Page 40 of In Her Dreams
Movement caught her eye—a figure materializing in the distance, wavering like a mirage on hot asphalt.As it drew closer, Jenna’s breath caught in her throat.
“Sam?”
Samuel Rodriguez stood before her, but not as she’d last seen him.His form flickered between the robust police officer she had known for years and something more insubstantial—translucent at the edges, like watercolor bleeding into paper.The dreamcatcher’s tendrils seemed aware of his presence, reaching out toward him with slow, deliberate movements.
“Sam, what are you doing here?”Jenna took a step forward, her own police instincts giving way to the dread that too often came with these visitations.Sam had been retired for six years now, still struggling with his agoraphobia.His anxiety disorder had made it increasingly hard for him to go anywhere that he couldn’t get out of easily.Crowded places were difficult, wide open spaces impossible.He’d finally felt unable to leave his own home, but he’d been very much alive the last time she’d checked.
But here he was in her dream, and that had to mean…
His mouth opened, but no sound emerged.The frustration in his eyes was unmistakable—the same look he’d worn when trying to teach her how to properly fill out incident reports her first week on the job.
As Jenna approached him, the dreamscape shifted violently.The vast emptiness around them suddenly contracted, forming walls, a ceiling, a floor—a small room barely big enough for the two of them.Before she could adjust, it expanded again, walls flying outward to create an immense hall where she couldn’t see the crowd of faceless people she knew were there.Then it changed again—an endless empty plain under a bruised purple sky.
“Your agoraphobia,” Jenna whispered, understanding dawning.“This is what it feels like for you.”
Sam’s face twisted with recognition, his eyes widening with each spatial transition.But the terror in his expression went beyond the fear she’d seen when he’d had panic attacks during his last years on the force.This was something deeper, more primal.
He began making frantic gestures, pointing at himself, then outward, pantomiming something Jenna couldn’t decipher.His movements grew increasingly agitated, his ghostly form becoming more solid as his emotion intensified.
“I don’t understand, Sam.What are you trying to tell me?”
Frustration contorted his features.He looked around desperately, then mimed writing.Suddenly, a leather-bound journal appeared in his hands—familiar to Jenna as the sort of pocket notebook he’d always carried throughout his career.He flipped it open and began writing furiously, his phantom pen scratching across the pages with urgency.
Jenna leaned over, trying to read the words, but they shifted and blurred before her eyes, refusing to remain still long enough to comprehend.The letters twisted into impossible shapes, rearranging themselves like living things.
“I can’t read it, Sam.It won’t stay still.”
The air grew colder around them, and Jenna sensed rather than saw the arrival of others.Turning, she found herself face to face with Richard Winters and Anita Palmer.They stood side by side, their appearances flickering like old film projections—there one moment, transparent the next.Richard’s hand pressed against his chest in the same gesture he’d made during his fatal panic attack.Anita’s eyes darted nervously around the space, as if searching for birds that might materialize at any moment.
“Richard.Anita.”Jenna acknowledged them, a lump forming in her throat.“Can you help him?Can you tell me what he’s trying to say?”
Their expressions were a mixture of pity and resignation.Richard shook his head slowly, his banker’s formality still evident in the set of his shoulders.Anita wrung her hands, her young face displaying the same terror it had shown in death.
“Please,” Jenna implored.“What’s happening?Why are you all here?”
But they remained silent, offering no answers, their presence speaking of shared trauma that transcended explanation.
As Sam continued his desperate attempt to communicate, memories flooded Jenna’s mind.Sam on her first day as a rookie cop, his patient smile as he showed her how to properly wear her utility belt.Sam bringing her coffee during an all-night stakeout, telling stories about Frank’s early days to keep her awake.Sam standing beside her at her father’s funeral, his hand steady on her shoulder when she thought she might collapse under her grief.
Sam had been there for every milestone of her career, every triumph and failure, a constant presence like Frank—not quite a father, but something close—a kindly uncle perhaps.The thought that he might now be gone sent a wave of anguish through her that physically hurt.
The writing stopped.Sam looked up, his eyes meeting hers with an intensity that answered her question more clearly than words ever could.
He tore a page from the journal, crumpled it in his fist, and threw it aside in frustration.As it flew through the air, it soared upward, only to be caught in the web of the dreamcatcher above them.
Sam tore another page.Another brief flight until it became ensnared.
Page after page, until the air was filled with them, sailing around them until a rising howl of wind whipping through the dreamscape carried them away.
“Sam, stop!”Jenna reached for him, but her hands passed through his form as if through smoke.
The dreamscape began to warp around them.The vast spaces that had been expanding and contracting now began to close in with terrifying speed.Walls rushed inward, the sky descended like a falling ceiling, the very air becoming dense and oppressive.The spatial distortions were no longer random—they were collapsing, crushing everything in their path.
Sam’s form began to distort, stretched and compressed by the forces around him.His face elongated in a silent scream as the web descended, its tendrils wrapping around him like hungry fingers.
“No!”Jenna lunged forward, desperate to save him, but the distance between them stretched impossibly.Sam receded from her grasp even as the space between them shrank.
In a final, horrifying moment, Sam’s body seemed to fold in on itself, his worst fear consuming him completely.The web enveloped him, and with a silent implosion, he vanished, leaving nothing but a ripple in the fabric of the dream.
