Sarah’s Nightmare

Posted: January 20, 2013 | Author: kristine | Filed under: Hot Off the Press | Tags: death nightmares, nightmare short story, short story | Leave a comment »

[I've been pretty absent from my blog, but I have good reason! Short story writing and working on a book project has taken up my free time. So, to not let you feel left out, below is a short story I've been working on. Enjoy! Oh, and please please please please let me know if you have any questions about the plot, story line, the flow of the story, etc. Any feedback would be amazing. Stories aren't worth anything if the reader doesn't know what the hell the writer is talking about - er, writing about.]

 

Sarah woke with her face contorted in pain on her tear-soaked pillow. Nightmares reliving her husband’s death visited each night like clockwork. When she would wake from a dream of him, she would roll over to his cold side of the bed and cuddle up to the pile of his clothes she hadn’t been able to put away. Those clothes that still smelled like him were the comfort she needed to wipe away her tears, but they were also the reminder that he truly was gone forever.

 

The summer afternoon he died was a special day. As the new college graduates they had just gotten back from their honeymoon and were moving into their first apartment. Friends were helping them carry bed frames and boxes taped shut full of old college textbooks up three flights of stairs.

 

Needing a break from the heat and the lifting, they all walked to the nearby college food court for Cokes and sandwiches. The cafeteria was empty except for a couple lone students taking summer classes, buried in calc books with large Starbucks cups clamped in their hands. She was taking a sip of her husband’s Code Red Mt. Dew when they heard it.

 

A gunshot.

 

But just one.

 

A man about their age careened around the corner and screeched to a halt by their table. His eyes were wide; his face was dripping in sweat. His light grey t-shirt was pitted out, and large purple veins were swelling on his neck and forehead. He almost went hoarse from yelling to the whole cafeteria. There was a shooter on the loose. The only safe place was in the Great Hall, one floor up from the cafeteria. The frantic man left their table to find others to warn.

 

She and her friends abandoned their half-eaten pastrami on ryes and un-lidded 20 oz. plastic bottles of Coke – bits of chewed Lays potato chips caught on the ribbed rims.

 

He held her hand up the marble staircase, past the reading room, through the large wooden pillars and into the Great Hall. Her heartbeat had quickened. Despite the cool air blowing through the vents, she had a light dusting of sweat forming on her forehead with beads slipping down her chest and soaking into her sports bra. But the reassurance of her hand in his did not keep them safe long.

 

They entered the giant hall to see several groups of students crowded in corners crying and hugging. Others stood alone with their arms wrapped around themselves, tears streaming down their cheeks, backpacks slung half-heartedly on their backs. She noticed the lack of noise in the room besides sniffles and sobbing. It was as though talking would bring the unknown.

 

Taking possession in the middle of the room, they silently took in their surroundings, forming their own protective circle. She couldn’t recall how long they stood there wondering what would happen; incessant rounds were being fired elsewhere. In the basement bowling alley? The college newspaper office? She couldn’t be sure.

 

He hugged her to him, standing stomach to stomach, her arms wrapped around his waist, holding him close as he kissed her head reassuringly. The tension coursing through her body made her neck muscles feel like stone and her legs like jelly.

 

A girl screamed bloody murder and pointed her finger toward the west wall. Above the closed red velvet curtains that hid a large stage, there was a catwalk – funny, she had never noticed a catwalk before. Five stone-faced young men strutted their way to the middle, each resting an assault rifle on their shoulders. She recognized one bringing up the rear as the guy that warned them of the shooting in the cafeteria. Her blood ran cold as she tightened her embrace on her husband. The men reached the middle and spaced themselves out evenly. Everyone’s attention was on them.

 

That’s when it happened.

 

She can’t recall the start of it clearly because she hit her head on the wooden floor when he pulled her down and trapped her under his body. But from the peephole past his armpit she caught glimpses of bodies being pelted with bullets, blood snaking toward her, pooling against her forearm, warm with lost life.

 

The shooters would take periodic breaks and shout things at their victims, but she couldn’t decipher their words. At one point during one of the lulls, everyone that wasn’t dead rose to their feet. He pulled her up with him and they stood stooped, again clutching each other, realizing the mass of casualties around them. The only person that mattered, though, was him. He was still there, holding her.

 

Their relief of survival lasted only seconds before open fire ripped through the slimmed crowd. She ripped herself from him, grabbed his hand, and pulled him to a corner where they skidded to a halt. They crouched among the dead and the few living. He let go of her hand to grab his leg; he had been shot. His face twisted in agony as he let out a guttural scream that she could not hear above the mayhem surrounding them.

 

Her heart ached, and the only thing she could do was pray. She hadn’t always been as religious as her mom had wanted her to be, but she still believed. In times of need, God seemed like the best solution, especially when one feels helpless. So she clasped her hands, closed her eyes, remained in the fetal position, and prayed to the only God she had ever known, and the God she believed would bring her through that moment.

 

While she was praying there was a lull. A long lull.

 

“Hey, you!”

 

She looked up. The shooter from the cafeteria was no longer on the catwalk. He was hovering over her, looking down his barrel right into her eyes. She went stiff and saw stars. It took everything she had to not pass out.

 

“Get up! Go!”

 

She couldn’t understand what he meant. Why was he telling her to leave? Did they want a moving target to shoot at from up on the catwalk? There was no way she was going to be their clay pigeon. She didn’t budge. She was frozen with fear.

 

“He wants you to live,” the gunman pointed up to one of the shooters that stood in the middle of the catwalk. That alpha male waved to her from his perch with an eerie smile on his face. Shivers ran down her spine.

 

“Go!”

 

She scrambled to her feet and reached for her love.

 

“No!” the gunman screamed. “Just you. Leave him.”

 

Her husband squeezed her hand. She held tight.

 

“I love you,” she whispered, apologizing with her eyes as she loosened her grip and was torn from him by the gunman. “No!” she kicked and flailed in the shooters arms. “I love you! I love you!” she called after her husband.

 

She was thrown to the ground and maimed her elbow. Holding her shattered elbow, she turned her back on him and ran through the heavy double doors, down the marble stairs, and out the glass doors to freedom.

 

She didn’t stop running once she hit pavement. She didn’t stop sobbing, either. The ache in her heart was unbearable but the hatred gave her strength to run the block to her – no, their – apartment. Passerby stopped and stared at her, the hysterical runner covered in blood.

 

She made it and collapsed in the hallway. Mara had stayed behind to take a shower and came to answer the door after she heard the thud.

 

Mara found her kneeling with her forehead to the floor. She was soaked in a mix of sweat and blood, sobbing so hard she was dry heaving. She was barefoot, having lost her flip flops in the Great Hall.

 

“Oh, my God!” Mara helped her off the floor and onto a lone kitchen chair. She was a rag doll. Sitting on the wooden chair, the top of her body folded in half so that her head was between her knees, her arms limp at her sides with her hands resting by her dirty feet.

 

“They’re all dead,” she sobbed.

 

“What? Who?” Mara could not understand what she was saying. “Where is everyone? Why are you covered in blood? What happened, Sarah?”

 

“We were eating and then open fire. They’re gone.”

 

It was Mara’s turn to sink to the ground among the boxes. They sat and cried for what seemed like forever until Mara’s husband ran through the door. He was alone. Mara sprung to her feet and assaulted him with hugs and kisses.

 

“I thought you were dead! Sarah said you didn’t make it!”

 

“I thought I was going to be, but I just played dead. The others …” he trailed off. “I’m sorry.” He shook his head and looked at the floor. “After they thought they had killed everyone, they just left. Just like that. For no reason,” he finished disbelievingly, running his hand through his hair.

 

Sarah slid out of her chair and hit her head on the floor for the second time that day. Mara ran across the apartment to help her best friend.

 

The hours that passed were agonizing. She slipped in and out of sleep, reliving the gun shots, the screams, and the smell of gunfire and hunted human. When Sarah finally came to her senses, she was lying on her – no, their – blue sofa, Mara was sitting by her side dabbing a damp washcloth on her forehead.

 

“Is he?” Sarah managed. Knowing the answer but hoping for a different one since the last time she asked. She had hoped the whole thing was just a bad nightmare.

 

Mara shook her head.

 

Mara’s husband explained that the shooters shot nearly everyone in that room. Sarah’s husband was shot five times in the back, up and down his spine.

 

All she could think was that she abandoned him. The pain in his eyes when she wiggled her hand from his was something that would haunt her for the rest of her life. But he would have wanted her safe. Right?

 

For the first time since Mara’s husband confirmed her own husband’s death, Sarah thought about a funeral. She had never imagined she would be planning his funeral just days after their wedding. Shit. His mom. How was she going to tell his mom? Should she call that instant? Should she wait to call after work the next day? There was no reason to rush this sort of thing, right? Should she drive the three hours to tell his family in person? He had four little sisters. He was an uncle to a three-year-old diva and an 18-month-old stud. He wanted his own kids – no, their kids.

 

What should he wear to his funeral? She instantly thought of that grey polo he wore to Mara’s wedding rehearsal dinner. They were having a small argument the night before at her parent’s house. Sarah was up late ironing his wrinkled khakis for the next day. He had not wanted to wear khakis to the rehearsal dinner; he had wanted to wear jeans. There were some choice words and perhaps some threats, but he eventually got his way and acted as big spoon that night, his strong arms wrapped around her chest, his nose nuzzled in her hair. What she wouldn’t give for that big lug and his embrace right then. Who fights over jeans anyway, she thought?

***

A week after the funeral she was unpacking one of the remaining boxes in the living room, wearing one of his shirts when there was a knock on the door. She signed for the package and carried it over to the blue sofa. It was addressed to her deceased husband. The return address read “Foot Locker.” Her breath caught in her throat and tears clouded her eyes.

 

She slowly made her way to the kitchen and retrieved a pair of scissors to cut the tape. Sitting on the blue sofa, she revealed a pack of three shirts he had ordered two weeks prior to his death. She remembered that night. He was online shopping for polo shirts – his signature shirt. There were so many he liked, he couldn’t pick just one. The indecision about which color to order was hilarious to her at the time. A macho guy like him, worried about the color of his shirt? He chased her around his room for teasing, catching her and throwing her on his bed. One of the last times they made love.

 

The lump in her throat grew while tears poured from her face as she ripped the plastic with weak hands. He had ordered a blue, a red, and a white. Despite the tears, a smile crossed her lips.

 

“I love you,” she mouthed as she clutched the shirts to her chest and leaned back on their – no, her – couch.

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