The sky was threatening. Gloomy, hung over with bulging yellow and grey clouds, pregnant with the promise of fear. She was alone with a grandkid and the dogs in the big gothic spooky house. A storm was incoming.
She ventured out to the back porch to look east and south.
A thick cable of blackness dangled from the sky like a snaking tentacle, looming close, and coming closer.
She raced inside, screaming for the grandchild to get to the cellar. Grab a blanket. Be quick.
Down the crumbling wooden stair they went, to sit at the bottom clutching the dull red sleeping bag the child had chosen.
But, no! The dogs. They were in the kitchen in their crates.
Stay, small one, stay while I go.
Leash on the white one, where is the grey?
Back down to the kiddo to find the white one tied to a cluster of Easter ribbons and the grey one replaced by a small stuffed toy dog. Weird.
Go back for the grey.
Too late.
The cellar windows were man-high, laid-up stone tunnels reaching out from the cellar to shallow, root and vine-grown trenches in the ground. Through the frame of dangling vines and roots they could see blackness coming and the horrible mouth of the thing open and sucking.
She tried to call 911 but the phone only showed video games in violent reds and purples. No key pad. No contacts list. Though she had memorized the sheriff's phone number a long time ago there was no way to call them.
She tried the small one's phone but it was the same.
The mouth of the maelstrom hovered outside one of the window tunnels, howling in rage.
Then, just like that, it was gone and the house still stood.
Next strangers came, strolling through the cellar, lying down on platforms of boards, looking into nooks and corners. She tried everything to make them leave, even hitting them and dumping water on them. They would not go and more and more of them stumbled down to join the peering throng.
Then I woke up.
And thought, "Holy crap! That was the most vivid and realistic dream I have ever had!!" Weirdest too and I've had some doozies.
A lot of stuff going on around here and I guess I am realizing that there are things I can't control, no matter how much of an excessively controlling person I am.
But, man, oh, man, I wish I could bottle my imagination...it's got to be worth something. LOL
I hate dreams like that---where I feel so helpless and unable to do what I need to do
ReplyDeleteI would love to dream less....
ReplyDeleteThis reads like a dime store novel!
One of my earliest memories was being outside and hearing my mother screaming to get inside, there was a tornado coming and frantically running to safety. Since then, the only nightmares I ever have involve tornados.
ReplyDeleteLinda, seems as if my dreams get more vivid the older I get.
ReplyDeleteShirley, lol, it does, doesn't it?
Denny, WOW! we have had some close calls here, with at least two passing just to the south, but nothing as bad as that. Hugs