Halloween vibes: Dream On

2022-10-29 19 min read writing

Nobody is afraid of the unknown, what you really fear is the loss of the known.

— Anthony de Mello


Have you ever thought about what messages dreams are bringing to us? Let me tell you a secret. Waking up out of a nightmare… you’re not really waking up. The nightmare continues. That’s because a dream is not an independent entity floating somewhere in a vacuum of dreamland. No, no, no. It’s in your head. And as long as your head stays attached to your neck, it goes with you everywhere. Your dreams are mirrors of your reality. And sometimes, all you can do is run.


Swish!

Tommy jumps away from the swing, startled. It has almost hit him. Phew, that was close. The wind is howling around him, lifting the brown, decaying leaves in dizzy chaos, making him feel confused.

Swish!

The swing shoots through the air again, just a few centimeters from Tommy’s nose. He takes another step back but slips on the oozy, wet leaves and falls backward. His head hits the ground hard, and for a moment, everything goes black. He blinks and shakes his head. Sobs start to form in his chest, but they die off on his lips. Right in front of him, way too close for his comfort, stands a little girl.

He’s never seen a girl like this. Her hair is raven black, weaved into two braids that look like ropes going down her neck. Tommy doesn’t like braids. They remind him of the hanged man’s picture he saw in the local museum. Despite that, it’s not the braids that scare him the most. Neither does her chalk-white skin, as unnatural as he’s ever seen outside of the vampire movies his mommy enjoys when cooking Sunday lunches.

The dark circles around the girl’s eyes are even bigger than uncle Jim’s. He doesn’t come for a visit very often, and mommy always cries when he’s leaving. Last time, Tommy noticed she gave him an envelope — secretly so that daddy didn’t see. The girl’s lips are dark purple, like the sour cherries in the back of the garden. Tommy liked the cherries until he found a large worm in it once, and his daddy warned him that if he eats it, he will have worms in his belly. Daddy laughed at Tommy’s horrified expression and popped one cherry into his own mouth. Tommy never touched them again.

The girl’s dress might have been white once, perhaps similar to what auntie Nandy wore when she was marrying uncle Dan, except that the little girl’s dress has smudges of dirt all over. She carries a ginger-haired doll with big pink shoes. Tommy wonders what the doll needs such big shoes for. Is she prepared to step on something? Or someone?

All of this makes Tommy very uncomfortable. But it’s her eyes and her gaze that genuinely scare him. His mommy once said that you can tell whether someone is nice or ugly on the inside by looking into their eyes. And if they’re ugly, you should run as fast as you can. This girl’s eyes are as black as her hair. It looks like the black center has expanded so much that it didn’t leave space for any other color. Only the white corners are shining out of the pool of darkness.

The girl tilts her head in curiosity and reaches towards him. He’s drowning in her gaze. He’s drowning. Drowning. And so Tommy clambers to his feet, turns around and runs and runs and runs. He wakes up back in his bed, his body completely terrorized. He can still see the scene in front of him.

Crying, he runs to his parents’ bedroom.

“Mommy, mommy,” he tries to wake her up. She murmurs something and turns to the other side. He tries again, but she reaches back and pushes him away.

“It’s fucking early, Tommy. Go to bed and let us sleep.”

Tommy knows better than to push her. He runs around the bed, almost tripping on empty beer bottles. There he hesitates and whispers: “Daddy?” The only response he gets is loud snoring.

He wipes his tears and snot with a sleeve of his pajamas with a tractor print and hesitantly looks at the door. He knows it was just a dream and that dreams don’t come when you’re awake. So he should be safe now. He looks at his sleeping parents one more time and tiptoes back to his room.

After a while, he finds the courage to crawl to the window. He’s staying low so that no one who’d be in the garden would see him. He reaches up and clutches the windowsill. He pulls himself up very, very slowly. If someone was right behind the window, they would see a thatch of blond hair rising up, followed by a frowned forehead. Then thin eyebrows. And blue eyes wide-open with fear. If someone was right behind the window, Tommy would be on the eye-level with them right now.

No one is behind the window. No one’s in the garden, either. It’s still early morning, everything is covered in fog, and the only thing moving that Tommy sees is a tree swing in the garden. He must have heard it screech, and that’s why he dreamt of it.

“It was just a dream,” he whispers to himself unconvincingly. He never stops watching the autumn leaves just lying lifelessly on the ground right next to the moving swing.


As the next night comes, Tommy gets more and more anxious. He doesn’t want to go to bed, and his mom is getting impatient.

“Tommy, what the hell. I think we explained that boogeymen don’t exist.”

“That’s not what you said,” he mumbles.

“Oh, common, we were just teasing you. Grow a sense of humor, for God’s sake.”

Tommy nervously shifts the weight from one bare-foot leg to another. “But it’s not about boogeymen. It’s about the girl. I told you in the morning.”

“You’re still thinking about that? You said yourself that it was just a little girl!”

“Yes, but she had black hair and black eyes and a white dress, and she carried this…”

“Enough with the nonsense,” his father raises his voice. He puts down a bottle of beer and stands up from the sofa. “If I miss the beginning of Law and Order because my son is afraid of some girl —”

Tommy doesn’t hesitate for a moment longer. He runs to his room, tears rolling down his cheeks. His mom follows him there.

“You know your dad is right,” she says when she enters the room. “You need to buck up. It’s just a dream, after all.”

Tommy doesn’t say anything. His mom tucks him in and turns the light off.

“Good night,” she says. Tommy doesn’t respond. She sighs. “You know it hurts me when you don’t talk to me. Mommy loves you, Tommy Toomy,” she whimpers.

“I’m sorry, mommy. Good night.”

She nods and closes the door behind her. The room is suddenly so dark. Only a sliver of moonlight is creeping on the floor all the way to a wardrobe. It reflects in the mirror there, and the reflection goes straight to Tommy’s toys. A plush bear, plastic figures of Ninja Turtles, and a cloth clown all look lifeless right now. Tommy doesn’t notice that a new toy joined the group. It’s a little ginger-head doll with big pink shoes. She’s semi-hidden behind the clown, but one of her eyes is peaking out and gazes straight towards the bed.


Tommy’s fighting sleep, but within fifteen minutes, his eyes start to close down with drowsiness. The second his lids close completely, he’s back in the garden. He looks around in a panic, but the place seems empty and quiet. Not even wind rustling in the trees can be heard.

Is there something moving in the shadows next to the tool shed? Or behind the cherry tree? He hesitates and then takes a few tentative steps towards the house. Standing in the middle of the garden, he feels exposed and vulnerable. As if someone could be right behind him.

He quickly glances back. Nothing. He takes a few more steps towards the house. He needs to get there. There, he will be safe. One more step. Two more steps. His legs feel heavy.

Swish!

He jerks back and stares at the moving swing. What made it move?

With a dreadful intuition, he makes a turn. The girl is standing in front of him. She looks just like yesterday with her tight braids and dirty, torn dress. Her dark purple lips part, and Tommy sees that her teeth are as sharp as needles. She tries to say something but the sound coming out of her mouth is all mechanical. Tommy cannot understand a single word. He’s frozen with fear as her black eyes stare straight at him.

For a moment, which feels like an eternity, they just stand there, looking at each other. Tommy wonders if she’s about to jump at him and rip him into pieces with her razor-sharp teeth. Suddenly he cannot stop thinking about the documentary he saw a few weeks ago about how panthers hunt. The panthers were as black as the middle of the night. They stayed low above the ground, not moving for the longest time, but you could see the tension in their muscles, the readiness to kill. They were watching you the whole time, never looking away, their eyes two shining diamonds in the sea of darkness. They looked like phantoms. They looked like this girl. And then off they went, from motionless to slaughtering machines within a blink of an eye. Tommy can still see the lifeless eyes of the deer, its body dripping with blood.

The girl’s hand springs up and seizes his arm. Tommy can feel her thin fingers pressing against the sleeve of his shirt. She starts to pull him towards the garden gate. With certainty known only in dreams, Tommy’s sure that he’s gonna lose if they pass through the gate. He doesn’t know what exactly that would mean but doesn’t care to find out. Terrified, Tommy defies the pull and takes a few steps back, but trips over something. He looks around. The doll. Her hands are raised. She pushes Tommy from the other side as if helping the girl get him out of the garden. He starts to scream —

— and wakes up in his bed. His whole body is shaking from chills and sobs. He quickly looks around, but the room’s empty. No one is there.


“I understand. But did the girl say anything?” Tommy’s grandmother is looking at him, worry in her eyes. Tommy shakes his head.

“She just made weird noises, that’s it. Although it looked like she wanted to say something.”

“Do you know what?”

“No.” Silence.

“Tell me again, what exactly was scary about her?” his grandmother asks.

“She just doesn’t look normal. Her face is too white, there are big circles around her eyes, her big white dress is all dirty. Her braids look like snakes. And the black in her eyes is too big,” Tommy names all in one breath.

“I see,” grandma nods. “Did she try to hurt you in any way?”

“She grabbed my arm and tried to pull me somewhere.”

“Maybe she just wanted to play with you? Or show you something?”

“I don’t want to play with her. She looks scary. I don’t like her.”

“We can’t judge people based on their looks,” the grandmother says, not unkindly, and lightly pats Tommy’s hand.

“Grandma!” Tommy frowns.

“I know, I know. I’m sorry, sweetie. I’m just curious about what she was trying to tell you. I think that dreams can bring important messages to us.”

“I’m not curious. I’m not curious at all.”


“Tonight, I’m not going to sleep,” Tommy whispers to himself. “I’m not, I’m not, I’m not. You can search for me in the dream, but I’m not going there.”

As soon as his mother turns the lights off and closes the door, Tommy gets out of the bed. He brings a few pillows to the corner of the room, where his toys are. From there, he can overlook the whole room with the safety of a wall behind him. It is quiet. Not even the usual, comforting noise of his parents’ TV is to be heard at the moment. When he got back from his grandmother’s place, he discovered their house submerged in silence. He knows they must have fought again. He feels a sinking feeling in his belly, wondering whether it was because of him being afraid of the dream girl. Should he just buck up as his father says? Or should he try to talk to the girl as his grandmother was suggesting? He recalls a picture of the girl in his mind. Then he shakes his head. They don’t understand.

The whole room looks unusual in the blue of the night. Tommy wiggles uncomfortably and quietly begins to sing to himself. When he runs out of the songs he knows, he starts to make up his own. He recalls a tune his mommy was humming just a few days ago.

Sleep now, hush, my little boy,

sleep next to your little toy,

if you wake up the next day,

you’ll be saved,

you’ll be okay.

He shivers. His mom called it a “whisper from beyond”. The tune sounds like a sweet lullaby, but the words don’t seem right to him, even though he can’t completely grasp why.

He wiggles again. There’s something hard pressing against his lower back. Probably, Michelangelo, he’s always causing some ruckus. Tommy looks over his shoulder and tries to free himself of whatever is pushing him. But it’s not the mischievous orange-mask wearer or any other of the Ninja Turtles. It’s a doll.

One of her big pink shoes is piercing Tommy’s back. His eyes widen with fear, and he quickly whirls around, throwing the doll in the middle of the floor. No one’s in the room, at least no one that he can see. He looks at the window. Nothing. The wardrobe is closed and motionless. He can’t see under the bed, though. It’s full of shadows. Is something hiding there? He hears a rustle from the direction of the door. His gaze is attracted to the doorknob with the strength of a magnet. It looks like the doorknob is moving. The movement is tiny, but Tommy is sure of it. He pushes himself further into the wall.

In the corner of his eye, he catches a movement. And there she is, the girl. She stands in the middle of the room, in the same place where he threw the doll. Her eyes are bleeding blackness. This time, she doesn’t seem as real as before. Her edges are slightly blurred, and Tommy can see a silhouette of his bed behind her. She raises a hand and makes a few steps towards him. His heart is beating fast, his voice gets stuck in his throat. He stands up, and with his back to the wall, he moves towards the direction of the door. He needs to get out.

“Please, don’t hurt me, please,” he whispers. The girl stops and tilts her head to one side. She opens her mouth and says something, but Tommy doesn’t understand a word. The girl throws her hands up, and little lightning shoots out from her bony white fingers. Tommy can imagine the fingers tightening around his neck. His father had done it once when he was really, really angry with Tommy. Tommy couldn’t breathe.

Tommy can’t breathe now either. His whole body is plundered with terror. Then his searching hands find the door behind him. He turns around, opens the door, and darts out of his room. He doesn’t look back to see whether the girl follows him. All he can think of is away. Away.

He hesitates in front of his parents’ room but continues running when the girl materializes right in front of the door. Soon he shoots out of the main entrance, and he’s outside. He runs through his neighborhood’s dark empty streets towards his grandmother’s house. He will be safe there.


“Tommy, what are you doing here!” His grandmother looks surprised and worried. “Is everything alright? Come in, come in,” she hushes him in and closes the door.

Only now Tommy starts to cry. “The girl, she came,” he sobs.

“Oh, did you have a bad dream again?”

“It wasn’t a dream! I was up, and her doll was there, and then she was there, bleeding from her eyes and —”

“Slow down, slow down, I don’t understand anything. How about I make you hot cocoa, and you tell me everything,” the grandmother says. She’s about to turn around and go to the kitchen when she freezes. “What the…” she takes a step towards Tommy and leans over to him to closely inspect his neck. “Tommy, did you… Uhm, did you hit yourself somewhere?”

“What, no? Why?”

Grandmother frowns and clutches his hand tightly. “Come to the kitchen.”


“So, tell me again what happened?”

Tommy tells her everything. There is a heavy silence after he ends.

“Sweetie,” grandmother’s voice breaks halfway through. “There’s a big bruise forming on your neck. Can you tell me how that happened?”

“What? Really?” Tommy’s confused. He goes to check the bruise in the mirror. “I don’t know, grandma. The girl didn’t touch me, I swear.”

“Yeah, I’m sure she didn’t,” grandmother sounds bitter. “I will need to call your mom to let her know that you’re here.”

“Can I stay overnight, grandma?”

“Of course you can. You can stay here as long as you want.”

Grandmother tries to call Tommy’s house, but no one’s picking up.

“I will need to go there. I don’t want your mom to be worried,” grandma says after putting the phone down. “Is it okay if you come with me? I don’t think I can call anyone to babysit you at this hour.”

Tommy just nods and looks away.


On the way back to Tommy’s house, the streets are by far not as silent and empty as they were before. Two fire brigade cars pass them by, loud sirens on. They are followed by an ambulance and a police car. Tommy’s grandmother takes his hand and nudges him to hurry. When they arrive at the street where Tommy’s house stands, his grandma halts to a stop. Tommy pauses from looking around, searching for the dream girl, and follows grandma’s look.

Their house is on fire. Tommy sees flames licking the window of his own room. Among all the firemen, policemen, and paramedics, his neighbors form groups along the road. They observe the firemen’s fight with the flames, and it strikes Tommy odd that most of them are wearing pajamas under their open coats. A baby’s cry is piercing the air, and everyone’s faces are bright orange in the fire.

“Tommy,” his grandmother bends down to him, grasps him by shoulders, and shakes with him. “What really happened?” Tommy manages to tear his eyes away from all the havoc in front of them.

“I don’t know, grandma! I saw the girl —”

“You mean the little girl who looked like she came straight from a horror movie?” Grandmother’s voice is dripping with fear and frustration.

“Yes!”

“Stop it already!”

“I swear it’s true!” Tommy starts sobbing again, scared.

“Did you play with the lighter again?”

“No, I didn’t, I promise!”

“What happened tonight? Did your dad get angry again?”

Tommy shakes his head, and tears are rolling down his cheeks. “No, I don’t know. I don’t know, grandma!”

Grandmother closes her eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She hugs him close. Then she looks up back at the house. She grasps Tommy’s hand and sets off towards one of the police officers. “Stay with me at all times, don’t go anywhere,” she instructs him.

They join the crowd, and grandmother’s going straight to the police officer who seems to be in charge.

“Hello, I’m mother of Joana Davies, who lives in this house. Can you tell me what happened? Are my daughter and her husband alright?”

Tommy looks upon the police officer and feels his heart sink when the officer says that so far, they didn’t find anyone in the house. Grandmother talks to the officer some more. Tommy notices that her face has hardened with fear.

He looks away, and suddenly he sees Her. She looks different, by far not as scary. Her black hair is flowing down, straight and lustrous. In fact, it is so shiny that it reflects the dancing lights of the flames. Her face is very light, but not as unnatural as when he’s seen her before. She wears white and pink striped pajamas. But he’s sure that it’s her. Although her eyes are now a more normal dark shade of brown, he would recognize them anywhere.

“Hello,” she says quietly. Tommy takes a few steps back and reaches out for his grandma, but she’s not there. He looks at the girl again.

“I’m not gonna hurt you, Tommy,” she says. When he sees her like this, he’s not as afraid as before.

“Why do you look normal now?”

“I always look like this.”

“No, you don’t. You had scary black eyes and white face and everything.”

“That was just your imagination that gave me that look. You seem to be really afraid of everything unknown. Or, well, of everything, really.” The girl raises one eyebrow. “I watched you for a while, you know. I think I understand why.”

“What did you do?” Tommy whispers.

“Don’t you see? I saved you. Otherwise, you would still be in the house.”

“No, I wouldn’t! My parents would’ve taken me out.”

The girl stays quiet for a moment. “Your parents are gone, Tommy. They —” she nods towards the firemen, “they’re not gonna find them.”

“They’re not gone!” Tommy shrieks. His head is going dizzy from all the noise around. “What do you mean, gone? You mean dead?” he adds after a while.

“No. Not dead.”

“What do you —” Tommy’s question is interrupted by someone calling his name. He looks up and sees his grandmother pushing her way through the crowd towards him.

“Tommy, I told you to stay around!” she takes him by hand. Her eyes are welled up with tears.

Tommy turns back to the girl, but she’s gone. He looks at the house and watches the front entrance collapse inwards.


Newsflash: On Friday, November 13, 2020, a house on Pine Street, Arizona, caught on fire. A family disappeared without a trace, leaving a young son behind. The son says he escaped the house after having a bad dream and went straight to his grandmother living nearby. The fire started in the child’s bedroom, letting us only guess what powers were at play that night.


Aren’t all nightmares just warning signs, after all?