Jay awoke in a cold sweat...
...screaming.
"Honey! Honey, what's wrong?", asked Linda.
Linda popped up, fully awake from the horrific sound made by Jay. It was a blood curdling scream, which Linda could only surmise to mean that Jay had a nightmare.
Jay was gasping for breath as he continued to lay sitting up in the bed, attempting to get his bearings on his surroundings in the dark.
"Jay, what's wrong?"
Jay looked at his wife. He looked at her as if he hadn't seen her in weeks. Linda looked back at him, their eyes locked. She could see the fear in his eyes and wanted to know what had frightened him. Jay, however, was not forthcoming.
He looked away from her and sprang up out of bed into the bathroom. He switched on the light and doused his face with cold water in the sink. Linda was still sitting up in bed, watching Jay.
Jay continued to lean over the sink, staring down into the white, porcelain bowl beneath. He was the picture of a man deep in thought and petrified by fear. His reaction had already unnerved Linda, now she was just plain scared.
"Jay, are you going to tell me what's going on?"
Jay finally began to lean back up and stared at himself briefly in the mirror. After a few moments, he switched off the light and made his way back to the bed. He crawled back in, gave Linda a kiss on the lips, and tucked himself back underneath the sheets. Within a minute or so, he was back to sleep.
Linda just sat there, staring down at her husband, completely befuddled. Not only did she not know what had just happened, she had no clue how she was going to go back to sleep.
*********************************************************************************
"What do you think happened, man?", asked Larry of Jay.
The two men were standing over the grave site of Britton, whom had been dead now for several weeks. The epitaph on the tombstone read, "Our Immortal Angel, With Love Always-Mom and Dad."
The tragedy are Britton's apparent suicide had only compounded the recent revelations of further cost cutting measures taking place at Smithville University. It was as if a black cloud were hanging permanently over the campus. Not only there, but over the entire city, county, state, and country as a whole.
"I don't know," replied Jay.
"You think she might have been one of the cuts and she just took it badly? I mean, I know she was one of the newest, but this just seems a little drastic to me."
Jay did not respond to Larry's theory. He was actually still quite enamored with the dream that had woken him up earlier that morning. Instead he just stared at the tombstone.
"I've heard they thought a boyfriend might have been involved, suspecting foul play or something. I don't know how you could hurt a nice piece of..."
"Don't finish that, ok?", pleaded Jay.
Larry looked over at his friend, who was looking right back at him with an intensity he hadn't seen before.
"Are you ok, Jay?"
Jay looked back down at the tombstone, staring at the epitaph engraved across it. Larry looked down at the stone, then back to Jay again. He waited patiently for his friend to respond.
"I had another dream last night", said Jay.
"A dream? About....her?"
"Yeah."
Larry started to smirk as he eased his posture and looked around momentarily.
"Look, man, don't worry if you had an 'inappropriate' dream about her, I guess. It was just a dream."
"There wasn't anything inappropriate about it, Lar. I just didn't make any sense."
"What didn't make sense about it?"
Jay took a deep sigh before he started trying to explain what he had dreamed. He wasn't even sure he understood it.
Larry just looked on at his friend, waiting again for a response.
"In my dream, she was still alive, but wasn't at the same time. I can't explain it very well."
"Alive and dead you mean? What, like...what do you mean?"
"She was alive, but it was like she was dead. Maybe I'm not explaining it right. She was like...."
"Like a zombie?"
"Yes! Like a zombie."
Larry started to chuckle a bit, "I think you've been watching that show too much lately."
"It wasn't like the show, Lar. It seemed so real. It was like I was there and she was coming after me, like the first dream where I got the bruises."
"Man, I don't know what you eat or drink at night sometimes, but it was still a dream. So you had a nightmare about her, big deal. It happens, man. A tragedy like this, heck half the school has probably had nightmares about this."
"But Linda told me I woke up in the middle of the night screaming."
"Really? Damn, it must have scared you really bad."
"That's just it. She said I acted like I was wide awake after the screaming, she was too. I probably woke up the kids with my screaming. But I don't remember it. I don't remember waking up. I don't remember washing my face. I don't remember going back to bed. It was like I wasn't even really there."
"Jay, we've all had dreams like that. Sometimes they seem real. Sometimes you sleep walk. That's probably all that happened. Don't worry about it so much. It was just a dream."
Jay was still staring down at the tombstone, taking in what his friend had just said. He couldn't help but still focus on the dream and what he had experienced. Especially in regards to Britton. Jay thought to himself, if it was just a dream, then why do I remember dreaming about her having been murdered before it ever took place?
Jay humored Larry.
"Yeah, it was just a dream."
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