The Rules of Dreaming by Hartman Bruce

Author:Hartman, Bruce [Hartman, Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Swallow Tail Press
Published: 2013-05-19T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

He knew enough to stay out of sight until it was dark. The first day he hid in a barn behind a pile of lumber and when the owners came in to feed the horses he held himself perfectly still and they never knew he was there. When the sun went down he found some rotting apples on the ground and shoved them into his mouth until he felt like vomiting. Then he ran away and spent the night prowling the woods and the ditches along the dark roads on the edge of town. In the morning he found a dilapidated shed that was full of rusted farm equipment and slept on the wooden floor until dark. On the third morning he ventured closer to town and watched from behind a tree as an elderly woman climbed into her Subaru Legacy wagon and backed down the gravel driveway to the street. He found a way into the house through the cellar door, ate some food he knew she would never miss—some crackers and a raw hot dog and a can of soda—and watched TV until he heard her coming home. He turned off the TV and crept back downstairs to the cellar, where he curled up on the floor behind the furnace and listened to the old woman creaking around upstairs, light as a feather. Then he started to think about Nicole. He wondered what she would say when he found her. Would she be afraid? When it got dark he would slip back outside, sneak through the town to try and find Nicole. He wondered if she would be expecting him.

Sleeping was hard on that cement floor, and punctuated by nightmares. When he woke up he had the sensation that he’d been dreaming someone else’s life. It must be the drugs, he realized. The drugs are finally wearing off.

Upstairs he could hear the old woman moving around, probably cooking her dinner. She seemed harmless enough. He doubted if she could even make it down the cellar stairs without breaking her neck. But the dinner—was there some way he could get his hands on the dinner? Then he remembered the rotten apples and felt sick to his stomach.

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