Dream Writing - Feorh Swamp Part 3

Fear froze me inside and out. Men I could fight. I already saw them as a threat, but seeing a woman as dangerous was like seeing a rabid turtle. I simply didn't know how to react.

"You okay, hun? Watch the handrail. It's needed fixin' for quite sometime now. Of course with everything else around here falling apart Lord knows if Cam will ever get that fixed." The woman tossed the knife and towel on a counter somewhere in the room from which she came and put her hands on her hips. "Where are my manners? My name is Sheyla Carter. I'm Cross' mom. Can I get you a drink?"

I couldn't take it anymore. That was enough to tip me over, and my body decided it was going to do the only thing it was sure to do that day. I scrambled toward the railing at the edge of the porch and threw up. I really hate beer. I haven't drank a single drop of the stuff since. When I finally finished and turned back around Mrs. Carter was standing behind me. She held a glass of water and a towel in her hands and concern on her face.

"Are you alright, dear? Did you hit your head last night?" She reached up and felt my head gingerly. I raised mine as well and managed not to back away from her well-meaning gesture. "I don't think so. I am just a little hung over is all."

Mrs. Carter's lips tightened and her concern drew deeper as she folded her arms together. "You shouldn't be drinkin' at your age. You could get hurt, or lost, or attacked by men less noble than my own. Thank God, Cross found you when he did. Now what's your name, girl? I am gonna have to tell your folks what happened up here. It's the only way you'll understand the consequences of your actions."

Looked up from the water in my glass and felt the full brunt of her worry. "I'm sorry. My name is Leslie Bayn. My father, Richard and I just moved here. He married Mrs. Farren up in Cort. I was down here trying to make some new friends and I guess I got a little out of hand. I'm very sorry." I gazed back down at my cup as I felt her take in the information and reevaluate what to do with me.

"Cross! Cam! Come 'round back for a minute."

The two men crunched their way around the side to the porch side and up the steps. Cam Carter was much like his son except that he was taller and had hair bleached blond by time and the sun. Both looked at me with the same void-like black eyes, one with that damn smirk and the other with a grim frown.

Mrs. Carter took the hand that held the towel and pulled me forward. "This is Leslie Bayn. Her father is the one who just moved into town and married the widowed Farren woman. Leslie, this is my son Cross and my husband Cam."

Both looked at me as if I had sprouted another head. Mr. Carter was the one to recover first.

"Nice to meet you Leslie. Hope you are feeling alright this morning."

I took his calloused hand and shook it gently. It was rough but warm. "I am feeling much better, Mr. Carter. I am sorry for the trouble, by the way. I was told no one was out here."

"That'd be more of a reason not to come out here alone, girlie. I am glad you didn't get hurt. Could have fallen into a lot of trouble, not knowin' the area and such." He leaned back against the handrail and only just managed not to fall when the wood began to creak and splinter.

"I gotta fix that thing," he said giving it a shake with his hand. Mrs. Carter looked at me and smiled a little knowing grin which I gratefully returned.

"You said that last week, dad." Cross seemed to finally come out of his daze and was now avoiding looking at me at all. That reminded me.

"Thank you Cross for helping me. I didn't mean to faint. You just scared me to death with the blood and all." He looked up at me and then at his mother who was once again crossing her arms.

"Crossroads Carter! Were you sneaking food at night again?" The scowled turned Cross into a bumbling little boy.

"But Mom! I had a craving! I had to get something or I was gonna feel sick. Besides, I wouldn't have found her roaming around if I hadn't."

"We will talk about this later, young man." Mrs. Carter turned to me. "How about we get some food in you and then Cross with drive you back into town."

I looked at Cross, downtrodden but recovering, Mr. Carter smiling warmly, and back to Mrs. Carter. "I am a bit hungry, but I can't eat raw meat."

Mrs. Carter threw back her head and let out a hardy laugh. "Neither can I, dear. I can barely watch them do it and I've been in love with Cam for twenty-eight years. I love to kiss him, but he has to brush his teeth after every meal. Don't worry, this ain't Rome. You can eat whatever you like."

Still laughing she guided me inside toward the room she had come from. The kitchen was white and filled with light from windows all along the outside walls. A small table sat in the far corner and on it sat fried ham, bacon, and waffles along with a pitcher of milk, a plate of cheese, and various fruits and vegetables. I was sat with my back to the window. Mr. and Mrs. Carter on either end and Cross in front of me. Mrs. Carter said a quick prayer and then offered me the plate of waffles.

"I am so glad to finally have someone else to eat my cooking. I worry I'm gonna get rusty. How does it taste?"

I barely got a piece into my mouth before I found myself almost choking on the rest of the waffle. "Wif gate!" I managed to muffle out. I was hungry and Mrs. Carter was far from rusty in my book. She flopped a few more waffles onto my plate and smiled widely.

"Well I do love to cook. It's the main reason I never let Cam talk me into that raw foods, Anopsology stuff. You come over any time you want and I'll cook you up a mess of food."

Dream Writing in the Swamp Part 2

I woke up on a couch in a poorly light room and the first thought that entered my mind was "Great, this is turning out just like every horror movie I have ever hated." With that in mind I did what I was always yelling at the movie screen from behind my clenched hands. Unfortunately, the only object in the room that I could use as a weapon was a three foot tall candlestick stand made of brass and apparently held together with a hundred years of dripped wax. Objective number two was the element of surprise, but there are two doors and four windows. Not to mention by the time I remembered objective two the doorway to the right was already ocupado.

The same dark eyes that had sent me into a faint were now starring into mine again. Gone was the meat. Gone was the blood, but the eyes had stayed. I waited for the eyes to move, but they just watched and waited. Feeling the need to flee or fight I gripped the candlestick close and began to edge toward the windows farthest from the door.

"What's up, chick?"

I froze. As far as I had known this person was a carcase munching madman, and now I learned he was also an idiot.

"This CHICK is leaving, and you are going to stay where you are if you know what's good for you." I raised the candlestick and took up my most threatening stance. At least, I thought it was threatening. Mr. Creeper didn't seem to thrown though as a smile stretched across below the eyes. My mind flashed to the Cheshire cat and I cursed whatever rabbit hole I had fallen down.

"You can leave," the mouth continued grinning, "but I don't know if me staying away will be good for you. I bet you don't even know where you are."

"Oh, I know where I am. I'm on my way away from you Mr. I-Munch-On-Roadkill. That is a good enough destination for me right now."

The smile shifted to a lopsided smirk. "I'm an Anopsologist. My body had a need for liver last night and while I was eating some crazy, half drunk girl kicked a rock through my chicken coop then fainted in front of my house."

I froze. This was obviously a trap. "What's an Anopsologist?" I stopped my shuffling.

"An Anopsologist eats raw foods according to an instinctual desire. When my body needs something I get a craving for it. Last night fatty organ meats were sounding quite tasty."

The candlestick snapped back into swinging height. "Eww! You really expect me to believe that?"

Again with the smirk. "I'm not surprised."

He slowly walked to the couch and slumped into the corner. "You should Google it."

Now that he was sitting I felt a little ridiculous. I lowered the candlestick and took a good look at my monster. The eyes still had the feel of a dark void, but the rest of him seemed to glow with warmth. Auburn hair topped sun darkened skin pulled over a large and bulky frame. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that I could still imagine the blood across his face then he would have been quite attractive. Up snapped the candlestick.

"I was told no one lived out in the Feor place."

"My family are the caretakers, or at least my dad is. He's walking the grounds right now. Maybe he was right about just turning you over to the cops."

I really am starting to hate that smirk.

"Go ahead. I don't care. Bringing the police was on my to-do list anyhow."

I am sure that I visibly jumped when he stood up again.

"Look, I am sorry for the way I have been acting. I just don't like it when we get some townie trying to be cool and sneaking into the swamp. My name is Carter."

I backed away from the hand and raised an eyebrow. "Your first name is a last name?"

He visibly squirmed. "That's not my first name. I go by my last name."

"What's your first name? Spike? Sue? Mordechai?"

"CROSS!" This time I almost bashed the book shelf I had backed into.

"Crossroads Carter, you get out here right now!"

Sighing he leaned towards the doorway he had come through and gave a shout. "Coming!"

"Stay here. I'll go get my dad and he'll tell you off. Then you can go home and tell everyone you ran into killer hillbillies or whatever."

I didn't get much of a chance to respond, but somehow "Okay, Cross", managed to slip out.

From the look he shot my way I was pretty sure that even if he was a normal person he was contemplating killing me now. So what's a girl to do when she is told by a crazy swamp man that he gonna go fetch his Paw? Get the heck out of Dodge!

I carefully peeked out the way that Cross had went and looked into a hallway with stairs going to the second floor and a door on both ends. I leaned forward into the hallway and could see Cross standing just at the top left of the screened door frame. I quickly turned the other direction and made my way to the back other end of the hall. The door on this end was covered with a green door with two vertical windows in the middle. I grabbed the handle, turned, and pushed against it. The door opened quite a bit more easily then I thought it was going to and I almost fell on my face as I stumbled down onto a wooden porch. I turned to see if I was being followed through the house and screamed.

Not two feet away was a woman, dressed in jeans and a green sleeveless blouse and drying off a huge butcher's knife.

THE END OF DREAMS

I know that this sounds quite ominous, but I am only referencing that point when a person goes from dreaming to not dreaming. As of late my dreams have been simply stopping during my sleep. Much like when a movie runs out, after my dream has finished there is simply a blankness that follows till I wake. This has started me thinking that dreams may have a set course. Sure there are plenty of times when dreams are interrupted by a loud noise, a gentle shake from a hand, or the slight nip or an insect, but what if they had kept going. I recall having dreams interrupted and having the same dream again after returning to sleep. It was like restarting the film, and this time the dream kept going.

Other times my dreams seem to force me to wake up. Many times on of my dreams will turn and give me a hard shake or push me over and the next thing I know I am sitting straight up in my bed wondering how I got from my dream scape to there. It's times like this that make me wonder if it is really my subconscious that creates my dreams, or something else entirely.

Most academics stand by the idea that dreams are created by subconscious thoughts. If this is true, my subconscious is far more observant and informed.

I once thought that perhaps, while we sleep, the human mind could expand and dominate restrictions that our physical body had forced upon it. Perhaps, without our body focused on unconscious survival, our minds opened and connected across time and space into a everlasting flood of knowledge and experiences. The idea of two minds connecting in such a way is bewildering, but the connection of all conscious and unconscious thought could be the reason that so many of our dreams are so alien to us. The thoughts and ideas that we dream are not just our own.

Dream Writing . . . I really need to write more

I'll always remember him. His dark eyes. His rough, strong hands. It's frightening how a single encounter, a small moment in time can change you forever. In fact, I have never been more afraid in my life.

I was fifteen. All that I ever cared about was driving and who was going to be my friend. Of course it might help if you know that I had just moved to a new town, a small town where I was not only new to my school, but also new to my family. My father had just married this woman he met on-line and moved me with him after the whole two months of their relationship. It still amazes me how rash people can be.

Cort wasn't really a bad place. There was a mall half an hour away and roller rink downtown, but the theater only had one screen and everyone knew absolutely everything about everyone else. Including new additions to the population. When my father and I moved in, The moment I was alone with my new siblings they began asking me all kinds of questions. Did I miss the city? Why did I have a tattoo? Where did I go last summer? Was I going to leave next summer too? What is an Owlctopus? How did I like Cort? I have to admit that at that moment I decided that children are far too much of a hassle and marked that off my list of things to do.

Things weren't that different at school either. Seems like every teacher wanted to "welcome" me to Cort and every student wanted to know about last summer. I told them all something different. I don't like life to be too boring. Not that that was hard to do in Cort. Everyday it was so-and-so's cows escaped, the grocer was have a special on some pig part, or some kid got arrested for trespassing on Feorh Swamp. That's why I did it. Because like every other teen that has ever lived, I wanted to belong somewhere. To fit in or stand out. Or both.

So a beer into my fifth bonfire I took up the challenge and marched into the squishy, wet wilderness. Twenty minutes into the journey and my complete lack of a buzz reminded me that I all I really knew about swamps was that there are probably alligators and definitely snakes. Figuring that the sooner I got caught the sooner I'd get out I decided to keep going and make my reward worth the risk. There was a full moon and a beaten path. Sheer bravado took over as I walked and as per usual I jumped into my fancy feet first. I began imagining ravenous beasts lurking at the end of the darkness and yet stopping just short for fear of my strong and icy stare. I began to swagger and wave the long empty bottle about. I even found the audacity to kick a large rock off into the shadows and not die when a few birds shot into the air.

I shook off the chill that had frozen me and place. Tilting my head up I glared at the unseen evils, made an extra fancy turn about, and fell into the claws of a very real monster. There he stood. The moon reflected in his eyes and off his hair. The blood dripped from the small animal in his hands and from the smears around his mouth.

And that's when I fainted.