SHORT STORY - Wake Me Up From This Nightmare

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- WAKE ME UP FROM THIS NIGHTMARE -
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She heard a bubbling and gurgling somewhere deep beneath the water’s surface. Thirty feet from the stern a bulge arose in the fog. It stood there motionless for a moment of two then slowly, very slowly, made its way toward the boat. Amy watched as it came right up to the back of the boat. A hand, a human hand, emerged from the mist, swollen and a sickly shade of green. 

There was no answer. The boat rocked from side to side as it pulled itself onto the boat. 

Amy gasped. It may have been human but, whatever it was, it clearly wasn’t human anymore. Just a decrepit, maggot ridded, mockery of a man. Its flesh cracked, pealing, and in certain places gone all together. It had no nose, and the tattered remains of a pair of denim overalls still; clung to its shoulders.

She looked out over the mist covered lake. The dead things still approached and were climbing onto the boat. She had a choice: trust her strength and that of the oar, or trust the hand from on high… A feathery white mist hung low over the water surface. There was an unnatural chill in the air and a foreboding look in the dull gray sky. Amy felt certain that there were storms brewing in the distance. There was danger on the horizon. Through the mist and fog she could not see where the lake began and where it ended. There were no land markers in sight. No tree tops, no roof tops, just rolling mist as far as the eye could see. 

She grabbed the oars and began to row. The water resisted her each and every effort like molasses beneath her oars. She pushed, she struggled, but the fog and the mist kept any fruit of those efforts hidden from her view. “Are y…y…you…ok?” Amy stammered. “No….” she whimpered. She held a firm grip on one of the oars and backed away toward the bow of the boat. The beast howled, and with its mouth open wide charged right at Amy! Just one swing of the oar was all it took. With a nasty wet pop the undead’s head went flying free from its body and back into the lake. Without direction the body stumbled around and followed the head into the water. Amy looked around the boat uneasily. The fog and the mist pulled away from the boat. Retracted from it like a receding tide. Upon the water’s surface she could see dozens, and dozens of giant lily pads. Lily pads of varying shades of green. There were branches and green lush growth under the water. Plants of varying shapes and sizes…but no fish, no turtles, frogs, or living creatures of any kind. 

The boat rocked in the water and Amy looked up toward the horizon again. Another bulge had arisen in the fog. Followed by another to its right and one to its left. Five more emerged on her flank and five more to starboard. Soon she was surrounded on all sides, and soon, all too soon those bulges, those terrible bulges in the fog advanced on the boat. Skeletal and corpse-like arms began to fill the waters around her boat.  Desperate she looked up and reached out toward the heavens. She felt that there was hope somewhere up there. Hope that banished her fears. As she reached skyward she found something else. Something…more substantial than hope. She felt a strong but gentle hand take hold of hers. It felt as though, at that moment of contact, that every cell in her body was saturated, enrobed with the blessed warmth of purest, truest love. Then she heard a voice call to her from somewhere beyond the dull gray sky: “Amy my beloved,” the voice spoke tenderly. “I’m here for you! I’ll always be here for you!”

She looked out over the mist covered lake. The dead things still approached and were climbing onto the boat. She had a choice: trust her strength and that of the oar, or trust the hand from on high…

- The End -


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