I had a dream, and even knowing that it was a dream and not real, I’m still upset. It was one of those nightmares that clings to your brain even when you’re awake and leaves you side-eying the people involved.
In my dream, there was some kind of big storm that raged all night. The next morning I went outside with the Kid to check on the damage, and we found the big tree in our yard split into pieces, branches collapsing to the ground even as we watched. It looked like cinders flying up into the air. I even said, “This looks like Hell.”
And that’s when I heard the raucous noise coming from my neighbor’s house across the street. I looked and saw that they had some kind of bonfire lit and it looked like they were cavorting around it, hooting and howling, with loud music playing in the background.
My real neighbors have done the same thing in real life. They’ve gotten frighteningly loud, with children shrieking and running around and a man singing in Spanish. In my dream, I slapped the Kid on the shoulder and said, “Let’s get inside. We don’t want the tree to fall on us. Come on.”
We went back around the house to the backdoor and the Kid went inside ahead of me. I stopped to call for the dog. He didn’t come.
I went and got the remote for his collar and hit the button that makes it beep at him. I was standing in the doorway when I saw him looking at me from the short hill leading to the garage.
“What are you doing? Come here!”
And then I saw there was someone behind him. Someone that let go of him, and my dog came running toward me and past me into the house, panting and terrified. The man came running at me. I slammed the door, managing to tell the Kid, “Call the police. Call the police!”
The man tried to get in as I held the door shut. I braced my feet against the wall to hold the door closed. I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t scream.
He was tall and thin, his arms and his hands saying he was white. His face was painted with white makeup and sweeping black lines, making him look like a demon skull. His eyes blazed with madness. I could feel the door bulging where he pushed against it, ready to swing open and let him in.
My neighbors are Hispanic. This man was white. I knew that he’d killed them, probably while we were outside. And now he was going to kill us.
Holding the door with desperate strength, I craned my neck to look at the Kid, who was standing close to the couch, not even holding the phone yet. “Get Grandpa!” I managed to rasp out through my tight throat.
And he turned his head toward his grandpa’s room and called out, not even yelling, “Grandpa, someone’s here.”
And I looked at him in disbelief. And I woke up.
Even knowing that it was a dream, I’m still boggling. “Grandpa, someone’s here”? Really?!
It makes me think that we need to go over a survival plan. Because either I don’t trust him to pull his own weight in an emergency, or my subconscious brain is telling me that something bad is coming and we all need to be on the same page. Either way, if I’m holding the door against a frightening madman with murder in his eyes, I want someone that’s able to call the police as needed or at least get the help of another adult.
Because that was pathetic.
