I haven't been sleeping well lately. Yesterday evening I came home from another wholly unremarkable, yet completely exhausting, day at work and set about the same routine I have grown wearily accustomed to for years now; I showered, sluggishly ate a microwaved meal that I barely tasted, and climbed into bed bone-tired. But unlike so many nights as of late, I didn't toss and turn for long, restless hours. Within minutes of laying my head on my pillow, I was fast asleep.
The dream seemed to begin the instant I shut my eyes. Surrounded by darkness, I stood before a spectral woman—a pale, captivating wraith, so breathtakingly grotesque that I could not look away even as her appearance frightened me to my core. Her cadaverous form was a gaunt composition of spindly bones, withered limbs, and desiccated skin like aged parchment. Death's cruel touch had long ago destroyed features that I somehow knew were the object of both great desire and bitter envy before the woman drew her final breath; in her life she had possessed beauty, but in her grave she could not escape the uncaring caress of decay and the disfiguring toll it took on her flesh. There were two hollow sockets where a pair of eyes had wilted away into nothing, but I could still feel her fearsome gaze transfixed on me—it was all too clear that she had not been robbed of her ability to see. Brittle wisps of thin, silvery hair fell to the moldering shoulders of a black dress reduced to tattered ruins by rot. I wanted nothing more than to shield my eyes from the gruesome sight, to tear away from the horror before me and run as fast as I could until my legs would carry me no further, but instead I continued to stand helplessly frozen. I could only watch, immobilized by a fear more powerful than I had ever thought possible, as the woman opened her shriveled mouth to reveal a tongue swollen with rot and emitted a mournful wail of profound, immeasurable grief.
Wave after wave of agonizing despair washed over me. I became engulfed in the wraith's excruciating sorrow as it seeped through my flesh and into the marrow of my bones and sank into my very being, poisoning me with her anguish until I felt painfully cold and as heavy as lead.
“Please, stop!” I cried out, desperate to bring an end to our shared woe. “Stop it!”
But the wraith took no pity on me and continued to let out her tormented wail.
I awoke drenched in sweat. A sliver of moonlight peered out from between my closed curtains as I shakily sat up in bed, already knowing that I wouldn't be able to fall back asleep. I turned on the television and tried to settle into a comfortable position, but the beginning of a headache had started to throb behind my eyes and my joints felt like they were full of glass shards. I listlessly watched TV until the sun rose, utterly dreading the approaching hour when I'd have to begin preparing for the long shift ahead of me; though I wanted badly to stay in bed and try to sleep through the pain gnawing away at my body, I simply couldn't afford to miss work.
I was getting ready to leave when my phone rang. I glanced down to see that the caller was Evan, a neighbor I had grown up alongside and who still lived next door to my childhood home. I finished pouring coffee into my thermos and answered.
“Hello, Evan.”
“Hey there, old friend.”
“I really hope I don't sound rude, but I'm actually about to head out. Is it alright if I call you back this evening?”
“This can't wait,” he replied, and the grave tone of his voice made me stop in my tracks. “I'm afraid I have some bad news.”
A terrible sense of foreboding clamped its icy hand around my heart.
“What's wrong?” I asked apprehensively, afraid of what the answer would be.
Evan sighed. “I woke up a few minutes ago when I heard ambulance sirens outside. They were there for your dad.”
The chilling trepidation in my chest gave way as my heart began to pound rapidly. I gripped the kitchen counter to steady myself. I felt hot and sick and dizzy all at once.
“Do you, uh...” My mouth struggled to form the words. “Do you know what happened?”
“All I know is they took him to the hospital. I know your dad's always had difficulty figuring out his phone, so I suspected he didn't have you listed as an emergency contact. I wanted to let you know what's going on—I really think you need to get down here as soon as you can.”
I don't remember much about the rest of our conversation. My own voice sounded unfamiliar and faraway as I thanked Evan for his help. I vaguely recall him assuring me that it was no problem and that he was sorry to be the one to deliver such awful news before I hung up the phone and grabbed my keys.
The hour-long drive home felt like a much lengthier journey. I feared that I wouldn't make it to the hospital in time. Dad had always made his health a priority, particularly as he'd aged into his golden years; he jogged daily for exercise, maintained a balanced diet, and not once had I seen him indulge in a drop of alcohol or smoke a single cigarette. For him to have been struck down so suddenly was the worst kind of shock. I'd experienced abrupt, world-shattering grief before when my mother was killed by a drunk driver the summer I turned thirteen; nearly two decades later, I can still remember every somber line that was etched into the camp counselor's tanned face on the rainy morning when he called me into his office to tell me that I'd be returning home that day. Dad was the only family I had left, and the thought of never being able to see him again was devastating beyond measure. For many years it had been just the two of us—with him gone, I would truly be alone in the world.
My feet carried me through the hospital doors, down its hallways and into an elevator, until finally I arrived at Dad's room. I nearly fell apart when I saw him lying in his hospital bed. My father looked like his own ghost, a frail wisp of the man who had always seemed larger than life to me. I gently touched his hand. His eyelids began to flutter.
“Dad,” I whispered softly. “I'm here.”
Dad's eyes flew open at the sound of my voice. Though the motion appeared to cause him great pain, he slowly turned his head to face me.
“Son,” he rasped. “Thank God you're here.”
“Evan from next door called me. Try to get some rest. I'm not going anywhere.”
“No. There's something I need to tell you.”
“We can talk about it later. Right now, all that matters is that you—”
“No!” Dad protested. Despite his fragile state, his voice was surprisingly sharp and insistent. It was a tone I'd rarely ever heard him use. “There isn't any time to waste. It won't be long now.”
“Don't talk like that, Dad.” I wanted to squeeze his hand, but my father looked so feeble that I was afraid of hurting him. “Everything's going to be okay.” I gave Dad what I hoped I was a reassuring smile, but he only shook his head wearily.
“No, it's not.” Dad paused to take a shaky breath. “Did you have a dream last night?”
“What?”
“Did you?” Dad pressed. “Not just a dream, but a nightmare. Probably the worst one you can ever remember having.”
My smile fell. The hospital room suddenly felt much too warm. The strong chemical scent of disinfectant cleaning solution clung to every molecule in the air; it burned its way into my nostrils and down through my throat when I breathed, filling my lungs with its concentrated odor and making me feel sick to my stomach. Dad read my expression and let out a quiet sigh.
“I knew it.” Though his voice had weakened, it carried the heavy weight of sad resignation. “There's nothing that can be done.”
I peered over my shoulder, scanning the hallway behind me for any sign of a white coat or nursing scrubs. I didn't understand what Dad was saying; I only knew that something deeply unsettling was taking place.
“Please don't be afraid, son. That's the reason I never told you any of this before—I didn't want to scare you. I thought I was doing the right thing and you'd be better off not knowing. Maybe that was a mistake.”
“Dad, what on earth are you talking about?”
“You saw her,” Dad whispered. “The ghost in your dream.”
The same cold hand that had gripped my heart earlier returned to clench me within its dreadful grasp once again.
“I never told you—”
“You didn't have to,” Dad said. “You're not the first person to have seen her. She's appeared in our family's nightmares for decades. When a relative is about to die, one of us will dream of her. That's why she came to you. You and I are all that's left, and my time is fast approaching.”
I stared at my father in disbelief.
“Dad, I'm sorry, but that just isn't possible. Things like that aren't real.”
“That's almost exactly what I said when your grandfather told me about her. I was around your age back then. He said that he'd seen her in a dream when he was a small boy, the night before his mother was shot during an armed robbery at the diner where she waited tables. I didn't believe him, of course. His mind was starting to go and he'd get his memories mixed up and say all kinds of strange things. I told him as gently as I could that ghosts and premonitions only exist in our imaginations, and he told me that I'd find out just how wrong I was one day. And I did, just a couple of years later, when I had a dream of my own and Pop had his final heart attack the next day.”
I wiped beads of perspiration from my brow with the back of my sleeve and tried to swallow the lump in my throat.
“If what you say is true, then that means somebody would have known death was coming every time one of our relatives died.”
Dad nodded solemnly.
“So why not warn everyone in the family and try to prevent it from happening?”
“That doesn't work. Remember your Aunt Helen's accident?”
I nodded. Several months after my grandfather's funeral, Aunt Helen—Dad's brother's wife—had suffered a seizure and fractured her skull in a fall. Uncle Dean died of flu complications not long after her death.
“Dean called me in the middle of the night, panicking and completely beside himself. He'd had the dream, you see, and he knew what it meant. He told me not to step foot outside of the house, that he was going to make Helen call into work and stay home within his reach at all times. She called me herself a few hours later and told me that my brother had completely lost his mind. I told her to just go along with it for the day, that he was still struggling to come to terms with our father's death and terrified of losing anyone else, and I swore that if he was still acting irrational come tomorrow then I'd head over there myself and make him listen to reason. She reluctantly agreed.”
“And then what?”
“She hung up the phone, went to go take a shower, and cracked her head open on side of the bathtub. Never had a seizure before in her life. Autopsy found a tumor in her brain.”
“Well, that means it was only a matter of time before something like that happened. As tragic as it was, it had nothing to do with someone having a bad dream.”
“Maybe. But I went to bed not even a month later and dreamed of the woman for a second time. She let out this horrible moan...”
I remembered the hideous wail from my dream and felt goosebumps prickle across my flesh.
“I ran down the hallway to check on you. When I saw that you were still asleep in your bed, I called Dean. He never answered the phone. I told your confused mother that I had to go check on him and sped away before she could even ask what was going on. When I got to his house, I pounded on the door before using the spare key under the doormat to let myself in. I found him lying crumpled in the same bathtub where his wife had fallen. He'd ended his own life.”
I furrowed my brow, struggling to make sense of Dad's words. “But you told me Uncle Dean was sick. You said he had the flu, and that was why he stopped visiting us before he died.”
“Your mother and I thought you were too young to understand. My brother was so heartbroken by Helen's death that he was barely getting out of bed. Wouldn't eat, couldn't sleep, refused to come stay with us no matter how many times I begged him to. I've always regretted not doing enough to help him, just like I've come to regret not telling you the truth about everything long ago.”
A distressing thought suddenly occurred to me.
“Dad, did Mom know about any of this?”
He turned his head away from me. We didn't talk about Mom often, but I knew Dad still missed her terribly. He'd never been the same since a late-night trip to the corner store near our house had taken her away from us.
“Did...did you have a dream before her accident?”
I leaned over Dad's bed to see his features contorted into a wounded grimace, silent tears streaming down his cheeks. I stumbled backwards so quickly that I nearly knocked my chair over.
“Why didn't you warn her?” I shouted. Hot tears of anger and devastation pricked at the corners of my eyes. “You knew something was going to happen! You could have stopped it!”
“I tried!” Dad cried. “We'd been arguing. I fell asleep and had the dream, and I woke up to find a note from her. She wrote that she was taking a drive to clear her head. I jumped out of bed and drove around looking for her. That's when I saw the wreck and—”
Dad choked back a sob. I sank back into my chair, completely drained by the day's events. Between the crushing array of emotions I'd undergone over the past few hours and the potent scent of bleach in the air, the migraine hammering away at my skull felt like it was intensifying with every breath I took.
“Why didn't you ever tell me the truth?” I asked quietly. “About Mom, about any of this?”
“I'm sorry,” Dad whispered. “I thought I was protecting you.”
“But why us? Why our family?”
“I've asked myself the same question. Pop only spoke to me about her once, and Dean said he didn't tell him much either. Whatever else Pop knew he took to his grave. All I can figure is that the answer has something to do with the rumors I heard when I was a kid about a business my grandfather had been involved in.”
“What was it?”
“Supposedly he worked for an unlicensed children's home that was later shut down. The methods they used to procure babies...well, they were cruel. Their usual tactic was to deceive struggling single mothers into signing temporary custody of their infants over to the home until they got back on their feet, only to immediately adopt the babies out to wealthy families in under-the-table deals. Sometimes they kidnapped babies from families living in poverty by posing as social workers offering assistance. And sometimes, if a mother resisted, they did whatever it took to separate her from her child. My grandfather's rumored job was to bring in four babies a month. He was employed at the children's home for nearly fifteen years. I think the root of our family's torment lies somewhere beneath all the pain he caused.”
I blinked, taken aback by the heinous revelation. Dad had distanced himself from most of his family when he was young and rarely mentioned them when I was growing up—now I understood why. “Are you saying that you think we're cursed?”
“I'm saying that grief is a powerful emotion, and so is rage. Maybe both can linger long after a person is gone.”
We sat in silence for several moments before I spoke again.
“What now?” I finally asked. “Am I supposed to just sit here helplessly and wait for you to die?”
Dad tried to reach for my hand, only to find he was too weak to lift his own. “It's not that simple, son.” His voice had become faint. It was clear that our conversation had cost him what remained of his strength.
“But you said there was nothing anybody can do.”
“I didn't tell you all of this because I'm dying. Son, I'm trying to warn you.”
“I don't understand.”
“It wasn't the chest pains that woke me up this morning. It was the dream I had.”
I froze. My stomach dropped as a horrific realization dawned on me.
“Dad, what are you trying to say?”
“The ghost,” Dad whispered, his eyes full of sorrow. “I saw her too.”
Written by CertainShadows
Content is available under CC BY-SA