1:15 (Terror Unlimited)

by Jacob Rayne

  1:15

  Terror Unlimited Volume 1

  By Jacob Rayne

  A Rayne of Terror publication

  Also available from Rayne of Terror

  Becoming…

  The Lazarus Contagion

  Sunshine

  Flesh Harvest

  Walk in the Park

  Digital Children

  Perpetual Darkness

  Season’s Bleedings

  A Feast of Flesh: Flesh Harvest II

  1:15

  Copyright © Saul Bainbridge (Writing as Jacob Rayne) 2015

  All rights reserved

  Cover art created by Stephen Bryant of SRB Productions.

  http://www.srbproductions.net/

  It’s the same dream every time.

  Sweat dripping from me like I’ve just got out of the shower. I’m panting.

  Trembling.

  Smiling.

  As I lift the pillow, the baby’s blank eyes stare up at me, beseeching some sort of pity or at least recognition.

  The clock above his cot says 1:15.

  The smile never wavers. I look upon his lifeless face with pure nonchalance.

  It’s when I get to the mirror that things get weird.

  The face that stares back at me through bloodshot eyes is not my own.

  Not even close.

  I’m still staring at my grinning reflection when the second boy appears. He’s a few years older than the boy I’ve just suffocated beneath the pillow.

  His scream registers with me but it’s far away, kind of like I’m hearing it underwater.

  Sound acts differently in this dream.

  His eyes look wide enough to pop out of their sockets and land by my bare feet.

  He eyes me in dismay, bemusement turning into recognition before morphing into terror and despair.

  He turns to the landing and runs, screaming at the top of his lungs.

  But he’s not as fast as me.

  The boy is hanging limply over my arm, my hands still clenched tight around his throat, when our male lead arrives.

  He’s good-looking in a fatherly, best-years-are-behind-him kind of way, until grief makes him ugly.

  His face contorts, turning a shade of beetroot only slightly lighter than that of the limp corpse in my arms.

  Tears pour from his eyes, which lock with mine for a second. His mouth moves, but I hear no words.

  I feel certain the grin on my face has never dropped for a second, in fact I’m sure it has grown.

  He takes one look at the child lying dead in my arms and turns and runs down the stairs, crying for help at the top of his lungs.

  I know he’s headed for the kitchen, though the layout of the house in unfamiliar to me. The look on his face just told me he was seeking a weapon to defend himself.

  This is confirmed when I go into the kitchen to find him with a knife in his trembling hand.

  His face is set now, tears evaporated by a seething rage and determination.

  He’s not going down without a fight, I can tell that now.

  He talks to me.

  Again, it’s not coherent, I don’t really understand. Though I do make out a name on the end of it.

  The name is not mine and I have no idea why he is calling me it.

  His lips move again, and I sense he is trying to talk tough to intimidate me, but the terror he is feeling is betrayed by his eyes.

  My grin widens further as I move in.

  The knife lashes out at me, tentative at first, but then given confidence by the thought of his murdered sons.

  The blade catches my right hand and draws blood that patters down to the floor. This is the only noise in the confrontation other than the sound of blood racing through my head and my own ragged breathing.

  He sees that I am still grinning like a madwoman and turns to try and leave by the back door. I shove it shut, grabbing his hair with my cut hand.

  My blood leaves a smear on his blonde hair.

  Laughing at the top of my voice, I haul him back hard enough to almost tear his hair out by the root.

  He cries out, this time clear through the other noises my body is using to blot out his protests.

  My fist mangles his nose.

  The knife comes back, sticking in my gut almost up to the hilt. The pain is far away, but I feel warmth on my belly where the blood is dripping out of my body. I can hear every drop as it lands on the floor.

  His face contorts again, his dismay that I’m still standing, still hostile, still smiling even, fully evident.

  He pulls the knife and says something, his face twisted into a mask of utter despair. I can tell he doesn’t want to hurt me.

  But again the blade comes for my stomach.

  I catch his hand an inch from my belly.

  He again cries out as I twist his wrist hard enough to make him drop the knife.

  My panting is deafening in my ears, rendering his frantic screams mute.

  The knife is in my hand now, plunging into his abdomen again and again and again, covering my grinning face with spatters of gore.

  It’s at this point that I wake every time, sweating and screaming, pulse dangerously high.

  After a short while my neighbour checks in on me, disturbed by my night terrors once more.

  ‘Bad dreams again, Terri?’ she asks, concern writ large on her face.

  I gulp. Nod. My throat’s as dry as the goddamn Sahara. I take a slug of water.

  ‘Yeah. Same fucking one every time,’ I say.

  ‘Hopefully that’s the last one, eh?’ she smiles kindly, her big hand kneading my shoulder.

  I nod. ‘I can’t take much more of ’em,’ I say. ‘I’ll lose my mind if I have any more, I’m sure.’

  She says nothing to this, just smiles kindly.

  ‘You need to talk about it?’ she asks. ‘You still ain’t told me what it’s about?’

  I shake my head, frantic. I’m certain if she knew what was going on in my head she wouldn’t want anything to do with me.

  She came again today.

  The smug bitch who looks like a younger, more successful relative came to patronise me once more.

  She’s everything I’m not; happy, successful, healthy.

  I bet she’s never had dreams like the bastards I have these days.

  Her grin makes me want to punch those gleaming teeth down her fucking throat.

  I want to take that slicked back hair and throttle her with it.

  Bitch. Where does she get off on making me feel like this?

  ‘How are you?’ she asks.

  I mutter something that may or may not be curses.

  She doesn’t meet my eye the entire time she’s here.

  It’s like she’s ashamed of me.

  ‘Who are you?’ I ask.

  She shakes her head, forlorn, ashamed, but says nothing at first.

  ‘Who are you?’ I ask again. ‘A sister? Daughter? Niece?’

  ‘Don’t you remember me?’ she says, tears rimming her cobalt blue eyes.

  I shake my head vehemently. ‘Would I be asking if I did?’

  She looks down at her expensive shoes again.

  ‘Why do you bother coming?’ I ask her, my anger bubbling up like a pan left too long on the boil.

  ‘To see how you’re dong,’ she says, the tears now running down her freshly-exfoliated cheeks.

  ‘I’m doing the same as I was this time last week,’ I spit. ‘Plagued by fucking nightmares. Staring at the wall. Dying of solitude.’

  She nods. Says nothing. She’s clearly waiting for me to open up.

  She’s wasting her time as well as mine.

  ‘Haven’t you got somewhere better to be?’ I ask.

  She shakes her he
ad.

  ‘Well I don’t want you here,’ I say, getting up off my chair and shooing her towards the door.

  ‘You take care of yourself,’ she says. ‘And I’ll come and see you soon.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ I say, holding the door open for her.

  Her eyes meet mine for the first time and I see that she is deeply upset. She says nothing, just turns and leaves. I slam the door behind her.

  ‘Good riddance.’

  It’s as though every time I see the smug stranger it stirs up the nightmares. It’s the same for the next few nights. The scarce amount of sleep I manage to scrounge is disturbed by the dreams.

  They’re more vivid than ever, the colours, the sensations, the emotions. I feel certain I’m grinning in my sleep as my mind acts out these macabre dreams.

  I wake once more, screaming, in floods of tears. I take to braying my head against the wall to try and clear it of these horrendous images.

  But it’s no use.

  They linger, choking sleep, strangling sanity.

  My neighbour once more calls in to see what has kept me awake this time.

  She looks more concerned each time she visits.

  ‘I think you should talk to someone about this,’ she says.

  I shrug, trying to muster nonchalance. I fail.

  Burst into tears, my body shaking like that of a man drilling the road.

  She puts her arm round me, pulls me in tight.

  ‘It’s ok, Terri,’ she says. Her concern is flattering. ‘I wish you’d tell me about it.’

  I’ll try anything at this point, so I duly begin to spill the beans.

  I tell her everything. Describe the full extent of the suffering of the dream’s victims. In graphic detail I tell her of my emotions and feelings during this rampage. I even describe the house in excruciating detail, to give my overwrought mind chance to recover from thinking about each murder.

  When I’m finished, she’s in floods of tears too. I’m distraught, but feel as if a weight has been lifted.

  ‘No wonder you ain’t sleeping,’ she says, putting her arm around me once more. ‘I think you should talk to someone else about this too. You need help, Terri.’

  ‘It’s just a fucking dream,’ I say, trying to sound flippant.

  She shakes her head. ‘This ain’t right. You shouldn’t be thinking things like this. It’s doing you no good. Look at yourself.’

  I take a look in the mirror and I have to concede she has a point. My hair is hanging by my pallid face in dirty clumps. My eyes are more red than white, bloated by the effects of almost a week of fitful tears.

  I can’t lie, I’ve looked better.

  ‘Please, speak to someone, for me,’ she says, looking me in the eye. I can see she’s about to cry again so I break eye contact. I don’t want her to set me off again.

  ‘Ok,’ I concede. ‘If it’ll get you off my back.’

  She gets someone to visit me. Fuck knows where she got them from, but they’re a psychiatrist and they seem to know what they’re doing.

  I’m glad they came to me. I rarely bother going out these days. If it had been left up to me I’d have been here for years without having someone to talk to about it.

  He has a kind smile, but his mistrust and loathing are thinly veiled.

  He’s not as bad as the smug bitch who comes to see me, but I think it’ll be a while before I trust him enough to open up.

  ‘You’re nearly as bad as the smug bitch who comes to see me,’ I say, grinning, in an attempt to break the ice.

  His face registers alarm for a second, but it’s quickly hidden beneath the professional façade.

  He ignores what I’ve said and instead asks me why I’ve called him.

  My brow furrows a little at this.

  ‘I didn’t call you, my neighbour did,’ I say.

  He looks at me for a second then nods and smiles. ‘Ah yes, sorry that’s right.’

  ‘It’s this nightmare I keep having,’ I say, despite my best attempts at keeping my psychological distance.

  He’s as shocked as my neighbour was, but he hides it better. He remains detached, not a tear comes to his eye during my story.

  He makes a few notes as I talk, choosing to remain silent other than to tell me to carry on, to omit no detail, no matter how tiny.

  The doctor says very little at the end of my soul-baring, just offers me a prescription.

  He says he’ll come to see me again soon. I can’t decide whether this is a good thing or not. I have the smug bitch coming to see me, that’s enough visitors for me.

  Still, I’d judged the doctor a little harshly. He wasn’t all that bad. At least he can’t tell anyone about the horrific contents of my head.

  I feel worn out, having related the tales of my horrific nightmares twice in as many hours. I long for sleep’s numbing embrace, but my fear of the nightmare’s return is enough to chase this temptation away.

  I stay awake for as long as I can.

  I must have fallen asleep at some point, but it’s a relief to be shaken awake by my neighbour instead of being woken by my own terrified screams.

  I have no idea where I am or what time it is.

  My neighbour is holding a bacon sandwich, so I take it to still be morning.

  ‘Smuggled this in for ya,’ she says, grinning slyly.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘But I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Save it for later,’ she says, putting it to one side. ‘So, I take it that you had no dreams last night?’

  ‘No,’ I say, smiling ever so slightly.

  ‘Bet you feel like a new woman,’ she grins.

  ‘Hardly. Feel like I’ve been hit by a fucking steamroller.’

  She snorts laughter. ‘The doc ok with you?’ she says.

  ‘Yeah. Much better than I thought.’

  She nods, takes a bite of her own bacon sandwich. ‘Glad to hear it.’

  I can tell there’s something on her mind so I remain quiet so she can speak. ‘You tell him much?’

  ‘Everything,’ I admit.

  She nods, pulls a strange face. She seems pissed but is doing a half decent job at hiding it.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I ask.

  She pretends to chew her sandwich thoroughly, but I can tell she’s just avoiding the question. Making herself time to think.

  ‘Nothing,’ she says. ‘I’m glad you’re getting the help you need. Enjoy your sandwich.’

  She pats me on the shoulder and leaves.

  I think about calling after her, after all she is the only person who takes any notice of me (the smug bitch not included of course) but I decide to keep my dignity.

  The doctor comes to see me a few minutes after I’ve sent my smug friend – or relative or whatever the hell she is – scurrying out for the latest time. I think I had some sort of record today, my anger at my neighbour turning her back on me helped me to summon the necessary assertiveness to send her on her merry way.

  The bitch’s face is naggingly familiar, but my mind is in no shape to put its metaphorical finger on it.

  ‘I wish she’d just stop calling in on me,’ I say.

  The doctor’s brow furrows a little at this, but he says nothing.

  ‘How’s the new medication treating you?’ he asks.

  ‘Ok. I think the dreams stopped last night.’

  ‘Good, good. You manage to get any sleep?’

  ‘A bit. I try to fight it, to avoid having the nightmare. Feel like a character in those stupid Freddy Krueger films.’

  He smiles at this.

  ‘My neighbour isn’t talking to me though,’ I say. I thought I could just put it behind me, but it seems the wound is still raw. Aside from the doctor she’s the only person I can talk to about this shit and the loss hurts.

  He opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something but seems to think better of it and glances down at his notes instead.

  ‘Are there any other things you remember about the nightmare?’ he says. ‘An
y other details? What happens next?’

  I shake my head. My mind is focussing on the potential loss of my one friend in this shitty world. It’s upsetting but still bliss in comparison to churning over the bloody hands, the limp corpses, the psychotic grin. ‘No, I told you everything about it.’

  He nods, taps the side of his pen against his tooth. Something’s on his mind. I’ve spent enough time with him now to know his mannerisms, especially when he’s feeling awkward about something.

  ‘Penny for ’em, Doc.’

  He looks up as if startled, as if these are the last words he’d expect to hear coming out of my mouth, and asks me what I said.

  ‘Penny for ’em.’

  His mouth moves soundlessly like that of a fish drowning on dry land.

  ‘What are you thinking about? There’s clearly something on your mind.’

  He looks away, afraid to meet my stare. ‘N-nothing. I’m sorry, just had a bad night at home. My daughter didn’t come home until four am. We had one hell of an argument.’

  He could be lying, but I can’t concentrate enough to decide. My mind has other things to focus on. I give him the benefit of the doubt since he’s always been good to me.

  ‘Well I hope you get it sorted out.’

  ‘Me too.’ His pager beeps.

  Saved by the bell.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, his hand already plucking the pager from his belt. His relief is palpable.

  ‘I understand,’ I say. ‘If you need to go, then please do.’

  He reads the message, looks up at me and apologises again. ‘This is really important,’ he says. ‘I can reschedule for this afternoon if you like.’

  I shake my head. I’d not feel the benefit anyway. My mind is elsewhere. ‘It’s fine, doc, I understand. Just make it next week. If these tablets do the job I might not need to see you again anyway.’ I try a smile, but the joke falls flat.

  ‘I will see you next week then, if you’re sure,’ he says.

  I nod, set him free.

  Before I have time to wonder what the hell made him so skittish, my mind has wandered onto the subject of my neighbour.

  The bitch still hasn’t visited me now, over a week later.

  Doesn’t she know the turmoil she’s causing?