His eyes kept darting between those two points, unsure of the tricks his mind must be playing on him. 

Trying to banish the thoughts, he turned on the radio. "I'm fine," he lied as the radio crackled to life, sputtering in and out of frequencies. 

"--You're listening to eeeasy one-oh-one-point-fi--bzzt--Crash, slip, or fall? Call Freeman Injury Law--bzzt--that feel real, and for real cheap!--bzzt--take advantage of this limited time offer, and really see what Lasik can do for you!"

"There's never anything on..." she sighed.

Darkness seemed to close in around the rust red sedan, creeping in through open windows, settling between its occupants, and slowly unfurling itself like a wisp of smoke around his smouldering thoughts. He was almost certain she was still talking; about what, however, he was less sure. Between the wind whipping through the open windows, and the unintelligible crackle of the radio, the words dissipated in his head before he could catch them.

“So I was thinking I should shave half my head and dye the other half pink. Corporate will pitch a total bitch fit, right?”

“Sure,” he replied with practiced automaticity.

“I knew it. You’re not listening to me,” she sighed sharply, rolling her eyes.

“Oh, um… I mean, you should do it anyway, right? Fuck corporate..?” he continued as his mind caught up with him.

“Yeah, good save, space case. Now, what’s really going on? I know I’m not the most stimulating conversationalist, but you could give me something to work with at least…” she pouted behind her phone screen.

“I’m sorry, Mia, I dunno what’s up with me… I think I just had a weird daydream. Or nightmare, I guess? I dunno,” he extended, reluctantly.

“Well, we’re almost there... Why don’t you tell me about it?”