NIGHTMARES

Lorna sat in grim expectation on the front steps of her house and watched the darkening LA skyline with tired eyes. In her right hand she clutched an old switchblade knife which she flicked open and shut neurotically, anxiously, waiting for the moment when everything would change and death would come calling again as the storm clouds massed on the horizon. The sunny musk of another afternoon in the city was turning into a damp chill breeze filled with electricity and ozone and the people in the streets were walking fast, glancing nervously upwards for the first sign of rain. It was a freak storm but Lorna had been expecting it for days. She'd seen it coming.

A dull thud echoed inside the house behind her and she heard the uneven tread of heavy footsteps and the long lazy creak of settling couch springs as her father no doubt fetched himself another beer from the fridge. His eighth or ninth can since breakfast. She scowled and ignored the noises, shivering in her white cotton dress as another gust of wind swept up the grimy street towards her home, spewing dust over the garbage cans and old car parts cramming up the front yard.
Cars streamed sluggishly past with drivers honking their horns half-heartedly in the static haze of the road and Lorna watched them anxiously until a blue pick-up truck suddenly came speeding round the corner, swerving in and out of waiting traffic before stopping reluctantly at a red light. The driver was obviously in a great hurry to get somewhere today. Too bad he'd never make it.

Lorna tensed with instant dread and stood up, slipping her knife in her dress pocket before running to the yard fence and unchaining her red bicycle. Swiftly mounting the bike, she pushed it onto the sidewalk and pedalled level with the blue pick-up, waving her arm to get the driver's attention. Naturally he ignored her, and just then the light turned green and he sped off towards the nicer side of town leaving her in the dust. Cursing under her breath, Lorna ducked her head into the wind and rode in pursuit, weaving rapidly between pedestrians and tiny dogs as she followed the car towards the shopping boulevards and the last of the day’s bright sunshine. Her face remained calm but inside her heart was pounding with terror and her palms sweated on the bike's handlebars, slippery on the warm metal. The truck sped up even more and she struggled to keep it in her sight. If only it would stop, just for a few seconds, just so she could warn the driver to slow the fuck down! She knew the accident would happen soon but she didn't know the exact location or the the precise time. All she remembered from her nightmares was the flash of sun fading into the stormclouds, the vague shapes of an unknown street, and a cute young guy getting run over by the same blue vehicle that she was now chasing.

The pick-up turned a corner up ahead, heading towards a row of boutiques and coffee bars and Lorna pedalled as fast as she could, careening recklessly through traffic to the other side of the road and then around the corner after her target. Maybe she’d make it, maybe she could…
SCREEEECH!
BANG!
Lorna watched in horror, her heart in her throat, as the truck slammed into a man who'd run into the road several meters ahead of her and sent him flying into the windshield and over the roof where he landed with a fatal wet thud on the road. Swerving wildly, the pick-up spun out of control and flew across the pavement, brakes squealing, to smash into the side of a nearby restaurant. It was all over. She was too late.

“Fuck!” Lorna cried, not caring who heard her as she pedalled doggedly towards the crash scene. The other traffic in the road had ground to a halt around the accident and some pedestrians were standing around shrieking uselessly while others came streaming out of the surrounding buildings to gawk at the chaos. An obese man wearing a Slayer t-shirt actually started taking pictures of the gore with his digital camera as a few people who actually had half a brain went running over to check on the man who’d been hit, dialling 911 on their cell phones. They couldn't save him - Lorna knew without a doubt that the guy was dead and ditto for the truck's driver - but at least they were trying.

As she drew level with the corpse a fresh jolt of panic hit her as she realised that this man wasn’t the same guy she had seen dying in her nightmares. This guy looked about thirty years old under all the blood and was Mexican but the man she had dreamt about was younger and white and tattooed and…Lorna slammed her feet onto the ground and halted the bike with a jerk as she finally spotted the young stranger from her dreams standing ALIVE in the window of a nearby coffee shop. What the fuck was going on?!

Lorna's first instinct was to run home, bury her head in the sand and never look back but curiosity held her still. The guy from her nightmares was looking out at the accident and hadnt seen her. There was no logical reason for her to be afraid. He was quite harmless-looking actually: short, about her height, and pretty skinny with a cute, young face and black and blonde dyed hair cut long at the front and short and spikey towards the back. He had rings in his lip and nose and was wearing jeans, a red t-shirt and battered Vans slip-ons and his bare arms were tattooed and bandaged. He looked tired and frightened and kinda like he'd been crying too, his pretty green eyes all red around the edges. Basically, he looked exactly the same as he had in Lorna’s dreams about the accident. Every detail was identical...except for the fact that he wasn’t lying dead in the street right now.

Suddenly he turned away from the crash scene and before she could move he saw her watching him. Lorna swallowed hard, gripping her handlebars with white-knuckled fingers as his eyes widened with shock at the sight of her and she realized that this stranger somehow recognized her too.

***
“Oh my god,” Frank chokes, staring in horror at the devastation outside, “That's the truck!”
“The one you thought had hit you?” Gerard asks sceptically and Frank can only nod in answer, hardly able to believe it himself. His burned arm itches and stings and he realises it’s because his skin is covered in a cold sweat. His hands are shaking and he can barely feel the floor under his feet. Swallowing hard, he feels like he might vomit and starts to turn away from the carnage outside... and that’s when he sees her.
A cry of shock catches in his throat and all he can do is stare at the young blond woman on the red bicycle as she looks back at him in equal fear and amazement. It's the woman from his nightmares! Not the shop girl with the cryptic words but the first woman, the one being murdered in the dark by invisible knives, the one who screams his name over and over again as she dies in agony. She’s standing in the middle of the fucking street right in front of him!
Numb with shock, Frank stumbles backwards, gagging on the familiar taste of blood, and trips over a chair, landing with a smack on the coffee shop floor. “Woah, are you okay?” Gerard gasps, helping Frank up and resting a steadying hand on his arm. “She’s here!” Frank blurts frantically, his eyes impossibly wide and panicked.
“Who?” Ray asks, glancing around in confusion.
“The girl!” Frank cries, shaking off Gerard's grip and running for the door.

Bursting outside into the cooling stormy air, Frank looks around for the blond girl, his head spinning, but she’s disappeared. “No! Fuck,” he gasps, fearing for a moment that she was just a hallucination. Then he spots a flash of red, white and blond pedalling away down the boulevard and he bolts after her, pushing through the crowds of people milling around the accident like cattle into the open street. For a minute or two he can hear the confused shouts of Gerard and Bob behind him, getting further and further away, but their voices are soon lost in the buzz of cars and people and the sound of his heartbeat roaring in his ears as his feet pound the dusty sidewalk. The girl sails down the boulevard and cycles two blocks over into the heart of the nearest shopping district, rocketing through the crowds of afternoon shoppers. Frank follows as fast as he can, determined not to let her vanish into the city, and once or twice she glances back at him over her shoulder and swerves her bicycle in a new direction like she’s trying to shake him off.

Frustrated and breathless, Frank jumps down a short flight of white stone steps and stumbles at the bottom, tripping over and skinning his knees through the holes in his jeans. Cursing, he picks himself up, blood trickling down his shins, and looks around for the girl but she’s gone, melted away with the dying sunshine as if she had never been there at all.
“Fuck!” he screams, not caring how many people turn to stare at him as he stands there angrily gasping for breath. “Fuck,” he groans more quietly, sitting down at the foot of the steps with sweat dripping down his face. High above him the sky has clouded over and the humid air smells like rain. His clammy skin prickles with static as a white flash splits the sky and thunder rumbles in the distance. A storm is coming.

The new cell phone Brian bought him to replace the one he lost in Chicago vibrates in his pocket and without looking, Frank assumes it’s Gerard calling to find out where he is. Wiping a hand over his face, he stands up unsteadily and answers the call but it's not Gerard. It’s his girl back home.
“Hey babe,” he answers shakily, wincing at the sting in his bloodied knees as he stands up.
'Frankie, you sound weird,’ she exclaims worriedly, “What's happened?”
“Nothing. Well...I don't know, I mean, I’m not sure,” Frank stammers, tired tears flooding his eyes as her voice fills him with homesickness.
‘Gerard called last night from Chicago and asked if I'd heard from you,’ she sighs, 'He said it was nothing to worry about but then you wouldn’t answer your phone and I had to call him back to get your new number. What's going on?'
“I’m sorry baby,” Frank whispers, pressing a trembling hand against his eyes, “I can't explain but I'm just… I'm not myself today. I got lost in Chicago, that's why Gerard was worried, and I haven't been sleeping. Things are getting a little crazy and I feel kinda like I might be losing it, like I'm slipping, y'know, in my head? I think the crazy parts of my brain are working overtime and I just can't get any relief...” Sighing a long deep breath, Frank trails off, realizing just how thoroughly and completely miserable he feels right now. He'll probably break up with this chick if he ever makes it back to Jersey. “Listen, babe, I gotta go. I'll call you tomorrow... I miss you,” he adds weakly.
‘I miss you too, sweetie. You sound like shit, go have a nap, hmm?’
“Yeah.”
'Bye Frankie.'
“Bye.”

Frank hangs up and wipes his eyes, clearing his throat self-consciously and looking around to find the street around him deserted as fat gray raindrops begin to splatter the pavement. All the busy shoppers have disappeared into shops and cafes to avoid the bad weather and while he's still standing there, the storm finally breaks, rain pouring down in torrents from the heavy black sky as thunder booms and lightning crackles. Puddles quickly cover the creamy asphalt and water begins to bubble through the shallow gutters. Sighing again, Frank ignores the deluge and slowly slides his phone back into his jeans, feeling nauseous and depressed. The rain soaks quickly through his t-shirt and bandages, plastering his hair and clothes to his cold skin and making his burns and grazes throb with aches and pain. Looking around he tries to spot a street sign that will tell him where he is. She's here again.


The blond woman is back, standing not thirty feet away from him in the mouth of an alleyway between a clothes boutique and a juice bar. Her bike is propped against the wall behind her and she’s standing in front of it with her arms folded over her chest, ignoring the rain as it seeps through her dress and drips down her legs into the black boots on her feet. Her large brown eyes are staring openly at him and with no other choice he walks hesitantly towards her through the storm. This time she doesn’t flee. Her dress shimmers in the rain, bright white in the gray downpour and he feels magnetically drawn to her somehow, drawn to the mystery and tragedy in her face.
Who is she and why did she lead him here? Why the fuck has he dreamt about her horrible gruesome death over and over again?
Frank shivers with fear as well as cold as he realises that he might be about to find some of the answers he’s been looking for.

Notes

((Sorry for the longer than usual gap between updates. Work is crazy atm. Hope you like this chapter, more Frank next time I promise! And don't worry, Lorna is not going to pair up romantically with Frank. This ain't a romance, it's a freakshow ;) xx ))