The Girl With the Bad Dreams

Chapter 1

I live next to a Federal Penitentiary. I don't want to live there. I don't like living there, but it's all that I can afford. The house belongs to my Uncle; it's paid off so he lets me live there rent free. I just have to keep the place up and pay the property taxes.

It's a suburban neighborhood surrounded by woods and wheat fields. I can tell the town used to be nice. A big music theater is across the square from the town hall. The homes have wood siding and shingle roofs and porch swings. Once upon a time it might have been Main Street, Disneyland.

But not anymore. Not many people choose to live here, now, just the corrections officers and their families. The vacant houses have been left to the elements, their lawns overgrown with weeds and their trees sagging. The banks that own the abandoned homes have boarded up most of the windows.

Outside of town are a dozen trailer parks of the worst kind, occupied by the wives and girlfriends of inmates, desperate women willing to live in squalor to be near their incarcerated lovers.

Warning signs are everywhere. They tell us to be careful. They tell us not to talk to strangers, not to open our doors after dark, not to pick up hitch-hikers. Everyone's worried about escaped convicts. Anyone you don't know could be a murderer or worse.

There's not much to do in Lewisburg, so tonight is like every other night. I'm sitting at a small table blowing on my hot lean cuisine fresh from the microwave. I'm watching book tubers on my laptop. No sexy lingerie or pretty nightgown or cute pajamas for me, I mean really, what would be the point? My preferred sleepwear are U Penn sweats and a long-sleeved cotton t-shirt with 'Whovian' on the front.

I glance at the time and date on my computer screen: 10:30 pm, July 5. I'm not sure why I remember that, but I do.

As I take my first bite of low-cal chicken alfredo I think I hear something. I turn down the volume on my computer and sure enough, someone's knocking on my door.

But remember all those warning signs? I'm not supposed to answer the door after dark. And then the knocking gets louder. It's not a knocking anymore, more like a pounding. And there's a voice, a man's voice, screaming for help.

I know I shouldn't open the door. I stand up. I wipe my hands on my sweats nervously. The man keeps pounding, keeps pleading, keeps telling me he needs help. I shouldn't open the door...but it wouldn't hurt to look, would it? Look through the peephole? So that's what I do. And what I see terrifies me.

The man is in his thirties, clean-cut, dressed in Dockers and a polo shirt. He has his arms around a pretty blond woman in a cotton sundress printed with a pattern of yellow daisies. But the thing that terrifies me is he isn't hugging the woman; he's holding her up. She's slouched and weak. And she's covered in blood.

"'Please!" the man yells, "Someone attacked my wife! She needs help!"

I pull my eye away from the peephole and lean my forehead against the cool wood of the front door. I'm not supposed to let anyone in after dark. But these people aren't escaped convicts. They're a couple. They need help. The woman might die.

So I open the door.

The man rushes inside, ignoring me, all his attention on the young woman he's practically dragging across the floor. 'Thank you! Thank you!' he tells me, almost as an after-thought. He lowers the woman onto my couch, staining it with blood. He doesn't care about my couch. All he cares about is the woman.

She's dying, I realize, why else would she be so weak? I want to ask him what happened to her, but the words are caught in my throat. I'm paralyzed with worry and fear.