Night walk (part two)

Vintage model that my car is, the convience light has a very long delay when activated from the driver’s side – it doesn’t come on. So I propped my door against the near wall, creating a convience wedge of my own, as I groggily stuck my head inside. Thats when it hit me.

As I looked across the cabin, a shadow formed at the corner of my vision. I looked back at my seat, near the headrest. There I saw a single dark spot form about shoulder height, on the right side of the seat as I looked at it. From the dark spot flowed additional shadow, like the welling up and flowing of blood from a bullet wound, had I been sitting in the seat.

I touched the area with my left hand. It felt damp, but it left no trace on my hand as I pulled it away. I stared briefly at my finger tips, then touched my right chest, just below the collar bone, just above my armpit.

No, that isn’t right, I thought, realizing that the hole would have been in my left shoulder. But I knew I wasn’t bleeding anyway, and hadn’t been sitting in the seat. When I looked back at the seat cushion, the shadowy traces were gone.

I touched the area again in disbelief. I must be dreaming, I said to myself, and leaned back into the car to get what I came for.

What was it that I came out here for anyway? In my tired and half-sleep state, the shock of what I saw, however pointless, left me gaping for why I was outside. I paused, then seated myself backwards, with my back to the wheel, and stared out my back window into the driveway and the night.

After a few minutes thinking about it, I conclude that I must be sleepwalking. I should probably get help getting back inside, afterall, I seem to really have no idea what I am doing. I consider yelling for help, but that seemed tiring. Instead, I hooked my right elbow behind me, and caught the end of my blinker wand.

HONK HONK

Two short blasts of my horn. It sounded like a disel horn to me, like the horn on the trains running up and down in the yards near my apartment. Again, I must be dreaming, else my battery is going dead. In any case, I knew it worked as I heard a toilet lid drop and the bowl flush abruptly, followed by quick footfalls somewhere above me.

The master suite is above the garage, and I realize that maybe honking wasn’t the best choice. The lack of clear thinking gives validation to my own suggestion of getting help, however, so I lever myself from my car and stand in semi-consciousness in the gap between wall, cardoor, and car.

What did it mean that I saw blood in my car? Am I to be shot sometime soon? Was it a fatal wound? Should I be concerned? I don’t think so, it was only a dream. What DID I come out here for??! Where is my help?

I stare out into the dim driveway, and across it into the grass field and trees at the end of the property. In the distance I hear a siren pick up, then another. OOoooh, thinks I, they must have just pressed the silent alarm. How embarrasing. Any minute now there is going to be Police and emergency vehicles filling the driveway, and all I wanted is someone to walk me safely back to bed. Sigh. Still, its nice to know I have friends who care so much, and I know that the police would rather come on a simple domestic call like this, than to come and find me dead.

I hear small scretches. Short, quiet, frequent, but louder and more intense than the sirens. Must be a close police unit responding silently. Hoping to catch the intruder – that would be me – still on the premises. My friends live on one of the furthest developed streets in this neighborhood, and the streets are laid out to prevent fast driving through. Again, now I am going to have some cop draw down on me, and all I want is to go to bed. I am embarrased.

They’re going to ask me what I wanted in my car. I wish I could remember…

There is a tinkling, as the sound of nails being brushed off a bench, on the far side of the garage. uh-oh My attention snaps to the far side of the car beside mine, and I see movement against the shadow of that wall. eEEIIGHHK I let fly in a short sharp scream. It was girly-sounding, and I actually register a moment of disapointment with myself.

I glance back at the driveway, and my narrow path from my cardoor to freedom, and I am confused by the blackness there. The landscape lighting is off. oh man I think to myself, as that giddy sensation of already being on the losing side starts to set in. I am no longer listening for the sirens, as I concentrate on the sound of sneakers shuffling against the fine dirt on the concrete.

It is coming around the back of the cars. The sound, and the shadow with it, are stealthing quickly up my narrow path of doom. Groggily, in the last moment, I think to duck him, get down beside the car, turn into shadow myself. But the thought comes too late.

As I start to kneel, I hear the fabric which the shadow is wearing thrust out at me. I feel a cold spot of metal, a small bead of pressure on my neck. My mind reels as I understand what is about to happen, but I cannot find any alternative.

I hear the dull, bass plunking sound of my tender tissues giving way to the force behind the spot. I hear it again, transmitted through the tissues up into my hearing canal, as the object penetrates my right carotid. It is softer as it passes out the other side. My mind making a map, a 3-D plotting as the long slender cold metal object pushes through, scraping the back of my throat, pressing into the muscles on the back left side of my neck.

Its a round file, the object is. I can see it in my mind, and hear the serrations rasp against my internals. If only he leaves it in…just leave it in, I won’t bleed out. But he does not share my mind. He wishes to hide the evidence, or maybe he just wants me to die faster. I feel the dirk pull slowly, ever so slowly, from my neck.

I note to myself that I didn’t feel the rasping on exit, as the blade was already well lubricated with my blood. I am giddy with my own astute observation as gravity changes, and suddenly my face is leaning against the cold garage floor.

Thats when I woke up.