Scribbles and Drabbles

Notebook drabble 70 - No Escape

They knew them. They were some of the townsfolk from his nightmare. They were here. No. This couldn't, he refused to believe that it had happened. He turned and focused on the wheel. His mind was using their faces, that was all. That was how dreams worked, right? He was sure he'd read that minds couldn't create new faces, only use what it already knew.

He drove.

The faces dropped away in the crowd, and he pulled onto mono familiar territory. The fear of unease didn't leave the back of his throat. The unexplainable scars on his back and shoulder pulsed.

He had more important things to worry about, more pressing than a nightmare that wouldn't go away; this whole thing was giving him PTSD. His shoulders ached, a more normal ache than supernatural or imagined. It stretched over his shoulders and twisted in his muscles. He overdid it the other day. He was still healing from the wellness hike. He needed a damn refund.

"I need a proper vacation."

The car behind him got closer than he liked.

He reached his destination and parked. No one sat at the benches or hovered around the car as their partner got a ticket from the machine. The sun shone down, but grey lingered, clawing its way across the colours of cars to dim them. He checked his glovebox and grabbed his good luck charm.

He hooked it around his waist and tied it in place. Call it paranoia, but he never wanted to go back there. Slipping out was troublesome last time. This time, they'd watch him with beady eyes. A soul caught its web.

With protection weighing on his skin, he got out of the car and kept to the sunny paths, ignoring the shadows. People appeared again, the town too lively to vanish for long. This wasn't some forgotten high street; it was the heart of a tourist town.

Before he revelled in the cut-throughs and passages that kept him away from the crowd. Not today. The more people, the more sound and touch, the better.

They followed him, grey, blank faces at the bus stop. They were too skinny, too grey, and with the stench of depression clinging to them. He escaped to work and distracted himself by filing.

"Hello?" a voice greeted, low and solemn.

"Hi, can I help you?"

"Can you come here for us?" Something shivered in the last word, as several people said it at once rather than one person.

Chris paused and closed the drawer that he'd sorted through. It shut with a dull thud. He pulled his jacket closer and checked the time. The clock had a time; dreams didn't have time.

"Hello?" a younger voice called, haunting. "Can you help me?" 

Kill it with fire, Chris's arms burst with goosebumps. The shadows in the corners were deeper than normal, not darker but deeper, as if Chris would fall through them. Colour desaturated, and the world started to dim in a way unrelated to the office itself. He calmly walked away from the voice and into the light of the main room. Noise overwhelmed the senses, but the smell didn't hurt, and the feet didn't echo. Something snagged on his shirt.

"Hi?"

"Why didn't you come?"

Chris refused to look, nervous about what he'd see. "I have work to do? I can't fall back  until I'm finished."

"Half lie, half truth," the multiple voices spun around him, bemused. "You're not that clever.

"I don't claim to be," Chris tried to take a step forward, but his feet went nowhere, squeaking on the floor. No one looked over at them. The suspension of reality hung and strangled Chris's neck "Let me go."