The Grey, Green Dream

The Dream

The end of the hallway was a field-length away. She tried to focus her vision on the light at the end of the hall, but what she saw snapped back into her face. Thinking only of her baby, remembering her satin soft hair against her cheek got her moving. She might as well have been walking through a hardening sludge for as fast as she could carry herself. She was amazed at the response of her body with the lack of oxygen.

     She felt dizzy again, the black circle in her vision closing in on her, stopped, and laid her head against the wall. She labored heavily to take a deep breath.

     “Help. Help me. Someone, please.”

     Mary looked for the sound, her vision was blurry, like looking through static.

     “Please, please help me.”

     Mary bent forward and rubbed her eyes until she saw bright stars behind her eyelids. She brought herself upright and opened her eyes. A woman stood before her; there was blood smudged down the right side of her face. It looked like someone slapped her with a bloody hand. Mary looked the woman over and figured it was she who had slapped herself. Her left arm from the elbow down was hanging by nothing but what looked like a sinewy tendon. The arm flopped around, blood dripping from her blackened fingertips.

     “Get it off. Please, just get it off.” she begged.

     Mary knew she couldn’t rip the forearm from her body. She didn’t have the strength and she didn’t want to use any of her energy, her precious breaths to help this woman. But, she felt sick for her. Somewhere, this woman’s mother, if she was still alive, was wondering about her. How could she leave her like this?

     “I can’t. I can’t. There’s no way,” Mary said in one breath.

     “Please,” the woman wailed.

     Mary tried to shush the woman. She didn’t want the bludgeon-carrying creature to come back. Mary knew that this could have easily been her, just a moment ago, she watched the power of the creature, able to smash the dryer in with little effort.

     “We gotta stop the bleeding.” Mary pulled her long-sleeve sweater off. She stooped to pull her shoes off. The laces were pulled from the eyes. She stood, tied the laces together and used them as a tourniquet around the woman’s fat upper arm. The laces dug into the woman’s arm and she fell to the floor. Mary quickly pressed her shirt to the nub.

     “We gotta find something,” she said. The dryer. Mary led the woman down the hall back to the laundry room. So many steps lost, so many breaths gone. Her breaths came heavier and thicker. The woman held the wall as she came into the room, leaving bloody smears on the blue wall.

     “Please,” the woman pleaded.

     She was going to pass out. Would the woman know any different if Mary just let her pass out and leave? She would be dead soon enough, either from the bleeding arm or the green fuzz she was coughing up. She wiped the contents of the cough onto her pants and wiped dark green snot from her nose.

     “What’s your name,” Mary asked, regretting the question.

     “Mona.”

     “I’m Mary. What are you here for Mona?” She kept her talking as she examined the smashed dryer for a sharp edge. It didn’t take long to find one and she started pulling at the metal, trying to peel it away from the heap. It peeled down to the base of the machine with a terrible sound. Mona sat down in the doorway covering her ears.

     “I can’t get it. It won’t budge.” She cut her thumb and brought it to her mouth. She sucked at the wound. She looked over and found Mona under a table that was covered in unfolded towels. Her head was in her lap, the arm flopped like a dead fish next to her body. Blood dripped from the shirt she wrapped around her elbow.

     “Mona?” She didn’t answer. She went back to pulling at the jagged piece of the broken dryer. “Mona? Are you still with me?”

     She didn’t get any time to find out. She heard a wet slushing sound, and turned to see the same spiked club she feared in the place where Mona’s head used to be. Parts of her brain and hair splattered the tile floor. Snow white bones protruded from under the weapon.

     Mary stopped only long enough to realize that if she stood there any longer, looking at the beast, she would be just another pile of meat and bones like Mona. She tore furiously at the piece of the dryer she was going to use to saw off Mona’s arm. She sliced the side of her wrist and watched her blood drip off onto the ground. Behind her, she heard the club drop to the floor. The creature dragged itself and the club beyond the table and closed the space between them.

     Mary screamed tearing at the dryer as if she were a starving lioness tearing a zebra carcass apart for her cubs. Cubs. Baby. Leona. Mary fell back with the jagged piece of bendable metal, stood, and lunged at the creature. One hand landed near top of the thing’s body, right by the head. Her hand sunk into this space, it was slimy like old jello. With her other hand, she bent the piece in her hand to make it easier to hold and started stabbing the creature in its face.  

     There were two thuds; the first was the sound of the club dropping to the floor, the second was a wet, squashing sound. Mary dropped the piece of dryer, considered the thing she had murdered, and moved around the two dead bodies in the laundry room.

     Back in the hallway, she was met with the same confusion. She was gasping for air, and slowed her breathing to accommodate the lack of space for oxygen in her lungs. She brought her hands down in front of her face, calming herself, and moved forward.

     She pulled herself along the wall, feet heavy like she was wearing bricks rather than sandals. She absently wiped at her nose, and without looking, wiped the dark green, fuzzy snot onto the butt of her jeans. She sniffled, coughed, and fell to the floor.

     Telling herself to keep moving did little to keep her moving. Her brain was not responding, or was late. It was like waiting for a computer to load… every action and reaction took more time. Mary kept her focus on her baby, and kept moving. She saw splatters of blood on the wall and floor and stepped around it carefully. Still coughing, she moved through the hall.

     A sign she didn’t see in the shadows appeared to her on the ceiling to her right. It was an arrow pointing up.  

     Mary gasped, a relieved and wet sound, coughed again, and pushed the dark button. The little arrow on the button was unlit and she lost hope. No sound. No ding. No movement. She tried to pry the door open, but knew she would die before climbing to the next floor. Her fists pounded against the doors of the elevator. The sound vibrated in her head. Not wanting to waste any more energy fighting off another monstrosity wielding a club, she wiped yellow tears from her cheeks and continued down the hall.

     She watched her feet, wanting a distraction. The hall provided none, save for the blood, and she didn’t want to think of the blood. Why did it have to be like this? Why did she come down here? Was it really possible that her final moments would be spent thinking of blood, slowly dying from suffocation with the only recent memories of carnage and sploshed brains. Mary wanted her baby, to hold her, to share her last moment with her child. It would be serene, she thought. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

     She dragged her body through the hall with her tingling arms. She felt heavier and heavier. To the left, a door was open. She didn’t bother to investigate. More blood smeared on the door and on the carpet suggested it must be the room of the dead woman in the laundry room. The inner wall near the bathroom was smashed in; pieces of flesh hung from the busted dry wall.

     Mary’s breaths came erratically and in short heaving spurts. A dark shadow formed like a ring around the hallway. She wanted to lie down, to rest, if only for a minute. The urge was so strong; it would be easy just to lay down in the dark and wait for death to take her. Why fight so hard when she didn’t even know if Leona was alive.

     “No,” she said to the long hall. Then she saw it—the stairwell.