Beware Of The Dark

Chapter One

     "No," I softly said as I saw someone standing on the other side. "Don't do it."

     He gave me a skeleton smile as he lifted his hands. No. He waved them as a chorus teacher would do directing class. As I saw a semi-truck coming, his grin grew wider.

     "NO!" I screamed as his hands danced in the air. "NO!"

     "Mom, mom," I heard a voice coming through and I felt myself being shaken. "Wake up, wake up mom."

       My eyes snapped open and the scene disappeared. I was still in my bed with my oldest son looking at me with fear and concern in his eyes. "Dakota, what are you doing awake?" I asked him as he sat on my bed.

     "You woke me up with your screaming," he told me as I looked around my room. The soft light of my bedside lamp was a comfort.

     Sitting up, I said, "I'm sorry Dakota. Just a bad dream."

     "I would say so," he stood up, yawning. "Can I go back to bed?"

     "Yes," I told him as he leaned down to hug me.

     Once he left, I sat there looking around my room. The red numbers on the alarm clock showed that it was after two in the morning. The witching hour. That dream...that dream felt so real like I was right there.

      I took another look around my room as my heart was thumping against my skin. My blood was pumping through me as fast as the Arkansas River after a rainstorm. It all was a dream. Nothing to think about anymore. Yet, I felt like it was a warning. "Natara, you're losing your mind," I told myself as I closed my eyes for a moment.

     "Natara," I heard someone softly whisper my name from the shadows. "Time to come home."

     I knew that I was the only one in my room after Dakota left. Jumping up from my bed, I snapped on the main light. The shadows disappeared as the room lit up. There was no one there and I sighed a sigh of relief.

      If that dream was a warning, who was involved? My family was still in Virginia except for my younger brother, Jonah. He was stationed out here at Fort Carson. Though a week or so ago, he went back to Virginia. "Oh shit," I muttered as I shook my head. "He's supposed to be flying back today too."

      Damned if I do and damned if I don't, right? At first, I thought of calling my mother to warn her. I know her though, she would hang up on me and not listen. Jonah may do the same thing. Our mother convinced him that I was crazy because of these dreams. It would be after four in Virginia and I knew that he would be pissed at me. "Let him be pissed," I muttered as I slipped on my flip-flops.

     Grabbing my phone and cigarettes, I started to make my way to the front porch. I left my bedroom door open to light the hallway more than the single night light in the middle. As I passed by Dakota's room, I could hear him snoring. How could that kid go back to sleep so fast?                    

      The chilly Colorado air took me by surprise as I opened the front door. I hesitated for a moment before I stepped outside. Even after twelve years of living here, I still haven't gotten used to the cool, sometimes chilly, mornings. I took a long drag off my cigarette as I looked up and down the street, I lived on. There was nothing, just a dog barking off in the distance.

      For a town with a population of over sixteen thousand souls, there would be sirens going off every few seconds. Nothing. It was silent...the town was silent. Something caught my attention from the corner of my eye. It looked like someone ducking behind the large oak tree that sat off to the side of the bungalow. "You're just imagining things," I chided myself as I tapped the phone screen.

     That dream still weighed heavy on my mind. I had to warn Jonah not to come home quite yet. He was going to think that I have lost my marbles but I had to try to warn him. "Damned if you do and damned if you don't," I muttered as I scrolled through my phone contacts.

     I stood there on the darkened porch, waiting for him to pick up. By the fourth ring, I was ready to hang up when I heard, "What the hell are you doing calling this early?"

     His tone left me speechless, the words escaped me for a moment. Then they came rushing out, "Jonah, please don't come home yet. Something terrible is going to happen."

     "Damn it to hell," he muttered angrily. "Why? Oh wait, you probably had one of your crazy dreams, huh?"

     "They're not..." he cut me off by saying, "They are too fucking crazy. You are crazy. Mother always said that you were crazy. " I could feel his hate towards me and now, I wished that I had never called. "Look, I am coming back to Colorado today. You need some mental help thinking that you are foreseeing the future. And don't worry about meeting me at the airport. I'll call one of my buddies. You're trying to sabotage my military career."

      I went to say something but I realized that he was no longer on the phone. Maybe he was right...I deserve to be locked away. These types of dreams have been coming to me since I was a child. They all have come true to one extent or another.

      As I stood there, thinking, I had this sensation that someone was watching me from the shadows. "I'm watching you," a voice whispered from the darkness. "I'm always watching you."

    Not wanting to find out if it was human or not, I rushed back into the house. In my hurry, I didn't turn on the flashlight from my cell phone. I was moving through the living room, in the dark, like a bat out of hell. There was a sharp pain shooting up followed by a soft pop. I didn't need my light to know that I had caught my pinky toe on the coffee table.

     Once I got to the safety of my bedroom, I checked all the windows to make sure they were locked. For a moment, I wanted to call my boyfriend but I didn't want him to be upset with me either.

     After I did a walk around to make sure that there was no one in my room or outside of my house. When I was satisfied that there was no one in my house, I turned off the main light and flopped onto my bed. I didn't know that in a few hours, something was going to happen and it was going to change not just me but everyone around me.