I dug in my bag looking for something warmer. My hand brushed against a zipper. Carefully, I pulled a hooded sweatshirt out of the grey duffle. I frowned at it, puzzled. It didn’t look familiar. I turned it in my hands for a moment before deciding I didn’t care. Nothing seemed familiar anymore. I pulled it on and zipped it up. It smelled good, clean, unlike most of what I’d crammed into the bag, and it helped a bit against the wind.
The panic and need to move calmed as the driver kept a steady speed heading northwest out of town. It gave me time to think. Fourteen hours was crazy long for only one death dream. Since they had started, they had varied little. Discovery, then death. Like an alarm clock, they woke me to the truth: the beasts were coming, and I needed to run to save those I loved. Unfortunately, like those past lives, I hadn’t truly believed the dreams until one of those things actually arrived.
I rubbed my nose trying to warm it. At least I’d gotten away...this time.
The second dream about the women puzzled me. It was nothing like the other dreams. What did it mean, and why did I dream it right after that man found me? With a sigh, I leaned my head back and stared at the sky unable to answer my own questions.
I wasn’t sure if it was pity or his true destination, but the man drove an hour to the next big town with a bus stop. Discreetly digging in my stash of cash, I offered him a twenty for gas, but he waved it away with a gruff, “take care.”
Looking at the schedule, I studied my options. There were several buses departing within the next hour. Only two general directions, however. North and west. Though I’d tolerated the cold, I didn’t want to push any further north in November without a decent jacket. West seemed like a good enough choice.
The dark circles under my eyes, a constant presence for the last few weeks, stood out vibrantly as I stepped off a bus in Springfield, Illinois twenty-four hours later. Wearily, I shuffled away from the drop-off location. The layovers and transfers helped keep me awake and prevented a screaming fit while traveling, but I knew I needed to crash soon.
A fellow passenger pointed me in the direction of the nearest motel. Just a few blocks. No problem. Money would be an issue, though. This would be the last room I could afford. I wasn’t even sure if the fake ID I’d gotten online would work here. Most kids my age got one for drinking. Not me. As soon as I started dying in my dreams, I’d planned to run on some level and bought one just for this purpose. Running and hiding. If only I’d had a destination in mind. But, how could I when I didn’t even know where these things came from? For all I knew, I was heading right to them. Hard to plan when you didn’t know which direction was safe. Well, I knew home wasn’t safe. One found me there. I thought briefly of my mom and felt a pang. Please let this keep her safe.
Checking into the cheapest room I could manage, I headed to my room. I wanted sleep. Bad. My stomach cramped. I wanted food, too. However, both food and sleep would need to wait because I just couldn’t stand my own smell anymore. I walked to the bathroom as I peeled off my clothes. The money I had stuffed in my bra fell to the floor. The thin fold of bills worried me. I counted my remaining cash. Less than fifty. Enough to buy a few meals, but it wouldn’t get me much further, which meant I needed to earn some more. I set the money next to the sink with a sigh. I was tired, hungry, and poor. Could anything else knock me down?
I looked in the mirror, cringed, and added looking like crap to my list. A poster child for runaway teens stared back at me. I didn’t even look seventeen. Most of the makeup I’d worn to the mall had rubbed off. The dark circles, sallow complexion, and weight loss just made me look very young and very sick. Shaking my head at the thought, I picked a few items out of the duffle bag to wash. Since most of the clothes on the floor of my bedroom had been dirty, they needed it. The longer I’d traveled, the more strange looks I’d gotten on the bus. I didn’t need to call additional attention to myself by looking like a vagrant.
Back home it’d been part of my act to hide the fact I wasn’t sleeping. I didn’t need to hide that anymore. There wasn’t anyone around who’d care. Besides, staying awake seemed stupid now, anyway. I still didn’t want to see or feel myself dying in my dreams, but I didn’t like the idea of dying in real life because of tired mistakes, either. And if I kept avoiding sleep, that was going to happen.
The high-pressure showerhead made washing quick and easy for my underthings and shirt. The bar soap smelled okay, too. I rinsed until the water ran clear. The jeans were a pain. Waterlogged, they weighed too much to easily maneuver under the spray of water. Giving up, I stepped in and pulled the curtain closed. Standing under the steamy stream and alternating between rinsing the jeans and washing myself kept me awake until I finished.
Thankfully, towels abounded in the bathroom. After drying off and wrapping my hair, I used another towel for my jeans. I rolled them inside the towel and stomped on the roll. The towel came away soaked. I grabbed a new towel and did it again. The second time the jeans no longer dripped water. I hung them on the rod and trudged to bed.