The Falstaff Vampire Ghosts
DAY
Trinity Scott
I don't remember much about the accident except arguing while Nick was driving like a bat out of hell on the 101 Freeway. A car slowed down in front of us and Nick steered left around it into the path of a huge silver SUV that tried to pass in his blind spot. The SUV smashed into the driver's side of the Lotus.
I heard a horrible exploding, rending sound as the front bumper of the big car broke through the driver's side looking like a monster crushing Nick and reaching for me as the world whirled away out of control into darkness.
I wakened to creaking sounds and the smell of gasoline. I couldn't move. From a great distance, I heard shouts and sirens.
When I lost consciousness, the man was there. The man I dream of who always seems to be on the other side of the spider web. His hair is reddish brown. His eyes are brown and they seem to draw me in. His face radiates calm and strong self-possession, yet the faint smile on his full lips hints at humor and kindness.
Whenever I dream of him, I feel safe. The very opposite of the men I always choose in real life. Or maybe they choose me. Or maybe the Thing chooses them for me for its own dark purposes. I don't know where I know the man in the dream from, and I don't know where to find him. But the Thing that has my brain in its clutches. It seems to know him too, and the web always closes in to block him. That can't be good.
The next time I woke up for real, I was lying in a hospital bed in pain as a nurse changed the bottle an intravenous unit that hung from a stand and flowed into my arm. Nick stood the foot of the hospital bed. His head was bashed in on one side and blood from the head wound soaked his hair and covered one of his dark eyes. No one else seemed to see him. He didn't say a word but just looked at me sadly.
I knew he was dead. Anyone in that condition had to be a ghost, or the nurses and doctors would have jumped on him to clean him up and dragged him off to try to revive him. When she finished with the IV, the nurse saw I was awake and talked to me for a minute.
Just to be sure, I asked, "Is Nick dead?"
She gently told me he was.
I just nodded. Standing next to the nurse, Nick's ghost looked me in the eye and we both knew that he wasn't going to leave anytime soon.
I begged for a phone to call Kristin. She came, sat by my bed for a while and agreed to come back the next day. The evil presence I had lived with for ten years stayed with me and so did Nick's ghost.
© Lynne Murray