Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-24927388-20140514233536

Don’t expect an explanation; I’m still trying to find one myself. I can’t even say when exactly it began. The memories are so vague, it’s hard to determine when I first saw……Him.

Let’s start off from when my brother passed. There were so many unanswered questions, too many loose ends for me to pick away at. It was hard to feel satisfied the explanations given to my family and me. Jeremy was the best older brother anybody could ask for. So full of life, his aura emanated, attracting swarms of people, like the glow of a bug zapper. Leading people as if moths to the metaphoric candle. Jeremy was well liked. In fact he’d never been in a fight. He was the guy that would break up a discrepancy, and get the two sides to come to terms. But he was not without his enemies.

There were other students that were jealous of my brother. Kids not as popular, the ones trouble just seemed to hold on to. My brother, never the less, showed nothing but respect for all, and he was respected by most. All the while certain class mates would begin to chatter. They believed he was too good. In their mind nobody could be that perfect. And they were right. Jeremy did have his demons. Being popular often times comes at a cost. Frequenting parties was part of the job. And substance abuse was in the description. He was friends with a lot of people, that weren’t necessarily friends with each other. There were several occasions where some serious injuries we caused in his absence. You see Jeremy didn’t hesitate to jump in the way, and keep things from escalating. So when he wasn’t around, drunk teens did what drunk teens do. One of them pulling a knife on the other, and just about fileting the poor guys right bicep. After which he dropped the knife and fled the party.

As Jeremy got older, the substances got more intense. Shrooms, Coke, Heroine, you name it. His drug of choice though was Chrystal Meth. Not the fake Ninety-nine percent stuff you see on TV. I’m Talking about the back woods, two Liter and Kitchen chemicals. I live in Beltrami County, Minnesota. You can get it quicker than you can get to McDonalds. Especially When half of your town cooks their own. A class mate of Jeremy’s that despised him, was one of these people. Just because he didn’t like Jeremy, didn’t mean he didn’t like Jeremy’s money. Already missing a third of his teeth by graduation, the guy was skeletal, with sunken in eyes, and protruding cheek bones. When tweakers lose their teeth they all have this thing that I like to call Popeye Face. With the cheeks sticking out, and the lips crinkled inward with no teeth to support them. Usually squinting one eye, and keeping the other open, most likely because of paranoia. I noticed he was always dressed in black, white, and grey. With short dark hair, and deep bags under his eyes. Some days you would think he had eye shadow on. Some of the towns folk thought he was a Satanist. Most of them being church goers. Most of them hypocrites. So Jeremy paid no mind to these claims. The people of Beltrami County thought anybody that showed up to church late worshipped the devil.

Jeremy had never spent much time around him however, knowing little more than his name. A peculiar name for someone in this area. Not the usual Jay-Bob, or Jebidiah, but Alistor. Alistor had died a year or so before my brother, from his internal organs failing after doing Meth for so many years. My brother being the one who called the ambulance. But Alistor was dead by the time they got to the hospital. Jeremy having watched the last glint of light leave his already dull eyes. My brother went to rehab after that. Not the full ninety days or whatever, but a month or so to detox. The care takers would often tell my parents of him pacing the room at night, and picking at his face, leaving open sores all over. They told us that an avid user such as him may do this for a short time, while their body adjusts to its natural endorphin’s. Sleep walking was not uncommon for recovering addicts in the first couple months.

When he was released, he stayed with our parents and myself. I was still in the eleventh grade at the time. Jeremy being two years older than me. Our house wasn’t quite big enough for all of us, there were only three rooms, and one of them was my father’s office. I shared a room with Jeremy my whole life, only having a brief period of time without him in it. But I was welcome to his return. I was just glad to see he was doing ok. His cheeks began to fill in a little bit, and his eyes becoming less pronounced. The sores on his face beginning to scab, and heal up. The rehab center had a sleep specialist examine Jeremy’s behavior, and were told his brain function was normal. They said he had spikes here and there of increased heart beat and brain activity, but these likely indicated nightmares. Again a common thing among long term addicts. After some debate of how to treat it, they decided to try him on dream suppressants for an indefinite amount of time. If Jeremy was more restful with this treatment they would keep him on it. And he was.

He was on the medication for a year, he couldn’t remember having any dreams during this period, but he didn’t care. He was happy to get sleep. It felt like he had been up for weeks at a time when he was still using. Once he halted the medication he began to change. He was no longer that bright light in the dark tunnel. The only mood his face depicted was that of a haunting depression. He began to sleep walk again. I hadn’t noticed at first. In the morning he would be back in his bed tucked into his covers as if never disturbed. I started noticing things different in the room when I would wake up. Small things. I knew he had to be sleep walking, but why would he move such subtle things, and climb so neatly into bed. I decided to video tape the room as we slept, eager to review my findings. We went to bed around 10:00 our beds on opposite sides of the room, the door opening between them. With two small dressers between the space at the foot of the bed and the wall. There wasn’t much to see in the first couple hours, in fact I tossed and turned more than he did. At around 12:30 is when things began to happen.

Jeremy rose from the bed in one motion, almost like he floated from his horizontal position on the mattress, to a vertical position on the floor. He stood at the side of his bed, rocking back and forth, his head hanging low as if he had no control over how it sat on his shoulders. All the sudden walking to the camera I had hidden, fairly fast. His arms still at his side, his head bobbing along with each step. His eyes being wide open as he glared into the camera. He began to pick at his face. Intensely, ripping chunks of skin from his own cheeks. Blood trickling down his fingertips. After twenty six minutes he walks back to his bed, and goes back to sleep. The alarm woke me up, having to literally pry open my eyelids, feeling as though they were crusted shut. Jeremy still lying on his side facing the wall, I sat on the side of the bed as I tried to catch my bearings. Not quite being bright enough to make out more than silhouettes. I flicked the light switch on, squinting as my eyes took in the fluorescence. Red splotches beginning to form on the carpet, still trying to process the optical shock from the sudden illumination.

I screamed for my parents at the top of my lungs. My father being the first to rush in. We attempted to wake him up, but only managed to roll his almost lifeless body onto his back, holes showing straight through to his teeth now replaced his cheeks. We called for emergency assistance, but it being a mostly rural area it takes twenty six minutes to get to the hospital. My father picked him up, with surprising ease, and shoved him in the back of the Suburban. We raced to the hospital, flying through stop signs, and blowing through intersections. My dad was determined to get there as fast as he could. But he wasn’t fast enough. Jeremy died before we pulled in. I couldn’t get his face out of my head, his eyes stuck wide, and the skeletal structure of his cheeks exposed in a gruesome curtain of dangling flesh. I didn’t want to sleep. The dreams I would have they were hard to remember at first. Usually being a twisted play on the recording of that night. His mouth always forming a smile as he peeled away his own flesh.

My parents took me to see a specialist. I didn’t know how I was going to sleep hooked up to all kinds of monitors, but if it could help me forget that video, it was worth it. They monitored my brain activity five nights in a row, each showing nothing more than minor spikes. We were told of a therapist who may have been able to help if I talked about what I had seen. The therapist recommended writing what I could remember down, and soon I would start to remember more and more of my dreams. I kept a little journal tucked under my pillow so I could write anything down that came to mind. In the beginning it seemed like I was having the same dream over and over, but the more I wrote about them the more I started to notice. The small things were what was different. Things that were easy to miss, yet hard to forget. As I reviewed my journal entries I began to see a pattern.

Feb, 6th

Jeremy gets off of his bed and stares at me. Rocking back and forth, my view is like that of the camera. Jeremy rushes the my direction bobbing just enough for me to see a shadow behind him, it’s his shadow. Feb, 7th

The shadow was back in this dream. It’s a deeper black than the rest of the room, it definitely stood out to me. It looks almost as if it has depth.

Feb 8th

As Jeremy scrambled up close and began to tear away skin, the shadow seemed like it was just standing there watching.

Feb 9th I can make out more of the figure. It gets clearer every time I sleep. Dark grey skin, its face sunken and sickly. At first it just sits there while Jeremy is rocking, then when Jeremy sprints to my view, it’s as if the figure just appears on the floor behind him. The tall lanky figure just standing there.

Feb 10th

The figure was using him as a puppet. My brother didn’t do that to himself. I’m sure of it. It guided Jeremy with every step. A nerve wrenching smile ever widening on the beings sucked in lips.

The therapist prescribed me the same dream suppressants my brother had taken. And I found they did help. I started to forget my dreams completely. Only having one here and there that I could somewhat recall. They didn’t seem of importance at first. They would be strange, but they weren’t that video. I could never get that video out of my head, but at least it isn’t taunting me in my nightmares. I thought maybe it would help keep my mind off to remember those dreams, to write them down as they happen. Having anything from going on a date, with a giant parrot at an underwater restaurant; to picking daisies in outer space, and walking amongst the stars. I began to write them down to see how crazy the next one would be. They were sporadic. Never happening in succession, and not having more than three a month. As months passed the dreams became more frequent, and far more strange.

Aug 17th

I’m in some kind of baron waste land. In the back ground there is a lone tree, or possibly a cactus, malformed in this warped reality. It’s everywhere. As I glance the vacant landscape, the tree seems to follow.

Aug 25th

This time I’m in a jungle. The air stagnant, and soundless, save for the low crack in the distance. Thick Ivy covers massive tree trunks all around me. I turn to view behind me and see…… that tree. The dark grey of its trunk, gives it almost a charred look.

Sep 9th

It’s my bedroom. Just me facing the door. What looks like people under the covers of the beds. Between them almost blended with the darkness of the background, is that tree. That cracking still in the distance.

Sep 10th

The tree’s moving. That creaking sound, that’s the tree rocking back and forth. Almost unnoticeable.

Sep 11th

It’s him…. Not a tree. That’s the figure. Watching me, just watching from the shadows. His sunken in eyes peering at me with a silvery sheen. And the skeletal grin, curled almost ear to ear with the look of malice.

Sep 12th

The lanky figure pulled one of the lumps out of bed, dragging it from the covers with seemingly invisible strings. It’s me…….. The other lump now the shape of a human sitting up on the bed across from mine. It’s hard to see, but I think the blankets still cover its face. My perspective becomes distorted. My vision now an opaque blackness, as if staring through a translucent vale. The vale lifts and I’m now face to face with……. myself. An unnatural smirk forming on my face, as the being rips flesh from my cheeks. The now sitting lump on the opposite bed, free from cover, and Jeremy intently stares at me grinning. Unmoving aside from the shallow rocks, followed by the creaks of his bed.

That morning my face was left with a stinging sensation, crusted blood flaked away from my pillow case, and rust colored spots peppered the fabric. Upon looking in the mirror I found sores all over my face. It looked like I had been picking at myself. My reflection gazing with a menacing stare. I didn’t want to sleep anymore, caffeine wasn’t enough to chase away the longing feeling of tiredness. Chrystal Meth was the only thing that kept me from slipping into his world. A temporary fix at best. I wouldn’t be able to fight sleep for long. That figure now haunting me in a realm just outside of reality. Always spying from around corners, and ducking just out of sight. But he’s there. Watching, waiting until I can stay awake no more. Waiting to make me subservient to his twisted imagination. 