Awake in the Dream House by: J.

Lynn Evol©

“Oh God, I am bounded in a nut shed. Encompassed in a keen infinite space; for not that I have bad dreams”. - A

Nightmare on Elm Street

Somewhere there is an old dank house, a peculiar place of solitude that bears some kind of dark

legend or dirty secret; maybe one that is buried beneath its stone foundation and crusted upon its rusted

hinges. A dark place indeed; it could be a house of horror, of pure evil that grips those of us who are

curiously willing with great subterfuge. The walls of this old house hear and hold on to all that has been

said and done. And it may leave it’s victims to sleep eternally beneath a cold basement floor, where

even Heaven above can’t hear their desolate cries. Nonetheless, it is the inhabitants of long past that is

ultimately the proprietor of a potential nightmare. In reality we may encounter such a place at some

point in our consciousness, or in dreams with arbitrary meanings. Can it be that mere dreams are

realities invoked by the subconscious processes of the mind? Dreams often display pictures that are

more real than what is to be expected from a vignette of unfamiliar black and white images, sometimes

framed in red:

Rain beats hard on the roof of the house in which Sarah abruptly awakens. Loud thunder claps
with every strobe of light that flashes through an open window in the nearly hollow room. Sarah does
not recall this night being stormy; she thought that she fell asleep under the luminescence of a clear
moonlit sky. Locked in a state of anxious perplexity, Sarah doesn’t know if she has just awakened within
a deep sleep, or if she has died and found herself in a place she certainly did not want to be. Discourses
this fantastic are usually seen and felt in dreams, but forgotten instantly upon waking. However, this
reverie is too sensational to be discarded. She feels and hears every movement aside from her own
lurking quietly in the darkness, which could very well be a monster waiting anxiously in the corner of
shadows. She does not recognize the bed in which she laid confused or the white tattered curtains that
blow inward from an open doorway that leads out of the unfamiliar room. Sarah turns the white sheets
away from her legs and steps onto the cold dirty wood floor to face the open doorway. The cold chill of
the damp air envelopes her as she stares blankly at the broken glass pane doors flapping open and
closed in a manner that is almost ghostly. Their curtains’ bottoms caress her shoulders upon each gust
of the prevalent wind. The worn tattered edges feel like long wispy hair softly tickling her goose flesh.
Sarah feels a sense of inquisition mingled with a riveting familiarity that is as chilling to her bones as the
frigid floor beneath her bare feet. Sarah knows she is not in the same place she fell asleep, although she
feels she has been here before. Sarah can not help but to wonder incessantly if she is dreaming, or if
this is an anachronism from a past unresolved life hidden deep within her subconscious?

Sarah drifts weightlessly through the flapping doorway, transfixed on whatever may be beyond
the strange ramshackle house. It is though she somehow knows everything about this house, but is
afraid that she does not want to remember its dark secret. Sarah steps onto the wet concrete balcony
floor and peers out to the barren sky, sliding her hands slowly back and forth across the cold wrought
iron railing. An updraft of wind tousles Sarah’s long ebony locks and slaps them against the railing like
choppy waves touching salt soaked sand. The sea rages below, crashing against the stones which hold it
in. Faint cries and moans can be heard near the shore that sound like long lost seamen, washed away by
the cruel tide, never to be seen again. A silhouette of a lighthouse is visible in the distance; it is dark and
palpably vacant. The absence of welcoming flickers of light makes it seem more desolate and naked, like
souls lost within the icy pits of Hell. Sarah begins to hear faint sounds of music and muddled
conversations coming from within the house. An old familiar song has suspended itself into the thick
moldy air. The words, “Only the good die young” ring intermittently within the buoyant melody of this
heavily trumpeted tune.

Sarah has found herself in the company of several strangers, who apparently have been
hanging-out for a long spell. There are roughly five or six people packed tightly together on an old red
Elizabethan couch that is oddly misplaced in the center of room. They appear to have been expecting
her at some point during the tempestuous night. Blank stares and whispers that have no intention of
revealing their details begin to weave in and out of the stack of unusual faces. There is a young chubby
guy wearing a blood-stained ripped gray tee-shirt and dark plaid boxer shorts who appears from an
obscure hallway, which is half-draped with clear plastic. He smiles coyly behind the cigarette smoke that
surrounds his ashy face. He asks in an airy, raspy southern tone, ” Hay Sarah, uh, how’s it goin’? Been
waitin’ for ya to come back, good to see ya…”
 He pats her quickly on the back as he passes repeating one more time, “good to see ya”. The
sound of his voice befalls an eerie echo carried off by the breeze of his passing by. Sarah turns around
quickly to inquire about his most capricious greeting, posing haughtily, “I’m confused, do I know…?”
Before she finishes her inquiry, the boy vanishes into the dark hallway that appears to lead to a doorway
at the end. Meanwhile, the others are meager images laughing behind their cigarette smoke; their
faces are but smudges on a poorly developed photograph, soon to be discarded. Sarah begins to feel
uneasy in her skin, and attempts to break the ice by going along with the enthusiasm of the strangers’
peculiar mirth. Laughter of all pitches fills the air in bending waves of muffled voices, like an old laugh
track tape being eaten by a cassette recorder.

“Thay layf at you, ya know”, quipped the chubby guy in the bloody grey shirt, who
obscurely reappears from behind a stained white drop cloth that divides two different hallways
at a dead end. Whatever joke the strangers are making of Sarah is no longer amusing for she is
growing weary of all that has been arbitrarily exposed to her.

Sarah retorts, “But I don’t know any of you…Who are you people, and where in Hell am
I?” “It’s funny you say that”.

“Say What?”

“Hell”. “You said, where in Hell am I?”

“So”.

“So, ya thank this is Hell, huh?” He chuckles ardently. Sarah replies in an almost scoffing
manner, “What the… why are you laughing like that?” Sarah holds her hand to her forehead as
though it will help her come to her senses. Shaking her head inside her hand, Sarah feels
delusional and lost inside this place, this frightful house that has no answers.

“Please, tell me if this is real, because… I swear if this is, I have gone crazy”. The guy
begins to utter words from his cracked lips that become lost within the blood draining from the
corners of his mouth. Sarah tries to read the guy’s lips in a futile effort to decipher his silent
utterances. All sound has become still except for the clamor produced by the doors flapping
open and closed in the room upstairs. Suddenly, the room is vacant and dreadfully dim. Only
the white drop cloth can be seen as blue and black in the darkness that shades it. Sarah stands
dumbfounded in front of the mysterious hallway wondering why this guy who seemed to know
her and her business here would go to a cold dark place in such a manner as to suggest that he
was returning to it rather than just visiting…

More Evol to Come… Until then, try and enjoy the daylight!