She still couldn’t shake the previous night’s dream. The haunting images of the final horrible scene disturbed her as she sat on the edge of the bed. She took a deep breath and then scrambled onto the floor, searching under the mattress. Grabbing her notebook she had labeled “Kendra’s Dreams” and the pen stuck in the spiral binding, she flipped open the pages and began scribbling. Kendra knew if she didn’t write it down immediately that she would forget it, but the images were so crisp and so clear she wondered if she could ever forget it.
As Kendra wrote, she could see it all clearly, reliving the experience as if it were real. She stopped writing, closed her eyes, and allowed the dream to replay in her mind.
She had just parked her truck on a hilltop parking lot filled with vehicles. Kendra looked over the horizon. The sky was gray and dark clouds were rolling in. Even though it was daytime, there was no sign of blue sky anywhere.
Kendra and her mother got out of the truck and walked quickly toward the building that had caught their attention from the main road. The hand-painted sign that read “Antiques and Vintage Clothing” creaked back and forth against the force of the wind.
After walking through a winding waiting gate, they were inside. Stepping into the foyer, Kendra saw to her right a woman sitting behind a card playing table with nothing on top. To the woman’s left was a small area where dresses were hung from the wall and a few toys displayed.
“Have you seen the corpse?” The woman asked Kendra breaking the silence.
“No.” Kendra responded.
“Did the owner tell you about it?” The woman asked.
“Yes,” Kendra replied, but not sure why she said yes because no one had told her anything.
As Kendra and her mother walked around the room looking at the framed quilts on the wall leading down a hallway, another visitor came into the building. This girl was in her early twenties and lingered around the room.
Kendra noticed one of the quilts on the wall was much longer and thinner than the others. She went over to it and touched it. It moved slowly, spinning around like a revolving door and revealed an entrance to another room. She walked into a softly lit pastel-colored room flowing with chiffon and lace.
The bed in the middle of the room was covered in chiffon and fluffy pillows that seemed to beg for someone to drift off to sleep on them. Kendra sat down on the edge of it and realized that it was the softest bed she had ever felt.
As she lay down to fall asleep, Kendra pulled back the chiffon and saw an arm. She jumped up and jerked off the chiffon. An old woman was lying there. Dead. Quickly, Kendra tossed the chiffon back over the woman’s shriveled body and she and her mother walked out of the room.
“Did you see the body?” the woman at the table asked Kendra casually.
“Yes,” Kendra said.
Kendra looked back over at the toys on the shelves. Orange plastic Jack O’Lanterns was packaged as Charlie Brown’s Great Pumpkin. On the side of each pumpkin was the numbers one through ten. The instructions read “If you encounter spirits, hold up the pumpkin. Ask the spirit to use its energy to light the bulb in the pumpkin. By the time you count to ten, the spirit will have used all its energy and the spirit will die.”
Kendra looked around and noticed the young girl from earlier was still there. The girl took a sharp tool from her purse and stared at herself in a mirror. She put this tool to her forehead and carved out a diamond symbol, not only in the flesh, but removing parts of her skull as well. The entire demonstration seemed to not pain the girl at all.
“Is that your first time?” The woman at the table asked.
The girl smiled. “I have done this before.”
Kendra and her mother looked at each other and non-verbally decided to leave. As Kendra reached the door, an adult-sized teddy bear was walking down the corridor toward her. Before it reached her, the suit fell away and revealed the corpse of the old woman walking to her with outstretched arms. Her smiling face and sewn up eyes held Kendra paralyzed for a moment.
She gained composure and grabbed one of the pumpkins. Kendra turned to face the old woman and hit her with the pumpkin. The old woman’s arms were trying to grab her and icy cold hands were touching her face.
Kendra had awoken herself at this point of the dream. She re-opened her eyes and began to write.
