Ruesia's Dream Journal

We were going fishing, my fiance and I. we were deep in the woods, redwoods, the ground was warm and the sun was filtering through the canopy of needled branches. He was at the front of the car, unloading our bags, and I was walking around to the back to get something out. As I went to open the handle, I noticed two eyes staring at me. Dark eyes with dark hair that was covered in a fine mist of the same dirt I was stepping on. Burrowed into the dead pine needles so I didn't see, so we didn't notice. I couldn't see anything but his eyes up, but I knew that he was smiling, a devilish grin. I remember choking on my words, trying to yell to my fiance to help. I couldn't get the words out, and the man was crawling out from under the bumper, like a spider extending its limbs to hunt its prey. I backed up, started running around to the front of the car, yelling "Stop, leave us alone!"

The man didn't talk, circled the car, I was standing in front of my fiance, he was trying to stand in front of me, a dance of protection. The stranger had that startling smile on his face and began to approach us. I suddenly rushed forward and pushed him, flat hands on his chest, but he barely moved. Barely indicated he'd felt anything.

I knew my fiance would try to protect me, but that's what this stranger wanted. I could tell he wasn't going to do anything, just his presence would be enough, and then once the first blow had been thrown, he would react, claim self defense. He would rip my life from my hands. I didn't know this stranger, but I knew what he wanted.

I started slamming my fists into his chest as my fiance moved toward us. "Leave..us...alone!" I cried out, feeling tired, sluggish. The shock was coursing through my veins. My mind was starting to grow fuzzy. As my fiance stepped closer, the stranger suddenly reached out, moving like a well calculated animal, grabbing me, pulling me toward him, and then fleeing. He had to be taller than me, for my feet didn't drag, but his arm around my waist was hard and he ran like a gazelle through the woods. I was beating him, trying to kick him, but it was as if he wasn't phased. I looked at his face, the vein on his neck pulsing, and his eyes wild. He was breathing heavily and yet he ran at a dizzying pace. I heard my fiance screaming for me, running after us, and I realized I was screaming too. Screaming for help.

And then, somehow, he dropped me, ran into a small town, and threw me down in the bushes, and ran to an open vehicle, turned it on, flipped on the lights, and peeled out, heading away. I remember laying there, in the brush, panting and shaking. I thought the worst was over, he'd stopped. But then I realized why. He didn't want me. He never wanted me.

It was with a sickening and sinking feeling I watched my fiance run past me, his eyes wide, his body set to kill. He was running to save me, but he didn't see me, ran right past me, saw the stranger peeling away in a car, and stopped thinking; started doing. He ran up to a beat up old pickup, barely hanging together, and somehow the keys were in it, he got them, I don't know how, I was barely aware of where I was, yet alone what was happening, but I saw him leap into the cab and take off, the truck's engine whining loudly.

I ran into a store, bewildered, told them to call 9-1-1, didn't tell them why, didn't know what it would do. That there was a strange man that had grabbed me, had driven off. A woman inside, large and unhappy looking, began to grumble. The stranger had stolen her car, she suddenly realized, and began to complain how she hoped he didn't scratch it. I remember standing by the road, frantic, watching the pickup reach the top of the hill, start to careen beyond view.

And then a loud POP. It echoed through the trees, reached my ears, made my heart stop. I saw dust rise up, beyond my view, a few miles off, where the road snaked, and I began to pant heavily. My heart began to beat loudly in my ears. The woman in the store was crying and mumbling about how she just knew her car was dented. I turned around, to the few women in the little store, it looked like a little convenience store like you see in the mountains, and I whispered, "Did that sound like a gunshot?"

No one met my gaze and I turned to look, watched people looking as the dust continued to curl up from the forest. I didn't hear the whine of the old truck anymore. I heard a woman quietly whisper to another that it sounded like a tire. I began to shudder and I started trotting down the road, aware it was miles between myself and whatever lay ahead, knowing I could barely stand, let alone run, because I was so frightened; shock settling in.

Sirens blared as two sheriff's vehicles barreled down the road toward the 'scene'. I couldn't even fathom what was there. I couldn't bear to consider that it was even a 'scene'. I stood on the side of the road, breathing heavily, watching; waiting.

After what seemed hours, I saw a familar car coming down the rise. It was my fiance's car. I felt a flood of relief rush over my body. And then, as the car neared, fear began to trickle back into my veins and my hands and face began to tingle as I realized much too late that he hadn't been driving his car. That he'd taken that pickup. As it rolled up to me, I saw a woman in the front seat, a clipboard on her lap.

She opened the door as I ran over to it, tears beginning to fill in my eyes. There had to be an explanation. Maybe he was being held for questioning. Maybe the stranger had crashed. Maybe it was a gun. Maybe...maybe a thousand possibilities.

The woman looked up at me, dark hair, a white shirt on, but a large gun in the holster on her hip. She had a hardened face and her large fingers grasped a pen as she wrote on a clipboard. I was staring at her, and she looked up and said sternly, "Ma'am, it seems the tire pressure was too much, the thing popped, truck went off the road." I felt an icy cold horror begin to pierce my body. "The truck hit, cab came clear off...the cab's badly dented, we're trying to get to it, but we can't be sure if he survived."

The ice hit my heart and I began to hyperventilate as I slowly asked, "What?" I blinked, my hands shaking violently as time seemed to move without taking me with it. I wasn't aware of time or place or myself, just of the beat that was my startled heart. Then, as the seconds ticked by, devastation flooded my body and I screamed, "What?! WHAT?!" I began to feel like I was suffocating, grabbing my chest, a sob stuck in my throat, screaming in a shrill voice, "WHERE IS HE?!" I looked up to where the dust was beginning to clear and imagined him, the truck at the bottom of a ravine, the cab stuck, smashed, to the point of no return. I imagined him having a few seconds, bleeding to death, trying to get free as the life dripped out of him. I started to run, dragging my feet, my mind unable to comprehend what I would do if I weren't there and he died. If he had already died. What I would do if I lost him.




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I woke up gasping, my heart thundering in my chest, tears welling in my eyes.



A dream.