Wow you guys have some harrowing dreams. Reading about them is almost as bad as having them.
This was a childhood dream, but the only time i ever woke up screaming I was dreaming I was in my room, and all of a sudden Gene Simmons’ head popped up at the foot of my bed.
For more adult terror, I have dreams about being in jail and not knowing why and no one will tell me. I’ve also had truly horrid dreams of extremely awful things happening to other people. I sometimes have third person dreams.
I once dreamed that I was lying in bed in my bedroom (you know that’s never a good start) when all of a sudden through my closed eyelids I see a blinding flash of light: a nuke has gone off and this is the last two seconds of my life as my body vaporizes too fast even to feel pain.
Then I woke up momentarily disoriented and said to myself “what the HELL!?”
-and THEN, in a sort of narcoleptic fugue I swear something- Satan? the Dero?- was gloating at me.
I was 13 at the time, and I write this now… from memory… from that one dream which I had that night back when I was 13.
In the dream, my family sent me away for the summer to stay with an Aunt. She lived on a Island Town that was cut off from the mainland by rivers and bays… and only one bridge.
The houses were fairly normal houses for colonial style near the ocean in New England… and hers was a tall one. It was three stories, with 3 bedrooms and a bath on the second floor and one bedroom and a bath on the third, where I would be staying.
I arrived amid some sort of celebration, for the town had won some sort of lottery. The bridge to the town was to be torn down and to be rebuilt, free of charge, by Techno Corporation.
There would be no need to cover the costs with taxes, so everyone was happy. Also, as a bonus, every household was to be given and electronic servant… a robot… to make everyone’s lives easier. Being a kid, I didn’t much care…
I was only staying there and it would only be for a summer. I was nervous enough about that.
The house was one of the larger ones on the Island. It had been built by a sea captain years before and it had changed hands over the years several times before my aunt bought it. The person she had bought it from was a retired Carpenter
and the basement had a fully stocked work-bench and tool shop. His wife had been frail, so there were various left over walkers and elderly aids such that, for whatever reason, had never been removed or disposed of.
The house had been sold as is, I later learned… and it was furnished beautifully. The kitchen was thoroughly modern down to even the stove, which had gas burners and an electric oven. The dinning room had a mahogany dinner table
that sat 12 comfortably (although I couldn’t imagine more than four people ever eating there at once), a credenza for silver and table linens, and a buffet hutch for holding and displaying old and rare china.
Honestly, the trip had been long and I was tired when I arrived. I barely remember the style of delivery truck that was unloading robots on her street… but I remember that they were off-loaded and wheeled up to the front doors…
inert and on hand-trucks… by the delivery men. They were only turned on with a key, once they were inside, with basic instructions about how the model could be shut off by a button on the side of their leg.
I remember yawning at that point and needing sleep, so I climbed up all of the landing stairs, crawled into bed, and dreamed.
The next day, I awoke to the smell of cooking wafting up the open space of the stairwell. There was some muted conversation too, which surprised me as my aunt and I were the only ones staying there.
I showered quickly and descended the steps, taking in the smells as I went: maple syrup… the smell of cooked waffles… bacon… and something slightly sweeter which I was to learn later was some type of honey-linked sausage.
I rounded the corner to see my aunt seated … and to see the robot cooking.
The robot looked almost human, and with the exception of its black-glass marble eyes, acted and moved like a person. I sat and it served me food… good food… and while I joked good-naturedly… it paused and studied me. Coldly.
Humor, evidently, could not be programmed into it.
I poked fun at it, thinking that my jokes would go over its head… but was dismayed when it ‘accidentally’ poured hot coffee on my leg. I jumped up, accusing it of doing it on purpose… but it replied it had had a malfunction and was sorry.
My aunt calmed me down and pointed me to the first aid kit, and I treated my leg. As I did, I looked out of the corner of my eye into the kitchen.
Was it smiling…?
Later that day, it was on the second floor, changing the sheets and doing laundry. My aunt was on the landing, marveling at it. I was walking towards her down the steps from the third floor when we all heard the explosion in the distance.
My aunt and I rushed to the window to see the cloud of billowing smoke from the direction of the bridge, but the robot seemed unconcerned. A short time later the phone rang with an automated announcement:
there had been a malfunction with the robots working on the bridge and demolition had occurred days before it was supposed to. Dozens of people had been killed… and it looked like construction of the bridge would all have to be completed from the mainland side.
Sirens in the distance continued through out the rest of the day and my aunt was deeply shaken.
I was shaken but less so as I watch my aunt hold onto the wooden banister, staring out ward in shock. If I hadn’t been looking I might not have seen it… but I did. The robot was carrying towels behind her and it pushed into her as it passed…
crushing her through the banister and into the stairwell.
She had managed to catch the edge of the floor with one hand and was hanging there as I raced towards her to help. I had her by the arm and was slowly pulling her up, when the robot bumped into me, making me lose my grip… making her fall to the floor below.
I instinctively punched at the robots leg, turning it off… and I looked down the stairwell at my aunt, who didn’t seem to be moving.
I called the paramedics, who responded in pretty good time, given what else was happening, She was alive… just barely, but her neck was broken. They took her away on a stretcher, leaving me in the house alone with the deactivated robot.
They said that it was a very busy day… but that somebody would stop by later… to take a statement. I was in that house… alone… with that thing… the thing that had tried to kill my aunt. That think with the jet-black glass eyes. That thing with what… a smirk?
In a rage, I knocked the robot over. I wasn’t even thinking… I just knew I didn’t want it anywhere near me. Anywhere where it wasn’t locked up. I wasn’t even thinking when I grabbed its ankle and started dragging it down the steps…
down to the first floor… through to the kitchen… down the the basement. It was off… and it was going to stay off.
I dragged it to the tool bench. Above the tool bench I saw a power circular saw… and I plugged it in.
I measured roughly four inches above its knees… I turned on the saw… and I Cut.
I was tired again when I was done. The blade was blackened and burned, the engine smelled of smoke burning oil… but both of its legs were off. I threw them into the crawl space under the house as far and as hard as I could…
and I could her the thuds as they hit and rolled all the way to the foundation wall on the far side. The robot? I left her there. My aunt would never walk again… why should she? I turned off the lights and I used the house keys to look the work-bench room’s door.
I then climbed up the basement steps, locked the basement door, turned off all the lights, and climbed up the 3 flights of stairs to my room. Falling on my bed, I slept.
It was dark when I awoke… nearly pitch black. The island didn’t have street lights, so there wasn’t even light from outside. Looking around, the only light that I could see was the glow from my divers watch.
It was something I’d bought for myself with lawn-mowing money from the previous summer. It said that it was 2AM. So why was I awake? I listened and I heard I kind of sound… but then it stopped. The house was probably settling.
I started to smile, but then I froze because I heard it again!
Radiators? Could it be radiators? But why would they be on in the summer? I slowly got up and crept to the banister. Looking down, there was a light on… it was coming from inside the kitchen.
I was scared… but as scary as that was, what was scarier was when it turned off! Keeping my lights off, I felt my way to the close closet to find something to grab and I was lucky. Right inside was a baseball bat.
I hefted the bat and breathed quickly, getting up my nerve. I then started to slowly and quietly creep down the steps. Once, just once, a wood step creaked… and I froze. I waited two full minutes before moving again, because… whoever it was… I didn’t want them to know I was coming.
The second floor was much easier, as it had carpeting to mask the sound of my slow steps and I made progress much faster. It seemed like an hour had passed, but it had only been three minutes before my feet touched the first floor.
I gripped the bat tightly and in the darkness I stretched around through the doorway as I switched on the light.
It took me a second to register that what I was seeing was real… but there it was… in front of the stove.
It was a wheelchair… and it turned as I entered… with her inside it… strapped down… and with one hand on the wheel… and another on a 15 inch Chefs knife!
Once she saw me, she came at me like a car… hacking the air wildly and rolling with nearly impossible speed. I ran towards the front door…I threw open the dead-bold and I ran into the front yard. She rolled after me, and one of her swings chopped a 6 inch wedge out of the oak door frame!
I was in a panic… I don’t know what happened to the bat but it was gone… and then I tripped! She was there, right next to me, when in blind fear I kicked at the foot rest at the bottom of her wheelchair.
She flew out of the chair… she was catapulted… straight at me…! The knife point was pointed straight at my chest!
And then I woke up, in a cold sweat…