Categories > Original > Fantasy > Tradewinds 06 - "Falling"
VI
It took him a while to fall asleep in such a cramped and vulnerable position, but when he finally did, he had another disconcerting dream.
…Amy walks down an empty sidewalk. (Little does Shades realize it now, but later, when he wakes up, he will remember this same street from another dream he had once.) She looks around, as if to make sure no one is following her.
She appears nervous, anxious even, though about what Shades is unable to tell.
The street is that of some small town, but nothing looks familiar. To either of them, observer or observed. As the sun sets, she enters a small apartment building, and she takes one last, wary glance over her shoulder.
His mind’s eye follows her down a long, dark hallway through the fading red-gold light from outside. Her pace quickens to a harried stride, and she looks back at the entrance every few steps. In the meantime, she passes door after door.
Which gives Shades some relief; he senses somehow that those doors are dead ends, possibly even traps of some kind.
At the end of the hall, she ducks a quick right, peeping over her shoulder even as she does so. Around the corner, she continues deeper into what turns out to be a labyrinth of increasingly narrow halls, more than could possibly exist in such a small building. And at every turn, she steals another backward glance, and every other turn or so, she quickens her pace. After a few more turns, the halls give way to a degenerating maze of rooms and corridors, all dark and grey and dusky.
The few people she runs into either turn away from her when they see she’s being hounded, or worse, try to reach out for her. And Amy, of course, would jerk away from the reachers. A reaction Shades could understand— there is just something about their empty, glassy-eyed daze, about the glazed-eyed zombie look in general, that creeps the hell out of him.
By now, Amy has abandoned any semblance of an orderly retreat, scrambling for all-out evasion. Even in her growing haste, though, she still can spare an occasional reality check, and she clearly doesn’t like what she sees. Which is driving Shades nuts; though he doubts that he really wants to see what she is so afraid of, his curiosity and concern overrule him.
It would later make him think of the Evil Dead movies, this business of being chased by something the “audience” can’t see. Backstage at the Ed Sullivan Theater, he thinks, little knowing that, in the waking world, he is giggling madly.
Around the way, Amy hits a blind alley. She’s back outside again, but hemmed in by at least three or four stories of ugly, rust-red brick walls. Looking around frantically for another way out, she spots a door to her left, but when she tries to push it, she finds it solidly locked against her.
The last thing Shades sees is the look on Amy’s face as she turns back around and finds herself face-to-face with her unseen pursuer, she just lets loose with a desperate, horrified scream—
“NOOO!! Amy—”
Shades sat up— or at least he tried to— hitting his head on the underside of the box spring.
The blow stunned him as he flopped back to the lush carpet of the bedroom set. Already numbing the throbbing pain in his forehead, dimming the stars that exploded out of the darkness. The last coherent thought he had was of being more worried about Amy than how close he had come to breaking his nose, let alone the prospect of running feet now that he had done such a spectacular job of revealing his hiding place.
But Shades found himself drifting into unconsciousness, even as his tired mind worried about too many things at once.
It took him a while to fall asleep in such a cramped and vulnerable position, but when he finally did, he had another disconcerting dream.
…Amy walks down an empty sidewalk. (Little does Shades realize it now, but later, when he wakes up, he will remember this same street from another dream he had once.) She looks around, as if to make sure no one is following her.
She appears nervous, anxious even, though about what Shades is unable to tell.
The street is that of some small town, but nothing looks familiar. To either of them, observer or observed. As the sun sets, she enters a small apartment building, and she takes one last, wary glance over her shoulder.
His mind’s eye follows her down a long, dark hallway through the fading red-gold light from outside. Her pace quickens to a harried stride, and she looks back at the entrance every few steps. In the meantime, she passes door after door.
Which gives Shades some relief; he senses somehow that those doors are dead ends, possibly even traps of some kind.
At the end of the hall, she ducks a quick right, peeping over her shoulder even as she does so. Around the corner, she continues deeper into what turns out to be a labyrinth of increasingly narrow halls, more than could possibly exist in such a small building. And at every turn, she steals another backward glance, and every other turn or so, she quickens her pace. After a few more turns, the halls give way to a degenerating maze of rooms and corridors, all dark and grey and dusky.
The few people she runs into either turn away from her when they see she’s being hounded, or worse, try to reach out for her. And Amy, of course, would jerk away from the reachers. A reaction Shades could understand— there is just something about their empty, glassy-eyed daze, about the glazed-eyed zombie look in general, that creeps the hell out of him.
By now, Amy has abandoned any semblance of an orderly retreat, scrambling for all-out evasion. Even in her growing haste, though, she still can spare an occasional reality check, and she clearly doesn’t like what she sees. Which is driving Shades nuts; though he doubts that he really wants to see what she is so afraid of, his curiosity and concern overrule him.
It would later make him think of the Evil Dead movies, this business of being chased by something the “audience” can’t see. Backstage at the Ed Sullivan Theater, he thinks, little knowing that, in the waking world, he is giggling madly.
Around the way, Amy hits a blind alley. She’s back outside again, but hemmed in by at least three or four stories of ugly, rust-red brick walls. Looking around frantically for another way out, she spots a door to her left, but when she tries to push it, she finds it solidly locked against her.
The last thing Shades sees is the look on Amy’s face as she turns back around and finds herself face-to-face with her unseen pursuer, she just lets loose with a desperate, horrified scream—
“NOOO!! Amy—”
Shades sat up— or at least he tried to— hitting his head on the underside of the box spring.
The blow stunned him as he flopped back to the lush carpet of the bedroom set. Already numbing the throbbing pain in his forehead, dimming the stars that exploded out of the darkness. The last coherent thought he had was of being more worried about Amy than how close he had come to breaking his nose, let alone the prospect of running feet now that he had done such a spectacular job of revealing his hiding place.
But Shades found himself drifting into unconsciousness, even as his tired mind worried about too many things at once.
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