Dream Smashers (20 page)

Fifteen minutes late.

Twenty minutes.

Thirty.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

My entire body tingles. Weird. And I cry for
no particular reason. Weirder. Not a sad cry, but a joyful one with
deep, long laughter. I’ve never laugh-cried before. It feels
awesome. The weight has been lifted off my heart, my shoulders, my
entire body becomes lighter—free.

Like a bird taking flight for the first time,
I skip through the field to get back home to tell Grams the good
news, oh, and the sad news too. The good news, that Jesus will save
me. The bad news, that James died. A horrible, sad death. James. My
friend. And poor Rainy.

I must find Rainy to apologize and be there
for her. And Angel. I wonder if she knows

The moon gifts enough light for me to see my
way through the field. When I step into the forest, though, I can’t
see anything in the dark. My eyes adjust to the change. Beams of
moonlight pierce through the tree branches every few feet. Eerie.
Like a movie or a dream or a painting, all around me—almost
mystical. If not for the mud slopping beneath my feet and the cool
breath billowing from my nose, I’d have to pinch myself to make
sure I’m not in the movie, dream or painting.

I near the school in no time. The moonlight
disappears and the pitter-patter of rain bounces off the trees
again before I get to the end of the trail. Rainy and I had carved
a short-cut out of the brush directly to the street so we wouldn’t
have to go on school grounds if we didn’t want to. It proves useful
now.

A small stream rolls down the trail. Thunder
cracks above and then a flash briefly illuminates the forest. The
street must be near. I pick up the pace to a slow jog through the
sloppy ground.

I step out of the forest onto the black
asphalt. Rain beats down so hard that it hurts my head, like
marbles falling from the sky.

A horn blasts from the side of me.

I zip around to get oriented and two beams of
light zoom straight for me. And then they are gone.
Everything—gone.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Stupid bartender. What the hell does he know?
Jacinda could drink that asshole under the table if she wanted to.
“You’ve had enough,” he had said. She cried bullshit. He doesn’t
know. Her limit is far above any he’d ever seen. She’s
super-drinker of the fucking world.

“Rain, rain, go away.” Jacinda’s voice
bounces off the brick walls of the alley where she parked Darla’s
car earlier tonight. Not Darla’s super-fucking-awesome convertible
roadster. She wouldn’t even let Jacinda sit in the back seat of
that car, like it’s her baby or something. Hey, Jacinda had a baby
once. She knows how to care for ‘em. Darla made her drive this hunk
of junk Ford thingy.

The road slips under Jacinda’s heels. Darla
said she could pick up a real man in ‘em, a man who’d take care of
her, like Darla’s got. She was wrong. Only creeps spoke to her.
Creeps that she’d already fucked. Yeah, they liked the heels, but
she don’t fuckin’ care what they like.

She kicks the black glittery heels off, one
at a time, and walk through the puddles on the road. Lots of cute
puddles, ten, eleven, thirteen, with little wormies slithering in
them. She bends down to pick one up that has squirmed itself
between her toes. “Hello lil wormy. You better be a moving, else
you get squished.”

“Where the fuck’s the car?” She swears it’s
here somewhere. Garbage can, garbage can, garbage can, dead cat,
ew. Fresh too ‘cause it ain’t got no maggots or crap on it. It’s
got a trickle of blood on its nose. Poor kitty. Probably some
brat’s gonna miss it. Old pile of tires, garbage can, truck with
garbage in it, old ugly Ford car. Fuck a duck. Finally.

Locked. What the— Oh yeah. Jacinda feels
around in her purse for the key. Key, lipstick, wallet, dollar,
mace, smokes, lighter, pipe…where’s the fuckin’ key? Everything
gets dumped out onto the hood of the car and instantly the key
appears.

It’s hard to put key to lock. Stupid lock.
But once the door finally opens and ignition turns on, the car
lurches out of the alley. Lipstick bashes the window and freaks the
shit out of her. She slams on the brakes and crawls out of the
car.

“Shit.”

All the crap she left on the hood blew off
except for the one thing she needs at this very moment. Smokes.
Nice. She takes one into her mouth, sits back down in the car and
pushes the car lighter into the dash.

She sings and she waits. “Happy
birthday…happy birthday to me.”

“Aw, fuck.” Stupid tears. She wipes them away
before they can smear her mascara, grabs the un-popped thing and
attempts to light the cigarette with the shaky lighter. There,
better.

Smoke fills every crevice of her being,
burning away all evidence of sorrow.

Time to go.

Faster, faster, faster the car drives.
“Steady now.” Jacinda’s words, but not her voice. Or some shit like
that. Maybe backwards. Her voice ain’t listening to her mind right
now. Neither is her body. But that’s just the way shit rolls.

Life rules over her. Life or something else,
alcohol, crank, or whatever’s on hand at the time. Deep down, or
maybe up and out. She’s here, she watches, knowing what shit’s
goin’ on. Even if her body ain’t listening to her mind or spirit,
or something, she knows what it should be doing. People think she’s
fuckin’ stupid, but she knows. And now she knows her body ain’t
doing what it should be doing. It’s driving this car down a tiny
road toward a neighborhood. It’s weaving in and out of the lane.
Believe it or not, danger ain’t nothin’ she strives for. She tells
her foot to ease up from the gas, but it doesn’t listen either.

A dog or something runs into her lane. In
slow motion, the car swerves to miss it. But then, suddenly there’s
a loud thud. The car jumps, like hitting the curb, but softer.

“Oh fuck!” The car skids to a stop. She opens
the door and falls out. Beer and mushy pretzels pour from her mouth
and nose. Her stomach pushes the rest of the poison out. “Oh
fuckin’ stupid all hell.” She gurgles again and crawls to the front
of the car to help the doggy woggy. Nothing. Only road. It must’ve
crawled away. Poor dog.

Or maybe she did hit a curb. Maybe she didn’t
hit a stupid dog after all. Relief. “Thank you Jesus.” She stumbles
back into the car and takes off to Darla’s house. Darla would have
had a shit-fit if she hurt her fuckin’ fugly car.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

The neighbors don’t know where she went.
Grams drove to the police station to file a missing person’s
report. Rainy said she left her in the woods near the school. Evan
found Autumn’s backpack and some candy wrappers in the woods.
Nothing else.

The setting sun only makes things worse.

Evan trips over a rock, stumbles and then
catches himself against the car door. His soaked-through clothes
feel like heavy tarps on his body. The battery in the flashlight
dies, making it good only for thumping the mud from his shoes
before he opens the car door.

He climbs in the car and slumps into the
seat. It’s time to head back to Grams’ house. Maybe Autumn made it
home and all these bad thoughts and time have been spent
unnecessarily. For this he prays.

The rain makes it hard to see, even with the
wipers on full-blast. On a hunch, he turns the corner onto the
one-lane road that leads to nowhere behind the forest. No street
lights live on this road so he lets up the gas pedal. The car
crawls. He rolls down the windows in an attempt to get a better
view into the forest so black that only the tree branches in the
forefront are visible—giants standing guard to a world of leaves
and pines.

The car shakes and veers onto the grassy
margin demanding his attention back to the road. He jerks the
wheel. The headlights grab sight of a heap on the side of the
road.

Blood surges into his foot. He slams the
brakes, and the car stops. An odd shape lies in the road, like a
torso with no head or legs. There are times, like now, when
darkness plays tricks on the mind. When you see a dead animal in
the ditch but as you get closer, you discover it’s only a bag of
garbage. Or when as a kid, your Pinocchio night-light turns into a
vicious monster. You hide under the blanket until morning when
Pinocchio turns back into his true form. Upon further staring, the
torso is only a large bag of leaves strewn in the center of the
road. Evan’s body relaxes and he breathes again.

But then the bag moves. Not an obvious move—a
tiny one. Perhaps a mouse stirred the leaves inside the bag. The
form takes another shape. Evan slams the gear shift into “Park” and
jump out of the car.

The bag of leaves has a head and two legs,
curled up in a fetal position.

Evan’s ribs turn into rubber and gravity
compresses all the air from his lungs.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Little invisible bugs eat away at my head
while someone holds me down and pours acid on my legs. With my eyes
closed, I concentrate on breathing. Breathe in and breathe out.
When air fills my lungs, the bugs chomp faster, then they slow down
when I exhale. The oxygen causes them to fester or mate or scrape
my brains or whatever the hell they’re doing to make my head throb
so horrendously.

If someone would turn off the faucet leaking
all over my face, then I could concentrate on the pain, on leaving
my body to forget it, block it, kill it, anything to stop it. My
shell, a prison for my soul, is on fire. It’s tired and needs to
rest.

Light bathes my eyelids. I force them open. A
blur of light through the downpour. God has finally come for me.
I’m so ready for the pain to disappear, but it doesn’t. Then
something tramples the wet cold ground around me, rushing toward
me. Footsteps, perhaps.

I recognize the timbre of a young man’s
voice. Slurred words, unrecognizable. He bends over me, a dark
shadow, all handsome and strong. His voice resonates, caring and
loving and kind, but I don’t understand. Why isn’t he taking me to
Heaven? Aren’t I dying? Why isn’t the pain going away?
Please
God, take the pain away.

Breathe in and breathe out. Breath fills my
ears, like swimming or bathing under the water. The sweet melodious
voice purrs in the background. He strokes my hair. It puts some of
the bugs to sleep, but not all of them. Most continue to chomp
away. They eat the back of my eyeballs. Soon, I’ll be blind and
unable to see this glorious angel waiting to escort me to the
afterlife. Is he waiting for me to die?

A giant sword swung by a knight on a tall
horse stabs me in the back. He cuts from my shoulder all the way
down to my hips. He totally severs my spine. I close my eyes and
scream, but that’s only background noise too. It wakes the bugs and
pisses them off good. Then the blade disappears and I open my eyes
to see Shadow Man taking a step back. Now he seems apologetic,
remorseful.

He runs off. Please don’t go. Don’t leave me
alone.

It gets quiet. The bugs stop being bugs and
the acid stops burning. Only the rain pricks my body—cool and
refreshing. It plops and dances on the pavement next to my ears.
Fast and hard and then soft and slow.

Rainy would have liked to hear it as I am
now. She enjoys the rain, the clouds, the trees, everything about
the forest.

Like me, Rainy hates dream smashers.

I should have been more supportive, a better
friend.

If I have another chance, I’ll make it right
between me and Rainy.
Please God, please give me another
chance.

Shadow Man comes back. He holds my hand. His
thumb strokes the top of mine. He rubs the beads on my bracelet. I
recognize his touch. I recognize his caring, clear eyes.

He leans in closer.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

“Stay still Autumn, help is coming,” Evan
says into her ear, but he doesn’t know if she understands. She’s so
broken—beautifully, painfully broken and there is nothing he can do
about it. Not a damn thing. Autumn has been ripped from the world
and there she lies, in the rain, on the wet dark road with limbs
twisted every which way.

“Help is coming. I promise,” he assures her
to no avail and lies down next to her on the ground.

She mumbles something he can’t
understand.

He inches closer, feeling the heat of her
breath, smelling the salty metallic blood. “Shhh. It’s okay. You
don’t need to talk. Everything’s going to be fine.”

The whites of her eyes are stained red. She
mumbles again. “Evan, are you saving me?”

A wad of pain chokes his airway closed. He
can’t help but smile at this sweet girl and wish to God that he
could save her.
Please, make her alright. Make everything
better.

A tiny cut on her lip starts to bleed, or
maybe it bled all along and he just now notices her broken but soft
lips and her pale skin against the vibrant red liquid. How the
headlights glimmer off her wet face, as if the water is glitter and
she is a rock star.

He moves closer, to brush against her lips,
just gently. This may be his last chance, her last chance, and he
needs to let her know. They are as soft as he suspected. His lips
lock with hers and she returns the kiss with unexpected force.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Wednesday, November 18th

Voices in the dark keep me from slipping.
They plant me firmly into the bed beneath my aching back. I would
prefer to slide further into the darkness. It would be so easy. But
the voices keep pleading, and praying, and crying. If not for the
cries, the familiar sound of a weeping old lady, sleep would feel
as good as a hot bubble bath, but better.

They get louder as time passes. Soon, I
understand distinct words. “Love, stay, hold-on, everything’s gonna
be fine, tomorrow, broken.” Two voices are recognizable. The others
are strangers.